Australia announced on 5 March 2020 that up to 46 surplus Boeing F/A-18 Hornet fighters would be sold to Air USA, who would use them as ‘red air’ adversary support for combat training of the US Air Force. AirUSA has since been renamed RAVN Aerospace.
The first aircraft were to be handed over 3-4 years after the announcement date i.e. around now.
A spokesperson from Defence commented, ‘Department of Defence is in contract with AirUSA for the sale of up to 46 former RAAF McDonnell Douglas F/A-18A/B Hornets. The contract between the Department of Defence and AirUSA was initially executed in February 2020 and is still valid.’
Before dispatching them to the USA, Australian personnel RAAF Base Williamtown will prepare them for their future adversarial training role.
The last of the RAAF’s Classic Hornets were retired in late 2021, with a ceremony at RAAF Base Williamtown taking place on 29 November to mark the occasion. This completed a withdrawal process that kicked off in late 2017.
After the purchase of 75 fighters in 1981, the fleet of Classic Hornets served for some 36 years and accumulated 408,000 flying hours. Among their operational deployments were Operation Slipper defending Diego Garcia after the 9/11 attacks, Operation Falconer in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and Operation Okra over Iraq and Syria to defeat ISIS from 2014-18.
The place of the F/A-18A/B has been taken over by the F-35A, of which the RAAF has ordered 72 aircraft.
Another 18 Classic Hornets (twelve F/A-18A and six twin-seat F/A-18B aircraft) were sold to Canada; the first of these reached North America in February 2019 and the final two on 29 April 2019. The Royal Canadian Air Force is using them to supplement its fleet of CF-18 Hornets.
As for Australia’s remaining Classic Hornet airframes, a handful has been allocated to heritage purposes, and one to the Defence Explosive Ordnance Training School as a training aid.
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