U.S. Navy pays Boeing to plan Super Hornet line shutdown

The U.S. Navy has paid Boeing $16.7 million to plan the shutdown of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler production lines, including a full inventory of the government-owned tools and equipment used to build the jets.

The firm-fixed-price order, placed by Naval Air Systems Command against an existing Boeing ordering agreement, covers planning, analysis, engineering and program management for closing the lines. Boeing will catalog and assess the tooling and production equipment, recommend what should be kept, stored or disposed of, and deliver a master property inventory and disposition plan. The work runs until November 2030.

The U.S. Navy announced the order on Sept. 29, the same day it picked Boeing to develop the F/A-XX, the sixth-generation carrier fighter meant to eventually replace both the Super Hornet and the Growler. The shutdown order was not competed and is funded entirely with fiscal 2024 Navy aircraft procurement money.

About 60% of the work will take place in St. Louis, where Boeing assembles the Super Hornet. Another 37% is set for El Segundo, California, where Northrop Grumman has long built the center and aft fuselage sections for the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G, and 3% for Bethpage, New York, where Northrop Grumman integrated the Growler’s electronic attack systems.

New Super Hornet production is already close to its end. The U.S. Navy placed its last order, for 17 Block III jets, in 2024 after Congress funded the aircraft, pushing the planned closure of the St. Louis line from 2025 to 2027. Final deliveries are expected by spring 2027.

Northrop Grumman finished the last fuselage sections and vertical tails for those jets last year, and Boeing confirmed it no longer builds the Growler, The War Zone reported in January. Growler production ended after the U.S. Navy and Australian orders were completed in the late 2010s, with the U.S. Navy buying 160 of the electronic warfare jets.

Both aircraft will stay in service for years after the lines close. Boeing’s Service Life Modification program, which adds Block III upgrades and 4,000 flight hours to older Super Hornets, is projected to continue into the mid-2030s, though Boeing is moving that work out of St. Louis to San Antonio and Fleet Readiness Center Southwest by 2027. The U.S. Navy plans to keep the Growler flying until 2046.

The F/A-XX will not arrive quickly enough to replace either jet soon. The Pentagon said the new fighter will begin to augment and eventually replace Super Hornets and Growlers in the 2030s.

The contract notice does not say how much tooling the U.S. Navy owns across the three sites, or whether any of it will be kept to produce spare parts for the fleet after the last new jet is delivered.