F-18 and F-17 Hornet

[Radish]

The F-18 for the Royal Navy?
Have there ever been plans? Suggestions? Studies?? Proposals???
What sort?/
F-18C/D??
F-18E/F??
Any background???
Any help with the story???

I'm thinking of a model, hopefully with a "sliver" of truth, ready for the Yeovilton Show on February 14th, 1/48th scale!!
:dum:  :dum:  :dum:  :dum:  :dum:  :dum:  :dum:  

[elmayerle]

I don't know of anything specific, but how about variants of the A/B or C/D with RB.199's in place of F404's?  I do know that there were studies of production F-17 variants with RB.199's.

[Scooterman]

Wasn't the Superbug mentioned for the new big RN carrier study?

[Matt Wiser]

If I recall correctly, McAir did succeed in getting the French Navy to order the Hornet C/B in 1988-but they ran into Dassault and government opposition(Some say that's one and the same): they had to wait until 2002 to retire the F-8s; it could have been done as early as 1992, and the Super Etendard squadrons would have converted to the Bug after the F-8 outfits. F/A-18 on the CVF (if it was a CTOL carrier) would have been E/F, and consider the EF-18G Growler that's under development as an EA-6B replacement.

[Chris707]

Forgive me another bit of cross-posting :-)



Say the RN actually commisioned and then later rebuilt some/all of the WWII-designed Malta class carriers (comparable to the Midway class), and/or built some of carrier designs proposed in the 1950s, and/or built CVA.01 in the 1960s, and/or kept Eagle and Ark Royal going longer. Go further and say that they bought the Phantom to operate from these ships and then needed a replacement late 1970s-ish as the FAA would continue to operate CTOL aircraft for at least another decade...

[Mike Wren]

there's a RN Hornet FA.1 two seater on my list of 'forthcoming' models, can't remember the backstory off hand but it was something about conventional carrier operations continuing (Phantoms & Buccs in the Falklands etc), with the Hornet replacing the two of them in the AD & strike roles... it'll be low viz grey if it ever gets built, probably with checkerboard rudders.

[Nick]

I'm thinking of the Australian F-18A Hornets and the possibility of Oz flying their (navalized, of course) Hornets from either a refurbished HMAS Melbourne or another replacement carrier in the 80's.

Nick B)  

[Daryl J.]

Since the F/A-18 is proving to be Such A Universal Aircraft, what would happen to the airframe if it became, for instance, a USAF (RAF/SAAF/etc/etc/etc) front line aircraft?      

Methinks the folding wing would go and the spine would enlarge for greater fuel capacity.    Other visibles? (Besides the obvious USAF spit-polished paint).


US Coast Guard would likely be paint/loadout.


I've cut open a Monogram 1/48 A-18 Strike Fighter with a USAF what-if in mind but nothing's finalized as of yet.     I would like to push some of the standard ''whiff envelope'' with this one thus the absence of wing folds.   It's about 50% rescribed with a light scribe from one of the Missus's Missing Sewing Needles mounted in a pin vise.


Ideas?



Daryl J.

[Jschmus]

Well, back in the early 80s, Northrop pitched the F-18L, a land-based derivative of the F/A-18.  It lost the tailhook and heavier landing gear, and picked up additional pylons on the wings.  The mockup was depicted with Sparrows on the wingtip rails.  By the time they started trying to market it, McDonnell Douglas had the F/A-18 in full swing, and the government had loosened its restrictions on F-16 sales, so suddenly their market dried up.  I seem to remember that Northrop tied to sue, but I don't remember how it turned out.

[upnorth]

I wouldn't enlarge the spine myself, its plenty big as is.

I was playing around with a similar idea a few years back, the model came to nothing, but here's some of what I did:

1: complete removal of the tail hook and its associated fairings.

2: lightened landing gear. I had a 1/72 F/A-18 and a single seat Eurofighter (both Italeri and I bashed the landing gear from the Eurofighter into the Hornet.

That called for a bit more cutting than I expected and the gear wells didn't look so good after so that lead to:

3: closed gear doors to keep debris out, only opening for gear extension and retraction (and hide the hacked up gear bays )

4: removal of fuselage Sparrow missile fairings (always thought they messed up the lines anyway)

5: reduction of wing area (cut leading edge of wing down starting from the front inboard corner of the leading edge slats to the back outboard corner of them) no real reason to do so, but it made the whole wing look faster.

6: removal of wing fold hinges and large flap actuator hinges on wing undersides (decided to make it all internal)

7: rescribed speed brake further up fuselage spine and put braking parachute housing in old speed brake location (thinking SU-27 style here)

8: grafted Eurofighter radome onto Hornet. It gave the Hornet a nice pointier look and a bigger radar housing.

Thats as far as I got with it before it got inexplicably broken (still have no idea what happened )

Feel free to use any of the ideas yourself.

I would definitely denavalize the landing gear somewhat, if you reduce the weight there, then you'll get more milage from the Hornet's existing fuel capacity.

[anthonyp]

Heh...  I'm not awake enough to put my thoughts on changes to land based F-18's in order right now, but I did find a page on the web that has a little more detail on the subject of Nev's post.

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher4/f18_9.html

As for the current batch of land based F/A-18's I'm working on, I'm just following what Spain, Kuwait, et al, did to their Hornets:  Keep them relateively the same.

EDIT:  Here's a link to an F-18L page.

http://frenchnavy.free.fr/projects/hornet/hornet.htm

[Jeffry Fontaine]

I would recommend retaining the existing landing gear which would allow for limited rough field use just in case the thing ever had to land on something other than a hardsurface runway.  The other advantage to the heavier gear is the ability to handle heavier loads.  Take for example the F-15E and the later models of the F-16 which all went to larger wheels for the increased operating weight of the aircraft.  So keep ahead of the game and leave the landing gear as is and remove the catapult lug from the nose gear. 

Putting an additional stores pylon on the wing is always a good thing to allow more stuff to be strapped on and free up the larger pylons to carry more fuel for greater range. 

If you remove the sparrow recess on the fuselage, you will need to find another location for the weapons and that again is why the extra pylons on the wings come in handy. 

[Daryl J.]

This is great!

I like the idea of keeping the LG the same for rough(er)-field capability.

Another idea I'd had was under the premis that the US Army would take over mud moving; consequently many F/A-18's would fall under their direct command.   Being medium-to-low altitude missions, the paint schemes would still be in the greys but much more along the line of the tri-color Hornet of (?)VFA-97 with room for individualization.  
That aircraft could be:
 FatBack fuel tank along spine
                                 Centerline fuel
                                 LGB's on the next two pylons out
                                 AIM-9x next
                                 AAMRAM on wing tips
                                 Hookless
                                 No wing folds
                                 US Army markings lo vis

                                 Reduced (or enlarged) LERX for ground attack
                                 Reenforced tailplanes
                                 Enlarged horizontal stabs
                                 And the flaps would not drop after engine shutdown simply for the sake of the modeler!      


Accompanied by EA-18G's

[Gary]

Why not take the Strike Eagle approach to the USAF Hornet? Conformal tanks and a massive iron bomb load. Keep sparrows on the rails just for fun, but dedicate her to the ground attack role in a bigger way.  

[Jeffry Fontaine]

This is great!
I like the idea of keeping the LG the same for rough(er)-field capability.  Another idea I'd had was under the premis that the US Army would take over mud moving; consequently many F/A-18's would fall under their direct command.   Being medium-to-low altitude missions, the paint schemes would still be in the greys but much more along the line of the tri-color Hornet of (?)VFA-97 with room for individualization.   That aircraft could be:
FatBack fuel tank along spine
                                  Centerline fuel
                                  LGB's on the next two pylons out
                                  AIM-9x next
                                  AAMRAM on wing tips
                                  Hookless
                                  No wing folds
                                  US Army markings lo vis

                                  Reduced (or enlarged) LERX for ground attack
                                  Reenforced tailplanes
                                  Enlarged horizontal stabs
                                  And the flaps would not drop after engine shutdown simply for the sake of the modeler!       

Accompanied by EA-18G's

To hell with painting the uber bug green and pasting U.S. Army on the side of it.  Give them something practical like the A-10 which has the range, payload, and loiter time to actually provide effective close air support with a cannon that will rip a tank to shreds.