Boeing pushing to keep F/A-18 in production.

• Author: Insinna, Valerie

* Boeing's F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets have been the dominant fighter jet on aircraft carriers for more than 30 years, hut the landscape will change in the next decade as Lockheed Martin's F-35 begins to push out the legacy aircraft.

The Navy's procurement of the Super Hornet has slowed, with no new purchases of the aircraft in the works. Procurement of the E/A-18 Growler--the electronic warfare variant of the F/A-18--ends in fiscal year 2014, and Boeing could make its final deliveries of Super Hornets and Growlers as early as 2016.

Nonetheless, Boeing officials are optimistic that more sales are on the horizon. The company expects to sell anywhere from 50 to 200 Super Hornets and Growlers to the Navy, and up to 200 foreign purchases could be in the cards, program manager Mike Gibbons told National Defense.

"When you look at the combination of the development risk on F-35 and the affordability advantage that we've got ... the options the Navy has makes Boeing believe that the Navy will opt to buy more Super Hornets," he said.

Further delays of the F-35 would give Boeing a better chance to sell additional Super Hornets, but analysts said that the company's projections are overly confident given the grim fiscal environment.

"It does look like Lockheed Martin has come a long way in the past couple of years in straightening out the F-35's difficulties. Having said that, it would not be a big surprise if we saw some minor delays further along the line," said Ray Jaworowski, senior aerospace analyst at Forecast International. "I don't expect to see a show-stopper by any means. The F-35 program right now ... is too big to tail. They're going to make it work."

A December 2012 analysis by the Teal Group forecasts that Boeing will be able to sell an additional 24 aircraft in the domestic and international markets--most likely to the Navy or Australia. "That's probably conservative," the report stated.

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Richard Ahoulafia, the report's author and vice president of analysis at the Teal Group, said a more optimistic estimate is that Boeing could sell at least 100 more aircraft. He believes it's possible for Boeing to win at least two foreign competitions and to sell anywhere from 50 to 100 planes to the Navy.

"I can't see anything that adds up to a slam dunk," he said. "Do they deserve it? Yes. Is it a good product? Yes. Is it needed here at home? Absolutely. But it's just a difficult environment."

Boeing has good reason to...