Page 18 - Australian Defence Magazine May-June 2020

18 DEFENCE BUSINESS HORNETS
MAY/JUNE 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
A DECADE OF SUPER HORNETS
The first five Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets for the Royal Australian Air Force touched down at Amberley on March 26, 2010 and the fleet has recently notched up a decade of operations.
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
AUSTRALIA acquired 24 Super Hornets under Project Air 5349 Phase 1 as a ‘bridging capability’ to de-risk the gap between the retirement of the F-111C in December 2010 and the (then) future introduction of the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter.
Far from being an interim fighter capability, the F/A-18F today remains at the tip of Air Combat Group’s spear and on current planning it will continue in that role until at least 2030, when a government decision on whether to ac- quire more F-35As is expected to have been made.
SUPER HORNETS FOR AUSTRALIA
The order for 24 Super Hornets was announced on March 6, 2007 by then Defence Minister Brendan Nelson and, together with initial support and training, the deal was valued at $6 billion.
The Australian Super Hornets were built to the cur- rent US Navy Block II configuration and introduced new technologies and capabilities to the RAAF which included the Raytheon APG-79 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and AIM-9X within visual range missile.
The aircraft were initially operated by Nos.1 and 6 Squadrons, part of No.82 Wing at Amberley, with the for- mer being the operational squadron and the latter perform- ing the operational conversion role.
The RAAF leveraged the US Navy’s Super Hornet ac- quisition program, which was receiving aircraft ahead of schedule and the first Australian aircraft was rolled out at Boeing’s facility in St Louis on July 8, 2009, just over two years after the deal was first announced. The US Navy also assisted Australia’s program by allowing RAAF crews to begin training at NAS Lemoore in Cali- fornia shortly after the initial Australian Government announcement.
MILESTONES AND OPERATIONS
Initial Operational Capability (IOC) was declared in De- cember 2010, coinciding with the retirement of the F-111C and delivery of the final four Super Hornets followed in October 2011.
“INITIAL OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY (IOC) WAS DECLARED IN DECEMBER 2010, COINCIDING WITH THE RETIREMENT OF THE F-111C AND DELIVERY OF THE FINAL FOUR SUPER HORNETS FOLLOWED IN OCTOBER 2011.”
In September 2014, six Super Hornets were deployed to the Middle East as part of Operation Okra and by the time they were replaced by a rotation of F/A-18A ‘Clas- sic’ Hornets in March 2015, the newer aircraft had flown 418 sorties and 3,361 combat hours and had released 278 precision guided munitions (bother laser guided and GPS guided bombs). This was achieved with a mission success rate of 97 percent and less than two years after Final Op- erational Capability (FOC), which had occurred in De- cember 2012.