International Hornets (Australia, Spain, Kuwait, Switzerland, Finland, Malaysia)
Land-based export Hornets — from Australian A-models to Finnish and Swiss C-models · First delivery 1984 · Last built 2000
Australia ordered 57 F/A-18As and 18 F/A-18Bs in 1981. The first two were handed over in St. Louis on 29 October 1984; most of the rest were assembled locally at Avalon, without catapult fittings and with an Instrument Landing System in place of the carrier landing system. Spain followed with 60 EF-18As and 12 EF-18Bs (designated C.15 and CE.15), delivered from November 1985, and later added 24 ex-US Navy A-models; a mid-life upgrade from 2004 brought new avionics and certification for IRIS-T and Taurus.
The C/D generation went to Kuwait (40 aircraft from 1991), Malaysia (8 two-seat F/A-18Ds in 1997), Switzerland (34 from 1996) and Finland (64 from 1995). Finland's jets are simply "F-18" — the attack "A" was dropped — and 57 of its single-seaters were assembled by Patria; a later upgrade added JDAM, JSOW and JASSM. The Swiss jets originally had no ground-attack capability at all. A Finnish F-18C delivered in August 2000 was the last new Hornet C built.
Australia retired its Hornets on 29 November 2021 after almost 408,000 flying hours, replacing them with the F-35A; 25 of its jets went to Canada. Finland and Switzerland are also moving to the F-35A.
