EA-18 1st fight Demo

The Boeing site has an update and a video of the first demonstration flight of the EA-18 airborne electronic attack derivative of the Hornet. The demo aircraft was equiped with 3 jamming pods which is the same number that the EA-6B that I had a close inspection of this summer, carried. As the Prowler has a crew of 4 versus 2 for the Hornet, the systems upgrades and workload reductions planned must be quite dramatic. The Prowler pilot told me that the workload for the back seats in the Prowler was high. Hornet fans will like the video as the loaded Hornet cuts a fine figure. I can hear the anti-F-18 crowd grinding their teeth already.

One thing I did notice about the Super Hornet, is that judging by the flight demo videos taken at the Paris 2001 airshow (that I happened to see on Janes for the first time the other day), is that it dosn’t require cranked up wing tip smoke generators to create the illusion that it is making tighter turns than it really is. The Gripen, Typhoon and SU-30MK (and others?) all resorted to this tacky practice. The SU-30MK used pink smoke of course. I also noted that, assuming the take-offs all started from the same point and that the videos were all taken form the same place, that the Hornet was off and in a steep climb before the others finished their rotations. One can only conclude that the Super Bug dosn’t need to ‘blow smoke’.

Regards all.