On September 25, 2020, the first Boeing F / A 18E Block III multi-role aircraft flew to St. Louis Lambert Airport, Missouri, home to the production facilities Super Hornet W / N 803 (BuNo 19708) with the livery of the Kuwait Air Force. The aircraft is the first of an order worth 1.17 billion dollars, consisting of 22 single-seater and 6 two-seater F / A 18F and option for 12 additional units, approved by the US State Department in November 2016 and signed on March 30, 2018.
I Super Hornet in the ranks of the KAF will replace the 34 F / A 18C / D at the 9th, 25th and 61th Squadron at Ahmad al-Jaber airbase, i Legacy Hornets they had been delivered in 1991 immediately after the liberation of the country at the end of the Gulf War. Furthermore, the F / A 18E / F will join the 28 Typhoon Tranche 3A ordered by Kuwait in April 2016, with Leonardo as Prime Contractor Organization, the first examples of European aircraft will arrive at the Ali al-Salem air base by the end of this year, forming two new flight departments . On 20 January 5 Kuwaiti pilots started an annual operational conversion course at the 20th Group of the Italian Air Force.
The Kuwait Air Force, like the air forces of the other Gulf Monarchies, is investing heavily in its growth by equipping itself with modern specimens capable of fulfilling all the roles assigned to it. In the previous decade, Lockheed Martin KC 130J, Boeing C 17 Globemaster III, Eurocopter EC 725 Caracal and Boeing AH 64D Apache Longbow helicopters, Patriot PAC 3 air defense missiles entered service. The US government approved the sale of four ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconaissance) platforms on the Beechcraft King Air 21ER without any signing of the contract. Finally, the remaining 2018 BAE Hawk Mk.350 trainers are on the ground even if for many years the pilots of the Gulf nation have been attending the courses of the International Flight Training School of the 6 ° Stormo di Lecce-Galatina on Leonardo M 64 Master.
Photo: Boeing
