F/A 18A-D Upgrade Costs
With the delay in the F35C's appearance in the fleet, the decision to SLEP and upgrade a large part of the electronics in the legacy Hornets cannot be a cheap option, particularly if it is only giving a life increase of some 2,000 hours.
Soon I would have thought that the costs would be getting somewhere near the costs of a new Rhino, particularly when you look at the logistical and other support benefits of only having one major airframe on a carrier and a Naval Air Station.
I suppose the USMC would not want to transition from Hornet to Rhino then to F35C.