laststandonzombieisland

Look who just popped up at AMARC at Davis–Monthan in Tucson: “Nutz”, an aggressor-livery F-18E series aircraft, late of the “Fighting Omars” of VFC-12 out of NAS Oceania.

Yup, the series is getting that old.

Boeing F/A-18E-54-MC Lot 23 Super Hornet (MSN 1530/E026) BuNo 165783 was part of the Low-Rate Initial Production 3 (LRIP 3) Rhinos, funded under the U.S. Navy’s fiscal year 1998 defense budget, and produced circa 2000-01.

So she is 25-26 years young and is probably high hours, being formerly of the “Eagles” of VFA-115, where she was Modex NK-202 then NF-302.

The Eagles logged the first fleet Super Hornet combat deployment, flying 214 combat missions in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Southern Watch in 2002 from Abraham Lincoln, dropping 370,000 pounds of ordnance over Iraq. They then returned to OIF support in 2006 aboard Reagan, and 783 was surely there.

VFA-115 turned in their Rhinos in 2024 when they went to an F-35C outfit, which is likely when the Omars acquired 783, transforming her into Nutz, running the reduced “Mako scheme” to be a smaller Su-57 Felon.

Hopefully, Pima manages to pick her up for display eventually, complete with her aggressor scheme.