With our latest gallery, we would like to honor the men and women of the United States Marine Corps‘ tactical aviation community who have played any role in flying, maintaining, or supporting the F/A-18 Hornet.
The USMC Hornet fleet is a great example of the “Do more with less” mentality that we are used to attributing to the Marine Corps as a whole.
The first Hornets were delivered to VMFA-314 at MCAS El Toro in January of 1983 (two months prior to the Navy’s first delivery) and saw their first action just a few short years afterward. In April of 1986, F/A-18A’s from VMFA-314 and VMFA-323, flying off the USS Coral Sea, participated in Operations Prairie Fire and El Dorado Canyon. Since cutting its teeth in 1986, Marine Corps Hornets have played a vital role in every conflict since.
They’re definitely not the newest airframes in the inventory, nor are they by any means “low time.” They keep those birds flying, though, and we’re thankful to capture them.
