Posted in Military Matters

U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C Hornet officially retired

 2021年4月5日

The U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C Hornet.

The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18C Hornet, a ship-based aircraft that has been favored by many national air forces, has finally left U.S. military service. The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) completed the final flight of the F/A-18C on Feb. 25 this year, ending 34 years of service.

Fighter Jets World reports that on Oct. 2, 2019, the U.S. Navy officially retired the last F/A-18C Hornet, tail number 300, belonging to the 106th Air Strike Squadron (VFA-106), also known as the Gladiators Squadron. Gladiators Squadron. The last Navy Hornet, which joined the Navy on October 14, 1988, was interestingly born the same year as its last pilot, Lt. Andrew Jalali.

The U.S. Marine Corps, known as the fourth class, continued to operate the Hornet for another year or so compared to the faster rate of change in the U.S. Navy. However, with the new fighter aircraft in place, the Marine Corps also has enough margin to retire the F/A-18C Hornet. The Marine Corps received the F/A-18C in 1987 and has been in service for 34 years.

The F/A-18C first entered service with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Air Forces in the mid-1980s, and it was the first fighter aircraft designed from the outset to incorporate multirole, giving it a dual “combat/attack” identity. It has been involved in every major conflict in its nearly 40 years of service, including the Gulf War in 1991 and the attack on Iraq in 2003.

Unlike the Navy, the Marine Corps did not purchase the larger, more advanced F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and decided to use the F-35B Short Take Off and Landing (V/STOL) fighter for all of its squadrons.

Although in the U.S. Air Force and Navy, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has many opinions, and even threatened to cancel subsequent orders, but the Marine Corps Airmen have never complained about the F-35, although the F-35B is one of the three types of F-35, the most complex structure, the shortest range, and the least amount of ammunition, but it does not need a runway performance, enough to outweigh all the shortcomings.