F-35 vs F-18: Which Fighter Wins, and Which One Costs More to Fly

First, which F-18 do you mean?

Almost every argument about the F-35 and the F-18 falls apart on this question. “F-18” covers two aircraft that share a name, a mission and almost nothing else.

The legacy F/A-18 Hornet is the original. The Navy first deployed it in November 1978 and declared the A and B models operational in October 1983, with the C and D following in September 1987.

The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is a different, larger aircraft that first flew in November 1995 and reached initial operational capability in September 2001. It carries a maximum takeoff weight of 66,000 pounds (29,900 kg) against the Hornet’s 51,900 pounds (23,500 kg), on more thrust from a different engine family.

That difference decides the comparison. The database panel above this article covers the legacy Hornet, the jet that is nearly finished in American service. The jet people actually mean when they argue about the F-35 is the Super Hornet.

And which F-35?

The F-35 comes in three versions that are not interchangeable. The F-35A is the conventional runway version flown by the Air Force and most export customers.

The F-35B is the short takeoff and vertical landing version for the Marine Corps and for small-deck ships. It is the only one that can land vertically, which is the source of a common error about the family.

The F-35C is the carrier version, and it is the one that belongs in any serious comparison with the F-18. It has a bigger wing, folding wingtips, stronger landing gear and a tailhook built for arrested landings.

F-18 vs F-35 speed: the Hornet family is faster

This one surprises people who assume the newer jet must be quicker. It is not.

The US Navy lists the Super Hornet at Mach 1.8 or better and the legacy Hornet at Mach 1.7 or better. The F-35C is published at Mach 1.6.

The gap is real but it is also close to meaningless in combat. Top speed is a clean-configuration number measured at altitude, and a strike fighter carrying weapons and fuel tanks will not see anything near it.

What matters more is how far the jet reaches. The F-35C is published with a combat radius on internal fuel of more than 600 nautical miles, and a range on internal fuel of more than 1,200 nautical miles, carrying 19,200 pounds (8,700 kg) of fuel inside the airframe.

Be careful comparing that to the Hornet numbers, because they are not the same measure. The Navy’s figure of 1,275 nautical miles for the Super Hornet is a combat range, clean plus two AIM-9s, not a radius, and a radius is roughly the distance out and back.

Read on the same basis, the F-35C goes noticeably further on its own fuel than a Super Hornet does, which is why the Navy values it for reaching targets without leaning on tankers. For an airframe-by-airframe look at outright speed, see our ranking of the fastest fighter jets ever built.

F-18 vs F-35 size: the Hornets are longer, the F-35 is heavier

The Super Hornet is the biggest of the three at 60.3 feet (18.4 m) long with a 44.9-foot (13.7 m) wingspan. The legacy Hornet is 56 feet (17.1 m) long with a 40-foot 5-inch (12.3 m) span.

The F-35C is the shortest at 51.5 feet (15.7 m), but its wing is wide for the length at 43 feet (13.1 m), and it folds so the jet fits a carrier deck. That wing is what separates the C from the land-based A.

Length is a poor guide to capability here. The F-35 packs a single large engine, internal weapons bays and a great deal of fuel into a shorter airframe, which is why it is dense rather than long.

The number almost everyone gets backwards: cost per flight hour

The standard line is that the F-18 is the cheap jet and the F-35 is the expensive one. On the Pentagon’s own published billing rates, that is no longer true.

Every year the DoD Comptroller publishes reimbursable rates: what one part of the Department bills another for an hour of a given aircraft. The FY2026 table puts the Navy’s F-35C below every Hornet variant on the list.

Two honest caveats come with those numbers. A reimbursable rate is a billing rate, not the full cost of owning and sustaining a fleet, so it is not the same measure as a program-level cost per flight hour.

The same table also produces odd results for small fleets, where a handful of aircraft carry a large fixed cost. The two-seat F/A-18D at $48,137 is the clearest example, and the F-35C and Super Hornet lines are more meaningful precisely because both fleets are large.

Stealth against payload: the tradeoff that decides missions

The F-35’s advantage is not speed or agility. It is being harder to see, and seeing more.

Its shaping, coatings and internal weapons bays are designed so an opposing radar gets a usable return much later than it would against a Hornet. The AN/APG-81 radar, the electro-optical targeting system and the distributed aperture system then feed one fused picture rather than several separate displays.

The Super Hornet’s advantage is what it can carry and how often. Up to 11 external stations let it haul a heavy and varied load, which makes it the aircraft of choice when nobody is shooting back and the job is to deliver weapons.

The F-35C can also carry weapons externally when stealth is not needed, with a published weapons payload of 18,000 pounds (8,200 kg). Doing so gives up the low-observable advantage, which is exactly the point: the jet is configured for the threat, not for a brochure.

F-35 vs F-18 dogfight: the wrong question, asked honestly

The dogfight question dominates forums and it is worth answering plainly rather than dodging.

The F-35C is rated to 7.5 g and it is not built to out-turn a dedicated air superiority fighter. On raw agility numbers it is in the same class as the Super Hornet rather than a clear step above it.

But the F-35 is not designed to arrive in a turning fight. It is designed to detect, identify and shoot first, from a range at which the other aircraft still has no firing solution.

Put a Super Hornet and an F-35C in a merged, guns-only, both-aircraft-aware setup and you have built the one scenario the F-35 exists to avoid. The answer to “can the F-18 beat the F-35 in a dogfight” is that a dogfight already means something went wrong for the stealth jet.

Who flies what in September 2026

The legacy Hornet is almost gone from American service. The Marine Corps, its last US operator, will complete the switch to the F-35 by 2030.

The published schedule retires the type at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort by August 1, 2028, at Miramar by August 1, 2029, and at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth by August 1, 2030. Marine Hornet pilot training already ended in 2018.

The Super Hornet is a different story. It remains the numerical backbone of the carrier air wing, and a typical deployed wing in 2026 mixes Super Hornet squadrons with one or two F-35C squadrons rather than choosing between them.

Abroad, the legacy Hornet still flies with operators including Canada, Finland, Kuwait, Spain and Switzerland. Several of those air forces have already picked their replacement, and they picked the same aircraft.

Switzerland selected the F-35A to replace its Hornet fleet and is buying 36 of them. Finland followed in December 2021, choosing 64 F-35As over the Super Hornet, the Rafale, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Gripen, with deliveries running from 2026 to 2030.

That is the clearest verdict on offer. Given a free choice, a real budget and the Super Hornet on the table as an option, governments replacing Hornets have been picking F-35s.

Is the F-35 replacing the F-18?

For the legacy Hornet, yes, and the date is set. For the Super Hornet, no, and the Navy has spent real money making that clear.

New-build Super Hornet production does end. Northrop Grumman delivered its final lot of structural components on January 27, 2026, and Boeing expects to hand over the last new aircraft by 2027 under a final Navy order for 17 jets.

Ending production is not the same as ending service. Under the Service Life Modification program the Navy is extending Super Hornet airframes from 6,000 to 10,000 flight hours, with a contract awarded in December 2025 covering up to 60 aircraft and work running to November 2028.

The reason is the gap. The Super Hornet’s eventual replacement is the F/A-XX, the Navy’s sixth-generation carrier fighter, and as of September 2026 the contract has still not been awarded, with Boeing and Northrop Grumman the remaining competitors after Lockheed Martin was eliminated in 2025.

Until that aircraft exists, the Super Hornet has to keep flying, which is why the Navy is rebuilding rather than retiring it. Our guide to sixth-generation fighter jets covers where that program sits.

The verdict

Against the legacy F/A-18 Hornet, the F-35 wins on every measure that decides a modern fight, and the world’s air forces have voted with their budgets. The Hornet’s remaining advantage is that it is paid for.

Against the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, there is no single winner, and the US Navy’s own behavior is the evidence. It is buying F-35Cs and rebuilding Super Hornets at the same time.

Pick the F-35C when the airspace is defended, when reach on internal fuel matters, and when the jet needs to survive being seen. Pick the Super Hornet when the job is carrying a lot of weapons a moderate distance, repeatedly, to a place nobody is defending.

The Navy’s answer, in other words, is both. If you want the wider field, see our rankings of the best carrier-based fighter jets and the best fighter jets in the world.