sancho
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Boeing Offers India "Super Hornet International Roadmap"
Boeing has said it is offering India the "International Super Hornet Roadmap", which it describes as the next evolution of the Block II Super Hornet -- "which increases survivability, situational awareness, and performance for customers". The company says it has been investing in the International Roadmap for the last two years along with the US Navy. Under the programme, says Boeing, if India chooses the Super Hornet as part of the MMRCA, ...
This is an upgrade of the F18SH and will of course make it more useful for the future too, but we must have 2 things in mind here:
1. USN have invested in the study for possible future upgrades, but not cleared them so far. Most of it will depend on F35, because they don't need most of these upgraded techs, if F35 will be available. The GE 414 EPE for example is offered for export customers and must be funded and developed first, but USN has shown no interest on funding this.
Boeing's Super Hornet seeks export sale to launch 20% thrust upgrade
By Stephen Trimble
Boeing is seeking an international launch customer for a 20% higher thrust version of the General Electric F414 turbofan that powers the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet...
...While the USN seeks a new engine core to make the F414 more durable, some international customers are interested in a new engine fan that enables higher thrust, Gower said.
"The 'enhanced durability engine' becomes the 'enhanced performance engine' when you put the fan on it," Gower said.
Although the core enhancements are already under contract with the USN, the programme is seeking an export customer to launch development of the F414 EPE, Gower said.
The international order would lead to follow-on sales for the USN, which would gradually replace its current inventory with the improved version, Gower said.
Boeing's Super Hornet seeks export sale to launch 20% thrust upgrade
2. The other upgrades as I said are good, but needed mainly to upgrade the older techs of the F18 design. Next-generation cockpit,
Missile laser warning, Internal Infra-Red Search & Track (IRST), are lates standard and already availabe in most of the other fighters.
Here the actual F18SH cockpit, in comparison to Rafale and Mig 29K (which should be similar to Mig 35):
As you can see some of these upgrades are mainly needed, just to make the F18SH comparable to the others.
The rest of the upgrade is tricky imo, CFTs are a good idea and but I am not sure about these stealthy weapon pod. It's mainly for BVR and smaller A2G weapons, in very limited numbers, should increase drag and manouverability is an issue with the F18SH anyway. Don't know if it could reduce the RCS so far, that it really would give an advantage. The best would have been such CFTs with weapons bays like the F15SE, but they seems to be not possible for the F18.
So these upgrades are good, but who pays for them and what difference will they really make?