F-35 Delays Means Other Fighter Jets Are Purchased

PACIFIC OCEAN (Nov. 5, 2007) - An F/A-18C Hornet, attached to the "Vigilantes" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 151, launches off the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). Lincoln and embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2 are underway off the coast of Southern California participating in Composite Training Unit Exercise (COMTUEX). U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jordon R. Beesley

Aging Fighter Jet Gets New Lease On Life -- L.A. Times

The F/A-18, a fixture on U.S. carriers for decades, benefits from delays on its replacement, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Pentagon keeps ordering more F/A-18s, which is good news to workers at Northrop and hundreds of other California firms.

The ear-piercing machine-gun-like blasts of an air hammer are a welcome sound to workers on the Northrop Grumman Corp. assembly line in El Segundo.

It means they're busy churning out fuselage sections for the supersonic F/A-18 fighter jet, a fixture on U.S. Navy aircraft carriers since 1983 and still in demand worldwide.

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My Comment: Now .... if we could only get the F-22 back.