Still Super?

Despite a dwindling order book, Boeing is optimistic about the future for the Super Hornet program, thanks to the promise of its Advanced Super Hornet enhancements and US Navy demand for the Growler

The best way to meet an evolving threat is with an evolving aircraft – so goes Boeing’s slogan for its newly flight tested Advanced Super Hornet, the latest iteration of an aircraft arguably 50 years in development.

Still retaining the LEXs, twin engines and canted tails of its mid-60s progenitor, Northrop’s P-530 Cobra, the Advanced Super Hornet – ASH – introduces a number of incremental upgrades as defined in Boeing’s Super Hornet International Roadmap of 2010. These iterative developments are intended to ensurethe Super Hornet’s credibility as a potent strike fighter in the next decade and a half and beyond.