3D model
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A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as McDonnell Douglas F/A-18C Hornet BuNo 163439, Blue Angel 1, the Blue Angels’ lead jet from 2015 to 2020 and the first Blue Angels aircraft in the Smithsonian’s collection, displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia: the US Navy’s single-seat twin-engined carrier strike fighter with two General Electric F404 turbofans, leading-edge extensions running forward to the cockpit, a trapezoidal mid wing with wing-tip missile rails, twin canted fins and all-moving stabilators: Blue Angels gloss blue overall with gold fin caps and a slanted gold ‘1’ on each fin, a gold top deck behind the canopy narrowing to gold lines along the nose, gold ‘U.S. NAVY’ on the engine bays, the ‘Blue Angels’ script and team crest under the cockpit and gold wing-tip rails and stabilator tips, as photographed at Udvar-Hazy, shown with its wings spread although it is displayed with them folded (no Hornet is preserved in a UK museum; shape from a three-view drawing of the F/A-18A/C checked against a NASA drawing and photographs). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.1 MB)
Data plate
Specification
- First flight18 November 1978
- Built~1,480
- Top speedMach 1.8
- Engine2 × General Electric F404-GE-400 turbofans with afterburner, about 16,000 lbf each (F/A-18C; later aircraft had 17,700 lbf F404-GE-402s)
- Crew1 (2 in the F/A-18B and D)
- Wingspan11.43 m
- Length17.07 m
- Height4.66 m
- In serviceUS Marine Corps and US Navy from 1983; Blue Angels 1986–2020
- RoleCarrier strike fighter
- MakerMcDonnell Douglas, St Louis, Missouri, with Northrop, United States
- UK collections—
First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (F/A-18A to D); engine, crew and dimensions are for the F/A-18C BuNo 163439 modelled here.
History
The F/A-18C Hornet
The Hornet grew from Northrop’s YF-17, the twin-engined lightweight fighter that lost to the General Dynamics YF-16 in the US Air Force’s 1975 competition. The US Navy wanted a cheaper partner for the F-14 to replace its F-4 Phantoms and A-7 Corsairs, and chose a carrier version of the YF-17, with McDonnell Douglas as prime contractor and Northrop building the rear fuselage. It was heavier and stronger than the YF-17, with a wider fuselage for more fuel, folding wings, a beefed-up undercarriage and a catapult bar. Fighter and attack versions were planned at first but merged into one aircraft, the F/A-18, which could switch between the two roles at the press of a button. The first flew at St Louis on 18 November 1978.
The Hornet was the first fighter designed with a ‘glass cockpit’ of multi-function screens, and its leading-edge extensions alongside the cockpit let it fly at very high angles of attack. The US Marine Corps took it into service in January 1983 and the US Navy later that year, and in 1986 Hornets from USS Coral Sea attacked Libyan air defences. On the first day of the Gulf War, 17 January 1991, two Hornets of VFA-81 on a bombing raid were met by Iraqi MiG-21s; they shot both down and then went on to bomb their target. Canada, Australia, Spain, Kuwait, Switzerland, Finland and Malaysia bought Hornets too.
The F/A-18C and two-seat D followed in 1987, with AMRAAM missiles and better ejection seats, and from 1989 night-attack equipment. About 1,480 of the original Hornets were built before the much larger F/A-18E/F Super Hornet replaced them on the production line. The Blue Angels display team flew Hornets from 1986 until November 2020, and the US Navy’s last fleet squadron gave up its F/A-18Cs in 2019, though the Marines and several foreign air forces still fly them. No Hornet is in a UK museum.
This airframe
F/A-18C BuNo 163439
BuNo 163439, the 11th F/A-18C built, was delivered in 1987 to VFA-86, the Sidewinders, and flew in the Gulf War in 1991. It served with eight fleet squadrons before joining the Blue Angels in 2015, and flew as Blue Angel 1, the Boss’s jet, until the team’s last formation flight in legacy Hornets on 4 November 2020. On 18 November 2020 the team flew it into Washington Dulles airport for the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the first Blue Angels aircraft in the national collection, and it is displayed there in the Boeing Aviation Hangar. The model shows it as photographs of it there do: Blue Angels gloss blue with gold fin caps and a gold ‘1’ on each fin, a gold top deck behind the canopy narrowing to gold lines along the nose, gold ‘U.S. NAVY’ on the engine bays, the ‘Blue Angels’ script and crest under the cockpit, the names of the first and last Hornet Bosses under the canopy, and gold wing-tip rails and stabilator tips. The museum displays it with its outer wings folded; the model spreads them to show the Hornet’s planform. Its shape comes from a three-view drawing of the F/A-18A/C checked against a NASA drawing and photographs; no underside photograph was found, so the underside is plain blue, and the crest and lettering are simplified.
Where to see one
Not on charge
Survivors are in US museums, among them Blue Angels F/A-18C 163439 at the Udvar-Hazy Center, Virginia, and the Gulf War MiG-killer F/A-18C 163508 at Pensacola. None is in a UK museum.