Word: hornets
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...according to Navy Secretary John Lehman, "the most capable air-to-air maneuvering aircraft in the world." But last week the Navy announced that its new F/A-18 Hornet fighter-bombers had a design flaw that produces cracks in the twin tail assembly. The planes will be grounded for three or four days while the tail assembly is modified. At least ten Hornets have developed the cracks and will be out of service for a longer period...
...Time: 1939. Place: England. Situation: ominous. Their country is rushing toward World War II, but the lads of Hornet squadron, in this vivid, bittersweet epic of the R.A.F., believe that the coming Battle of Britain will be a piece of cake...
R.A.F. Veteran Derek Robinson, however, provides no propaganda romance. Within a year, the flyers' innocence has crashed in flames. By September 1940, most of Hornet squadron are dead, burned out or mad. Christopher Hart III, an egalitarian American volunteer, tells them, "Up there the world is divided into bastards and suckers. Make your choice." They do, and turn from chivalrous adolescents into cynical hawks. After flying hundreds of missions in a month, a dazed pilot hears of Churchill's famous R.A.F. speech: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many...
...F/A-18. Though it can do double duty as a fighter, the main role of the Navy's F/A-18 Hornet is to replace the A-7 Corsair II in flying from carriers to bomb and strafe targets onshore. The Navy wants to order 1,366 of the new aircraft at a total cost of $41 billion, or $30 million each, triple the $9.9 million cost originally expected and also triple the cost of the latest version...
Alas, the flashy Hornet burned fuel so fast in test flights that its combat radius is now calculated at only 390 miles, about half the range of the A7. Either the Hornet would have to be refueled in flight or its carrier would have to sail closer to hostile shores than might be desirable. Test pilots have described the F/A-18's elaborate air-to-ground radar as "grossly inaccurate." Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Thayer flew one himself to check out reports of serious problems; when he landed, the nose wheel failed to come down...