Recently, the United States offered its F-18 Super Hornets for the Indian Navy’s requirements of combat jets for its aircraft carriers.
The Indian Navy had earlier expressed their interest in the procurement of 57 naval jets for operations from its aircraft carriers including NS Vikramaditya and the under-construction Indigenous Aircraft Carrier.
“The American Government has offered to provide their naval fighter aircraft F-18 for the Indian Navy under a government proposal at the meeting between defence delegations of both countries during the 2+2 meetings,” government sources told ANI here.
The US government has offered to sell its F-18 fighters along with the unmanned aircraft Sea Guardian to the Indian Navy along with a number of other systems. The aircraft offered by the US government is beleived to be the advanced version of the hornets which was on offer to the Indian Air Force for its requirement of 126 Multirole Medium Combat Aircraft.
Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets have already received unparalleled success and are considered one of most competent 4th generation jets.
In the video, watch how the pilot successfully lands the aircraft which is filmed from the cockpit showing the hands of the pilot as he controls throttle and stick.
“This video was taken during a foul-weather recovery aboard the USS Enterprise. There was a pretty big thunderstorm that was dumping down so much rain we could not see the ball (“meatball”=the visual landing aid we use to land aboard the ship) so the LSOs (Landing Signals Officers) had to talk all the aircraft down,” said Austin Hulbert, a pilot with the VFA-211 in the comment to the video.
“The control inputs are bigger than normal due to the gusts and turbulent winds. The item that flew forward was a divert card to plan for a fuel divert in case we weren’t able to get the jet aboard. Fortunately, the foot well is well-barriered and the card was easy to retrieve once I got out of the jet,” he added.
The pilot has to take care of the speed, altitude, the rate of descent along with bad weather, in this case, while using the throttle and the stick.
“The left MFD (Multi-Function Display) shows the attitude indicator and gives a clear idea of the rotation of the jet around the roll and pitch axis of the VFA-211’s “Rhino” (as the F/A-18F is dubbed in U.S. Naval Aviation lingo) as it approaches the flight deck,” noted The Aviationist.
The multirole aircraft is one of the most advanced fighters. According to Boeing, it can perform virtually every mission in the tactical spectrum including air superiority, day/night strike with precision-guided weapons, fighter escort, close air support, suppression of enemy air defence, maritime strike, reconnaissance, forward air control and buddy refuelling.
