Navy Weighs F-18 Upgrade

By Kris Osborn

Aircraft to extend the range of the multi-role aircraft and enable them to stay in the air longer on attack and electronic warfare missions.

The Boeing-Northrop innovation now being considered by the Navy is called Conformal Fuel Tanks, or CFT. It is an effort which engineers two new 3,500 gallon fuel tanks aligned along the contours of the aircraft to decrease the overall weight of the fighters and increase the payload or weapons capacity, Dan Gillian, F/A-18 and EA-18G Vice President, Boeing, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

“CFT applied to the Super Hornet can function in a strike role or air-to-air combat air patrol role. They create a longer range of 120 nautical miles to a strike mission and allow for longer time on station by about 25 to 30 minutes,” Gillian said.

The Navy has not formally committed to integrating the Conformal Fuel Tanks but remain engaged with Boeing about the possibilities.

Nonetheless, Gillian explained that the CFT’s also provide substantial value to the EA-18G Growlers because the reduced drag afforded by the new tanks creates much less drag for the aircraft, allowing it to reach higher altitudes. Reaching higher altitude for an electronic warfare aircraft allows it to jam and identify signals from a much wider field of view, Gillian explained.

In addition, by the early 2020s the Growler will be configured with a new technology called the Next-Generation Jammer – a new jamming technology which will allow the electronic warfare platform to jam signals on more frequency and jam multiple signals at the same time.

While the F-18 is not a stealth aircraft, the conformal shape of the fuel tanks also slightly contributes to stealthy characteristics of the fighter, making it slightly less observable to enemy radar or reducing what’s called the “radar signature.”