Page 53 - Australian Defence Magazine March-April 2022

MARCH-APRIL 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
AIRPOWER 53 LEFT: A pair of F/A-18A Hornets flying in the Middle
East Region during an Operation Okra mission
gle-engine Mirage due to powerplant failure demanded a twin-engine design; and for its multi-role capability – the early F-16 design being primarily an air-to-air fighter.
A total of 75 aircraft were ordered by Australia, compris- ing 57 single-seat F/A-18A fighters and 18 F/A-18B conver- sion trainers (albeit with full combat capability). The initial two aircraft were built by McDonnell Douglas in St Louis and arrived at Williamtown after a trans-Pacific delivery flight in May 1985. The remainder were assembled at Avalon by Government Aircraft Factories (later Aerospace Technol- ogies of Australia) with increasing local content, until the final aircraft was delivered to the RAAF in May 1990.
HUGS ALL ROUND
While the Hornet provided the RAAF with a world-leading capability (and one which emphatically established regional superiority), when it first entered service in the mid-1980s, there was very little funding allocated to keeping it in that condition over the next decade. By the mid-1990s it was be- coming increasingly clear that the Hornet’s advantage over potential adversaries was waning, with a growing number of highly capable fighters such as the Mikoyan MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-27 families entering service in the region.
A Hornet replacement was initially considered, with types under scrutiny including the Boeing Super Hornet and Eurofighter Typhoon, but it was decided in 1999 to instead embark on a wide-ranging, multi-layered upgrade program under Project Air 5376 Hornet Upgrade (HUG).
The Royal Australian Air Force retired the last of its F/A-18A/B ‘Classic’ Hornets at the end of 2021 after a distinguished career spanning 36 years and over 400,000 flying hours.
gram in October 1981. The twin engine, twin-tailed fighter was designed from the outset to be a multi-role fighter, ad- ept at both shore and carrier-based operations and primar- ily aimed by McDonnell Douglas at embarked US Navy and expeditionary US Marine Corps operations.
In Australia, the Hornet was competing against the Gener- al Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin) F-16A/B Fighting Fal- con, which had earlier won the US Air Force’s multi-billion Light Weight Fighter competition. In the US competition the F-16 beat the Northrop YF-17 Hornet, which subsequently morphed into the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.
The Hornet was reportedly selected by the RAAF be- cause it felt the high attrition rate experienced by the sin-
“THE HORNET WAS THE RAAF’S FIRST ‘ELECTRIC JET’, USHERING IN AN AGE OF DIGITAL PLATFORMS”
Included in the equipment upgrades were new digital data busses; a new Raytheon AN/APG-73 radar to re- place the then-current APG-65 unit; an Enhanced Inter- ference Blanking Unit; KY-100 Secure Voice Encryption capability; a multi-phased operational software update; crash data recorder, and Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS).
The flight control software was upgraded, and colour cockpit displays; Link 16 Multifunctional Information Dis- tribution System (MIDS); BAE Systems ALE-47 Counter Measures Dispensing System (CMDS), and Boeing Tactical Aircraft Moving Map Capability (TAMMAC) – developed in conjunction with Canada – were all added.
Also included was the procurement of the SAAB BOL Countermeasures Dispensing System and integration of the Elta EL-L/8222 Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) pod then also utilised on the RAAF’s F-111 fleet; Raytheon
The capability was delivered under
various iterations of HUG 2.0 and a
range of structural repairs and modifi-
cations to address fatigue problems, including the replace- ment of major components like the fuselage centre barrel – a major structural component of the Hornet airframe – on ten aircraft was conducted under HUG 3.0.
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