The first developmental F/A-18 flew on November 18, 1978, the first production airplane then being delivered to the Navy in May, 1980. This carrier-based naval strike fighter is a cantilever mid-wing monoplane with folding wings, a tail unit incorporating outward canted twin fins and rudders and all-moving tailplanes, one on each side of the fuselage, movable collectively or differentially. By the middle of 1992, McDonnell Douglas had delivered more than 1,100 Hornets. The F/A18A Hornet is powered by two 16,000-lb. thrust General Electric F404-GE-400 turbofans, giving the airplane a maximum speed (high clean) Mach 1.8; combat ceiling of 50,000 ft.; and combat radius on fighter mission more than 460 miles. Airplane armament is one M61 20-mm six-barrelled cannon mounted in the nose, plus nine external hardpoints with a maximum capacity of 17,000 lbs. of mixed stores, including AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles.