Photo courtesy Royal Australian Air Force

Just to clarify, we’re talking planes here, not bioengineering.

Back in 2007, Australia put in an order for 24 Super Hornets from Boeing at a cost of nearly AU$3 billion. Five were delivered in March of this year, and another six F/A-18Fs have just reached Australian soil–“on time and on budget,” as Boeing is quick to announce. (The F/A-18F is the two-seater model.)

The time-lapse video below, of a Super Hornet’s construction, gives you an idea of how complicated it is to build a plane “able to perform virtually every mission in the tactical spectrum, including air superiority, day/night strike with precision-guided weapons, fighter escort, close air support, suppression of enemy air defenses, maritime strike, reconnaissance, forward air control and tanker missions.”

The Super Hornet is the Navy’s plane of choice–it’s nominally a McDonnell Douglas model, adopted by Boeing after the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger, and sold to Congress on being a low-risk “upgrade” of the Hornet platform…though it’s essentially a new plane. New or not, Boeing says every Super Hornet has been built on budget.

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