read some new stuff on the Marine and Navy F-35's thought I would share it with you guys.
U.S. Navy Planning First F-35C Carrier Deployment In 2021
LONDON--The U.S. Navy is planning its first carrier deployment with the F-35C in 2021 as it takes a slower paced approach to bringing the low-observable aircraft into the fleet.
Aircraft from VFA-147 "Argonauts" should embark on the USS Carl Vinson in 2021, Capt. Richard "Snap' Brophy, the head of carrier strike aircraft and programs at the U.S. Navy, told delegates at the International Fighter Conference here Nov. 15.
The Argonauts were announced in September as the first front-line Navy squadron to transition to the F-35 in 2018, the type replacing their F/A-18E Super Hornets.
A U.S. Marine Corps squadron, VMFA-314, will be the second F-35C unit to transition during 2019, Brophy added.
The Navy currently has one unit equipped with the F-35, VFA-101 "Grim Reapers," a fleet replenishment squadron (FRS) and training unit currently subordinated to the U.S. Air Force's 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida. However, a second FRS will stand-up NAS Lemoore, California, in January 2017. Brophy said the FRS units would help to generate a "seedcorn" of crews for the fleet.
Although the aircraft has already been to sea three times, an additional round of operational testing on the ships will take place in the spring of 2018. The Navy is due to declare initial operational capability (IOC) with the aircraft from August of that year with the Block 3i software release.
The Navy's IOC is defined as an operational squadron equipped with 10 aircraft, with Navy personnel trained, manned and equipped to conduct assigned missions."
"The F-35 is not a replacement for the F/A-18 Super Hornet on the carrier, but a complement to the Rhino [Super Hornet], to take advantage of the capacity the F/A-18 brings with 11 hardpoints [along with] the capability of the F-35C brings," Brophy said.
The Navy is currently planning to deploy two squadrons of F-35Cs with each carrier air wing, alongside two squadrons of Super Hornets and a single squadron of EA-18G Growlers.
The Navy has already begun studying how the aircraft will operate alongside other air wing types, with some of this work taking place at the Naval Air Warfare Development Center at NAS Fallon, Nevada, where six F-35Cs will be based from 2023.
"We have already integrated the F-35 academics into our Top Gun syllabus and the first pilots will attend in the early 2020s," Brophy said.
The aircraft's exploitation will depend on "the spectrum of warfare we are in" and "the number of aircraft that you need to bring in order to win in that event," Brophy told delegates.
How The F-35 Is Transforming U.S. Marine Corps Strike Ops
ABOARD THE USS AMERICA--With an eye toward the Asia-Pacific region, operators are finding that Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II is fundamentally changing the way the U.S. Marine Corps thinks about operating from amphibious assault ships.
As Marine Corps Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121 prepares to fly to Iwakuni, Japan, in less than a month, marking the Joint Strike Fighter's first-ever overseas operational deployment, sailors and Marines onboard the USS America are putting the F-35B through its paces. The decks are loaded with 12 F-35Bs--the most ever put aboard a ship. Other aircraft include two MV-22B Ospreys, one UH-1Y Venom and one AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter. A three-day demonstration held Nov. 18-20 was designed to help operators understand how the F-35 fits into the traditional U.S. Navy-Marine Corps construct.
The exercise reflects the emergence of a potential shift in the Marine Corps' operating concept. Marines traditionally focus on amphibious operations, attacking the enemy at its teeth. But what if they could penetrate the enemy's defenses, deliver force to an undefended area, and attack outward instead? The F-35B, combined with the Osprey, could be key to that construct.
As the U.S. military confronts ever-more sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons and surface-to-air missiles from potential adversaries like China, Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, the Marine Corps' deputy commandant for aviation, stresses that the F-35B is "tailor-made" for the Asia-Pacific region.
"It's got an incredible capability. It's got obviously great sensors, great radar, great weapons capability, great agility, great flexibility," Davis said Nov. 19 aboard the America. "It is, I think, tailor-made for a dynamic region like the Asia-Pacific."
The Marines are looking to the F-35B to significantly enhance the reach and punch of Marine Corps strike operations in contested environments, says Col. George Rowell, commander of Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron One (VMX-1). Rowell believes the ship, which is specifically designed to optimize aviation operations, can easily accommodate 20 F-35s and maybe as many as 22 with a little more effort.
The aim of the "Lightning Carrier Proof of Concept Demo" was to prove out the concept of a "Lightning carrier"--a large-deck amphibious assault ship loaded with F-35Bs and MV-22s that allows commanders to strike flexibly and unpredictably from the sea.
"The goal of this is a proof of concepts for the [Marine Air-Ground Task Force (Magtf)] tailored toward a more robust fixed-wing capability," Rowell says. "Lightning carriers provide the Magtf with an increased aviation combat power across more mission areas than we currently have."
Simulated Strike
On Nov. 20, operators on the America launched six F-35Bs for a simulated strike mission into a contested environment. Four of the fighters engaged a notional integrated air defense system (IADS) threat on the shore, while the other two provided armed escort for the V-22s as they delivered their notional load of Marines. Operators launched all the aircraft on time, hit all the mission objectives and successfully recovered all the aircraft aboard the ship.
Marines are finding that the F-35B is a particularly good complement to the Osprey, using its advanced sensors and strike capabilities to clear a target area before the V-22 arrives. It's a symbiotic relationship; unrefueled, the F-35B-V-22 package has a range of 450 nm. But with the V-22 Aerial Refueling System, which will be ready by 2018, the Osprey will be able to refuel the F-35--along with other Marine Corps aircraft like the AV-8B Harrier and CH-53E/K heavy-lift helicopter--in flight, further extending the reach of the strike package.
Combined with the V-22 and H-1s, the F-35B provides an unprecedented fifth-generation capability to deliver Marines or Special Operations Forces to the target in a high-threat battlespace, Davis says.
"The F-35 weaves a lot of things together that we haven't had in a long time: electronic warfare for our Marine Expeditionary Units--we've never before had this kind of capability--a very, very high-end air defense capability, and an all-weather, ground-attack, close-air support system that allows us to provide close-air support fires in virtually any environment out there," Davis says. "We think we've got a real winner out there in that combination of platforms."
During the third and final phase of F-35B developmental testing on the America, which immediately preceded the proof-of-concept demo, operators also began fleshing out another potentially game-changing capability: integration with the Aegis combat system aboard U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers. Marines and sailors on the America earlier this month were able to establish data links with the Aegis-enabled cruisers in the area, a capability that will allow the F-35B to provide targeting data to anti-air and ballistic missile-defense weapons onboard the ship, such as the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6).
"Aegis cruisers bring weapons payload that you just couldn't fit on an airplane," Rowell says. "You're talking dozens and dozens of SM-6s that can be targeted by airborne platforms at much longer distances than they could independently target."
The exercise was a follow-on to a September demonstration at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, where an SM-6 linked with an F-35B successfully destroyed a medium-range, medium-altitude subsonic target. Using targeting data from the stealth fighter, the USS Desert Ship, a land-based Navy test facility equipped with the latest baseline Aegis, fired an SM-6 that intercepted the over-the-horizon target.
The mission was the latest in a test series for Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA), a concept designed to link Navy ships and aircraft into a single, integrated sensor network.
During the White Sands exercise, the F-35 used a gateway that allowed it to talk electronically to the Aegis combat system over the aircraft's stealthy communications system, the low probability of intercept/low probability of detection Multifunction Advanced Data Link, says Lt. Col. Richard Rusnok, the slated commanding officer for the Japan-bound VMFA-121.
"Sometimes we may not be in the best position or be the best shooter out there, but the fact that we can work synergistically with them to figure out that complete picture and pump that off board information to other platforms that may or may not have the same capabilities--that makes us all that much more effective," Rusnok says.
In this way, the F-35B is the key to multi-domain warfare in an anti-access, aerial-denial environment, enabling flexible, distributed operations from whatever operating base is most advantageous--land or sea, according to Davis. Although the Pentagon currently has no plans to send the F-35 to the Middle East, if Central Command asked the Marines to deploy the fighter to the area, "I'd do it tomorrow," he says without hesitation.
"Just as the V-22 was a disruptive technology they brought in that changed a lot of our assumptions about how we are going to operate an assault support platform from a sea base--and it actually changed drastically what we are doing ashore--I think this jet will do that as well," Davis says.
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