Boeing McDonnell Douglas F/A-18C Hornet, J-5011, Fliegerstaffel 11, Schweizer Luftwaffe, Meiringen Air Base Ca. 2019


The story of the F/A-18 Hornet could be traced way back to the Vietnam era, when, in 1966, Northrop began to conduct studies on a lightweight fighter based on their venerable F-5 fighter. In the age when fighter design became increasingly heavier, more sophisticated and, consequently, more expensive; the F-5, aptly named the "Freedom Fighter" was very popular in the export market for its agility, easy maintenance and a friendly price tag.

Northrop was of course eager to follow on the success of the F-5. The initial concept put forward by the company was pretty much similar to the F-5, but as the project progressed it gained a twin tail and leading edge root extension (LERX) that will become the hallmark of subsequent designs. The full-scale mockup of the refined concept was unveiled in the 1971 Paris Air Show as the Northrop "P-530", nicknamed "Cobra" for the hooded appearance of its LERX. Further refinement of the P-530 concept branched into single-engined "P-610" and twin-engined "P-600" designs.

Fast forward to 1972, USAF issued a request for proposal for the development of a lightweight fighter (LWF), led by then-major John Boyd and the so-called “Fighter Mafia” who were dissatisfied with the direction in which the FX program was going. Major Boyd argued with his E-M theory that excess power and maneuverability were key aspects of a successful fighter design, not only speed.

Five manufacturers submitted their proposal; General Dynamics "model 401-16B", Northrop "P-600", Vought "V-1100", Lockheed "CL-1200-2" and Boeing "model 908-909". On 13 April 1972, the air force shortlisted GD and Northrop designs for a competitive fly off and awarded GD $38 million contract for two “YF-16” and Northrop $39 million for two “YF-17” prototypes.

By April 1974, the stakes of the competition had been raised and the winner of the fly off would be selected for the air force’s Air Combat Fighter (ACF) program. Both prototypes performed admirably in the 1974 evaluation and proved to be a close match against each other, but on 13 January 1975 the YF-16 was announced as the winner of the ACF competition and would go on to become the mainstay fighter for the USAF as well as numerous air forces around the globe.

This however, was not yet the end of YF-17. Parallel to the air force's requirement for a lightweight fighter to complement their FX program, which would evolve into the F-15 Eagle; the navy was also looking for similar aircraft to complement their F-14 Tomcat as well as to replace their aging A-7 Corsair II and F-4 Phantom. After the bugging out of the TFX program in December 1968, the US navy launched its own Fighter/Attack Experimental Aircraft program (VFAX) in 1971; not wanting to repeat the folly of F-111B, they initially sought to build a brand new aircraft from the ground up based on their own requirement and specification. Much to their dismay however, congress dictated that the navy had to choose, yet again, from the air force's ACF contenders. The program was accordingly renamed as the Naval ACF (NACF).

Neither General Dynamics nor Northrop had much experience in developing carrier based aircraft. So GD teamed up with LTV to develop a navalized YF-16 variant designated the LTV "Model 1600", while Northrop were to partner on the navalized YF-17, the Northrop “P-630”, with McDonnell Douglas on a 40% and 60% basis respectively, with MDD as the lead organization. Northrop designed and built the center fuselage, aft fuselage, and vertical tails, while MDD worked on the forward fuselage, LEX, wings and the horizontal tails.

Despite losing the air force's ACF competition, the navy announced on 2 May 1975 that Northrop and MDD's submission was chosen as the winner of the NACF program. The decision was influenced partly by the navy being biased toward twin engine aircrafts but also for its agility at high AoA and its potential in the strike role.

The agreement with MDD to develop a navalized YF-17 was only half the contract; the other half stated that Northrop would carry on the development of a land-based variant, designated F-18L, on a similar 60-40 basis with the company as the lead organization. Since the aircraft would not be subjected to harsh carrier operation, the Northrop F-18L eliminated extra weight as much as possible from F/A-18; it used straight oleo main landing gears of YF-17 instead of kneeling, cantilevered design of the F/A-18, while the catapult bar was deleted from the nose gear; the wing folding mechanism and arrestor hook were also deleted, as well as many structural strengthening required for carrier operation. The weight reductions were expected to make F-18L up to 3.490 kg lighter than its naval counterpart, and therefore more agile and better performing, at least on paper.

Pretty intense marketing was undertaken to a variety of overseas customers including Greece and Canada, where Northrop sent a demonstrator aircraft painted with their respective roundels. In reality Northrop never really built any F-18L, and said aircraft were in fact their second YF-17 built back in 1972 for the LWF program thinly disguised as such. Most of their marketing campaigns rely on mock-ups since Northrop was unwilling to get F-18L production ready before having contracts in hand, this created an egg-chicken conundrum where potential customers were unwilling to take the risk of being lead customer for an unproven aircraft. On the other hand, MDD were ramping up their F/A-18 production for the US navy, reducing its cost from mass-production while establishing a strong supply chain and support infrastructure; not to forget by this time the more affordable F-16 were already taking considerable share of the lightweight fighter pie.

So what initially appeared as a good deal turned grim for Northrop, They initiated lawsuits against MDD in 1979, charging that McDonnell was using Northrop technology developed for the F-18L for foreign sales of the F/A-18 in violation of their agreement, and asked for a moratorium on foreign sales of the Hornet. McDonnell Douglas countersued, alleging Northrop illegally used F/A-18 technology in its F-20 Tigershark. A settlement was announced on 8 April 1985 for all of the lawsuits. McDonnell Douglas paid Northrop $50 million for "rights to sell the F/A-18 wherever it could". Additionally, Northrop must content with being a subcontractor to an MDD program.

It appears that  rockett.coyote had the picture of YF-17 being trialled by RCAF. Note the leaner landing gear compared to F/A-18 and the lack of wing fold mechanism. The aircraft had "CF-18L prototype" marked under its vertical tail, but the serial number "201570" clearly alludes to the second YF-17 prototype, 72-01570.

another picture of YF-17 in Greece marking

Commission for  lonmali