It's a shame the Navy only has one squadron of these still flying.
They're really expensive, and getting old, but they are still the best
naval air combat platform... by far.


Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
F/A 18 E is the next best replacement and from what I hear, it's
everything the Tomcat was, even if it's a little smaller.

Who have you been listening to? Not anybody that's flown both planes, or
even watched both... in fact, you kinda get an idea which way the game
is slanted just from casting an eye over the specs.

The F/A-18 is smaller, cheaper, slower, less powerful, can't support an
equally capable sensor suite (although they do have some pretty cool
underwing pods), nor carry the same weapons, nor a similar ammo load.
They *are* better at ground attack, and for air support roles, but not
by a heck of a lot.

However, the Hornet is definitely cheaper & newer. Far less maintenance
intensive to keep in service, too.

Another issue (and by a strange quirk of synchronicity, I was in a
discussion about this very thing this morning) is whether we need the
Tomcat, since we are no longer worried about carrier battle groups being
swamped by hordes of Russian ground-based naval attack planes. But with
a military that gave up the A-10 Warthog, I am very dubious about the
wisdom of simply dropping from service the best, bar none, naval air
combat plane ever developed.

DSK