MILITARY F-35C LIGHTNING II Weapons

In early April, six F-35Cs from Strike Fighter Squadron 101 (VFA-101) deployed from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida to Naval Air Station Lemoore, California to complete the squadron’s first ever Conventional Weapons Technical Proficiency Inspection (CWTPI). The inspection, conducted by the Strike Fighter Weapons School Pacific, is part of a series of requirements for all navy strike

fighter squadrons to become certified as safe for flight. Specifically, CWTPI evaluates the squadron in the employment of air-to-surface weapons to determine if it is ready for training. The Grim Reapers deployed nearly 100 people to support the two-week exercise: the largest F-35C detachment to date. The squadron’s main objective at Lemoore was to drop live weapons outside of the test environment, a first for the navy’s F-35C. The secondary objective was to continue introducing the F-35 to the NAS Lemoore community in preparation for Strike Fighter Squadron 125 (VFA-125) ‘Rough Raiders’, the second F-35C Fleet Replacement Squadron, standing up at Lemoore in 2017.

MILITARY F-35C LIGHTNING II

Scott Dworkin reports from Naval Air Station Lemoore, California on the first weapons detachment undertaken by F-35C-equipped Strike Fighter Squadron 101, the world famous Grim Reapers

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Many of VFA-101’s pilots had never flown from Lemoore, therefore during the first week, pilots became familiar with the local area, and the standard procedures flying in and out of the pattern at the field. This also allowed Lemoore’s control tower personnel to become accustomed to working with

F-35s in the pattern. Pilots also familiarised themselves with many of the local routes and military operating areas throughout California. During the second week, the squadron dropped inert and live weapons, primarily at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms,

California. The Grim Reapers also flew in support of the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN) over the Fallon Training Range Complex in Nevada.

Detachment GoalsCommander Bob Pieroni, VFA-101’s current Operations Officer described to AIR International the steps taken to get the squadron to this point in its development, and the goals of CWTPI while at Lemoore. He said: “Our first real detachment with the F-35 was to NAS Fallon in September of 2015. We took four F-35s to Fallon and our primary focus was working Tactical Development and Evaluation [TACD&E] with the Naval Air Warfare Development Center [NAWDC] doing fourth and fifth generation fighter integration flights. That detachment was a success on many levels and we took a lot of the lessons learned from our time there to allow us to prepare and progress to where we are today, and allow us to make this trip to Lemoore. This detachment is different from Fallon because it is focused on weapons employment and serves as our CWTPI, which is one of the final milestones we have to accomplish before we are deemed ready for training.” Since the

A group of aviation technicians assigned to VFA-101 pose for the camera.

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September Fallon detachment, VFA-101 has achieved other major milestones including passing the Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization (NATOPS) unit evaluation. Evaluators from Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 (VMFAT-501) ‘Warlords’ based at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina visited Eglin and evaluated the squadron’s NATOPS procedures. Subsequently VFA-101 was deemed safe for flight, one step closer to classifying the squadron as ready for training. Cdr Pieroni continued: “This detachment is the first time we had the chance to drop live weapons. The squadron had to wait on specific hardware modifications and software upgrades from Lockheed Martin so we could open the weapons bay door and drop ordnance. The aircraft had also just been loaded with Block 2B software when we went to Fallon, so we didn’t have a lot of time flying with those upgrades before we went to the desert. The major aspect of the Block 2B upgrade was an increase in our aircraft operating limitations. Block 2B allows us to now fly up to Mach 1.2, pull up to 6g, with an increased AOA [angle of attack] window. While at Lemoore we have accumulated more time flying Block 2B with all of the increased airspeed, G and AOA.”

Why Lemoore?Explaining why VFA-101 deployed to Lemoore instead of using Eglin, Cdr Pieroni said: “One, because the weapons school and the evaluators are here, so logistically it made more sense to do CWTPI here, and for ease of sharing of information. Having us at the wing every day allowed the evaluators to give us direct and immediate input that we could then apply. Two, our parent command [Strike Fighter Wing Pacific] is here so it made sense again to have the visibility of our presence at Lemoore to our Commodore during this important milestone event. Once

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we are cleared to drop weapons, we will start doing similar weapon drops at Eglin using local ranges, likely Camp Shelby in Mississippi and Pinecastle in Florida.”

Because most of the CWTPI evaluators are Super Hornet pilots, VFA-101 was also tasked to some degree with training the evaluators who would then evaluate the squadron. Very few – if any – of the evaluators had ever worked directly with the F-35 before. Before the detachment, the squadron worked with the Strike Fighter Wing to teach the different aspects of F-35 vs F/A-18 Super Hornet. More specific to CWTPI, VFA-101 gave instruction on the F-35C’s weapon configurations and the loading and unloading of GBU-12s and GBU-31s into the aircraft’s internal weapons bays.

Two weapons school pilots attended the F-35 schoolhouse at Eglin for a few months ahead the detachment, to get hands-on experience of loading dummy stores on to the mock-up F-35 weapons trainer. Cdr Pieroni said their training and hands-on experience was shared with the weapons school staff at Lemoore in preparation for VFA-101’s CWTPI and the initial VFA-125 cadre prior to its stand-up next year.

“Communication between us at Eglin

A sailor signals to the pilot during pre-flight checks on the flight line at Naval Air Station Lemoore.

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and the wing here at Lemoore in terms of the F-35C’s arrival with VFA-125 continues. Captain Christie our CO, and the Commodore of the Wing, Captain Koss and his staff continue to discuss and plan for the various aspects of the aircraft’s integration at Lemoore.

“We’ve also had the opportunity to discuss the F-35C with the base air traffic control and tower people. Those conversations continued as we flew more and more. The people in the tower need to know how our procedures differ from the Super Hornet. They’re not cosmically different, but this base is very homogeneous, you see mostly Super Hornets, maybe a T-34, maybe a few legacy Hornets, but other than that it’s primarily Super Hornets.

“The tower supervisor has noted some of the differences when we are in the pattern mixed in with the Super Hornets. When we do approaches, he used a stopwatch to see how long it takes us to get through a pattern compared with a Super Hornet. That information will help change their procedures to sequence Super Hornets and F-35s in the pattern more effectively and work out necessary emergency procedures. These are the early steps in F-35 integration at Lemoore, VFA-101 is laying the groundwork

that will make it easier for the other squadron once it begins flying next year.”

The UnwrittenAccording to Cdr Pieroni the unwritten function of VFA-101 is discovery. “We fly more F-35Cs than anybody else. We see more problems, unique problems, and we call Lockheed Martin and the Joint Program Office regularly so we can iron out some of the problems we find early. We can, and are, now affecting change in the Block 3F software package [the US Navy intends to go operational with the F-35C in February 2019 with Block 3F software]. If we weren’t exploring all mission sets, it is possible some of the problems would go unnoticed until it was too late to affect change, which could in turn push the navy’s final IOC date off to the right. It’s very important to go to places like Fallon and now Lemoore, which is part of the discovery process for us and the overall programme.

“Sure, we can do some of this at Eglin, but the problem is we’re not operating with navy assets down there. The navy’s vision for this jet is to integrate heavily with fourth generation fighters, so we are going to fly with Super Hornets and Growlers a lot in the future. The

more we do now, the more we can refine the tactics and iron out some of the problems.

“The capabilities of the F-35C enable us to provide Super Hornets with more situational awareness and protection than they would have without us. Because we have common data link, we can see one another and can share information and we can support them with our jamming and sensors. Once fully operational, the F-35C by itself will be a very capable aircraft, and the Super Hornet by itself is also a very impressive platform, but the Super Hornet with F-35 support will be drastically more capable. F-35C integration is a force multiplier, working together in these early days will ultimately be what make us a more lethal carrier strike group in the future.”

Skipper’s OverviewBack in September 2015, Captain James Christie, the Commanding Officer of VFA-101, discussed the state of the F-35C and the first detachment to Fallon. Captain Christie again took some time with us at Lemoore to bring his top down perspective on the CWTPI detachment and the state of the squadron.

He said: “Let’s start with a couple of big

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lessons learned from Fallon, the first being the need to continue flying the aircraft at Fallon and capitalising on the expertise of the people at NAWDC so we can help augment and assist in TACD&E, the development and evaluation of the F-35C. The staff at the NAWDC have got to be tangibly involved with the F-35C, briefing, debriefing and flying with the aircraft so that they can develop the tactics for the fleet. The tactics need to be developed on a specific timeline so they are available when the fleet has the first squadron transitioned. Until NAWDC has its own F-35Cs at Fallon, I feel very strongly that VFA-101 has a responsibility to provide aircraft and people that can bridge the expertise gap as much as humanly possible without neglecting our other primary mission of doing initial training of navy F-35 aircrew and maintenance.

“My second big take away from Fallon was how did we operate away from home? Our home base, Eglin, is underpinned with air force infrastructure. Recently US Air Force F-35A squadrons sent detachments to other bases. For the squadrons involved, going to another air force base has its own different and unique challenges, but a remote detachment for them is a bit more seamless as opposed to us going from an air force base to a navy installation. The lines of communication are completely different, even our ALIS [the Autonomic Logistics Information System] could not communicate in a straightforward way back to our squadron at Eglin, so we are trying to write a comprehensive book about the lessons learned and what we discovered during the Fallon detachment. Hopefully this will prevent other squadrons from having to go through the same growing pains when they begin travelling with the jet to other locations.”

Speaking about the Lemoore detachment, Capt Christie said: “This detachment does a couple things for us at 101 and for the navy F-35 programme overall. Our number one priority here is to successfully execute our CWTPI inspection.”

Every US Navy Fleet Replacement Squadron (a squadron that’s tasked with training maintainers and aircrew for a specific type) must go through an inspection

every 24 months. Fleet squadrons (those that deploy as part of a carrier air wing) complete the same type of inspection between deployments.

As Capt Christie explained, this was the first ever CWTPI inspection for the F-35C. He said: “There is a lot of creation going on as we

do this. We have taken lessons learned from the other services who have already dropped ordnance from the F-35. That information sharing is allowing the procedures to be refined appropriately throughout the F-35’s concurrent development and operational testing process.

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“One of the challenges we faced coming into CWTPI is there is no real mature coursework that exists for teaching our sailors. There are procedures in place for sure, but not in the traditional sense as you would have with our F/A-18s for example, where you have a checklist and prior to your inspection we would have our sailors and aircrew review the procedures for refresher or initial training. We don’t have such a checklist finalised with F-35, so this event allows the navy system to recognise we need to get the weapons school courseware refined, developed and in place for when the fleet F-35C squadrons go through their own inspections in the future.

“The second thing is to successfully complete the CWTPI. All US Navy squadrons must achieve this to receive its safe for flight certification. All the other wickets for VFA-101 to be declared safe for flight have now been met, other than CWTPI which is the final piece of the puzzle, which is happening in the current timeframe as expected.

“I have an amazing team of sailors who have been practicing all of the procedures ahead of this detachment. The loading, and offloading of weapons, downloading the information into ALIS, release checks to clear the aircraft safe for launch, they’ve been practising for almost a year now and

are a well-oiled machine. I have all the faith and confidence in the world they’ll complete the inspection. Because the weapon school is delegated the responsibility to conduct the inspection, we are working very closely with the school and the Commodore, to make sure that while we are the ones getting qualified, we are also helping educate everyone at the school and the wing on how the F-35C is unique. It is a symbiotic relationship as we help mature the platform.

“Right now, one of the things we have going in our favour is we only have two types of weapon to get cleared on during the inspection. The GBU-12 and GBU-31 are the only two types of weapon we have clearance to release from the Joint Program Office.

“That helps keep a very narrow scope so we can really focus on the procedural piece and then, within the next 24 months as the payload options improve with software upgrades and more testing, so will the maturing of the CWTPI process for F-35. Consequently, in 20-24 months we will have a really good, and more mature, programme for us to re-qualify on when required, and for day one of the stand-up of the Fleet Replacement Squadron.

“Another important aspect of this trip, not necessarily publicised, was to bring a very tangible and visible representation of this

aircraft to where it will be in the navy’s fleet concentration area.

“There is a lot of construction going on at Lemoore in preparation for the F-35C’s arrival, yet I think most of the people that work and live here are a little bit numb to the reality, it’s still in the abstract because you don’t see the aircraft. While we are here, I want sailors and staff to see it, talk to us about it and recognise that the stationing of this aircraft at Lemoore is right around the corner. It’s been really fun having people on base coming over to see the F-35C, or asking if they can talk to our people to learn what it’s like to be working with the aircraft. We are excited to share it.”

Success by all MeasuresAt the end of the two-weeks, Capt Christie shared his assessment of the CWTPI detachment: “The event was a resounding success by all measures. From a grading perspective, we had no major or minor hits in any of the phases. The Grim Reaper maintenance team groomed six jets to near perfection so that our ordnance experts could safely load 13 500lb GBU-12 [laser-guided bombs] and 13 2,000lb GBU-31(V)4 Joint Direct Attack Munitions [JDAMs] for our pilots to precisely drop at the Twentynine Palms range. We were able to self-designate all GBU-12 laser-guided bombs with lethal precision, and the GPS-guided GBU-31 JDAMs impacted with staggering consistency.”

Following successful completion of its CWTPI, VFA-101 gained certification from the Commander of the Strike Fighter Wing Pacific to employ all authorised weapons on the F-35C. This was the final requirement for the Commodore to declare the squadron fully safe-for-flight. The declaration is a tremendous milestone for the Grim Reapers and naval aviation, one that was earned by the flawless performance of the squadron’s sailors throughout the entire work-up and inspection cycle.

Now VFA-101 has passed the CWTPI evaluation and is cleared for training, the next major squadron milestone is carrier qualification (CQ) which is scheduled for June. At this stage, the plan is to send four jets and up to 16 pilots to a ship to conduct daytime carrier qualifications. Carrier night operations require further modifications and software updates before VFA-101 can send its current jets to the boat for night CQ.

1 Aviation technicians look on as the pilot of an F-35C works through pre-flight checks. 2 A red visor cover denotes the squadron colours of VFA-101.

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MILITARY F-35C LIGHTNING II Weapons