THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701190071
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABOARD THE CARRIER JOHN C. STENNIS LENGTH: 107 lines
In a momentary lull amid horizontal snow showers and 45-knot winds, the new F/A-18F ``Super Hornet'' dropped through pewter-colored clouds and onto its first landing on a carrier deck Saturday off the Capes.
Navy test pilot Lt. Frank ``Spanky'' Morley slammed the $40 million fighter-attack jet onto the deck and grabbed the No. 3 wire as McDonnell-Douglas engineers and Navy onlookers erupted in cheers.
The 10 a.m. landing came 180 miles southeast of Norfolk, as this Norfolk-based carrier plowed through roaring Gulf Stream seas whose 72-degree temperature produced an eerie carpet of steam on the water's surface - and the snow and wind threatened to scrub the debut.
``But they called me down anyway,'' said Morley, at 30 the Navy's youngest test pilot.
A few hours later, the Stennis witnessed the Super Hornet's second milestone: Cmdr. Tom Gurney entered the history books by successfully launching the plane in its first catapult shot.
That, too, went off without a hitch, as the two-seat jet entered the second year of a three-year certification program it must complete before the Navy can bring it into the fleet.
Unveiled in September 1995, the Super Hornet is being touted as the future centerpiece of naval aviation. Bigger and more heavily armed than the F/A-18C now in service, the new plane is being developed for the Navy and Marine Corps to succeed the F-14 fighter and A-6 medium attack bomber. Eventually, its single-seat ``E'' model and two-seat ``F'' model also will succeed early Hornets.
``It's everything we expected,'' Pete Pilcher, director of flight tests for McDonnell-Douglas, said after Morley's touchdown.
``It's the precursor of tens of thousands of landings we'll see on this ship from the Super Hornet,'' predicted Capt. Robert C. Klosterman, the Stennis' commanding officer.
Saturday's landing and launch marked the beginning of sea trials for the aircraft, which may someday be based at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.
In the coming week the jet will be subjected to increasingly more difficult tests of its landing gear, engines and other features.
``We hopefully put more stressful landings on it (on land) than it will ever have here,'' said Cmdr. Robert O. Wirt Jr., a Navy flight test director. ``But some things you can't simulate, like a moving runway, the compatibility of the ship and the plane, and the air disturbances they make on each other.''
Saturday's near-cancellation did not come because conditions were too poor for the Super Hornet, the engineers said, but because they and other test officials from the Navy's test facility at Patuxent River, Md., didn't want sensitive instruments attached to the plane to get wet.
Morley, who has more than 50 flight hours in both the one- and two-seat versions of the new jet, said there were no surprises on his flight.
``It performed marvelously,'' he said. ``I couldn't be happier.''
The aircraft was steadier in the heavy wind than older models, its behavior a bit smoother. ``When you sit around the Ready Room,'' Morley said, ``and talk about your needs, like having more fuel, the ability to travel farther, more ordnance, more flexibility, better survivability . . . this plane does all of that and does it quite well.''
Whether it will do it well on a large scale is open to question. The new jet faces a fight in Congress because of the huge price tag the program carries.
The General Accounting Office urged the Pentagon to consider canceling the Super Hornet program in favor of additional purchases of older models - a shift the GAO said could save taxpayers about $17 billion.
While acknowledging the Super Hornet would have greater range and would be able to deliver more firepower than the ``C'' and ``D'' models, the agency found that many of the new jet's improvements could be matched by lower-cost modifications to those older models.
What real gains it offers are too minor to justify the new plane's higher price, the GAO said: The Super Hornet would cost up to $53 million per plane, vs. $28 million each for the current F/A-18, according to the agency's estimates.
Both the Navy and McDonnell-Douglas dispute the GAO's figures, the service putting the jet's price at about $44 million per plane, and representatives of the St. Louis-based aircraft manufacturer contending that the company has promised to sell the plane for $37 million a copy, provided 1,000 are purchased.
Whatever decisions are ultimately made about the program and its estimated total price tag of $80 billion, the Super Hornet's development will be carefully eyed by the Navy's aviation community - and Oceana in particular.
The Navy is retiring the A-6E Intruder this year. The plane once shared half the ramp space at Oceana with the F-14 Tomcat fighter, which will itself be phased out of service in the next dozen or so years.
With both of those aircraft headed for the military's aviation graveyard, Oceana's future seemed doubtful until the Navy decided to consolidate its carrier air arm. That move put its jets nearer its fleet of six East Coast-based aircraft carriers, five of which are in Norfolk.
The service opted to close Cecil Field, Fla., currently home to all East Coast F/A-18s, and relocate them to Oceana.
The Super Hornet would, likewise, be based there. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
IAN MARTIN/The Virginian-Pilot
A new F/A-18F ``Super Hornet'' flies over the carrier John C.
Stennis Saturday before making its first-ever landing at sea. The
Super Hornet, touted as the future centerpiece of naval aviation,
entered the second year of a three-year certification program.
Photo
IAN MARTIN/The Virginian-Pilot
McDonnell-Douglas and the Navy were elated when the $40 million
F/A-18F two-seater Super Hornet fighter-attack jet landed safely on
its first test run on the Norfolk-based carrier John C. Stennis.