There are hard physical limitations on upgrades from the size and maximum weight of the airframe
Mhmm and why did they make the super hornet hmm.
The Legacy Hornet was a borderline failure.
Speaking of limited airframe capabilities, what small airframe was later modified to incorporate a radar and AMRAAM, and ECM capabilities.
According to?
The people who operated it…
It had a rough start in the early to mid 80’s but definitely not a failure
That’s why the redesigned one from the 1990s is being retired basically the same time as the harrier? While the one from the 80s is already gone yet the Harrier isn’t?
The fact that it lacked all of the fundamental qualities that were looked for/needed that the F-14 had previously covered (besides cost and space saving).
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Reliability, maintenance time. The f-14 was far bigger and heavier for a ~1000lb bigger payload on hard points that were less suited for strike stuff
They are retiring the AV-8B later this year. The super hornet will go on to 2040’s and legacy hornet up to 2030 with the USMC
But compared to the F-14B and D, and the proposed ST-21 (D+), the armament difference for air intercept, as well as ground strike was negligible. The only improvement is cost in runtime and maintenance, but that was sacrificed for speed, ferry range, overall range, radar power, etc…
The Legacy Hornet was placed alongside the F-14 because of how bad its ability to perform aerial interception of bombers and high altitude targets was.
F-14D was the better air superiority airframe but for fairly cheap, and rugged multirole that still retained the ability the employ bigger weapons the F-18 was good
It was the result of a cost analysis. The ability improvement was marginal at best
The most recent information says that June 2026 is the final flight of VMA-223
that is what this says too mate.
Hornets will be gone by 2028 two years after 2026
No, VMFA-112 has them until 2029
ok and 232 technically until 28
its still only 2 years.
Hornet is going similar time as harrier.
232 is a hornet squadron. Its a 3 year difference and the F-18 and AV-8B had a 2 year difference in service entry. the F-18 lasted a bit longer in a role with more competition.
The F-18 is not as bad as you make it out to be
Ok still.
Airframe from the 90s heavily modified only lasted 3 years longer