The Australian Financial Review writes that it received exclusive access to a report on the state of the inventory of 41 F/A-18 Hornet aircraft, which were decommissioned from the Royal Australian Air Force and may now potentially be transferred to Ukraine. Ukraine submitted a request for such an inventory to Australia in mid-June this year.
It turned out that out of 41 aircraft, only 14 units (11 single-seater and 3 two-seater) are currently suitable for possible transfer to Ukraine due to "satisfactory" technical condition as it was recognized.
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If detailed by indicators, each of the 14 aircraft currently has a declared resource of at least 3,000 flight hours (however, without detailing whether this applies only to the airframe or to all onboard systems of the aircraft in general).
Further, the authors of this text claim that periodic inspection of the aircraft as they approach their end-of-life could potentially provide up to 8,400 additional flight hours for all 14 aircraft. In this way, the total service life of fighters that can potentially be transferred to Ukraine can be up to 2 calendar years.
Indeed, the option "to write off the planes or give them to the Armed Forces of Ukraine so that they can fight for another 2 years" looks attractive. But then the question arises, whose resources can be used to support the technical condition of potential "Australian" F/A-18 Hornets in the Air Force of Ukraine.
The Australians themselves complain that their stock of aircraft components is exhausted, because they wrote off their F/A-18 Hornets as early as 2021 changing them to F-35. Accordingly, the necessary components will have to be requested from the countrie developing the F/A-18 Hornet.
All in all, the history of the F/A-18 Hornet aircraft from the US requires not only an agreement in principle to transfer these fighters from Australia to Ukraine, but also direct technical assistance to maintain the technical condition and combat capability of these aircraft.
Read more: There Is Slight Hope That Ukraine May Get Australian F/A-18 Hornet Fighter Jets
