F/A-18 Hornet

BACK IN the early 1960's, there were main who expressed surprise when the US Navy's McDonnell F4H Phantom was selected by the US Air Force's Tactical Air Command to per­form dose air support, interdiction and counter air missions. With the benefit ol hindsight, the wisdom of this decision is clear, for the Phantom— eventually the- F-4 Phantom II — ultimately matured into a quite superlative warplane. Thirteen years later, the wheel turned full circle when the IS Navy opted for the McDonnell Douglas/Northrop F/A-18 I Iornet—ironically enough partly to replace- the Phantom—although in this instance the USAF had rejected the Hornet's predecessor, the YF-17 which had lost out to the Ceneral Dynamics YF-16 in the Air Combat Fighter (ACF) contest of 1974. Thus, although the mid-70s technically marked the start of the F/A-18 pro­gramme, the evolution process dates back to events which took place almost a decade earlier. It was then that Northrop's design bureau— headed In Lee Begin, Jr.—began work on a new concept, although it took time for their ideas to crystallize into a definite proposal.