Aircraft program
Multirole fighter with twin General Electric turbofan engines.
Design and initial production by McDonnell Douglas, now manufactured by Boeing and in service with military in Australia, India, Kuwait and United States.
Graphite/epoxy fuselage (Northrop Grumman), doors, trailing edge flaps, inter-spar skin panels and tail skin (CASA, now Airbus), light alloy wing and aluminium honeycomb core tail. Titanium firewall surrounds twin General Electric turbofan Engines.
Aircraft, with twin tail fins, large wings and leading edge root extension has range of up to 1,660 n miles and speed of Mach 1.6+, maximised by conformal fuel tanks mounted on shoulders of aircraft. The F/A-18E Super Hornet uses 42% less parts than the original F/A-18 Hornet.
Single seat F/A-18E and tandem F/A-18F pilot(s) in upward open canopy cockpit, face an advanced cockpit system with large area (10x19 inch) colour display screen and twin monochrome screens. Joint helmet mounted cueing system (Collins) combined with an advanced network infrastructure, increases the aircraft’s ability to communicate with both ground and airborne fleets.
The aircraft as engineered: what it is built from, the systems it flies with, and its configuration — each box a theme.
Notable technologies — each tag names a technology on our research record for this aircraft, with its fitting status: Primary, Standard, Option or Planned.
Technical reference compiled with AI research; a value appears only where two independent research passes and a web fact-check agree. Gaps are deliberate.
Supplier geography and market analysis for this program — with an Analytics subscription.
Subscribe| Variant | Launch / first flight | Production end | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet | 1995 / 1995 | Production: 28 (2021) Boeing delivered 28 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets — 22 single-seat Es and 6 twin-seat Fs — to the U.S. Navy in 2021, designated for subsequent transfer to Kuwait. Boeing's official website also states that the first of 78 contracted Block III Super Hornets [medium]. Multirole fighter, single-seat/two-seater variants. | |
| Boeing F/A-18G Growler | 2003 / 2006 | Electronic warfare variant of F/A-18F. |
| Boeing Defense, Space & Security | News |
The program’s dated history — milestones, contracts, supplier selections and facilities, each linked to its source. Log in to view.
Information on this page is compiled from a variety of published sources; links do not necessarily imply recommendation or confirmation by the airframe manufacturer.
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