They also rewrote a raft of other single - season top -
flight records, among them the longest winning
sequence in a season (14), the best start (eight wins), the most away wins (14 by
early May), the longest spell without conceding a goal at the start of a season (495 minutes) and the biggest goal - difference (+76, with three games to go), not to mention the most points and the most wins.
In one of the innovative tests, the F / A -18 flew a
sequence of test points that maximized the bending excitation of the actual airplane based on data collected from
earlier flights and prior structural tests.