Australian Air Power : F18 Hornet

Australian 75 Squadron F/A-18 Hornet over Lake Argyle, Western Australia
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Australian 75 Squadron F/A-18 Hornet over a Northern Territory landscape.
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• The Royal Australian Air Force purchased 57 F/A-18A fighters and 18 F/A-18B two-seat trainers.
• The first F/A-18 was delivered to the RAAF on 29 October 1984. The fleet is expected to be retired by 2015, replaced by the F-35 Lightning II. Three options were considered for the replacement of the RAAF's Mirage IIIs, options were the F-15A Eagle, F-16 Falcon, and the then new F/A-18 Hornet.
  
• The F-15 was discounted because the version offered did not have a ground-attack capability. The F-16 was deemed unsuitable largely on the basis of its having only one engine. Consequently, Australia signed a contract in October 1981.
  
• The first two aircraft were produced in the US, with the remainder being assembled in Australia at Government Aircraft Factories.
  
• Deliveries took place between February 1985 and May 1990. Original differences between the Australian and US Navy's standard F/A-18 were the removal of nose wheel tie bar for catapult launch (later re-fitted with a dummy version to remove nose wheel shimmy), addition of a high frequency radio, an Australian fatigue data analysis system, an improved video and voice recorder, and the use of ILS/VOR (Instrument Landing System/Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range) instead of the carrier landing system. In 2001, Australia deployed four aircraft to Diego Garcia, in an air defense role, during coalition operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
  
• In 2003, 75 Squadron deployed 14 F/A-18s to Qatar as part of Operation Falconer and these aircraft saw action during the invasion of Iraq.
• A total of 71 Hornets were in Australian service as of 2006, with 4 lost to crashes.

These awesome photos are by the Australian DOD