Boeing Receives Contract for 1st Major Upgrades to Malaysian F/A‑18D Hornets

LANGKAWI, Malaysia, Dec. 7, 2011 – The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny [NYSE: BA] on Nov. 28 received a U.S. Navy con­tract under the For­eign Mil­i­tary Sales Pro­gram to pro­vide the first major upgrades for the Roy­al Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) fleet of eight F/A‑18D Hor­net fight­er air­craft.
The con­tract cov­ers design, devel­op­ment and instal­la­tion of retro­fit kits that will pro­vide enhanced nav­i­ga­tion, tar­get­ing and sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness. The upgrade pro­gram includes: 

“These upgrades will deliv­er enhanced capa­bil­i­ty for the RMAF fleet to remain effec­tive, inter­op­er­a­ble with allies and oper­a­tional­ly rel­e­vant for years to come,” said Julie Praiss, Boe­ing Glob­al Ser­vices & Sup­port direc­tor of Tac­ti­cal Air­craft & Weapons Sup­port. “Boe­ing looks for­ward to our con­tin­ued part­ner­ship with the Roy­al Malaysian Air Force and the U.S. Navy to ensure that these F/A‑18Ds con­tin­ue to serve Malaysia’s strike and inter­dic­tion mis­sion needs.”
The upgrades also make the RMAF’s F/A‑18Ds more com­pat­i­ble with the F/A‑18E/F Super Hor­net, which Boe­ing is offer­ing to meet Malaysia’s Mul­ti-Role Com­bat Air­craft needs.
The gov­ern­ment of Malaysia ordered eight F/A‑18D Hor­nets in 1993. Since deliv­er­ing all air­craft on sched­ule in 1997, Boe­ing has been pro­vid­ing sus­tain­ment sup­port for the fleet at the RMAF base in But­ter­worth, Malaysia. These sup­port pro­grams include engi­neer­ing and logis­tics sup­port, pilot train­ing and tech­ni­cal pub­li­ca­tions.
Boe­ing pro­vides life-cycle sup­port solu­tions, ser­vices and upgrades for F/A‑18 Hor­net fleets world­wide, includ­ing for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, the Roy­al Aus­tralian Air Force, the Roy­al Cana­di­an Air Force, the Finnish Air Force, the Kuwait Air Force, the Span­ish Air Force, the Swiss Air Force and the RMAF.
The com­bat-proven F/A‑18 Hor­net is a twin-engine, mul­ti-mis­sion, tac­ti­cal air­craft. It con­verts between air-to-air fight­er mis­sions and air-to-ground strike mis­sions while on the same sor­tie with the flick of a switch. Cur­rent­ly serv­ing the armed ser­vices of eight nations, the Hor­net can be used for fight­er escort, sup­pres­sion of ene­my air defens­es, recon­nais­sance, for­ward air con­trol, close air sup­port, and day and night strike mis­sions.
A unit of The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny, Boe­ing Defense, Space & Secu­ri­ty is one of the world’s largest defense, space and secu­ri­ty busi­ness­es spe­cial­iz­ing in inno­v­a­tive and capa­bil­i­ties-dri­ven cus­tomer solu­tions, and the world’s largest and most ver­sa­tile man­u­fac­tur­er of mil­i­tary air­craft. Head­quar­tered in St. Louis, Boe­ing Defense, Space & Secu­ri­ty is a $32 bil­lion busi­ness with 63,000 employ­ees world­wide. Fol­low us on Twit­ter: @BoeingDefense.

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Con­tact:
Amy Hor­ton
Boe­ing Defense, Space & Secu­ri­ty
Office: +1 314–233-4368
Mobile: +1 314–705-0283
amy.e.horton@boeing.com