The Super Hornet Endgame

The Navy’s do-everything fighter is heading toward the end of the production line, and the question behind the headlines is bigger than one airplane: what replaces a carrier workhorse when budgets, engineering capacity, and strategy all collide? We dig into the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet story from the moment the Navy needed a lifeline after the Cold War drawdown, the A-12 “Flying Dorito” fiasco, and an aging flight deck that was burning through airframes and maintenance dollars.

We walk through the procurement sleight of hand that got the Rhino approved as a “derivative,” then break down what made it a different beast in practice: more internal fuel, more payload flexibility, and the bring-back performance that saves real money and preserves options on the carrier. We also get into the compromises that come with a jack-of-all-trades Navy fighter, including the canted pylons that fix dangerous weapon separation and the early wing-drop problem that nearly killed the program before software and aerodynamic fixes turned it into a low-speed carrier monster.

From there, the focus shifts to electronic warfare and modern upgrades. We revisit the ES-3A Shadow and why it disappears despite strong performance, then explain how the EA-18G Growler evolves the carrier air wing from passive listening to integrated electronic attack. Finally, we look at Block III modernization, DTP-N processing power, open architecture “app-like” upgrades, RST-21 passive counter-stealth sensing, and the AIM-174B’s long reach, all while F/A-XX funding stalls and service life modification programs keep 1990s airframes alive into the 2040s. Subscribe, share this with a friend who follows naval aviation, and leave a review with your take: is the Super Hornet the last manned Navy fighter, or just the bridge to what comes next?

Transcript

The Rhino Nears The Finish Line

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Picture this. The one jet the Navy has relied on for nearly every mission is shutting down production next year. During its long service life, the F-18 Super Hornet, aka Rhino, has had some very big shoes to fill, replacing the F-14 Tomcat, the A6 Intruder, and even its little brother, the Legacy Hornet. But despite its almost 30 years of service, the Navy had to bend the truth just to get it built. So the question today is: will the rise of drones and sixth generation fighters bring us closer to the end of the Super Hornet era? And will the Navy need to once again pull out the same playbook for its replacement? In this video, we're gonna look at the long and sometimes controversial history of the Rhino and the Growler, a story that includes both a Dorito and a Shadow, how its planned replacement, the FAXX, keeps getting cancelled and then restarted, and will tackle the burning question many of us are asking: will the Super Hornet be the last man fighter for the Navy? Let's take a look and let's start with some bureaucratic jujitsu.

The 1990s Budget Storm

SPEAKER_00 1:16

To understand how we got here, we need to go back to the early 90s and the end of the Gulf War. Following that overwhelming victory and the collapse of the Soviet Union, seriously, 1991 was quite a year, many politicians felt that it was time to pay the peace dividend and heavily cut defense spending. The thinking was that since the Cold War was over, military bases could be closed, ships could be decommissioned, squadrons could be disestablished, which led to many experienced aviators leaving the service early to go fly for the airlines. Because we'd never again face a peer enemy, right? For the Navy, the timing could not have been worse. It really was the perfect storm. You see, in those days they were staring at a total procurement apocalypse. Their billion-dollar carrier-based stealth bomber, the A-12 Avenger, which some called the Flying Dorito, had just gone up in smoke. Their infamous F-14s were starting to show their age and costing more and more money to maintain. And the carrier airwing, well, with many Vietnam era jets on the flight deck, it was in danger of running out of planes entirely. But to fix this, the Navy had a secret. It was a plan so audacious, it borderline cheated the system. Essentially, they went to Congress and said, no, no, we don't want a new plane. We just want a slightly bigger version of the one we already have. And they called it a derivative. Now, let's just say that they weren't exactly telling the whole truth. To understand what would eventually become the Super Hornet, you have to understand the details of the deal. Because by this time Congress was burned out on clean sheet designs that had stayed over budget and underdelivered. So McDonnell Douglas and the Navy performed a master stroke of marketing. The new jet that was going to cost less and replace so many airframes was labeled as the FAA 18E and F. Now, to a politician, well that looks like a minor upgrade to an already in-production jet. The reality, it was a different beast entirely. But still, the votes came in, the budget passed, and the Rhino was ultimately built. So what exactly did this derivative bring to the table? Well, for starters, the Super Hornet is roughly 25% larger

What The Derivative Really Bought

SPEAKER_00 3:36

than the legacy model that it replaces. Now that extra real estate allows for 33% more internal fuel, fixing the one thing that pilots hated about the original Hornet, its short legs. Many Legacy Hornet pilots have said that flying the original Hornet required you to always keep one eye on that fuel gauge. The Superbug could hold a lot more gas and it had a lot more hard points for ordnance and drop tanks. But the real hero stat that made the rhino shine for carrier ops is bring back. You see, a legacy hornet often had to dump millions of dollars in unexpended ordnance or fuel into the ocean just to be light enough to trap on the wire. The Rhino, it can bring back 9,000 pounds of fuel and ordnance. Now, that's not just good engineering, that's a massive economic win for the taxpayer. And knowing that you can come back with more ordnance also means you can launch with more payload, since you'll know you can return it to the carrier if you don't use it. Now, to carry all that weight and operate off of a carrier flight deck, you need some serious engines. The Super Hornet got bigger and better engines compared to the Legacy Hornet, and what a difference they make. With two F-414 GE400 engines, the Rhino can push 44,000 pounds of combined thrust in Afterburner. Now, it's not faster than the F-14 Tomcat, not by a long shot, but it is reliable, and in the middle of the Pacific, reliability is king. From day one, the Super Hornet was asked to do everything, even air-to-air refueling. And because of this, it never truly excelled at a single mission, but instead has always been a jack of all trades. As a result, the Super Hornet's designers had to make many compromises. Let's talk about those now. If you look closely at a super hornet's wings, something looks off. The weapon pylons are actually canted outward by about 3.5 degrees. Most planes have them straight into the airflow. So why is this on the Super Hornet? Well, it turns out that during testing, they found that ordnance drop from straight pylons could get caught in the jet's pressure field, tumble, and potentially strike the fuselage. Not a good thing. Rather than redesign the entire jet and to meet deadlines, the fix was just to angle them out. And yes, it does create more drag and hurts top end speed, but it makes weapon separation safe. It's the ultimate example of pragmatic engineering. Then there was the wing drop. Early rhinos would suddenly roll up to 40 degrees at high angles of attack, what pilots call alpha. It was nearly a program killer. The fix was a combination of stall strips, wing snags, and a massive update to the flight control software. Once they nailed all those changes down, the rhino became a low-speed monster. Thanks to those massive leading edge extensions, it can point its nose in a phone booth while other jets are still trying to turn.

The Shadow Dies And The Growler Rises

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Now, the Super Hornet was able to perform many roles right out of the box, but there was one role that required serious modifications, and it came in the form of a shadow. While the FA18 Super Hornet eventually became the face of the carrier deck in the 2000s and beyond, the 1990s belonged to a much stranger looking beast, the Lockheed ES3A Shadow. This jet was converted from the S3 Viking Subhunter, and the Shadow was really a marvel of compact engineering. Sporting a festoon of over 60 antennas and sensors, it functioned as the carrier's primary spook, using its Ares 2 Suite and ANALR76 ESM system to sniff out enemy radars and communications, and it could do all of this from a quiet, high-endurance loiter. However, the Shadow's career was famously and controversially short-lived. Despite a perfect safety record and critical success in both Bosnia and Iraq, the entire fleet was retired in 1999 after only eight years of service. Now, this wasn't because the aircraft failed its mission. It was a victim of the harsh realities of procurement. You see, like with so many things going on at the time during the 90s, the Navy found itself in a budgetary vice grip. It suddenly needed $230 million to fund the IT-21 Information Technology Program. At the same time, the FA-18EF or Super Hornet program was in its infancy and it required absolute protection from budget threats. So, in a vertical cut, the Navy sacrificed the entire ES3A community to safeguard the future of the Hornet. Now, I'm working on a video all about the shadow, so make sure you subscribe to this channel and stay tuned. As a result of these cuts, the shadows were sent to the boneyard, leaving a decade-long capability gap where carrier groups had to rely on land-based assets like the EP3E Orion. Now, of course, the Orions are great airplanes, but they did lack the flexibility of carrier-based aircraft. However, despite a 10-year gap, the Super Hornet ultimately did deliver on the electronic warfare or EW capability. This came in the form of the EA-18G Growler, and it really was a game changer. The transition from Shadow to Growler moved the Navy from a philosophy of passive reconnaissance to integrated electronic attack. While the shadow was a direct support asset, it was a long-endurance sensor that identified threats from a distance, but remained largely defenseless. The Growler, however, is a kinetic scout. By making use of the Super Hornet Airframe, the Growler combined the Shadow's detection capabilities with the ability to blind or destroy targets using ALQ-99 jamming pods and of course those AGM88 Harm missiles. It also helped that the Growler was a fighter-based airframe and could keep up with the strike package. Additionally, while the Shadow required a crew of four to manage its waterfall of electronic data, the Growler's advanced automation and AN ALQ218 suite allowed the crew of two to shorten the targeting cycle significantly. At the end of the day, the Navy ultimately chose the Growler, not just for the commonality with the Super Hornet fleet, but because the modern battlefield required a platform that could not only hear the enemy, but silence them in real time. So while the War Hoover may be gone, its DNA survives in the high-speed networking of the Growler. And it's really a testament to the Super Hornet. Now, this is an airframe that didn't just stumble into decades of service, but it has earned its longevity through a relentless series of technological evolutions. To understand how this strike platform is still leading the fleet today, we've got to look at the latest and perhaps most significant upgrade.

Block III And Counter Stealth Tools

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Now here's the reality. Enter the Block 3 modernization program. The heart of this upgrade is the DTPN or Distributed Targeting Processor Networked. This isn't just a computer, it's a beast pulling some 919 gigaflops of processing power. It's basically a flying data center over the ocean. The system uses open architecture, meaning that the Navy can swap software capabilities like you'd swap apps on your phone. It also takes data from the ASAR radar and fuses it into a single godlike picture on a 10x19 inch touchscreen, so there's no more squinting at tiny analog gauges or MFDs. And then there's the silent hunter mode. Because modern stealth jets can smell radar pulses from miles away, the Navy's brought back the RST-21. This is a passive infrared sensor that doesn't emit any energy. It just looks for the heat of an enemy engine. In 2025, the Navy finalized the software, making the Rhino a premier counter-stealth platform. What this means is that it can track you without you ever knowing it's there. Now, as we've seen given recent events, the mission for the Navy is shifting. We're moving away from desert ground support and back to high-end blue water dominance. And the Rhino just got a big stick. Meet the AIM-174B. This is an air launch version of the SM6 missile. And it's massive. In late 2024, Test Squadron VX-9 with their sleek Vandy 1 jet was seen flying these. This gives the Rhino the ability to reach out and touch high-value targets like tankers or command aircraft at staggering ranges. It's the return of the long-range interceptor mission. And it's powered by Block 3 networking. But despite all these upgrades, here's the bittersweet

F A XX Delays And The F 47 Option

SPEAKER_00 12:52

reality. The assembly line in St. Louis is winding down. By the spring of 2027, after 30 years of continuous production, the last Super Hornet will roll off the line. And once again, the Navy finds itself in a succession crisis. The Super Hornet's planned replacement is the 6Gen FAXX, but it's currently being starved of cash. While the Air Force's F-47 fighter has been fully funded, the Navy's next gen jet has been put in a holding pattern with a measly $74 million. And now, while some extra funds have been allocated, this has definitely been a moving target for the Navy. The Pentagon's reasoning, not enough engineers to do both at once. What this means is that the Rhino isn't just a fighter anymore, it's become a bridge. These 30-year-old airframes have to be stripped down and rebuilt through the service life modification or SLM program, which will extend the service lives of these jets from 6,000 to 10,000 hours. But as anyone who's served on the flight deck of a carrier knows, the ocean is a very harsh and unforgiving environment. Because of this, those maintainers on the flight deck and below today are now some of the most important people in all of naval aviation. They're the ones that are keeping a 1990s derivative flying through the salt and steam until probably the 2040s. And it could end up being that the Rhino is the last man fighter for the Navy. Back when it was introduced, the Rhino saved the Navy when the F-14 had become too expensive and the A-12 was too broken. Now it has to save the Navy one more time while we wait for the sixth generation jet to arrive. And regarding the FAXX, here's an interesting play that the Navy could use. And in some ways, it's the same play they ran back in the 90s. What if the Air Force's F-47 could be adapted to become the FAXX? I know some of you want a clean sheet design from the ground up, but let's be honest, the Navy missed with the proposed upgrade of the F-14 and the navalized version of the F-22. At some point, the Navy needs a long-range air superiority fighter. And here's the thing, this wouldn't be the first time this happened. Today, the Navy, Air Force, and Marines are all flying the Joint Strike Fighter, aka the F-35 Lightning. And if you turn back the clock, you'll see that the original Joint Strike Fighter was the F-4 Phantom, which also flew for all three services. Although in the Phantoms case, it started as a Navy design. Still, it may be better to get an Air Force airframe adapted to the Navy than miss out again entirely. And here's another reason I think this makes sense. The F-47 contract has gone to Boeing, who after merging with MACDAC, makes his Super Hornet today. It would be good to see that huge plant in St. Louis continue to manufacture airframes since they've literally built thousands of fighters there. And to those of us who'd love to see one more Grumman cat, including myself, well, Northrop Grumman has its hands full with the B-21 Raider. What do you think? Will the FAXX be the last man fighter? Or is it gonna be the Super Hornet? Will the F-47 be adapted for the naval role? How long do you think the Super Hornet's gonna serve? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for watching, and if you want to stay updated on the F-47 and the future of FAXX, then hit that subscribe button and ring the bell. In the meantime, this is TOG, and now you know.com