n their joint arrangement, McDonnell-Douglas
McDonnell-Douglas handled and sold the US
Navy and US Marines carrier based variants and Northrop continued developing an even lighter and higher performance land-based variant intended for international sales.
Northrop, unfortunately, was never successful in marketing a land-based variant while
McDonnell Douglas not only was successful in winning the Naval competition, but ironically went on to sell its version to several foreign air forces. Designers had a formidable task to convert the land-based YF-17 lightweight day fighter into an all-weather fighter-attack aircraft capable of carrier operations with heavy ordnance loads.
This meant the two manufacturers had to make several significant improvements on the YF-17 design to meet basic Navy requirements, which included improving the combat radius and adding a radar capability.
Furthermore, structural strengthening and a new landing gear design were required for catapult launches and arrested landings. The aircraft gross weight rapidly grew from 23,000 pounds for the YF-17 to an anticipated weight over 33,000 pounds.
Although the designers kept the general configuration of the YF-17, the F-18 became a completely new aircraft in the updated redesign and was given the new F-18A designation. tubes for cockpit displays and appropriate controls based on thorough pilot evaluations in simulators, a single aircraft and subsystems configuration for both missions was evolved First Flight Of The F/A-18A & B Hornet
T
he first flight of the F/A-18 Hornet occurred on November 18, 1978 and carrier trials onboard the USS America began on October 30,
1979.
Both the F/A-18A and B variants underwent most of their development testing at the Naval
Air Test Center at the Patuxent River Naval Air
Station in Maryland.
Under the new single-site testing idea, the preproduction flight-test program occurred from January 1979 to October 1982.