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This image: The 34th Fighter Squadron will be the lead USAF unit to declare IOC with the F-35A in 2016. USAF/Alex Lloyd

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FEATURE | F-35A INITIAL OPERATING CAPABILITY

THE US MARINE Corps’ declaration of initial operating capability (IOC) with the F-35B this past summer was the � rst in a series of milestones for

the Lightning II in the hands of the US military. Before this juggernaut of a program has time to catch its breath, the US Air Force is already gearing up to reach the same stage this coming summer.

It’s all about matching up to a set of mandated criteria for the � rst squadron of operational jets. That unit is the 34th Fighter Squadron ‘Rude Rams’ at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, part of the resident 388th Fighter Wing. Production aircraft AF-77 and AF-78 (USAF serials 13-5071 and 13-5072 respectively) became the � rst jets to join this newly-reactivated squadron in September.

The IOC declaration has been broadly set for between August and December 2016 with 12 to 24 combat-coded jets on strength. Most expect it to come on August 1, once the squadron has around 15 jets in its ranks, plus 30 pilots, 240 maintainers and support personnel. From a standing start, the squadron is developing its capabilities at a pace in order to be ready to show its ability to conduct basic close air support (CAS), interdiction of enemy aircraft, and limited suppression and destruction of enemy air defense (SEAD/DEAD) operations in a contested environment.

The ‘Rude Rams’ jets, like those now being retro� tted at the two training units at Eglin and Luke AFBs, are to be declared operational with Block 3i software, which has been deemed su� cient to provide a meaningful deployable capability.

The � rst eight low-rate initial production (LRIP) lots included 110 F-35As, and more than 75 aircraft have been delivered to the USAF at � ve bases to date. Similar to Block 2B software, Block 3i allows for a limited weapons load. The aircraft can carry two AIM-120C Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs), two GBU-12 laser-guided bombs, and two GBU-32 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs). The subsequent Block 3F release is expected to provide the full combat repertoire. Block 3F software will add weapons such as the AIM-9X as well as sensor capabilities such as a full synthetic aperture radar (SAR).

Maj Gen Je� rey Harrigian, director of the US Air Force’s F-35 Integration O� ce, recently told the Air Force Association’s Air and Space Conference that he thought the F-35 could deploy overseas as soon as it

Next August the US Air Force aims to declare initial operating capability with the F-35A � fth-generation � ghter. Combat Aircraft looks at the Lightning II in USAF service and discusses recent mission concerns.

report: Jamie Hunter

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F-35A INITIAL OPERATING CAPABILITY | FEATURE

reached IOC. ‘When you’re at CENTCOM [US Central Command], you don’t request a specific jet, you request the capability’, he said. ‘When we declare IOC the F-35 will be on the list of capabilities that will be available’. However, Harrigian conceded that readiness has been a ‘huge issue’ for the USAF. Coupled with the still-developing ALIS (Autonomic Logistics Information System) maintenance control system, a skilled maintainer cadre is essential and building experience on the F-35 is critical.

Lockheed Martin is now engaged in negotiations on Lots 9 and 10. Lot 9 has a ceiling price of $5.37 billion and covers 41 F-35As, of which 26 are for the USAF, six for Norway, seven for Israel, and two for Japan. It further includes 12 F-35Bs evenly split between the US Marine Corps and the UK plus two F-35Cs for the Navy.

F-35’s roleUS Air Force chief of staff Gen Mark Welsh’s view is that the F-35 was designed to be the multi-purpose, data-integration platform that can do all kinds of things in the air-to-ground arena including the dismantling of enemy integrated air defenses. It has an air-to-air capability, but it was not intended to be an air superiority fighter. Having said that, Air Combat Command is now under pressure to maintain a credible fleet of air defense fighters. With limited numbers of F-22 Raptors, the USAF is turning to the F-35A as well as F-15C Eagles to operate alongside its Raptors over the next 20-plus years. The F-35 will obviously be asked to take on more air superiority duties than were initially envisioned.

Air Education and Training Command’s 58th Fighter Squadron, the ‘Gorillas’, at Eglin AFB, Florida, was the pioneering unit in training the first USAF F-35 instructors. This work continues today as the squadron helps seed the rapidly expanding F-35 community.

The basic premise of establishing the initial F-35 cadre involved experienced pilots being drawn from other fighter aircraft types in the USAF inventory. This was an unsurprising approach given that the F-35 does a lot of things differently, not least its reliance on helmet-mounted display technology instead of the traditional head-up display (HUD). It uses a Distributed Aperture System (DAS), a set of infra-red cameras to help the pilot visually monitor the outside environment, and it relies on advanced data networks such as the Multi-function Advanced Data

Link (MADL) to talk to its wingmen and maintain a high level of situational awareness.

Col Christopher Niemi is the commander of the 33rd Operations Group at Eglin. As an experienced F-15E and F-22 pilot who was part of the cadre of initial USAF operational test and evaluation pilots for the Raptor, he is well-qualified to appraise the F-35 as it stands today. Teaching brand-new pilots straight out of flight school is still some way off, so the training units at Luke and Eglin as well as the operational test and the Hill unit feature names from around the A-10, F-15 and F-16 communities, as well as the F-22.

Niemi expects to see new pilots straight out of training some time between IOC and the advent of the Block 3F software standard. ‘The types of things we’re considering draw on our past experience with the F-22’, he says. ‘It’s important to normalize your manning, so we need to bring in young lieutenants as early as we can in order to fill out the squadron manning appropriately — who is going to lead our squadrons in 2030, for example? The more experience those individuals have, the better-equipped they’ll be to handle those challenges when they get there. At the same time, because the aeroplane is still maturing and because our training systems and syllabi are still maturing, we have to tailor that to make sure we’re ready. It’s an easy airplane to fly, but much like any other airplane there are plenty of ways to get yourself into trouble as a young, relatively inexperienced pilot.

‘What I do worry about a little bit is the airmanship. It wasn’t uncommon with a young F-22 pilot to absolutely slay the adversaries in the simulated scenario that we were operating in but then come back and allow his fuel to get too low, because he didn’t have that sense that it was a real aeroplane. Although we’re shooting fake missiles, you can run out of real gas.’

Restrictions put in place following the catastrophic engine fire at Eglin last year that led to the lengthy grounding of the F-35 fleet have now been lifted. F-35 pilots are now flying up to 5.5g, and some aircraft as much as 7g. Some are now cleared out to Mach 1.6. The full Block 2B flight envelope will be 7g and up to 50 degrees Alpha — almost the same as the Raptor.

Col Niemi adds: ‘The 2B software that we’re flying now is the first time we are able to share tracks between the

This image: Senior USAF F-35 pilots say that the F-35A will be able to win air-to-air engagements comfortably in beyond visual range scenarios and that modern helmet sights and agile missiles mitigate the need to be extremely agile in the close fight. Jamie Hunter

Below left to right: Pilots from the 58th FS walk out to their F-35As at Eglin AFB. USAF/Samuel King

Col Christopher Niemi pre-flights an F-35A in October 2015. Jamie Hunter

F-35A instructors mainly still wear the Gen-2 helmet, but the Gen-3 model is now cleared for use. USAF/Samuel King


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aeroplanes for tactical targeting, so if you see an air track I see that same air track and now we can engage co-operatively on it. That opens the door to new tactics and new things we need to teach the students. They’re all part of the game plan as we roll towards IOC, then onwards towards Block 3F and Block 4.’

Turning and burningRecent criticism has been leveled at the F-35 over its capabilities in a dog� ght in terms of its agility. A leaked report into a within visual range (WVR) engagement between an F-16 and an early F-35A in testing drew criticism when the F-16 appeared to maintain the upper hand. Niemi comments: ‘As a � ghter pilot, if you ask me would I rather have a 7g aeroplane or a 9g aeroplane I don’t have to think for long about it before I say 9g. But that’s not the question. The question is, would you rather have 7g and this capability, or would you rather have 9g and give up that capability. When we look at those real-world trade-o� s I think we’re making good decisions, but sometimes that gets lost in the discussion because the assumption is that we just gave up 9g to 7g for no gain. In every one of those cases it is a real gain that was based on the capability that’s going to be most useful. You weigh all that together and you make an informed decision and then you prioritize.

‘When you look at the macro trend over the past 40 years, the number of dog� ghts involving post-merge maneuvering has greatly diminished.

Top: Maintainers practice loading a GBU-12 laser-guided bomb. USAF

Right: An F-35A reveals its radar presence brie� y to unleash an AIM-120 AMRAAM. Lockheed Martin

Below: An F-35A of the 58th FS touches down at Eglin AFB. Jamie Hunter



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‘I’m very comfortable with the F-35’s capabilities for air-to-air combat. I think we’re going to continue to see the macro trends point towards less post-merge maneuvering and towards the importance of stealth’ COL CHRISTOPHER NIEMI

Even in the F-22, which is a tremendous dog� ghter, the great majority of engagements in an LFE [large-force exercise] like ‘Red Flag’ weren’t decided after an F-22 turned for 720 degrees and � nally beat an inferior-turning airplane. They were decided two miles from the merge where the guy didn’t even know the F-22 was there and he shot him in the lips! I’m very comfortable with the F-35’s capabilities for air-to-air combat. I think we’re going to continue to see the macro trends point towards less post-merge maneuvering and towards the importance of stealth, so they don’t know you’re there, and the importance of highly maneuverable missiles like the AIM-9X.’

Pilots admit that things like rear-hemisphere visibility from an F-35 are not as good as an F-15 or F-16. However, as Niemi argues, this is just one of the compromises that are part and parcel of � elding a stealthy multi-role � ghter, and which need to be taken in context. ‘When I � rst started � ying F-15s, we used to do an exercise called ‘cap and tap’ where you would � y as a two-ship in a visual formation and � y around a bull’s-eye. An adversary aircraft would then start from 15 miles away and try and get in close to us unobserved. The whole point of the exercise was to make us look out of the window; four sets of

eyeballs in an F-15E two-ship… very rarely did we spot the adversary, even when we knew it was going to happen. It’s just really hard to pick out that little dot with the closure rates you’ve got.

‘In an LFE I don’t remember ever getting ‘jumped’ in an F-22, and that wasn’t because I could see behind me and clear my six o’clock like we trained to do in the F-15 — it was because my sensors were so good that no-one could get there. We are working together in networked groups. I might not have a radar that’s looking out behind me, but the way we operate means my wingman is looking there and so it isn’t a factor.

Would I like to be able to check my six better? Absolutely. Am I comfortable that given the limitations we have in the F-35, and in the F-22 for that matter, that it won’t contribute to a signi� cant number of losses — I am.’

Commenting on the wider argument about the modern dog� ght, Niemi said: ‘It’s fun and useful to train a � ghter pilot to maneuver their jet from a neutral merge so they can gun-track an adversary, but the utility of that, even in an F-15 or F-16, is being steadily undermined by advances in missiles. The last thing you want to do is anchor with an adversary in air-to-air combat

Left: Col Christopher Niemi has � own the F-22 Raptor as well as the F-35. Jamie Hunter

Top: Edwards AFB’s integrated test team is in the process of clearing the F-35’s 25mm GAU-22/A Gatling gun. USAF


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because it makes you vulnerable to getting popped by his wingman or someone else that’s stumbled across your furball.’

A-10 replacement?The Air Force leadership says it no longer needs the A-10 Thunderbolt II. It wants to strip funding from the A-10 to help it fully support the newer F-35A. But have they all got it all wrong, and is it imperative to save the A-10?

Predictably, opinions are divided. It seems that no other aircraft in the US inventory currently causes so much debate and emotion as the A-10. The USAF is trying to retire a number of aircraft types, while Congress strives to halt its plans.

The argument surrounds the ability to conduct CAS. The A-10 is built around the 30mm General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger hydraulically-driven seven-barrel Gatling-type cannon. A quick check of any A-10 HUD camera footage will quickly answer any questions about how rock-steady the ‘Hog’ is in a strafing dive and how lethal that gun is. The F-35’s internal GAU-22/A is a four-barrel derivative of the GAU-12 Equalizer 25mm caliber cannon with 182 rounds. This is considered a small supply of ammunition compared with 500 rounds in a typical F-16.

Col Niemi says: ‘The conversation has focused quite a bit on the CAS mission. The F-35 was designed with the CAS mission in mind, but it wasn’t optimized



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for CAS. It was optimized, if anything, to go into a high-threat environment with advanced surface-to-air missile systems and use very advanced air-to-surface sensors to find targets and kill them. It will do that fantastically.’

The F-35 is like the F-16, in that it was designed to be able to cover the full spectrum of missions — and there are trade-offs when you do that. Niemi says: ‘[The F-35] is more like the F-22 than anything else the USAF is flying. The things you will do in an F-35, based on what I’ve seen, in many ways are going to look like what we do in an F-22.

‘The F-22 was designed and optimized for the air-to-air mission and it can employ a JDAM very effectively, particularly in a high-threat environment. The F-35 is the mirror image of that. The majority of its capabilities are focused on the air-to-ground mission; it’s going to be a great SEAD aircraft, very good at going into high-threat areas and attacking a target, plus flying CAS and all the air-to-ground missions, and that’s where it’s focused. It can also do air-to-air, but it wasn’t primarily designed to do air-to-air. We are going to use the F-35 for more air-to-air than we originally planned because we weren’t able to acquire sufficient numbers of F-22s.’

Lt Col Michael Gette is the commander of the 61st FS. He began his transition from the F-15E community to the F-35 in 2010 at Eglin. Gette says: ‘Our flying right now involves a lot of basic surface attack, basic air-to-air intercepts, SEAD, CAS, and opposed surface attack tactics, the latter being opposed ingress into a

target area with simulated enemy aircraft, so we fight our way in, drop a simulated weapon and then fight our way back out. This aircraft has an innate capability as a SEAD platform, so we are going to add that into our syllabus, and that will shift us to more of an air-to-ground focus. That said, our pilots are going to be trained in the air-to-air [role].’

F-35 training units are out flying CAS on a daily basis. There is a particular emphasis on ensuring that if the A-10 goes, the F-35 and its fellow fighter types will be able to pick up the slack in that role. It could be argued that, in a permissive environment where the A-10 can execute its role with impunity, so too could a range of attack helicopters and lighter, cheaper counter-insurgency (COIN) aircraft. But in an era in which even asymmetric insurgent forces have heavy anti-aircraft guns and, potentially, modern ‘double-digit’ SAMs, the opportunities for actually employing traditional COIN aircraft are relatively limited. Though the A-10C remains an extremely useful and capable aircraft, it represents a niche capability — and that niche is becoming increasingly narrow for the US.

Col Niemi sums up: ‘There are a lot of airplanes that can do CAS in a low-threat environment. The A-10 happens to be probably the best at it based on the number of weapons it can carry, its legs, and things like that. But the F-35 can do things that an F-16 can’t do, [and] an A-10 can’t do, because they simply aren’t survivable based on the threats that we see as we go forward.’

Left: Training at the three F-35 units spread between Eglin and Luke AFB is the bedrock for seeding the operational test and IOC units within the USAF. Jamie Hunter

Top left to right: Senior USAF officers agree that the F-35 may not have the raw turning performance of the F-16, but sensor fusion and the latest agile weapons are widely expected to enable the Lightning II pilot to maintain the edge in any air combat scenario. USAF/Jim Haseltine

The USAF’s 422nd TES ‘Green Bats’ at Nellis AFB is spinning up operational testing for the F-35A. USAF


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