Boeing FA-18 Hornet - World's Elite Strike Fighter Attack Jet Full Documentary

Video from the channel Lei Jessen about McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 50:33. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Television documentary about the F/A-18 Hornet in the United States Navy and Marine Corps. It follows the training of future pilots at Naval Air Station Lemoore (California), home of the replacement squadron VFA-122, and the life of the aircraft aboard a carrier: engine maintenance in the hangar, movement and parking on deck, refueling, bomb assembly, and landing and catapult control from the tower. The training includes the centrifuge, where students learn to withstand up to 7.5 g; simulated air combat against instructors; the flight simulator; practice landings on a runway using the optical landing system; and live weapons launches.

The Navy conceived the F/A-18 to replace at once the F-4 Phantom fighter and the A-7 Corsair attack aircraft, already aging by the mid-1970s, and to save space aboard carriers. According to the documentary, it was the first jet designated with both the F for fighter and the A for attack, able to fulfill both roles in a single mission. The first deliveries arrived at Lemoore in 1980, and the Blue Angels have flown it since 1986. It is compared with the F-14 Tomcat, still in service at the time, and closes with the arrival of the Super Hornet.

According to the documentary, the Hornet is about 56 feet long and 15 feet tall, with a 40-foot wingspan; it weighs around 21,000 pounds and costs about $38 million. It is powered by two General Electric F404 engines, reaches Mach 1.8 and climbs at over 45,000 feet per minute. It has fly-by-wire controls and half the parts of the F-14, which requires almost four times more maintenance hours. It carries about 1,600 gallons of internal fuel, extendable with three external tanks of about 330 gallons each. Its weapons include AMRAAM, AIM-9X Sidewinder, JSOW and HARM missiles, as well as Mark 83 bombs and laser- or GPS-guided bombs. The Super Hornet is almost 3 feet longer, has 25% more wing area, 35% more internal fuel and two additional hardpoints.