Jack of Harts

Most people do not know that the genesis of the F-18 Tomcat was in the Fleet 2300 Project. While one design team worked on the Avenger, another series of teams competed to create the replacement for the Hellcat along more standard design plans. Cost overruns, delays, and the ease of simply upgrading the Hellcat frame with new technologies slowed Tomcat development to a crawl throughout the duration of the project, until it was first two and then four years overdue. The 2300s revealed a Tomcat that lacked the power to launch with a full munitions load and a targeting system that randomly rebooted. And those were only the problems that made the news. It was not fit to fight when The War came upon us.