Boeing is touting that a future upgrade to the F-18 Super Hornet will make it able to track stealth aircraft by their heat source. According to Boeing’s manager of F/A-18 programs, Dan Gillian, this would be just one of many Super Hornet enhancements to keep the aircraft flying well into the 2040’s.
Check Out the Super Hornet!
It’s a long-range, air-to-air counter-stealth sensor,” Gillian said of the technology during a briefing with reporters this week at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C.
“Talk about complimentary capabilities — that’s something that Super Hornet brings to the carrier that nobody else has,” he added, in an apparent reference to the fifth-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter made competitor Lockheed Martin Corp.
“Super Hornets have been flying hard, and doing a lot of the country’s work, putting a lot of hours on the airplane that weren’t planned to be burned up,” Gillian said. On an aircraft carrier, roughly three out of four squadrons is a Super Hornet squadron, he said. – DoDBuzz.com
Boeing is currently producing two F-18 Super Hornets per month in their St Louis production facility and could increase production if needed. The Navy has request to purchase 24 Super Hornets in fiscal year 2017.
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Looks like it is going to be tough getting rid of the old Hornet anytime soon. What do you think?
Featured image of F-18 Super Hornet by Boeing
This article is courtesy of Fighter Sweep.
I know.
I was speaking more to the idea that once a system is developed and fielded a countermeasure is usually not that far behind.
For the most part we haven't seen that with stealth. I figure that has to do with the fact that it is largely only used by us and most of our likely adversaries in the last few decades haven't had a large RnD budget to say the least.
Given that until recently others haven't put a great of effort into fielding stealth aircraft, we haven't been forced to specifically design for such detection either.
I guess you could say it is an observation on timeline on my part. Usually it just seems that the cat and mouse game moves a bit faster.