Supers in the middle

When we asked him about the possibility of any additional Super Hornets being acquired for the RAAF at last July’s rollout of the first RAAF jet in St Louis, Chief of Air Force AIRMSHL Mark Binskin responded with an emphatic “No!”

At the time, CAF was adamant that 24 Super Hornets operating in conjunction with a gradually declining ‘classic’ Hornet fleet would be adequate to see the RAAF through the best part of a decade between the retirement of the F-111C later this year, and the F-35 JSF achieving Initial Operating Capability (IOC) around 2018.