Watch: F/A-18F Super Hornet Screams to Carrier, Executes Flawless Landing
If you’ve ever been proud of a parking job, this guy’s about to show you how it’s done. And he’s not in a Volkswagen Passat.
His daily driver is an F/A-18 Hornet.
This video was posted on Wingnut172n’s channel on October 25, 2017. The video, titled ‘F/A-18F Carrier Break,’ goes to show what a Hornet can do in the right hands.
The naming scheme can be a little confusing, but it’s pretty easy. The F/A-18 is named after its Fighter/Attack role. The 18 is its design number. The A/B and C/D are one/two-seat variations of the Hornet. The E/F variants have been significantly upgraded, enough to earn them the designation ‘Super Hornet.’
And the F/A-18 isn’t named after that ugly bug for nothing.
Real hornets are tough as nails. They’re huge, noisy, and perpetually angry. Would you ever mess with a hornet?
The United States Navy loves their toughness as well, documenting F/A-18Fs taking ‘direct hits from surface-to-air missiles, recovering successfully, being repaired quickly, and flying again the next day’ during Operation Desert Storm.
But hornets are known for something more than being impervious to a flyswatter: They’re built to sting.
And they’re not the only ones.
The link above directs to the USN’s F/A-18 F/E ordnance load out sheet.
Describing the plane as ‘the world’s most advanced high-performance strike fighter,’ it says the Hornet ‘can undertake virtually any combat mission. It provides adverse weather day and night precision weapons delivery.’
Popular Mechanics details a mission that proves the Navy’s assessment.
Four F/A-18Cs (remember, earlier variants of our beloved Super Hornet) were on a mission to do what hornets do: Punch through enemy air defenses and turn ground assets into scrambled eggs.
This wasn’t a training run either- it was the first day of the Gulf War. They were headed straight through Iraqi airspace to bomb an airfield.
Before reaching their target, a warning call came in. Two Iraqi MiG-21s were prowling around. The squadron cut a direct intercept route and two downed Iraqis later showed the world that Hornets eat MiGs for breakfast.
So how long was it from first warning call to two burning heaps of scrap metal in the sand dunes?
Forty seconds.
With all of this power, it’s no wonder the F/A-18 has caught the eye of Donald Trump.
Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016
Whatever replaces the Super Hornet has some big shoes to fill.
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