More Super Hornets for the US Navy...

via Military.com

The Navy is considering extending production of its F/A-18 Super Hornet beyond 2017 because of delays in production of the Navy’s carrier-launched F-35C and increased demands on the Hornet fleet, service leaders said.
Navy leaders had planned to halt production of the F/A-18 Super Hornet at Boeing’s St. Louis plant in 2017 as the service prepared to replace Hornets with Joint Strike Fighters.
In order to reduce operational risk, Navy aviation leaders have said the service needs two to three additional squadrons of Super Hornets as older F/A-18As, Bs, Cs and Ds reach the end of their useful service life.
“We have looked at the F-18 inventory as part of our overall inventory management. The CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) has testified that looking at our inventory from now into the mid-2020s and 2030s — we need about two to three squadrons of Super Hornets to really reduce risk going forward as we procure F-35Cs,” Rear Adm. Michael Manazir, airector of air warfare, told Military​.com in an interview.

Read it all here.

The Navy is being quite annoying in all this.  Its obvious that they're angling for more Super Hornets and all these little blurbs about how they're facing a fighter shortfall and how they need more is just unseemly.

Just set the deal in motion, handle the fallout to the F-35 program (the USMC, and foreign buyers will be annoyed but so what!) and get this going.