BY : Flight Daily News

Boeing is looking to its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to keep the company in the fighter business, hoping to keep the type in production for the US Navy and export customers until at least 2015. A frontline F/A-18E from the US Navy’s of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA-211), the ‘Fighting Checkmates’, is being displayed at Dubai.

Chris Chadwick, vice president and general manager, global strike systems with Boeing’s integrated defense systems unit says that the company hopes to receive a decision within the next 18 months on a third multi-year procurement deal for the F/A-18E/F with the US Navy.

Chadwick says: “The E/F is doing things in a cost and capability way that really goes against the grain,” and that the putative multi-year deal will further drive down the fighter’s unit fly-away cost from $53.8 million to $49.9m. The Super Hornet is planned to provide the core of the US Navy’s carrier air wings even after the introduction of the Stealthy Joint Strike Fighter.

Boeing is equally bullish about the Super Hornet’s prospects in the export market. A first export sale was secured earlier this year, to supply Australia with 24 two-seat F/A-18F aircraft from 2010. Chadwick believes Australia’s air force could have a further, larger requirement for the type, potentially include the US Navy’s EA-18G ‘Growler’ electronic attack aircraft.

The Super Hornet is also being offered to meet the Indian Air Force’s estimated $12 billion 126-aircraft medium multi-role combat aircraft requirement, in competition against the Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, Lockheed Martin F-16, RSK MiG-35 and Saab Gripen. Technical responses to India’s request for proposals are due next March, with offset proposals to be submitted during June.

Noting that New Delhi’s requirement for a 50% offset proposal – which must be relating to the fighter deal and excluding the final assembly of 108 of the aircraft by Hindustan Aeronautics – is “sporty and difficult”, Chadwick says Boeing is nonetheless “optimistically bullish” about securing the deal.

Boeing has not revealed whether it will be allowed to offer the Super Hornet with an AESA radar, while details of the weapons package also remain sketchy. Other Super Hornet prospects include Japan, Kuwait and Switzerland, with the latter having an emerging requirement for 33 new aircraft.

Chadwick says Boeing is also trying to “introduce” potential buyers of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to the capabilities of the Super Hornet, with the company potentially trying to persuade nations such as Norway – which continues to evaluate the Gripen and Typhoon alongside the JSF – to consider the Super Hornet. “The E/F gives them an alternative, or a bridge to whenever the F-35 comes,” he says.