what its new capabilities mean for potential domestic and foreign customers—and for military fighter pilots. All four were military fighter pilots before they joined Boeing. “We always want to be not one step ahead of the enemy but five steps ahead,” explained John Tougas, who, like Wallace and Schmidt, is an F/A-18 Super Hornet test pilot. Tougas was designated lead project pilot for the Advanced Super Hornet flight tests, responsible for test planning, test hazard analysis, and test execution and data collection, including flying some of the missions. “Right now, today’s Super Hornet is five steps ahead of the enemy with its capability,” Tougas said. “What the Advanced Super Hornet does is keep that future-generation naval aviator, when they finish flight school, still five steps ahead of the enemy.” Tougas spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy before joining Boeing in 2009. He was a Navy test pilot and flew both the Hornet and Super Hornet. He keeps in touch with some of his old Navy buddies who fly Super Hornets. When they recently asked him about the capabilities of the Advanced Super Hornet, Tougas said, he told them: “You know how you can kick butt in the Super Hornet? Well, you will still be kicking butt in the future with the Advanced Super Hornet.” Ricardo Traven, Boeing’s chief test pilot for the F/A-18, also flew Hornets in the military, only for the Canadian Air Force, which is now considering whether to buy the Super Hornet or the F-35, which maker Lockheed Martin has touted for its stealth. “The Super Hornet is a lot stealthier than people give it credit for. Much stealthier,” Traven said. The new conformal fuel tanks merge into the Advanced Super Hornet’s fuselage, reducing its radar cross section even further. The enclosed weapons pod also reduces the aircraft’s visibility to radar. Weapons that traditionally would be hung under the Super Hornet’s wings can be stored, and launched, from the aerodynamic pod. The Advanced Super Hornet also has other enhancements that reduce its radar cross section. Tests show the radar “signature” of the Advanced Super Hornet, when scanned head-on, is more than 50 percent less than the current Super Hornet, according to Boeing. “As threats evolve so do we. It’s not all about the radar cross section, but that’s a piece of it,” Traven said, adding that the reduced radar cross section of the Advanced Super Hornet is “something that the U.S. Navy as well as potential foreign customers will be looking at.” But increased stealth is only one advantage the Advanced Super Hornet has, according to the Boeing pilots who have been testing it. Schmidt, who flew F-14 Tomcats off Navy carriers and Hornets in Navy test pilot school, noted that Super Hornets operating from a carrier often need to carry a centerline fuel tank for additional range. But the Advanced Super Hornet can use that same space for the enclosed weapons pod because of the extra fuel in the conformal fuel tanks. “It essentially frees up a weapons station,” he said. “It also gives them the capability to fly farther, to extend the combat radius.” And for customers who operate the Growler, the conformal fuel tanks will eliminate the need to carry wing-mounted fuel tanks. Instead, the Growler can carry additional electronic warfare equipment. It all adds up to a jet fighter that can meet future threats—and bring pilots home from harm’s way, said Wallace, who flew Hornets for the Navy before he joined Boeing 12 years ago. “Compared with the Hornet that I flew in the fleet, the Super Hornet is so much more advanced with all its avionics and warfighting systems,” Wallace said. “And now the Advanced Super Hornet upgrades will give the Super Hornet even more expanded strike capability to go up against some of the most formidable surface-to-air threats and air-to-air threats that exist now and in the future. It is extremely important for the Navy to have this capability.” Boeing used its own funds to develop the Advanced Super Hornet prototype—in only about 10 months. The conformal fuel tanks were designed and manufactured by partner Northrop Grumman, which, like Boeing, used company funds. The Advanced Super Hornet is a great example of Boeing’s ability to rapidly prototype a new product, whether it be a satellite or jet fighter, Traven explained. “Everything from ‘A’ to ‘Z’ was an exercise in challenging the old ways of doing business and finding new and innovative ways of producing a variation to a product for our customers,” Traven said. Traven was part of the Boeing team that developed and tested the Super Hornet. So was Wallace. “Right now, the Super Hornet is an incredible strike fighter that operates off the carrier on a daily basis, day and night around the world,” Wallace said. “These enhancements will give it even better capability to do first-day-of-the-war scenarios, but you’re going to maintain that flexibility to come back to the hard work of carrying lots of bombs externally under the wing or payload under the wings … There are very few other fighter airplanes in the world that can do that and land on the aircraft carrier.” n james.a.wallace4@boeing.com PHOTOS: The Advanced Super Hornet, as shown in these night shots, has an enclosed weapons pod underneath the fuselage and conformal fuel tanks blended into the top of the fuselage. Together, with other stealth enhancements, they give the upgraded fighter extended range and make it less visible to enemy radar. 24 BOEING FRONTIERS / DECEMBER 2013–JANUARY 2014
Frontiers December 2013—January 2014 Issue
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