F/A-18 Super Hornet Specs, Variants, Cost and Operators

The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is Boeing’s larger, longer-range evolution of the Hornet, a twin-engine carrier fighter that can carry about 17,750 pounds of weapons and has been the backbone of US Navy strike aviation since the late 1990s. Though it shares a name with the original F/A-18 Hornet, it is effectively a new aircraft, roughly 25 percent larger with different engines and a redesigned airframe.

17,750 lb

Maximum external payload

11

Weapon stations

Mach 1.8

Top speed class

2017

First Super Hornet air-to-air kill

What is the F/A-18 Super Hornet

The Super Hornet was developed by McDonnell Douglas, later merged into Boeing, to replace the F-14 Tomcat, A-6 Intruder and the early Hornets in Navy service. The design first flew in 1995 and reached the fleet in the late 1990s. A wing roughly 25 percent larger, a longer fuselage and two General Electric F414 engines gave it more range, more payload and more carrier bring-back weight than the aircraft it succeeded.

It is a true multirole fighter. The single-seat F/A-18E and two-seat F/A-18F handle air defense, strike, close air support and reconnaissance, while a related version, the EA-18G Growler, serves as the Navy’s dedicated electronic attack aircraft. Its key selling points have always been reliability, low cost per flight hour compared with stealth fighters and the ability to launch and recover from a carrier with a heavy load of weapons. Boeing’s wider portfolio is covered in our Boeing Defense, Space and Security profile.

F/A-18 Super Hornet specifications

F/A-18E/F Super Hornet key specifications

Item	Specification
Manufacturer	Boeing (originally McDonnell Douglas)
Crew	1 (F/A-18E) or 2 (F/A-18F)
Length	About 60.3 ft (18.4 m)
Wingspan	About 44.9 ft (13.7 m)
Maximum takeoff weight	About 66,000 lb (29,900 kg)
Engines	Two General Electric F414-GE-400, roughly 22,000 lbf each with afterburner
Top speed	About Mach 1.8, per Navy and Boeing literature
Combat radius	Roughly 390 nautical miles in an air-to-air configuration, per the Navy
Radar	Raytheon AN/APG-79 AESA
Gun	M61A2 20 mm rotary cannon
Weapon stations	11, carrying up to about 17,750 lb
Unit cost	Roughly $70 million for recent Block III jets, reported

Figures rounded from US Navy and Boeing fact sheets; radius and cost depend on configuration.

Weapons range from the AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles for air combat to Harpoon and LRASM anti-ship missiles, JSOW glide bombs, JDAM-series bombs, and the AGM-88 HARM family for suppressing air defenses. The AIM-120 AMRAAM rides on wing and fuselage stations, while Sidewinders sit on the wingtips.

Super Hornet Block III and variants

Super Hornet variants

Variant	Role	Notes
F/A-18E	Single-seat multirole	Main Navy strike fighter
F/A-18F	Two-seat multirole	Extra crew member for strike and tactics
EA-18G Growler	Electronic attack	Jamming aircraft derived from the F/A-18F
Block II	Mid-life standard	AESA radar, Advanced Targeting FLIR
Block III	Latest upgrade	Conformal fuel tanks, large display, infrared search and track, longer airframe life

Block III upgrades extend service life to about 10,000 hours, per Boeing and the Navy.

The Block III package is what keeps the fleet relevant. Conformal fuel tanks add range without spending weapons stations, a large touchscreen display and improved networking help pilots process information, and an infrared search and track sensor, described in our explainer on IRST, lets the jet hunt stealthy targets without radar emissions. Boeing also reduced radar signature slightly with coatings and design changes, though the Super Hornet is not a stealth fighter.

Who operates the Super Hornet

The US Navy is by far the largest user, with several hundred jets across carrier air wings. The Royal Australian Air Force flies 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets and a dozen EA-18G Growlers, and Kuwait has ordered several dozen Super Hornets in a deal signed in the late 2010s. The Marine Corps does not fly the type, while Canada evaluated it in a competition but chose a different aircraft. Boeing has warned that without new orders, the production line could close in the late 2020s, and the company won the Navy’s next-generation fighter contract, reported in our coverage of the F/A-XX award, which eventually takes over the carrier mission.

Super Hornet combat record

The Super Hornet first saw combat over Iraq in 1999 and flew in the 2003 invasion. Its best-known air-to-air achievement came in June 2017, when a Navy F/A-18E shot down a Syrian Su-22 near Raqqa with an AIM-9X missile, the type’s first kill of a manned aircraft. More recently Super Hornets have flown from carriers in the Red Sea, where they have engaged drones and missiles launched by Yemen’s Houthi movement, although the scale of interceptions is operator-reported.

The Navy has also lost aircraft in that campaign, including one shot down in error by a friendly cruiser in December 2024 and jets lost in carrier accidents. Those incidents illustrate the pace of operations as much as any flaw in the design. Taken together, the record shows a busy, versatile and mostly dependable aircraft.

Editor’s read

The Super Hornet is the workhorse that arrived at the right moment and stayed. It is not stealthy, yet it is reliable, cheap to fly and deeply integrated into the carrier air wing. Its continued relevance depends on keeping up with air defenses, which is why Block III and the Navy’s next fighter matter more than the original airframe.