Boeing must decide on F/A-18 production in March 2014

Boeing must decide in March 2014 whether to invest tens of millions of dollars to continue production of the F/A-18 fighter jet underscoring his confidence that sufficient orders would emerge to keep the plane in production until beyond 2020.
The fighter is currently scheduled to end production in 2016. Boeing and its backers have launched a major campaign pressing the U.S. military to buy more Super Hornets at a cost of about $51-52 million per plane, including engines, radars and electronic warfare equipment, especially since the Navy's version of the F-35 fighter will not be ready for combat use on an aircraft carrier until 2019.
Boeing is also promoting foreign sales of the warplanes to Canada, Denmark, Brazil, Malaysia, Kuwait and several other Middle Eastern countries, but executives concede that there is no Navy budget for more planes and several of the foreign competitions have been delayed.
The Navy's current plan does not call for additional purchases of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets or the EA-18G electronic attack planes based on the same design. But his office had prepared options for additional purchases if Pentagon leaders decided to fund them.
reuters