Boeing has launched F/A-18E/F Super Hornet Service-Life Modification (SLM) process with the first US Navy aircraft arrived at the company’s St Louis production facility.

The SLM contract includes aircraft inspections and physical verification of fleet usage, warranty and non-warranty modifications, repairs incident to modification, recurring and non-recurring engineering efforts, logistics, project management, parts, kits and associated materials and data. The aircraft already delivered will be retrofitted to the SLM and Block 3 standard and new aircraft rolling off the line from 2022 will be built to this standard.

The Block 3 will include upgrades to the Raytheon AN/APG-79 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, an Elbit Systems large area display (LAD) ‘glass’ cockpit and next-generation avionics, an infrared search and track (IRST), conformal fuel tanks (CFTs), Integrated Defensive Electronic Counter Measures (IDECM; and new General Electric F-414-400 enhanced engines.