McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

Further Reading

Miller, G.D., "Active Flexible Wing (AFW) Technology," Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories TR-87-3096, February, 1988.

Miller, G.D., "AFW Design Methodology Study", Rockwell-Aerospace Report No. NA 94-1731, December 1994.

Pendleton, E., Griffin, K., Kehoe, M., and Perry, B., "A Flight Research Program for Active Aeroelastic Wing Technology ," Paper 96-1574, Proceedings of the 37th AIAA Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, 15–17 April 1996.
Zillmer, S., "Integrated Multidisciplinary Optimization for Aeroelastic Wing Design,” Wright Laboratory TR-97-3087, August, 1997.

Zillmer, S., "Integrated Structure / Maneuver Design Procedure for Active Aeroelastic Wings, User’s Manual,” Wright Laboratory TR-97-3087, March, 1997.

Pendleton, E., Bessette, D., Field P., Miller, G., and Griffin, K., "Active Aeroelastic Wing Flight Research Program: Technical Program & Model Analytical Development ," Journal of Aircraft, Volume 37, Number 4, July–August, 2000.

Pendleton, E., " Active Aeroelastic Wing,” AFRL Technology Horizons, Selected Science and Technology Articles, Vol. 1, No. 2, June 2000.

Pendleton, E., "How Active Aeroelastic Wings are a Return to Aviation’s Beginning and a Small Step to Future Bird-like Wings," Invited Paper, Japan Society of Aeronautical and Space Sciences Aircraft Symposium, Sendai, Japan, October 11, 2000.

The Boeing Company, “The Active Aeroelastic Wing Flight Research Program (The X-53) Final Report”, Volume 1 and II, AFRL-VA-WP-TR-2005-3082, October, 2005.

Pendleton, E., Flick, P., Voracek, D., Reichenbach, E., Griffin, K., Paul, D.,“The X-53,A Summary of the Active Aeroelastic Wing Flight Research Program,” Paper 07-1855,

Proceedings of the 48th AIAA Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 23–26, 2007.

Export variants ( F/A 18, suite )

These designations are not part of 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system.

F-18L

This was a lighter land-based version of the F/A-18 Hornet.

It was designed to be a single-seat air-superiority fighter and ground-attack aircraft.

It was originally intended to be assembled by Northrop as the export version of the F/A-18 Hornet.

The F-18L was lighter via removing carrier landing capability.

Despite the advantages, customers preferred the standard Hornet, and the F-18L never entered mass production.

(A)F/A-18A/B

(A)F/A-18A: Single-seat fighter/attack version for the Royal Australian Air Force.

(A)F/A-18B: Two-seat training version for the Royal Australian Air Force.

"F/A-18A" was the original company designation, designations of "AF-18A" & "ATF-18A" have also been applied.

Assembled in Australia (excluding the first two (A)F/A-18Bs) by Aero-Space Technologies of Australia (ASTA) from 1985 through to 1990, from kits produced by McDonnell Douglas with increasing local content in the later aircraft.

Originally the most notable differences between an Australian (A)F/A-18A/B and a US F/A-18A/B were the lack of a catapult attachment, replacing the carrier tailhook with a lighter land arresting hook, and the automatic carrier landing system with an Instrument Landing System. Australian Hornets have been involved in several major upgrade programs.

This program called HUG (Hornet Upgrade) has had a few evolutions over the years.

The first was to give Australian Hornets F/A-18C model avionics.

The second and current upgrade program (HUG 2.2) updates the fleet's avionics even further.

CF-18 Hornet

CF-18A: Single-seat fighter/attack version for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
The official Canadian designation is CF-188A Hornet.

CF-18B: Two-seat training and combat version for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
The official Canadian designation is CF-188B Hornet.