Hangar200 (likes to think) he real man too! He buy/fly MiG-21bis and Mi-8. He can no land MiG-21 yet. Use the People’s Glorious Ejection Seat in stead! 
Mi-8 he sometimes land. Other times he fall victim to the evil capitalist running dog invented Vortex Ring! 
Unfortunately all true. But as the say, “When first you don’t succeed, hit Esc to exit and try again.” 
This brings a question to my mind that’s probably been answered ad infinitum, but how difficult would it be to backtrack the 18C Lot 20 to a mid-80s A? Off the top of my head, I do recall that the A was extremely limited in terms of ordnance, a different map display, and a bunch of other fiddly bits regarding GPS and other avionics. Not that it’s desperately needed but we have a lot of stuff right now that would be set up well for a 1980s scenario.
Related pic:
Interesting it appears early Hornets had a Korg Kaossilator Pro built in
Honestly that’s cool pic!
Depends on your sensitivity to handwavium. There are slight differences throughout the cockpit, a few display pages are different. The engines, radar and TGP will be more capable, and obviously JHMCS wasn’t a thing.
You can’t really “fix” the radar capabilities, but if you limit the payload and make a gentleman’s pact not to use the ATFLIR’s LTD, I personally think it’s an acceptable facsimile.
Cool! They could playTetris in the cockpit! 
That is an awesome link, isn´t it?
I think our current Early Access Hornet is probably closer to the 80s than the 00s. Frankly I am quite happy about it and intend to keep using it that way. In terms of equipment for a 80s F/A-18A/C:
Ok:
AIM-9L/M
AIM-7F/M
Unguided rockets
Unguided bombs
Shrike
HARM
Walleye
Harpoon (not sure about the F/A-18A though)
Not ok:
AIM-9X
AIM-120
LGB
JSOW
JDAM
SLAM/SLAM-ER
Maverick
JHMCS
ATFLIR
Link-16
GPS
The Hornet already had the Nite Hawk FLIR in the 80s, but the pod did not get a laser designation till the mid-90s. Therefore LGBs could not be guided and as far as I know were also never carried.
RIght now our INS has no drift and basically has GPS precision. I hope that INS drift will still be modeled (and the eventual GPS can be turned off), so that there will be more about hitting a pre-planned target than simply targeting your waypoint.
That was the particular system I had been trying to remember, the AN/AAS-38. A quick review shows that the system wasn’t even widespread until the 90s. I thought that the 18A had the capability to use AGM-65 from pretty early on? Also, wasn’t the AGM-78 tested? I used to have a bunch of data on the A & B, but can’t seem to find it anywhere.
Anyways, as long as we’re wishing, I’d really like a two seater B and D.
Also, I’m sure we won’t get it, but I came across this article showing APKWS employment on the legacy Bug: http://www.janes.com/article/79453/usmc-deploys-apkws-on-f-a-18-hornet
If you browse the Coral Sea pictures, you see quite a lot of jets in 1986 loaded with AN/AAS-38. Interestingly also in combination with fighter loadouts, which makes a lot of sense considering target ID was still the biggest hurdle for using BVR missiles in the era.
As far as I know, the Navy didn´t get Mavericks until the 90s. The Marines shot the first dozen or so AGM-65E Laser-Mavs during Desert Storm and the anti-ship AGM-65F wasn´t introduced until after the war.
As for the AGM-78 I haven´t heard about it. I think the Standard ARM were getting old and suffered reliability problems by the mid-80s and were quickly replaced by the new HARM. Hornets shot Shrike and HARM against Libya in 1986.
That means in the 80s, a Bug pilot would’ve had to think in Russian for the most part!
I believe the AGM-78 was just a proposal and the Bug might’ve had the capability, but never actually used it. This all means that an 80’s era Bug driver would be mostly constrained to unguided munitions… Like real man.
My impression is as far as the Navy was concerned, Standard ARM was an Intruder only thing, and on the way out the door just as soon as HARM came online.
True enough (well…the “real Man” part is up for argument ). If you think about it, right now the DCS Hornet is more of an A than a C.
That is pretty much how I remembered it from my 1985-88 tour in VF-32 / CVW-3. By that point even the A-6E’s in our airwing were not using it, which presented a problem. We were the "All Grumman Airwing) with two A-6E squadrons (VA-75 & VMA(AW)-533) instead of one Intruder Squadron and two A-7 / FA-18A squadrons.
Just before deployment it was “discovered” that since our EA-6B squadron didn’t have what it too to shoot HARM, we had no ARM capability. A four-plane A-7 detachment was added to the airwing at the last minute since they could shoot HARM. They styled themselves as “The Grumman Protectors”.
A long way to say that by 1986 at least (when we started work-ups) we weren’t employing Standard ARM.
Wingtip LAU-7’s do not Support AIM-7 or AIM-120.
Nor does, to my knowledge, the centerline pylon 
I was too much in "what the… " mode to even notice that one.
I was feeling extra sassy at that point, I went for hyperbole over reality.
put a double launcher on the wing tip, then fold them up.
S Foils in attack position.
Duct tape. Has a light side, a dark side, and binds the world together.
Just don’t pull too many Gs.
OK, this is weird:
While trying to figure out why the BIT FCS fails after a full shutdown and then reboot (bricked in startup state), I tried turning off the left engine after deciding to shut down in the middle of a long FCS reboot; doing so resulted in the control surfaces actuating and the FCS check completing. Anyone have any ideas what’s going on here?
