NAVAIR: 50 Years of Naval Air Systems Command by Faircount Media Group

NAVAIR 50 YEARS OF NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND

PREMIERE EDITION:

Naval Aviation

OUTLOOK

1966-2016

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 6 INTERVIEW VICE ADM. DAVID A. DUNAWAY, USN-RET. By Chuck Oldham

18 BEFORE NAVAIR WAS NAVAIR

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS WITH NAVAIR Tier 1 Quality – Without Tier 1 Cost

Triton SIGINT

FOSTERING THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF U.S. NAVAL AVIATION By Craig Collins

28 NAVAIR: 50 YEARS OF EQUIPPING THE FLEET 1966 -2016 By Craig Collins

40 PATUXENT RIVER COUNCIL

Customs & Border Protection Maritime ISR

NAVY LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES By Chuck Oldham

44 SUPERLATIVES & SUCCESS STORIES A FEW NOTABLE NAVAIR AIRCRAFT AND WEAPONS By Eric Tegler

52 NAVAIR TODAY: FIXED-WING AIRCRAFT PROGRAMS By Eric Tegler

Sea and Ground-based Landing Systems

62 NAVAIR TODAY: ROTARY-WING PROGRAMS THE NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND MODERNIZES NEARLY EVERY ROTARY-WING COMMUNITY PENDING THE NEXT BIG STEP IN VERTICAL LIFT. By Frank Colucci

72 TESTING TALES THE INTERSECTION OF FLIGHT TEST AND THE UNEXPECTED By Jan Tegler

Counter RCIED Electronic Warfare (CREW)

78 NAVAIR TODAY: WEAPONS PROGRAMS By J.R. Wilson

90 NAVAIR TODAY: UNMANNED AIRCRAFT PROGRAMS “OPERATIONALIZING” AMERICA’S NEW SECURITY STRATEGY By George Galdorisi

100 NAVAIR TODAY: AVIATION SYSTEMS PROGRAMS By Jan Tegler

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NAVAIR

5 0 Y E A R S O F I N N O VAT I O N I N N AVA L AV I AT I O N

1966-2016 Premiere Edition: Naval Aviation OUTLOOK

Published by Faircount Media Group 701 North West Shore Blvd. Tampa, FL 33609 Tel: 813.639.1900 www.defensemedianetwork.com www.faircount.com EDITORIAL Editor in Chief: Chuck Oldham Managing Editor: Ana E. Lopez Editor: Rhonda Carpenter Contributing Writers: Craig Collins, Frank Colucci George Galdorisi, Eric Tegler, Jan Tegler, J.R. Wilson DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Art Director: Robin K. McDowall Project Designer: Daniel Mrgan Designer: Kenia Y. Perez-Ayala Ad Traffic Manager: Rebecca Laborde ADVERTISING Ad Sales Manager: Steve Chidel Account Executives: Chris Day, Joe Gonzales, Charlie Poe, Adrian Silva OPERATIONS AND ADMINISTRATION Chief Operating Officer: Lawrence Roberts VP, Business Development: Robin Jobson Business Development: Damion Harte Financial Controller: Robert John Thorne Chief Information Officer: John Madden Business Analytics Manager: Colin Davidson Publisher: Ross Jobson

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Interview

VICE ADM. DAVID A. DUNAWAY, USN-RET. By Chuck Oldham

Vice Adm. David A. Dunaway was born in El Paso, Texas. After receiving his wings in April 1984, he served as a graduate flight instructor then went on to complete flight training in the F/A-18 Hornet. From 1986 to 1989, he flew with the “Vigilantes” of Strike Fighter Squadron 151 aboard the carrier USS Midway (CV 41) homeported in Yokosuka, Japan, and was then selected for Class 96 at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. Dunaway’s test assignments include: A-12 operational test director with Air and Test Evaluation Squadron (VX) 5; F/A-18 branch head; deputy for Test and Evaluation at the F/A-18 Weapon System Support Activity; and F/A18E/F operational test director with VX-9, where he flew more than 200 developmental test missions and was the test pilot of the year. His program management assignments include: F/A-18 Radar Integrated Product Team lead for Program Manager Air (PMA) 265, responsible for the development of the APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array radar; program manager for the Precision Strike Weapons program office (PMA-201); and deputy program executive officer for Air Anti-Submarine Warfare, Assault, and Special Mission Programs. From September 2007 to January 2009, Dunaway served as the commander of the Naval Air Warfare Center (Weapons Division) at China Lake and Point Mugu, California, and as U.S. Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) assistant

commander for Test and Evaluation. His next flag assignment was as commander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force in Norfolk, Virginia, where he served from January 2009 to August 2012. In September 2012, he assumed command of the Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Maryland. Dunaway is a class of 1982 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, a Master of Science in Aviation Systems Management from the University of Tennessee, and a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. His personal decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. He has accrued more than 2,900 flight hours and 290 arrested carrier landings. Dunaway retired in October 2015 and is now an independent civilian consultant at Dunaway Integrated Solutions LLC.

NAVAIR50: For those who aren’t familiar with NAVAIR already, what does NAVAIR do for the Navy? Vice Adm. David A. Dunaway: In short, NAVAIR helps with the design – we don’t do the design but we help with the design – the development, the verification, the validation, and the sustainment of all things naval aviation. And in that process, the position of NAVAIR holds technical authority for airworthiness and is the head contract agent for all things naval aviation. And that includes a certain number of weapons as well? Absolutely. All naval aviation weapons. We also do Tomahawk, for instance, which is a surface and sub-launched weapon, but NAVAIR does the work because it flies. It, in fact, was probably one of the first unmanned vehicles that they used extensively in the world. It’s just a one-way unmanned vehicle. How would you say NAVAIR has changed over its history with respect to the balance of aircraft versus weapons programs? In the beginning when we were the Bureau of Aeronautics for naval aviation, it was all about making airplanes fly safely, because aerodynamics is truly a non-deterministic field. The technical community does not really understand the full details of aviation. We solve most of the problems of flying empirically. That’s why you have test pilots.

7 u

Vice Adm. David A. Dunaway, USN-Ret.

could put it in a fighter as long as it’s connecting to the network. And, so, the system of systems is really becoming a key business for us now.

PHOTO COURTESY OF VICE ADM. DAVID A. DUNAWAY, USN-RET.

Are we approaching a future where the performance of a platform matters less than the performance of its weapons? Yes. Now, let me caveat that. There are days of a war that aircraft performance absolutely, unequivocally matters. The first day of the war you really want to have the right kind of performance and the right kind of observability going into the conflict. That said, every war has a second, third, fourth, fifth day. And as we roll back from the first day of the war capabilities – which is a very high end and expensive capability – there is definitely a place for a lower-end workhorse truck. So the way I would answer your question is, yeah, you need that first day of the capability on the first day of war. But, we’ve proven in the last 15 years that we really did need second, third, fourth, fifth day of the war-type weapon systems, because once you get a permissive environment, you don’t want to be spending high-end dollars to conduct low-end missions. That’s why you have flight test, because we get into regimes where we just really don’t understand how the complicated flows over a wing can make an airplane fly. And in the beginning, that was killing a lot of people. So that’s where it started, and then as we got to be smarter on what worked and what didn’t work empirically, NAVAIR evolved into having radars, radar weapons, EO/IR [electro-optical/infrared] sensors, and we became a good organization to conduct more complicated and comprehensive missions. And I would tell you

that now as we step forward into this day and age, we’re becoming very much more a system of systems organization. Really it’s kind of like every aviation product is a node in a network and it’s becoming much less important what is carrying that node as to what that node can do. So, this is why you hear the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] talk about payloads over platforms. A lot of times I don’t care what’s carrying the stuff that we’re designing. You can put it on a blimp, you can put it on a balloon. You could put it on a big, heavy airplane or you

What have been the biggest institutional changes in the command over the years? Yeah, that’s a great question. One of the things that happened in the mid-’90s, when I was a young NAVAIR O-3, O-4 – I hated it then, but now, I look back and see how brilliant they were – was when Adm. Bowes [Vice Adm. William C. Bowes] and Adm. Lockard [Vice Adm. John A. Lockard] changed NAVAIR from a peer matrix organization to a competencyaligned organization. They took unilateral power out of the hands

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u In early 2015, NAVAIR developed and tested a Tomahawk missile that for the first time successfully struck a moving ship target.

of small groups and created the constructive conflict power scheme, where folks that are responsible for money and schedule are separated from those that are responsible for performance, and everybody’s got to get along. That constructive conflict is one of the things that I believe breaks NAVAIR out from many other SYSCOMs [system commands], and many other organizations. NAVAIR takes that constructive conflict very seriously, and when an engineer is standing in a meeting and a program manager says, ‘Look I don’t have the money or the time’ and he says, ‘Yeah but, you can’t go forward if you don’t change this,’ that engineer has the power to hold things up, and that’s different than the way the Air Force runs their programs where that engineer reports to and works for the program manager. It’s called a competency alignment of an organization. That’s probably the major shift that happened in the mid-’90s that I can’t say enough good things about now. So, it seems like you have the power of having everybody pushing in the same direction at some point instead of different people having their different rice bowls? Right. It’s truly a unique system that requires everybody to play their role and then lock arms on a team and find a win-to-win solution as they represent their equity. That’s about as good an explanation as I can give. You know, organizational structures can only do so much, but the leadership and culture that endorses that constructive conflict win-win scenario is the secret sauce of NAVAIR. It is truly a part of the culture there where the constructive conflict exists on every

product team and the culture is: We’re gonna work it out and we’re not going to make a decision that is short sighted and shorting anybody in particular. And if there’s not enough money, then they’re going to go to [the] secretary’s staff and tell them, ‘Look, sorry, we’re out of money,’ or if they’ve got to compromise performance, they’re going to go to the CNO and tell the CNO ‘we can’t get there from here unless you spend a bunch of money, so we’re going to make this choice,’ and it just makes all those trades very transparent. What would you say have been the major developments in aircraft technology during your service? I would say composite is a major change that has really helped us evolve the way we build airplanes. I would say the implementation of GPS is another tremendous change. That was a revolution in how we conduct our business. When I was a lieutenant, we would have four airplanes with four bombs all attacking the same target. Nowadays you could have one Super Hornet with 10 bombs prosecuting 10 targets on one pass with the higher probability of kill. That’s a huge game-changer in

terms of how we do our business. And then the latest one I would tell you is … there’s a lot of words that are used to describe it. In the Navy, we call it network-centric warfare, and that is where information, the pedigree and the custody of the information is transferred – theoretically – seamlessly over the net and is creating clear insight at the battlefield of who’s a bad guy and who’s a good guy. That’s the latest move ahead. I would be lying to you if I said we have that one completely figured out. We’re at the very front end of network-centric warfare. But, I’m telling you our systems are getting pretty darn good at sorting out the good from the bad. And if we can sort out the good from the bad, then we win. Making our systems work as a system of systems is a game-changer in terms of affordable warfighting capability. Well, that’s always been the dream hasn’t it? Dispelling the fog of war? Yeah, it has been and there have been many attempts. SIAP [Single Integrated Air Picture] was an attempt and we just weren’t ready. Mostly I would tell you it’s an organizational problem, not a technical problem. I think now it’s

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safe to say that we can solve this technical problem if we can get over the organizational disconnect. Is it a cross-service kind of issue or is it inter-service? It’s inter-service, it’s crossservice, it’s service and politics, service and Congress … it’s the whole nine yards. Everywhere you turn in the DOD [Department of Defense] acquisition system there’s a 100-page document that gives you the opportunity to say yes, but drives people to say no. It’s just the way the system works now and what you’re finding is there’s a bunch of people trying to fight the system and get out of this inability to find a yes path and focus on the no path. And the no path is largely driven by the fact that there’s not enough money to pursue everybody’s good ideas and the process of necking down good ideas to the important ones isn’t working very well. So, consequently the system seeks the opportunity to

u Two U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornets carrying JDAM precision munitions prepare to refuel from a Royal Australian Air Force KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker Transport aircraft over Iraq. GPS/INS-guided weapons have been a revolutionary capability for the U.S. military.

say no to very good ideas that could solve this problem. And, it’s not an individual’s fault. I’ve dealt with the leadership and all aspects of this and I find them to be the most ethical, hardworking, incredible people that fight the system on a day-to-day basis … they fight it, fight it, fight it but somehow the organism will not allow the winwin. It takes extraordinary effort to pick the ‘right’ good ideas and force them through the system. I think you’ve touched on this to some extent already, but I was going to ask what you see as the major developments in weapons technologies. I know you’ve

mentioned GPS already, but what else? I would tell you GPS clearly is very important. The next generation of GPS-denied weapons – the ability to precisely navigate without GPS – that’s up and coming, and it won’t be long before you start clearly seeing that happening. I think the big evolution in weapons – and I’m a weapons guy, I’ve been doing weapons all my life – isn’t in weapons; it’s in how you feed the weapon the georegistered mensurated coordinates. Weapons are like this little bird sitting in the nest waiting for somebody to drop a worm in its mouth. They just need the coordinates for fixed targets or error elipsoid for moving targets. Connecting the system of systems to pull the right information at the right time is the key to our future. So the revolution is how we get to very rapid fixed targets on the ground, or how do we get to a robust track of a moving target and

It seems that one of the things that you’ve seen over the decades is that you have weapons that can reach out and touch someone at longer and longer distances. But that targeting information has to be there to make that range worthwhile doesn’t it? No doubt. Surface-to-surface weapons are a good example. We wanted to modify the Harpoon missile for surface-to-surface because we couldn’t target much farther than Harpoon’s range. That program has been started and stopped a couple of times in my lifetime because people have this fantasy of wanting a weapon

u Naval Aircrewman 1st Class Broady Hairston, assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 1, left, briefs Vice Adm. David Dunaway, then-commander of Naval Air Systems Command, on the airborne mine neutralization system’s capabilities in the VX-1 hangar. Dunaway visited VX-1 to greet Adm. Sir George Zambellas, First Sea Lord and chief of naval staff for the Royal Navy, during his visit with unmanned aircraft at Naval Air Station Patuxent River.

that could go over the horizon and kill a ship even though they didn’t have a means of targeting it. We’re finally coming to grips with that and we’re making a much better run on getting to over-the-horizon targeting. When you do that, it’s not only the targeting, but it’s the pedigree of the targeting and it’s the ability to keep a chain of custody on that targeting for the

full time of flight of the weapons. That’s the key. Right. Norman Friedman had written about that in his book Network Centric Warfare: How Navies Learned to Fight Smarter Through Three World Wars. When you were working on targeting for the Tomahawk for anti-shipping roles, again, the problem was that target track being able to have the kind of integrity where you knew that you weren’t going to have the weapons hit a cruise ship or something instead of what you originally were going after. He made it plain that it was a very, very complex and difficult sort of problem to conquer. It is, but I can tell you that it is my belief that the problem is technically solvable right now, but organizationally we can’t bring ourselves to do it. And I’ll give you

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS KENNETH ABBATE

keep the custody and the pedigree of that information through the time of flight of a weapon. That right there is the revolution. And, that goes back to the networkcentric warfare discussion.

13 an example. Two years ago I tasked my brilliant China Lakers to take existing systems and fly a Tomahawk through the side of a ship. So, what they did is they went out and got a very nice radar that could target outside of the threat ship’s weapons systems range – the specific ship in question. They used algorithms that have been used in guidance and control since the ’60s. They used an antiquated data link that has a horrible update rate in the Tomahawk. They used a shore-based computer to relay the information and cobbled together a system of systems that was an experiment of flying a Tomahawk through the side of a moving ship, and the first time that, we tried it, we did it, in January of 2015. You saw it in the press, and it was a big news event. That was done with training dollars. I used money that we use to train our very inexperienced new kids, because it was a great training exercise to get our brilliant graybeards together with a bunch of young kids that we just hired and have them do this experiment and make it happen. Now, I’m not here to tell you that that is a robust kill chain, but it is a good kill chain and we can make it robust. I guarantee you I could make it robust. And if I had access to all the targeting assets other than the ones we used, we could, in the interim, in the near term, make something that could reach out a long way and shoot another ship. Which, when I’m in the Navy, I always find it compelling that our Navy ought to be able to shoot another navy at relevant range. I don’t know, call me silly, but that’s something I think is important. That’s just an example and, oh, by the way, the ‘system’ would never have asked me to do that. Parts of the system really resisted and were vitriolic against it, because it threatened programs of record, and today we’re still slow on improving the robustness of that thread even though I know Adm. Rowden [Vice Adm.

Thomas S. Rowden, commander, Naval Surface Forces] is a big advocate of it. That’s the kind of example of where I think we can head. And, anybody that wants to argue the robustness of that thread – that’s what they’ll do, they’ll find that chink in the armor of that thread and say, ‘Oh, you can’t do that to that, you know, it’s weak over here.’ What they won’t acknowledge is, ‘hey, give us some time and a little bit of effort and we can make it robust.’ That’s the direction that we have to go because if the answer is, spend another $5 billion dollars on a new weapon every time, that’s a going-out-of-business strategy. I truly believe that war is economics and that if you’re really spending a lot of money to have effects, then I think you’re going-out-of-business. You really ought to be able to have the effects without spending a bunch of money. Sort of the Sherman tank argument in a way. Right. We went with something that was good in 1942 and we could make tons of them and they were well adapted to moving quickly across the ground when the breakthrough came and, yes, they weren’t a 100 percent solution, but as an 80 percent solution, it worked for us. Quantity has a quality all of its own. That was Stalin wasn’t it? Yeah, it was Stalin. He also said that one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. Yeah … that was a darker quote for sure. Yeah a little bit darker, yeah. I didn’t want to give Stalin too much credit. In your opinion, what has been the most transformational change you’ve seen in naval aviation during your career?

I would have to say it’s the introduction of GPS. You know, we used to struggle to make sure we knew where we were and where we were going. You’d have maps on your kneeboard, massive amounts of planning in trying to make sure that you got from point A to point B and that you hit the right place. It was a hard problem. And, now, all that’s an easy button. It really is. There’s been a lot of excitement over the X-47B UCAS-D, and toward unmanned aviation in general. What would you say are the hurdles facing a robust unmanned naval aviation system? Yeah, so I would tell you we’re pretty dang good right now. But, there’s two things that have to be improved in order for us to go much farther. One of them is [a] communication link to the unmanned system. When that communication link is fragile, which it is today, whether used in CDL [Common Data Link] or SATCOM [satellite communication], there is a fragility to that com link. The second issue is autonomous operation of the unmanned system. Right now we tell the unmanned what it can do, and it will do nothing else, which is great. That makes it very deterministic, but war is crazy, and we can’t always predict what we want it to do. We have to have a com link that connects to it so that we can change what we told it to do or we have to develop better autonomy for the system to decide on its own. You either have to have your system think, on the other end when you can’t talk to it, or you have to be able to talk to it all the time. And the truth of the matter is that you want both of those things. You want good autonomy and you want good robust com links that aren’t going to be destroyed. And, both of those need time, effort, and treasure to go after. It seems that we’ve been in an atmosphere where it’s been a very

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U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 1ST CLASS PETER D. LAWLOR

permissive environment for the use of unmanned aerial systems. But the future may not be so permissive, and they will probably be actively jamming whatever they can jam. Right. Right. So, it’s hard to jam a com link, a SATCOM link, unless you’re jamming the satellite. You know, when you get into a sophisticated threat environment, the joys of Predator operations start to fall apart. Do you think that there’s a time somewhere in the future where all the aerial systems are going to be unmanned? Or, do you think there will always be a man in the loop? Is there a time? Yes. It is not something that I can see right now and I’m a technical person. I have my hands in all of our technology, and I don’t see the

u While unmanned aerial systems have been transformational, they are still years away from replacing manned aircraft.

date of that happening. I can tell you that mankind’s clever and crafty and that we will get there, but that brings on a whole other conversation of the rules of war. You know, the rules of war are grounded in the notion that both parties are at risk. A fighter pilot flying over a foreign country with a bomb on his airplane is at risk as he’s prosecuting a target on the ground. And the notion of that risk creates a whole behavior model that we all have. There’s a mutually assured threat, a mutually assured destruction. When you are completely autonomous, that goes away. There’s a lot of

discussion on this if you read literature about the rules of war and where it goes. A full-out autonomous air wing attacking the country where no human is at risk other than the enemy … it is something we all need to think very carefully about. What would you say is the one thing that most people don’t appreciate or are unaware of with respect to what NAVAIR does? I’ll take a global view to answer your question. For 70 years, the high seas have been kept open to freedom of navigation by the United States Navy. And the way that happened is when somebody starts to act up and it starts to get ugly, the very first thing that shows up off their coast is an aircraft carrier, where no permission is asked or needed. Where there’s incredible

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17 firepower and an incredibly protected base from which our nation can exert its will on despots and bad people. And I think that that conversation very frequently gets lost. There were 56 days where the only operations that could happen against ISIS when the president said ‘go,’ the only force that could be applied came off of aircraft carriers. I think that that is an underappreciated value of the aircraft carrier and naval aviation. In my view, there will be a day – just like there’s going to be a day that we can work completely autonomous – there will be a day that the aircraft carrier goes the way of the battleship and is not necessary or viable. It’s just that I can’t see that day. I don’t see the day in my lifetime. I would much rather execute the nation’s will for a lot less money, but I can’t see a different way of doing it right now. There will be that day, but I just don’t see it yet. What program or programs would you pick out as a success story or as success stories over the past few decades as far as NAVAIR goes? Well, there’s a number of them. I would tell you that the Super Hornet was a classic recovery from a bad A-12. You know, we learn lessons multiple times in our lives. We went too much for the gusto on the A-12, and got a deal that was too good to be true – which is usually the case – and in the end, you were either going to have to spend a bunch more money, or you were going to have to compromise on your values of what you wanted. And the onset of the Super Hornet – on cost, on schedule, workhorse airplane – was a classic NAVAIR maneuver. A very balanced airplane. It can be there the first day of the war when you’re looking for a package. But, it can also work on day two, three, four, five very well.

I think the P-8 is an incredibly successful program that’s just going to rock the world. From the P-3 that has been one of the most successful programs in the history of naval aviation, I think you’re going to see the same thing with the P-8. I think when people start to understand the radar system in an E-2D, you’re never going to have enough of them. You know, they’re just incredible – that’s an incredible radar. The JDAM [Joint Direct Attack Munition] and JSOW [Joint Standoff Weapon] weapons, these GPS/INS weapons are just an incredible breakthrough in a joint program that has truly made a huge difference in the way the world was progressed. Those are huge programs. I notice you were going to be the A-12 operational test director? Is that right? If it would have gone further? Yes. That was entertaining. I’m hoping that somebody will write the book about that at some point, to really get the whole story. I guess that was interesting. Yeah, I was just a peon lieutenant in those days but, man, there was a lot of technology crammed into that airplane. It certainly looked impressive. Is there anything that I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you? There’s a two-sided coin here that I’m going to tell you about, and in the middle is the balance that I think is right. There is a tremendous value to your systems commands maintaining an excellent technical base so that they can implement the technical authorities that are vested from Congress to the CNO to the SYSCOM. NAVAIR kept their technical base and in all the downsizing of people did not give it up. I credit brilliant men like Dr. Al Somoroff and [retired Vice Adm.] Joe Dyer. They truly pro-

tected the intellectual capital of the Naval Air Systems Command. Other systems commands have not been so lucky. I worked with our Air Force brothers all the time and they gave up too much of their technical expertise and handed it over to the contractors, which is an out-of-balance thing. It’s not that our contractors are bad, they’re fantastic companies, but you’ve got to have that check and balance of technically competent government engineers and they lost it. So that’s the one side of it. The other side of it is, government can be very socialistic and controlling. There is a temptation to grow for the sake of growth and set excessive standards that are laborious and unnecessary. Government can be a self-perpetuating organism that you have to fight all the time. And so as a SYSCOM commander, the thing that I think is lost on folks is the balance between these two extremes … you’ve got to have the right technical authority, but you’ve also got to fight this incessant desire to grow a bureaucratic organization. And finding that balance, I think, is the key. You know, finding that check and balance is a key attribute leaders must have. From a guy that’s just done it, that is the way [I] try to run every organization I’m part of. I will always try to find those balances between the two and keep them in tension so that they self-cleanse, and so that you don’t get a SYSCOM that the first answer out of their mouths is ‘Oh, alright, you want me to do that, send more money and let me hire 1,000 more people.’ It can’t be that answer. It can’t be that answer all the time. By the same token, the Pentagon can’t say ‘oh, you SYSCOMs are too darn big; I’m cutting you 1,000 people’ without any logic or rationale. Somewhere in there is that balance that is essential to our security. It really is. t

BEFORE NAVAIR WAS NAVAIR FOSTERING THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF U.S. NAVAL AVIATION

For many years after the Wright brothers made history at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, human flight still wasn’t taken seriously by most Americans; it was a novelty, a circus act, performed by daredevil “birdmen.” The U.S. Navy was firmly among the skeptics, despite the urgings of a small, passionate group of enthusiasts who claimed the airplane was on the verge of changing the way wars were fought. Aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss was one of the most prominent of these advocates; in the summer of 1910, he simulated aerial bombing and gunnery exercises in front of naval officers near his aviation laboratory at Keuka Lake, near Hammondsport, New York.

When one of Curtiss’ pilots, Eugene Ely, became the first to land an aircraft on the deck of a ship in

January 1911, the achievement, while impressive, still seemed perhaps a bit too improvisational

to Navy brass: As Ely brought his pusher biplane down onto a wooden platform built above the deck of the USS Pennsylvania, he was wearing a football helmet and, because he couldn’t swim, several inflated bicycle inner tubes hitched under his armpits. To slow the momentum of his plane, steel hooks mounted on his undercarriage – not much different from today’s tailhooks – caught several ropes that had been stretched across the deck

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By Craig Collins

U.S. NAVY PHOTO

u Opposite page: Eugene Ely stands on the deck of USS Pennsylvania after his first landing of an aircraft aboard a ship. His flight safety gear consisted of a borrowed football helmet and a flotation device made of bicycle inner tubes looped over his three-piece suit. Note the hooks beneath the aircraft that snagged several rows of sandbagged pendant wires to stop it. Right: A Douglas DT-2 torpedo bomber of Torpedo Squadron (VT) 2 shown in 1923. It was Douglas Aircraft’s first contract of a long association with the Navy, could be rigged with wheels or floats, and featured folding wings.

and weighted at their ends with heavy sandbags. This first arresting device had been introduced by another Curtiss pilot, Hugh Robinson, who had seen it used in his previous life as a circus performer. After Kitty Hawk, the Navy had made some room for aviation within its organizational structure, appointing Capt. Washington I. Chambers its officer in charge of aviation matters, and Chambers convinced the Navy to approve the purchase of two Curtiss biplanes, one a “flying boat” equipped for takeoff and landing on water. Curtiss had offered to train pilots for both the Army and the Navy at his facility on North Island, San Diego Bay, and Chambers took him up on his offer. Lt. Theodore Ellyson – who was given the designation Naval Aviator No.1 – and several of his colleagues began training at North Island in 1911. Because naval aviation was so new, even its most ardent advocates didn’t have a clear vision of what it should look like. One group, including Pennsylvania commander Capt. Charles F. Pond, urged the Navy to build a fleet of ships that could serve as floating airfields from which aircraft could take off and land. Others, including Chambers, thought such a configuration would interfere with the ship’s gunnery and leave it vulnerable;

he advocated instead for the use of amphibious planes that could be raised and lowered over the sides of ships by rigging cables. Naval aviation developed slowly in its early years. Some rudimentary work in solving the problems of naval aviation and weaponry had already begun: Rear Adm. Bradley Fiske had conceived and researched the idea of arming aircraft with lightweight torpedoes to attack naval ships and submarines. Cmdr. Cleland Davis had designed the Navy’s first true recoilless machine gun – the Davis gun, which essentially mounted two guns back to back, to fire simultaneously – as an airborne antisubmarine weapon. Ellyson and Lt. Cmdr. Henry Mustin had made the first successful catapult launches from ships. Most of these innovations remained in their early developmental phases, however, throughout World War I, which the United States entered in April 1917. The Navy had one operating air station, 48 available aviators and students, and 54 aircraft on hand. World War I: Naval Aviation’s First Test The infrastructure for creating and arming a fleet of naval aircraft ramped up during America’s 19-month involvement in World War I. In 1918, the

service concluded it would build its own aircraft factory, for three reasons: It wanted to assure supply of at least part of its aircraft inventory; it wanted to generate cost data to help guide future dealings with private manufacturers; and it wanted its own facility for producing experimental designs. The Naval Aircraft Factory (NAF) was established in 1918 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Though Chambers had been replaced by then-Capt. Mark Bristol as the Navy’s officer in charge of aviation in 1914, it was Chambers’ vision of naval aviation that prevailed in World War I – perhaps merely because no “floating airfields” had yet been built. The Navy’s greatest need was for flying boats, built to the Curtiss design, that could perform long-range anti-submarine patrols. The first aircraft built at the NAF, a twinengine H-16 flying boat, first flew on March 27, 1918, and the NAF’s first order, for 50 H-16s, was completed in July. Later that month the first experimental aircraft designed and built at the NAF, the N-1, made its fourth successful flight and the first in-flight test of the Davis gun. Much World War I naval aviation was devoted to anti-submarine patrols, and Allied naval aviators

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50 Years of LEADERSHIP

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u Then-Rear Adm. Ernest J. King, completing his tour of duty as chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics, (BuAer) with his personal SOC-1 Seagull.

managed to attack and damage a dozen German submarines. By war’s end, the Northern Bombing Group, composed of four squadrons each of Navy and Marine Corps aviators, were flying missions from 27 stations in Europe, as well as other stations in Canada, the Azores, the United States and the Panama Canal Zone. The performance of naval aviators in World War I convinced the U.S. Navy – which now had 2,000 aircraft – of their importance, and the service began its serious and sustained pursuit of arming the fleet. To enable further experiments in seaborne aviation, the first U.S. aircraft carrier, Langley, was created in 1920 by building a flight deck atop the collier Jupiter. Jupiter’s commander, Capt. Joseph M. Reeves, became Langley’s commander and one of the leading early tacticians of carrier aviation. In 1921, the Navy placed Adm. William Moffett at the head of a new Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer), with responsibility for the design, procurement, and support of naval aircraft and related systems. The responsibility for developing aerial weapons, however, remained with the Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd), a circumstance that would create occasional friction for decades to come. In the postwar years, the Navy began to expand its naval aviation work among existing facilities: • At Naval Air Station (NAS) San Diego, located at Curtiss’ former North Island Facility, the Navy opened its first Assembly and Repair Department to modify, repair, and support naval aircraft. North Island remains a Fleet Readiness Center and Logistic Support Activity for NAVAIR today.

• At the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia, beginning in the early 1920s, the Navy began to develop bombsights that would continue to perform regardless of a plane’s roll or pitch. • The Naval Aircraft Factory, which had turned its attention away from production to focus on experimental designs, began to evaluate torpedo-launching gear, and the Navy bought its first torpedo bombers, modified Martin MB-1 biplanes, in 1921. • The Navy established NAS Lakehurst, New Jersey, just east of the Naval Aircraft Factory, in 1921 for use as an airship station and home to its lighterthan-air program. In 1935, the Navy’s first purpose-built aircraft carrier, the USS Ranger, joined the Langley, Lexington, and Saratoga at North Island, where each anchored its own air group. The commanders of these carriers, and the aviators who flew from their decks, honed the tactics – including divebombing and aerial combat – that would make the U.S. Navy a lethal threat in the coming war. World War II: A Show of Strength The remarkable postwar growth of naval aviation required some

refocusing: In 1937, BuAer decided to consolidate the service’s various aviation test programs at Cedar Point, a spur on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay coast just southeast of the nation’s capital. Construction at the site began after the U.S. entry into World War II, and it was formally dedicated NAS Patuxent River on April 1, 1943. During World War II, hundreds of combat-experienced pilots arrived at “Pax River,” as it was known, to test airplanes. The United States launched its war effort after the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941, and the Navy accelerated its aviation work. BuAer established a Special Devices Section within its Engineering Division to create “synthetic training devices” that could increase the readiness of pilots and aircrews. Throughout the war, at what would later become known as the Naval Training Device Center on Long Island, New York, numerous training devices were invented, some that would today be called simulators, including one that used moving pictures to train aircraft gunners. Meanwhile, two new Assembly and Repair Departments were stood up – at NAS Jacksonville, Florida, and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, to

– now Naval Manufacturing Unit (NAMU) Johnsville – was producing 70 Corsairs a month. The Naval Aircraft Factory, also, stepped up to manufacture its N3N trainer biplane, a rugged flyer that helped a generation of aviators learn to fly. In July 1943, the secretary ordered these Philadelphia-area facilities, including NAMU, NAF, and the Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, to be consolidated into an umbrella organization, the Naval Air Material Center (NAMC) with overall command of production, modification, experimental, and air station facilities.

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complement the work being done at North Island. To provide the Navy with a proving ground for its ordnance, and a site for California Institute of Technology researchers to test experimental rockets, the Navy purchased an old emergencylanding airstrip in the Mojave Desert, at Inyokern, California, and began building larger facilities 10 miles east, at China Lake, now home to Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division. The Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) was formally established there in November 1943. The NOTS became the Navy’s testing and training hub for air-launched rockets, solid propellants, fire-control systems, and guided missiles. By midJanuary 1944, fleet squadrons were arriving at the NOTS for weapons and tactics training on weapons like the 3.5-inch and 5-inch aircraft rockets at a rate that required parts and supplies to be flown in daily from San Diego. The pace of wartime operations compelled the Navy to re-enter the aircraft manufacturing business. After Brewster Aeronautical Corporation went bankrupt and failed to build its quota of 1,500 Vought-designed gullwing Corsairs, the Navy took over its facilities in Johnsville, Pennsylvania. By 1943, the facility

In November 1944, the BuAer directed the NAMC to study the requirements to test turbojet and turboprop powerplants. At the time, the Navy’s first all-jet-powered airplane, the McDonnell FD-1 Phantom, was under development (a bigger, faster, refined development of the Phantom became the Banshee). The BuAer request ultimately led to establishment of the Naval Air Turbine Test Station in Trenton, New Jersey. The BuOrd, meanwhile, was wrestling with torpedo issues. The Navy’s mainstay air-dropped torpedo, the Mark 13, was shown to have major problems, proving ineffective at the Battle of Midway and requiring a “low and slow” approach that exposed aviators to enemy fire. By late 1944, BuOrd had turned the Mark 13 into the

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u Left: A Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-3 “Yellow Peril” training aircraft in 1942. The NAF produced 997 N3Ns for the Navy and Marine Corps from 1935 to 1942. It was the last aircraft produced by the Naval Aircraft Factory – wholly owned by the U.S. Navy. Below: A captured Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien (Flying Swallow) being tested by the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, Maryland, in June 1945.

23 u Left: A U.S. Navy Ryan FR-1 Fireball mixed power fighter at the Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland, on March 11, 1945. The Fireball had a radial engine pulling from up front and a jet engine pushing from behind. It has the distinction of making the first jetpowered landing aboard an aircraft carrier on Nov. 6, 1945, when a Fireball of VF-41 had to land under jet power aboard USS Wake Island after its radial engine failed on final approach. Below left: The eighth production U.S. Navy Grumman F9F-2 Panther in flight in 1949. The Panther was one of the Navy’s most successful early jet fighters.

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military underwent the most radical reorganization in its history, combining the armed forces – including the new U.S. Air Force – together into what would become known as the Department of Defense (DOD). The new law defined the Navy as “including such aviation as may be organic therein.” For the Navy, the reorganization was merely the beginning of a long process of streamlining ad hoc efforts that had been launched to solve the problems of war. Over the next two decades, the technical and administrative units of naval aviation would undergo several further realignments.

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A Unified Command

best air-dropped torpedo in World War II, and meanwhile developed a successor – a torpedo that would home in on targets by means of hydrophones. The resulting Mark 24 torpedo, known as the FIDO, sank its first U-boats in May 1943 after being launched from a PBY Catalina flying boat and a B-24 Liberator. A total of 37 submarines were sunk by the FIDO during the remainder of the war. Like the rest of the U.S. military, the Navy had entered the war poorly prepared to execute the

Allied strategy, but by war’s end, naval aviation had proved indispensable, and it looked nothing like it had in the previous world war. The carrier-based task group, in particular, had emerged as a powerful means of projecting military might – but the atomic bombs that had hastened Japan’s surrender also renewed debates about the costs and benefits of the Navy and its aviators. These debates were nominally resolved by the National Security Act of 1947, in which the U.S.

As World War II wound down, American naval aviation both contracted and expanded, as facilities closed or consolidated and new technologies showed promise for further investigation. The NAF ended all production in early 1945, and its aircraft test functions were later passed on to the newly formed Naval Air Test Center (NATC), which was established as a separate entity within Naval Air Station Patuxent River on June 16, 1945. With its support and test functions now organizationally divided, Pax River formalized classroom training for pilots in

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1948 at its new Test Pilot Training Division. The Naval Air Station became the site for several important aviation support facilities throughout the 1950s and 1960s, including the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School (1958) and the Weapons Systems Test Division (1960). To complement the work of the NOTS, the Navy in 1946 established the Naval Air Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, southeast of Oxnard, California. The new center would give the Navy a 36,000-square-mile area of open ocean for the testing of guided missiles and components and operates today under the Naval Air Weapons Center Weapons Division. By the end of World War II, U.S. naval aviation had begun its transition into the age of jet propulsion and “smart” weapons, but this transition was complicated by the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. U.S. military objectives – namely, to confine the fighting to

u This Vought F8U-1T Crusader (later designated the TF-8A) was one of many unique or unusual aircraft to be tested at Patuxent River. It was thought that a two-seat trainer version of the Crusader would aid pilots in mastering a sometimes difficult aircraft with a high accident rate. There was only one “Twosader” ever built, however, constructed by modifying the 77th production F8U-1 (F-8A BuNo 143710). It also served as the prototype for the F8U-2NE (F-8E).

the Korean peninsula and avoid a wider war – generally limited air operations. The Grumman F9F Panther, whose prototype had first flown in 1947, had become the Navy’s first successful carrierbased jet fighter, and it became the primary fighter and ground-attack aircraft for Navy and Marine Corps aviators in the Korean War. Carrier-based helicopters (the Navy’s first two helicopter squadrons had been established at Lakehurst in 1948) made a significant contribution in rescue

and evacuation, coastal patrol, and short-range supply missions. While the Korean War was being fought, researchers at the NOTS were developing what would become the air-intercept missile (AIM) 9 Sidewinder, a heat-seeking short-range air-to-air missile that downed its first target, an F6F Hellcat drone, in September 1953. The Sidewinder and its variants have become the world’s most-used and -copied air-to-air missiles, and have seen service in every engagement between Western armed forces and their adversaries since its development. NOTS engineers, on the heels of Sidewinder’s success, began to adapt some of its technology to develop a glide bomb – the Walleye – that could be guided remotely by means of embedded television cameras. The Walleye made its first hit on a NOTS target in 1963. It was the progenitor of generations of guided weapons that would evolve into the standoff precision munitions in use today.

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A World War II-era problem that continued to trouble DOD leaders in the 1950s was the amount of time it took to field new weapon systems, which were plagued with delays throughout a byzantine process of requirements, approval, contracting, and reporting. The Navy’s BuOrd had been criticized during the war for failing to remediate flaws in its submarine-launched torpedoes, and while it continued to work with BuAer to improve coordination on aerial weapons, Navy leadership had already set another solution in motion. In 1957, a special committee led by Deputy Secretary of Defense Reuben B. Robertson Jr. issued its final report on its studies of the delays and conflicts in the development of aircraft and weapons. The Navy acted swiftly on the committee’s recommendations: It established a long-range objectives group in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and managers for each weapon program within BuAer. The problem

u A U.S. Navy RA-5C Vigilante in flight off the Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland. The RA-5C heavy reconnaissance aircraft was delivered directly to the NATC for testing in June 1963, the first of those modified from their original A5A/A3J bomber configuration.

remained, however – particularly with increasingly sophisticated weapon systems that required integration of aerial weapons and onboard targeting systems – that BuAer and BuOrd needed to be brought under a single command. In 1959, the two bureaus were merged into a newly created Bureau of Naval Weapons (BuWeps). The new bureau, however, was only a temporary solution, as the Navy was on the verge of concluding that the “bureau system” that had existed since 1840 was discouraging its organizations from working together. In 1966, the Navy replaced its bureaus with “system commands,” or SYSCOMs, which

gave internal leaders authority over broader functional areas. One of the six new SYSCOMs was the Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, which would assume authority over the full life cycles of naval aviation aircraft, weapons, and systems operated by sailors and Marines. Activities under NAVAIR’s authority included research and development, design, acquisition, test and evaluation, training facilities and equipment, repair and modification, and in-service logistics and engineering support. The components of NAVAIR, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, were well established, from Pax River to Point Mugu. But as the United States became drawn further into the conflict between Communist insurgents and Democratic governments in Southeast Asia, a new kind of warfare was emerging, one that would test the new command’s ability to respond swiftly and decisively to new issues in naval aviation. t

NAVAIR: 50 YEARS OF EQUIPPING THE FLEET 1966-2016 By Craig Collins

The 1966 reorganization that replaced the Navy’s outdated bureaus with Systems Commands (SYSCOMs) finally placed two key functions of naval aviation – aircraft and aerial weapon systems – within a single line of authority: the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). The new command began exercising its untrammeled authority immediately, establishing full organizational and operational control of development and support for aircraft, weapons, training, and support functions. It streamlined the operations of the assembly and repair departments at North Island, California, Jacksonville, Florida, and Cherry Point, North Carolina, and redesignated them Naval Air Rework Facilities, as each developed expertise in servicing and supporting specific aircraft and systems. It moved its center for training and flight simulation from Long Island, New York, to its current home in Orlando, Florida.

Meanwhile, at its primary research and development facilities – Naval Air Station Patuxent River (or Pax River), China Lake and Point Mugu (both in California), and its Philadelphia-area installations – NAVAIR worked to resolve both the short-term issues associated with the escalating conflict in Vietnam and the sustained progress of key aircraft and weapons programs, including: • Helicopters. Historians today sometimes refer to Vietnam as the “Helicopter War.” In a thickly forested tropical region with little infrastructure, mobility and firepower were a must, and the helicopter’s combat role expanded enormously. Throughout the war, the Navy contracted with Bell, manufacturer of the Huey helicopter variants, for aircraft that filled a variety of roles including combat, search and rescue, and supply. To strengthen the Navy’s surface anti-submarine

warfare, NAVAIR in 1970 began development of the Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS) program, which initially relied on shipboard electronics and the Navy’s fast ship-based utility helicopter, the SH-2 Seasprite. Later versions of LAMPS involved the SH60B Seahawk, a larger helicopter capable of carrying the required equipment and weaponry. • The next-generation carrier jet. In 1968, NAVAIR issued a request for proposals (RFPs) for the Naval Fighter Experimental program (VFX), a tandem twoseat, twin-jet air-to-air fighter. The aircraft that emerged, the F-14 Tomcat, used design input based on aviators’ air combat against MiG fighters in the Vietnam War. It first deployed in 1974 aboard the USS Enterprise. The F-14 revolutionized air combat, with its variable-sweep wings; a speed of more than 1,500 miles per hour; a radar system that

could track up to 24 targets simultaneously; and the ability to carry six Phoenix AIM-54 missiles, each with a range of more than 100 nautical miles. NAVAIR issued a second RFP in 1974 for its Advanced Experimental Fighter Aircraft (VFAX), a process that resulted in the F/A-18 Hornet, the first tactical aircraft designed for both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. The Hornet made extensive use of composites, and was the first tactical jet to use digital fly-by-wire flight controls. It flew for the first time in 1978. • Precision weapons. Activity in Southeast Asia quickened the pace of activity at the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) at China Lake and at Point Mugu. By the mid-1960s, nearly 20 different aircraft types were being evaluated for weapons, targeting, integration, and component projects, as well as fleet training and logistics. NOTS researchers began to lay the groundwork for a new generation of night-attack systems, cluster weapons, and “smart” bombs, including the TV-guided Walleye – which naval aviators used to knock out Hanoi’s main power plant in 1967. Laser-guided munitions, which required the use of a microchip, were first used in Vietnam in 1972, and the NOTS began looking at ways to integrate this technology into rockets, missiles, and bombs.

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• Vertical takeoff. In 1966, as the culmination of an Army/Navy/ Air Force project to develop a prototype vertical and/or short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) transport aircraft, a Navy aviator piloted the experimental XC142A tilt-rotor aircraft on its first carrier flights. While the Navy continued to pursue the tiltrotor concept, MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina, became home to the first operational V/STOL squadron when it took delivery of three British-made AV-8A Harrier “jump-jets.” To accommodate the many changes underway within NAVAIR, Pax River underwent a major reorganization in

u Pilots of the Tri-service evaluation of the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel FGA.1 (XV-6A in the United States) aircraft at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in May 1966.

Computer Services, Technical Support, and the U.S. Naval Pilot Test School – remained intact. The Cold War Ends

1975, making the Naval Air Test Center (NATC) the command’s principal site for development testing: the Flight Test, Service Test, and Weapons System Test divisions were disestablished, and new directorates formed to evaluate aircraft by type and mission: Strike Aircraft, Antisubmarine Aircraft, Rotary Wing Aircraft, and Systems Engineering Test. Other command directorates –

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, many aircraft and weapons projects, such as the earlier XC-142A, involved the Navy’s cooperation with the Air Force or Army, in the spirit of “jointness” that lay behind many Department of Defense (DOD) reorganization efforts. In its formative phase, for example, the Osprey V-22 V/STOL aircraft was known as the Joint-Service V/STOL Experimental (JVX) aircraft. From the beginning, it was designed to meet the require-

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u Above: The sixth production U.S. Navy Grumman F-14A Tomcat in flight in 1973. It was assigned to Naval Air Weapons Test Center, Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California. It crashed on June 20, 1973, when an AIM-7 Sparrow missile pitched up on launch and ruptured a fuel tank, causing a fire that forced the crew to eject. Left: An A-6 Intruder launches two AGM123A Skipper II low-level laser-guided bombs.

ments of the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Army. A V-22 prototype flew for the first time on March 19, 1989. Throughout the 1980s, F/A-18 Hornets began to replace F-4 Phantom II fighter-bombers and A-7 Corsair attack aircraft in the carrier fleet. At China Lake and Point Mugu, missile development kept pace with

these innovations. The Tomahawk long-range cruise missile began to demonstrate, in the early 1980s, that it could search for, locate, and attack targets both on land and at sea. In 1983, development began on the AGM-88 High-Speed AntiRadiation Missile (HARM), an airto-surface missile designed to home in on electronic transmissions

from ground radar systems. Radarand laser-guided variants of the Hellfire air-to-ground missile were also evaluated, and the Hellfire II, the laser-guided variant, was developed in the early 1990s. The Skipper II, a short-range laserguided missile developed at China Lake, debuted in battle in the Persian Gulf in 1988, when at least two Skipper missiles, launched from A-6E Intruders, contributed to the sinking of an Iranian frigate. HARM and Skipper missiles were also used against Iraqi ships during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Today the Skipper looks primitive by comparison with the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW)

or Standoff Land Attack Missile, but it was a necessary and useful step in the evolution of precision munitions. One of the most successful weapons development programs of the 1990s was the AGM-154 JSOW, a precision-guided weapon capable of engaging defended targets from beyond the range of standard anti-aircraft defenses. The JSOW’s guidance system couples GPS with an inertial navigation system for midcourse navigation, and infrared imaging and a datalink for terminal homing onto targets. The first combat deployment of the JSOW occurred over southern Iraq in 1998 when a single weapon, launched from an F/A-18C from Marine

u A U.S. Navy Douglas KA-3B Skywarrior from the Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland, refueling the first McDonnell Douglas YF-18A Hornet, in April 1979. A McDonnell F-4J Phantom II chase plane is flying in the foreground, one generation giving way to another at Pax River.

Fighter Attack Squadron 312, struck a target in the outskirts of Baghdad. The 1990s saw a historic shift in the world order, and the organization of the U.S. military evolved to reflect these changes. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc nations ushered in an era of regionalized conflicts and growing instability

in the Middle East. The Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission began its periodic overhauls of the military enterprise, and many naval aviation squadrons were consequently disestablished, consolidated, or reorganized. These reorganizations had a profound effect on NAVAIR. By the mid-1990s, it had established the Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC), with three divisions: • The NAWC Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), which assumed responsibility for aircraft, engines, avionics, and aircraft support, was established at NAS Pax River. NAWCAD became the Navy’s full-spectrum research,

U.S. NAVY PHOTO

development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E); engineering and fleet support center for air platforms. Several activities, including those of the Philadelphia-area installations, were absorbed into NAWCAD; the Naval Air Propulsion Center, for example, was moved from Trenton to Pax River, where it was renamed the Propulsion System Evaluation Facility (PSEF). • The NAWC Weapons Division (NAWCWD), headquartered at China Lake and Point Mugu, with a facility at White Sands, New Mexico, assumed responsibility for all aircraft weapons and weapons systems, targets, and simulators. • The NAWC Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD), in Orlando, Florida, retained the mission of the Naval Training Systems Center: to research, develop, acquire, test and evaluate, manage and support all aviation, surface and subsurface training devices

u A colorful formation of U.S. Navy McDonnell F-4 Phantom II fighters from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron VX-4 and the Naval Missile Center (now Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division), China Lake, California, in flight during the 1970s. From left to right, a QF4B drone; F-4B; F-4J; and “Black Bunny” F-4J.

and systems for the Navy, and all aviation systems for the Marine Corps. In 1996, NAVAIR headquarters was moved from Arlington, Virginia, to a new building at Pax River. The 21st Century Naval doctrine was already undergoing a dramatic shift when, on Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by a small group of al Qaeda-backed terrorists took nearly 3,000 lives on American soil. The asymmetrical conflict that ensued, focused on Afghanistan and Iraq but sometimes involving terror-

ist targets in other nations, required unprecedented speed, flexibility, and lethality from U.S. armed forces. Over the course of what became known as the War on Terrorism, the organization and operation of naval aviation was restructured to reflect the changing nature of its missions. Carrier battle groups were redesignated carrier strike groups, flexible operational formations that could operate on the open ocean or in confined waters, day or night, in all weather conditions. The change from “battle” to “strike” groups signaled a greater emphasis on projecting the Navy’s air power ashore. The model of this kind of flexibility in the naval aviation fleet has been the Hornet and its latest variant, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which deployed on its first operational cruise in 2002. True multimission aircraft, all Hornet variants can perform either fighter or attack roles, or both. The Super Hornet, with 11 weapons

stations, can carry a much larger array of air-to-ground ordnance than its predecessor, the F-14 Tomcat, which was retired from the fleet in 2006. The Tomcat itself, developed as a fleet defense fighter, was transformed late in its life by NAVAIR into what some called a “Bombcat,” and played a large role in the initial attacks against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, having the range to fly from carriers at sea and deliver precision munitions over the battlefield. In 2005, NAVAIR began to develop the Multimission Maritime Aircraft (MMA), now known as the P-8 Poseidon, capable of anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare (ASUW), shipping interdiction,

u Four V-22 Osprey aircraft sit along the flight line at Patuxent River before test flights. NAVAIR undertook extensive flight testing of the V-22 after early mishaps.

and electronic signals intelligence. The Navy received the first P-8 in 2012, and NAVAIR proceeded with full-range production of the P-8, with upgrades to be phased in until 2020. Another tool for rapid-strike capability to evolve in the 21st century has been the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV); the Navy opened its first permanent hangar designed and built specifically for a UAV in 2000 at Pax River’s Webster Field Annex. The

RQ-8 Fire Scout, an unmanned autonomous helicopter designed to provide reconnaissance, aerial fire support, and precision targeting support, began its flight test program at China Lake in 2002; the first Fire Scout to land autonomously on a moving Navy ship landed on board the USS Nashville in 2006. The RQ-4 Global Hawk, a winged surveillance UAV, made its first flight in 2004 and evolved into the Triton, which was unveiled in 2012 and is intended to replace the Navy’s aging fleet of manned P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft. One of the most sophisticated UAVs to date, the X-47B – a demonstration unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) designed

U.S. NAVY PHOTO

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY VERNON PUGH

u An F/A-18C Hornet from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two Three (VX-23) releases Mk. 83 1,000-pound bombs during a series of Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) adjacent stores release tests over the Atlantic Test Range.

SOARING. SERVING.

WE SALUTE NAVAIR’S BOUNDLESS CONTRIBUTIONS TO AVIATION INNOVATION IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY.

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specifically for carrier-based operations – first flew in 2011, and in the summer of 2013 made the first arrested carrier landing at sea by an unmanned aircraft. The X-47B proved the concept that is today being developed into CBARS, the Carrier-Based Aerial Refueling and Strike unmanned system. Meanwhile the aircraft of the Navy fleet increased their capabilities with a new generation of air-to-ground weapons. The AGM-84K SLAM-ER (Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response), a precision-guided airlaunched missile, became available for duty and integrated into the P3-C Orion, the F/A-18 Hornet, and

u The launch crew at NAS Patuxent River prepares an X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator for its first land-based catapult launch. The X-47B has been a milestone naval aviation program.

Super Hornet; the missile will also be integrated into the P-8. In July 2007, two F/A-18D Hornets form Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 destroyed Iraqi insurgent vehicles with an AGM- 65E Maverick air-to-ground missile and a GBU-51/B laser-guided bomb equipped with the BLU-126/B lowcollateral damage explosive – the Navy’s first drop of the BLU-126/B

in battle. The following year, NAVAIR announced the delivery of Laser Joint Direct Attack Munition (LJDAM) kits to the fleet. The JDAM program, launched in the late 1990s, allows the addition of a JSOW-like precision guidance system to existing “dumb” gravity bombs; the laser JDAM adds a moving target capability to the proven JDAM. The 21st century has also seen the largest program in DOD history – the Joint Strike Fighter, or JSF – grow to maturity. The JSF program has its roots in a series of studies that began in 1993, supporting the idea of a merger between two programs: the Common Affordable

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Lightweight Fighter (CALF) program, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/Navy project to combine requirements that could meet the V/STOL needs of the Marine Corps and foreign customers; and the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) projects, designed to support development and production of next-generation strike weapon systems for the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and allies. In the Navy fleet, the F-35B STOVL and F-35C CV variants will replace both the AV-8B Harrier II and the “legacy” F/A-18 Hornet. Two F-35Bs – the short takeoff/

u The F-35 Lightning II Pax River Integrated Test Force from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 conducted the first-ever ski-jump launch of an F-35B Lightning II short takeoff/ vertical landing (STOVL) variant June 19, 2015. During flight 298, BAE test pilot Peter Wilson launched aircraft BF-04 from a land-based ski jump located aboard NAS Patuxent River. This test was the first of a series of U.K. ski-jump events scheduled for 2015 in preparation for the F-35B operating off Royal Navy aircraft carriers.

vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the JSF – completed the first formation flight of this aircraft at

Pax River in 2010, and, in 2015, the Marine Corps declared the aircraft – the world’s first supersonic STOVL stealth aircraft – had met initial operational capability. While Pentagon and Navy leaders continue to debate the F-35’s tactical readiness for the real world, there’s no question the aircraft is the very emblem of the speed, flexibility, and lethality U.S. naval aviation brings to the free world’s defense – and of all the moving parts, encompassed by an ever-evolving Naval Air Systems Command, that combine to make it possible. t

PATUXENT RIVER COUNCIL, NAVY LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES By Chuck Oldham

Founded in 1902 with the encouragement of President Theodore Roosevelt, the Navy League of the United States provides a powerful voice in support of the sea services to Congress and to the American people. The Navy League serves and supports the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S.-flagged Merchant Marine. Some 40,000 civilians in more than 240 councils around the world work through a variety of programs to support sea service members and their families.

The Navy League’s primary missions, and those of its councils, are: • To support the men and women of the services and their families, both through improving the understanding, appreciation, and recognition of those who wear the uniforms of the sea services and by improving the conditions under which they live and serve. • To enhance the morale of active-duty personnel and their families. • To advocate the maintenance of a strong U.S. industrial base to secure America’s future. • To support youth programs, especially the Naval Sea Cadet Corps, Junior ROTC, and Young Marines, to educate and train these youths in the customs and traditions of the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine. • To educate the public about the importance of capable and fully prepared sea services as integral parts of a sound national defense and vital to the freedom of the United States as a maritime nation; and to act as an advocate for the sea services to the

legislative branch and the nation’s leadership at large. The Patuxent River Council of the Navy League fulfills these aims through a number of programs and initiatives, according to A.J. Benn, president of the council and a retired Navy veteran. Benn began his Navy career in 1976, won his wings of gold in 1978, served at sea for several cruises, and served at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River as a test pilot and later a program manager. Formed Aug. 22, 1959, the Patuxent River Council has more than 200 members. “As of March 1, 2016, we have 229 people associated with this council of Pax River,” Benn said. And those 229 members support several thousand sea service personnel in the community. “Looking at the immediate area, there’s a Coast Guard station down here which we service; the Marine Air Detachment; various active-duty squadrons – we have VXS-1 here, for example, whose aircraft perform scientific research such as bathymetry, electronic countermeasures, gravity mapping, and radar development research. Additionally, there are the test squadrons and base operations detachments. Thus all totaled,

there are about 2,400 military personnel,” Benn said. “That includes Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard, out of about 22,800 people passing through the gates at Pax River and extended complexes on any given day, with most of them being civil service and contractors.” The council financially supports sea service personnel in a number of ways. In addition to sponsoring Sailor of the Quarter, the council also helps the Naval Air Station’s Chiefs’ Mess and First Class Petty Officer Association with some of their events. “We also make presentations for outstanding service or special recognition. Being a test facility here, every year they recognize the Test Pilot and Test Naval Flight Officer of the Year. We present a watch in recognition of their achievement.” One of the council’s bigger events, and its biggest fundraiser, is the annual golf tournament at Cedar Point Golf Course each May, now entering its 19th year. Every dollar the tournament raises is donated to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society. “If you’re familiar with Navy Relief, then you know sometimes folks can’t make ends meet to the end of the month,” Benn said. “And Navy Relief does a wonderful job of supporting service families and individuals. So we help them there.” The other major event each year for the Patuxent River Navy League is its ski trip. “That’s our showcase event,” Benn said. “We provide an all-expense-paid three-day ski trip for our young unaccompanied sailors and Marines. They come

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PATUXENT RIVER COUNCIL, NAVY LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES

here to Southern Maryland and, admittedly, there isn’t a whole lot to do if you’re 22 years old, right? This is a waterman’s area. It’s a farming area. You’ve got to go up the road. You’ve got to head to Washington if you’re going to mingle and mix and go to nightclubs and that kind of thing. So, to make it a little more appealing, we financially support a trip for about 60 to 80 sailors and Marines in combination with the wonderful folks at Timberline Four Seasons Ski Resort in Canaan Valley, West Virginia. There is a first-come, first-serve arrangement, and the command master chiefs on the base find the folks. We load up a bunch of buses and we launch them off for a three-day trip. That’s a big hit. Later in the week, other Navy families come up and rent chalets and enjoy the skiing. At that time, we also sponsor a Navy Family reception we’ve worked

u Sailors and Marines enjoying the 2016 ski trip to Timberline Four Seasons Ski Resort.

out with the resort ownership. It’s sort of like Fleet Week up there. So, the combination of the ski trip for the sailors and Marines and a Navy Family reception is a highwater mark for us. For the Marine Corps we have an oyster scald at an on-base facility or at one of our folks’ place. That draws a lot of attention. We’ll have 80 to 100 Marines show up.” The council also supports programs that educate and train local youths in the customs and traditions of the Navy and Marine Corps through the Naval Junior ROTC and Naval Sea Cadet Corps. “That’s one of the areas we’re trying to expand,” Benn said. “We currently support financially and through awards programs eight

Navy Junior ROTC units in the high school areas – eight high schools. We make presentations at their awards ceremonies recognizing leadership excellence. There are other award ceremonies within the year. In some cases, we’ll lend financial support as well – case in point, there is one high school that has an outstanding rifle team, and they were having a big competition in Hawaii, and they needed financial support to get the shooting team to Hawaii for the competition. So we kicked in some money to make that happen. We also try to address the needs of the Sea Scouts. And while we don’t have a set squadron or a Sea Scout branch here, we’ll kick in money to send one of their Sea Scouts on a week’s cruise. While Calvert County is one of the more affluent counties in Maryland, some of our young folks could use a little more help in reaching their goals. And so when

BECOME A NAVY LEAGUE MEMBER TODAY! Every day, more than 37,000 members in over 240 Navy League Councils around the world carry our message to the public and support the men and women who serve. The Navy League depends on passionate individuals like you to carry our education and support mission forward. Local councils adopt ships and shore commands, reward and honor enlisted personnel, host dinners and celebrations for military personnel, and support family members left behind when spouses and parents are deployed. In addition, many councils have participated in spectacular ceremonies connected with the commissioning of new Navy and Coast Guard ships as well as the dedication of new military shore facilities.

NO PRIOR MILITARY SERVICE IS REQUIRED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE NAVY LEAGUE! The Navy League is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational and advocacy organization that supports America’s sea services — the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and U.S.-flag Merchant Marine. We are a military service organization, rather than a veterans’ organization, although we cherish and support our veterans and wounded warriors. We are the trusted civilian partners of the sea services, supporting their mission, their personnel and their families. We also believe in building a strong foundation for those services through youth programs that teach duty, honor and respect for this country and provide a path into the sea services. To become a member of the Navy League US Patuxent River Council, you must register for membership through the national organization. Joining members should be sure to list “Patuxent River Council” as the Council to be joined. For information about membership, click on the URL below. http://www.navyleague.org/membership

Navy League of the United States | Patuxent River Council

43 u The color guard from Huntington High School, one of the high school NJROTC units supported by the Navy League Patuxent River Council, at a change of command ceremony.

kids need help in scholarships or projects or funding for special school events, we’ll provide some funds. And that’s the case with the Sea Scouts. This year we’re sending a Sea Scout for experience with the Navy on a couple-week cruise, and we’re going to cover the bill to get him transportation there, defray the cost of uniforms, and that kind of thing. A combination of the NJROTC programs and Sea Scouts is where we support the area youth.” While educating and training youths who are likely to join a sea service is an important aspect of Navy League activities, continually educating the public at large about the importance of the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine is one of the Navy League’s original reasons for being, and remains of great importance today. “Every year we sponsor a Wine and Cheese Social and a membership dinner in which we invite the public and our corporate sponsors,” Benn said. “To encourage attendance, we’ll get a headliner speaker. This past February, we held our membership dinner as a kind of open house. We invited Rear Adm. Randy Mahr, deputy program director from the F-35 Joint Program Office, to come talk to us about the F-35, with its goods and others, and the impact that it has on the community. What happens on base affects the Southern Maryland tri-county area, so we try to invite speakers who have interesting topics. We had one of our state senators come and talk about the influence the Navy has on the economy of Southern Maryland, and the idea of making Southern Maryland a technology center of excellence. We draw from

government speakers, industry speakers, and Navy leadership to come talk about the importance of the work that is done here, but primarily why it’s important to have strong maritime services and the importance of naval aviation, our Navy fleet, and the Marine Corps. Our goal then is to spread the message, and let people know that they can influence our national leadership. We’re planning another open house/happy hour/officers’ call kind of thing this year to bring the public in to hear what we’ve got to say and also to generate the funds to support our sailors and Marines.” What can the public do to support the Pax River Council of the Navy League and the Navy League at large? “For the local area, I think one of the biggest things that we’re asking the public to do is be educated about the Navy and Marine Corps. Investigate on your own the value of the Navy. Don’t be persuaded by the sensationalism and the grandstanding by media, but find out for yourselves the value of our maritime services. Take an interest, be personally involved. It’s our sons and daughters who are going off to fight our wars, so when we invite the public, we ask them to come and join us and learn about us and primarily get involved with our sailors, Marines, Coast Guardsmen,

and Merchant Mariners. They’re our future. They’re the ones that stand tall at night, thousands of miles away from home. We sleep well because some dedicated 19-year-old kid is on the flight deck of a carrier facing the Chinese in the South Pacific. And it’s because of some patriotic 18-year-old gal who is schlepping ordnance that we get to enjoy the things we do. So, when we address the public, we talk to them about the fantastic men and women who make up the finest Navy and Marine Corps in the world. And we encourage citizens to be involved here in the area, support the Navy and be engaged with NAVAIR, understand where we’re going, and, if nothing else, be informed. “I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize the tremendous support our corporate and individual sponsors provide in making our mission a reality. Through their generosity and commitment, they allow us to focus on the men and women of the maritime services here in Patuxent River. They have stood shoulder to shoulder with us throughout economic downturns and uncertain budgets. They have always been there with us. I can’t express my appreciation enough.” To learn more about the Patuxent River Council of the Navy League, donate, or get involved, go to: www.nl-paxriver.org t

SUPERLATIVES & SUCCESS STORIES A FEW NOTABLE NAVAIR AIRCRAFT AND WEAPONS By Eric Tegler

The number of aircraft and weapons programs undertaken by NAVAIR in the last five decades is so large that we can only highlight a handful here. They represent just a slice of the superlatives and successes made every day across NAVAIR. X-47B Though it seems to have happened only yesterday, the testing and development of the Northrop Grumman X-47 is a watershed in naval aviation. A series of firsts, beginning with the first-ever full-size unmanned aircraft carrier-based catapult launch from USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77) in May 2013, were accomplished during NAVAIR’s management of the Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator

u An X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator conducts a touch and go landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77). This was the first time any unmanned aircraft had completed a touch and go landing at sea.

(UCAS-D) program from 2011 to 2015. The UCAS-D program had its origins in the early 2000s, but NAVAIR expanded its initial scope to demonstrate carrier launches and recoveries, as well as autonomous inflight refueling. A test program that began at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River in 2012 saw autonomous precision approaches and runway arrested landings moved to sea trials in 2013. The first carrierbased arrested landing, also aboard the Bush, was made in July of that year.

NAVAIR went a step further when the X-47B conducted the first ever autonomous aerial refueling of an unmanned aircraft in April 2015, completing the final test objective under UCAS-D. NAVAIR UCAS Program Manager Capt. Jaime Engdahl observed that, “We have been using the same [carrier] landing technology for more than 50 years now, and the idea that we can take a large UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] and operate in that environment is fascinating.” E-6B Mercury What’s the biggest aircraft tested and developed by NAVAIR? The Boeing E-6B Mercury has that distinction. Based on the Boeing 707-320 (and subsequent E-3A), the E-6B is a

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS TONY D. CURTIS/RELEASED

Since it replaced the Bureau of Naval Weapons in 1966, NAVAIR has ordered, tested, and developed an impressive variety of aircraft and weapons. Many made aviation history, others were steps toward longsought capabilities. From the biggest to the fastest, the strangest to the slowest, every system represented an opportunity to learn.

U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO BY JOSH PLUEGER/RELEASED

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY PHOTOGRAPHER’S MATE 2ND CLASS DANIEL J. MCLAIN

u Above: A U.S. Navy E-6 Mercury strategic airborne command post aircraft takes flight at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The E-6 “TACAMO” aircraft communicates with ballistic missile submarines while also expanding the mission to include ground missiles and nucleararmed strategic bombers. Right: A U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey, assigned to Naval Air System Command’s (NAVAIR’s) V-22 Integrated Test Team (ITT), takes flight from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, in 2005.

communications relay and strategic airborne command post aircraft. Initially conceived as the E-6A to replace the EC-130Q in relaying National Command Authority (NCA) instructions to fleet ballistic missile submarines, a mission known as TACAMO (“Take Charge and Move Out”), it has since taken on a dual mission. The E-6B also provides broader airborne command, control, and communications between the NCA and U.S. strategic and nonstrategic forces. The first Mercury rolled out in December 1986 and made its first flight in February 1987. After initial flights with Boeing in Seattle, it was ferried to the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River for systems develop-

ment testing. Operational test and evaluation was undertaken by VX-1 and initial deliveries to VQ-3 took place in August 1989. All 16 E-6As acquired were modified to E-6B configuration beginning in the late 1990s. Among other modifications, the E-6B is equipped with an airborne launch control system, capable of launching U.S. landbased intercontinental ballistic missiles.

V-22 Osprey As mainstream as it now seems, the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor was among the stranger large aircraft programs at NAVAIR. The V-22’s roots stretch back to tiltrotor designs of the 1950s and 1960s and specifically to the Joint-service Vertical take-off/ landing EXperimental (JVX) aircraft program for which the Navy/Marine Corps took the lead in 1983. The

U.S. NAVY PHOTO

first V-22 rolled out in May 1988, though the Army left the program that year. Despite funding and political challenges, prototype development continued through the early 1990s. Flight testing of four full-scale development V-22s began in early 1997 at NAS Patuxent River but fell behind schedule. Sea trials were completed in 1999, but a pair of accidents in 2000 resulted in the loss of 19 Marines and the grounding of the Osprey. NAVAIR made numerous hardware, software, and procedures changes to the aircraft, however, and the V-22 survived to be fielded by the USMC in 2007. Software upgrades increased the maximum speed from 250 knots to 270 knots, increased the helicopter-mode altitude limit from 10,000 feet to 14,000 feet, and increased lift performance. In 2015, NAVAIR tested rolling landings and takeoffs on a carrier in preparation for the Osprey’s role as a carrier onboard delivery aircraft.

A “Jolly Rogers” F-14B of Fighter Squadron One Zero Three (VF-103) test fires a Phoenix air-to-air missile during Exercise Mediterranean Shark. The Phoenix missile gave the Navy Tomcat the greatest standoff capability of any fighter for decades.

AIM-54 Phoenix If ever a missile was identified with the Navy, it was the AIM-54 Phoenix. Like the F-14 Tomcat that carried it, the air-to-air missile became famous. The Phoenix’s long range (more than 100 miles) gave the F-14 the greatest standoff engagement capability of any fighter in the world for decades. Teamed with the Tomcat’s AWG-9 fire control system, it was the first operational radar-guided air-toair missile that could be launched in multiple numbers against several different targets from an aircraft. In 1973, the AIM-54 set a benchmark with the first

full-scale testing on an F-14 on NAVAIR’s Point Mugu Sea Range. Within 38 seconds, the Tomcat launched and simultaneously guided six Phoenix missiles to six separate targets 50 miles away, scoring four direct hits. The Hughes Aircraft Company began development of the Phoenix in 1962, intending it for the F-111B. In 1966, an A-3A Skywarrior performed the first fullscale test over the Pacific Missile Range near San Nicholas Island, California. When the F-111 was abandoned by the Navy, the F-14 got the AIM-54, which debuted operationally in 1974. NAVAIR worked through the late ’70s to develop the improved AIM-54C, which joined the fleet in 1981. Though it never shot down enemy aircraft in U.S. hands, the Iranian air force, which had received F-14s and AIM-54s in the mid-1970s, claimed several Phoenix kills during the Iran-Iraq War. The AIM54 retired in 2004, two years prior to the Tomcat.

DOD PHOTO BY VERNON PUGH

F-14 Tomcat NAVAIR has tested and developed many high-performance airplanes in 50 years, but none was as fast as the F-14 Tomcat. In relatively clean configuration and maximum afterburner, the Tomcat could achieve Mach 2.34 (1,544 mph @ 49,000 feet). After the Navy determined the F-111B wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t meet its fleet defense fighter needs, NAVAIR issued a request for proposals for the Naval Fighter Experimental (VFX) program in 1968. VFX called for a tandem two-seat, twin-engined air-to-air

u From the failure of the F-111B emerged the superlative F-14 Tomcat, developed through three different variants over 35 years and finishing its career delivering precision munitions.

fighter with a maximum speed of Mach 2.2. Grumman was awarded the VFX contract in 1969, and the Tomcat first flew on Dec. 21, 1970, just 22 months after Grumman was awarded the contract. It reached IOC in 1973 after a challenging test program at

Grummanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Calverton, Long Island facility that saw numerous compressor stalls of its TF30 engines and ejections. Further testing at Patuxent River and China Lake featured broad evaluation, dissimilar air combat maneuvering, and weapons tests. Upon its introduction, the F-14 was the largest and heaviest American fighter to fly from an aircraft carrier. More than 700 F-14s would ultimately be produced, with approximately 79 delivered to Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. NAVAIR oversaw development of the F-14 A-Plus

JSF PROGRAM OFFICE PHOTO

(later F-14B) and F-14D Super Tomcat in the 1980s. Late in its career, the F-14 took on the strike role after NAVAIR adapted the Low-Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night (LANTIRN) targeting system to allow the Tomcat to deliver laser-guided bombs. It was subsequently nicknamed the “Bombcat.” The original design airframe life for the F-14 was 6,000 hours, but was later extended to 7,200 hours. Until its 2006 retirement, it continued to be the Navy’s “Harley,” fast and furious. X-35/X-32 “X-planes” have always been a high-profile part of NAVAIR activity. Some have been highly

u The Boeing X-32 (left) and Lockheed Martin X-35 (right) with service test pilots.

successful, others have yielded lessons from failure, and still others have led to aircraft whose value has yet to be determined. Each of these themes spun out of the Joint Strike Fighter competition for which NAVAIR provided a crucial stage. The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program began in 1996, arising out of the early 1990s Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter and Joint Advanced Strike Technology projects. JSF called for the Navy, Marines, and Air Force to use a single, stealthy airframe capable of conventional, STOVL, and carrierborne operations.

A JSF competition in 2001 pitted Boeing’s X-32 and Lockheed Martin’s X-35 demonstrator aircraft against each other in a fly-off at several facilities including NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. Boeing designed the X-32 around a large one-piece carbon fiber composite delta wing and a directlift thrust vectoring system (similar to the AV-8B) for the Marines’ STOVL requirement. Due to the heavy delta wing design of its prototypes, Boeing demonstrated STOVL and supersonic flight in separate configurations. Lockheed’s X-35B used a more complex alternative, incorporating a remote shaft-driven lift fan powered by the main engine. The design generated more lift thrust than possible with only direct exhaust gases, greater payload, and greater range.

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY PH1 JEFFREY TRUETT

The X-35 prevailed in large part thanks to its performance flexibility in a single configuration (converted from the X-35A) – able to take off in a short distance, go supersonic, and land vertically in one flight. Though costlier, the X-35 was judged to have better mission potential across three variants. Fifteen years later, NAVAIR is still at work refining the F-35B/C, the latter having accomplished its first arrested landing on an aircraft carrier on Oct. 2, 2015. A footnote is that two of the JSF demonstration aircraft, Boeing’s X-32B and Lockheed’s X-35C, now reside at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum. CH-53E Super Stallion “Biggest” is a relative term, but when you’re talking helicopters, there’s nothing larger in the American military than the CH-

u The CH-53E Super Stallion was developed to meet the Marines’ need for an even heavier lift helicopter; the Super Stallion was the largest helicopter tested and developed by NAVAIR up to the CH-53K King Stallion, which will soon enter flight testing.

53E. The Super Stallion grew out of an early 1960s Marine requirement for a heavy-lift helicopter. The Sikorsky CH-53A Sea Stallion met that requirement, but the need for even heavier lift in a variety of environmental conditions led to the development of the CH53E Super Stallion, the largest helicopter NAVAIR has yet tested and developed. In October 1967, the Marine Corps issued a requirement for a helicopter with a lifting capacity 1.8 times that of the CH-53D that would fit on amphibious warfare ships. Sikorsky had been at work

on a heavier capacity version of the CH-53D, which added a third turboshaft engine and a more powerful rotor system with an additional (seventh) rotor blade. The Marines funded development of a prototype in 1968, and by 1970 the Navy joined the program. The first YCH-53E flew in 1974. It featured a fuselage stretched 6 feet, 2 inches over the Sea Stallion. New rotor blades, a stronger transmission, a larger, canted vertical tail-rotor assembly, and a third engine yielded a helicopter that could lift 17.8 tons and reach 170 knots. In August 1976, two CH53E prototypes arrived at the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River for flight test. The first production CH-53E flew in 1980, and fleet introduction began a year later. NAVAIR ultimately developed the MH-53E Sea Dragon for the airborne mine countermeasures role, modifying the aircraft’s

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U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY JAMES DARCY

digital flight control system and increasing its fuel capacity and endurance. MH-53Es became operational in 1986. The CH-53K King Stallion, which first flew in October 2015, will soon join NAVAIR’s inventory of test aircraft. With new engines, avionics, software, and structures, the King Stallion will be a huge helicopter but its footprint will actually be narrower than the CH-53E’s, though it will lift more than twice the load of the Super Stallion. X-31 Not all test and development work leads to operational systems. Sometimes NAVAIR undertakes broader applied research. Such was the case with the Rockwell-MesserschmittBölkow-Blohm X-31.

u The X-31 VECTOR (Vectoring, Extremely Short Takeoff and Landing, Control and Tailless Operation Research) approaches the Pax River runway at a 24-degree angle of attack during an automated extremely short takeoff and landing (ESTOL) approach that concluded the last flight of the thrust-vectored, experimental jet.

Two X-31s were built for the early 1990s Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability program, which was conceived to test fighter thrust vectoring technology. A cranked, canard delta-wing aircraft without horizontal tail surfaces, the X-31 relied on three paddles directing the exhaust to control pitch and yaw. In 1992-93, the X-31 achieved controlled flight at a 70-degree angle of attack and successfully executed a rapid minimum-radius, 180-degree turn using a post-stall maneuver.

Its success led to a second program in the late 1990s called VECTOR, a joint venture between NAVAIR, Germany’s defense procurement agency BWB, Boeing’s Phantom Works, and DASA. NAS Patuxent River was the flight test site from 2002 to 2003, where the X-31 flew extremely short takeoff and landing approaches first on a virtual runway at 5,000 feet in the sky to ensure that an inertial navigation/GPS system combo could accurately guide the aircraft with the centimeter accuracy. VECTOR culminated with the first ever autonomous landing of a manned aircraft with high angle of attack (24 degrees) and short landing – a precursor for what the X-37B would achieve with no pilot over a decade later. t

u F-35B and F-35C aircraft at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.

NAVAIR TODAY: FIXED-WING AIRCRAFT PROGRAMS By Eric Tegler

NAVAIR supports 22 fixed-wing aircraft programs, from the latest advanced strike fighters to small turboprop logistics support airplanes. These aircraft are managed across three Program Executive Offices (PEO) and nine program (PMA) offices. Reflecting the command itself, the airplanes are stationed at multiple locations across the continental United States and overseas.

The fixed-wing programs are divided by aircraft type, though in some cases multiple models of a specific type are managed. In other cases (trainers and specialized and proven aircraft), multiple aircraft types including rotary wing and unpowered are grouped together. The programs are broken down in the following descriptions with roles, background, and fleet details. F-35 Lightning II The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program began in 1996, arising out of the early 1990s Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter and Joint Advanced Strike Technology projects. JSF called for the Navy, Marines, and Air Force to use a single, stealthy airframe capable of conventional, short takeoff/vertical

landing (STOVL), and carrier-borne operations. After winnowing proposals from four contractors, a JSF competition in 2001 pitted Boeing’s X-32 and Lockheed Martin’s X-35 demonstrator aircraft against each other in a fly-off at several facilities including Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River, Maryland. The X-35 prevailed in large part thanks to its performance flexibility – able to take off in a short distance, go supersonic, and land vertically in one flight. A footnote is that two of the JSF demonstration aircraft, Boeing’s X-32B and Lockheed’s X-35C now reside at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum. Plans call for the acquisition of 2,443 Joint Strike Fighters in three variants – the Air Force’s conventional takeoff F-35A, the

Marines’ STOVL F-35B, and the Navy carrier-capable F-35C. These are to perform a broad range of missions, from deep strike and close air support to air defense and possibly electronic attack, replacing the AV-8B, F/A-18C/D, and EA-6B as well as Air Force aircraft types. However, the program has run into a variety of technical, weight, and cost difficulties partly arising from its concurrent development strategy. In 2010, the program was officially delayed a year. JSF was restructured, initial operational capability (IOC) dates delayed, and in 2011, the F-35B was placed on a two-year “probation,” which was ended one year later. Despite software delays, helmet, and ejection seat issues, the Marine Corps declared the F-35B operational in July 2015. The first operational squadron was VMFA-121. The Air Force plans to declare the F-35A operational in fall 2016, while the Navy has scheduled the F-35C to go operational in 2018. NAVAIR actively supports F-35 testing with both the F-35B and

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST SEAMAN JUSTIN R. PACHECO/RELEASED

Above: An F/A-18C Hornet assigned to the Ragin’ Bulls of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 37 prepares to land on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). Below: Two EA-18G Growlers from the Cougars of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 139 fly in formation before landing on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). Two generations of F/A-18s, as well as the Growler variant, have been developed, supported, and sustained by NAVAIR.

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS JOHN PHILIP WAGNER JR./RELEASED

F-35C flying out of Pax River. Currently the Navy plans to acquire 340 F-35Cs, while the Marines plan on buying 420 jets total, a mix of 340 B and 80 C models. F/A-18 Hornet/Super Hornet The F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet are the backbone of the Navy/Marine strike fighter force. The Hornet originated from the 1970s Lightweight Fighter competition, redesigned by McDonnell Douglas and Northrop Grumman to meet Navy requirements for a multirole aircraft. Originally envisioned as a three-variant aircraft

like the F-35 (F-18A fighter/A-18A attack/dual-seat TF-18A), emerging technologies facilitated combining variants into the F/A-18. The single-seat F/A-18A and two-seat F/A-18B entered the fleet in 1983, following an extensive test program managed by NAVAIR. After acquiring 380 F/A-18A/Bs, procurement shifted to the F/A18C/D in 1987. The C and D model Hornets incorporated upgraded radar, avionics, and new missiles such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM,

AGM-65 Maverick, and AGM-84 Harpoon. A thermal navigation pod, forward-looking infrared targeting pod, and the F404GE-402 Enhanced Performance Engine were also added. Production of the C/D or “legacy” Hornet ended in 2000. The F/A-18 and EA-18G Program Office (PMA-265) supports, sustains, and acquires legacy and Super Hornets for seven international customers and the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.

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U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY GREG L. DAVIS

u A P-8A Poseidon assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 20 replicates the characteristics of a Mk. 54 torpedo being dropped from the weapons bay during flight testing.

The Super Hornet is an evolution of the F/A-18A-D, a multirole strike fighter with newer Advanced Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, improved avionics, greater range, and increased payload capacity. The single-seat F/A-18E and two-seat F/A-18F feature a 25 percent larger airframe, larger rectangular air intakes, and more powerful GE F414 engines. The F/A-18E/F was commissioned in response to the need to replace A-6 and A-7 attack aircraft and F-14 fighter aircraft in the 1990s. Super Hornet testing began at NAS Patuxent River in 1996 and F/A18E/Fs started joining the fleet in 1999. More than 500 Super Hornets have been produced, and though a small portion of that production has gone to Australia, PMA-265 supports every F/A-18E/F built. After authorizing low-rate initial production of the infrared search and track (IRST) system for the Super Hornet in late 2014, PMA-265 introduced the IRST sensor pod to the fleet in 2015 and began flight testing the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM). EA-18G Growler The Boeing EA-18G Growler has taken over the electronic attack mission from the EA-6B in Navy

service. A variant of the combatproven F/A-18F Super Hornet, the Growler combines the Super Hornetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s maneuverability, AESA radar, and air-to-air missiles with the latest avionics suite evolved from the legacy Improved Capability III airborne electronic attack system. The Growler arrived at NAS Patuxent River for testing in late 2006 and debuted in the fleet in 2009. The aircraft is expected to receive the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) in 2020. PMA-265, the F/A-18 and EA18G Program Office, is responsible for acquiring and sustaining the Growler. A 2015 contract with Boeing for 15 additional EA-18Gs will bring the fleet to approximately 130 aircraft. PMA-265 is also managing the first two Growlers inducted into the Royal Australian Air Force, which are temporarily at NAS Patuxent River to certify Australian-specific software. P-8A Poseidon The P-8A Poseidon is replacing the P-3C Orion as a long-range anti-submarine warfare, antisurface warfare, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platform, which will work in conjunction with Northrop

Grummanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MQ-4C Triton Broad Area Maritime Surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle. Derived from the Boeing 737-800ERX airliner, the P-8 offers greater payload capacity, higher operating altitude, open systems architecture, and better sensors than its predecessor. The first P-8 was delivered to the Navy in 2012, it achieved IOC in 2013, and is expected to be fully operational by 2018-2019. PMA290 manages the P-8 fleet, which stands at about 35 aircraft. The Navy expects to buy 117 P-8s, and NAVAIR will oversee Increment 2 upgrades, including high-altitude anti-submarine weapons, and Increment 3, which is to provide net-enabled anti-surface warfare. In early 2016, PMA-290 awarded Boeing a two-year, $2.5 billion contract to manufacture 20 P-8As for the U.S. Navy and the government of Australia followed by a three-year, $276.2 million contract to produce an additional two Lot III P-8As. E-2C/D Hawkeye The E-2/C-2 Airborne Tactical Data System Program Office (PMA231) is responsible for providing the E-2C Hawkeye and E-2D Advanced Hawkeye with acquisition, logistics, and sustainment. The Northrop Grumman Hawkeye provides airborne early warning, airborne battle management, and command and control functions for a carrier strike group and joint force commander. The E-2C became operational in 1973 and was subsequently improved through Group I, Group II, and Hawkeye 2000 updates that modernized information processing

systems, radars, workstations, structure, and propulsion elements. The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye began development in 2002, attained IOC in 2012, and is in full-rate production. It features state-of-the-art radar with a twogeneration leap in capability and upgraded aircraft and informationlink systems. The Navy will acquire 73 E-2Ds through 2022. C/KC-130 Hercules/Super Hercules The Navy and Marine Corps operate three versions of the Lockheed C-130, which are managed by PMA-207. The aircraft perform a range of missions, from land-based tactical airlift support to aerial refueling. The Marine Corps acquired the KC-130T beginning in 1983 as a multi-role aircraft, capable of aerial refueling, ground refueling, and delivery of personnel and cargo. The Marine Corps began replacing/augmenting the KC-130T with the new KC-130J in 2004. The advanced, digitized Super Hercules serves the Marines as an aerial refueler, cargo hauler,

and transport. KC-130Js equipped with the Harvest HAWK modular weapons system can perform as multi-sensor image reconnaissance and close air support platforms, capable of launching Hellfire missiles and standoff precisionguided munitions. A fleet including 20 C-130Ts (Naval Reserve), 26 KC-130Ts (Marine) and 48 KC-130Js (Marine Corps/Marine Corps Reserve) is currently active. The Marine Corps KC-130J fleet is projected to grow to 79 aircraft and the Navy is to receive 25 KC-130Js.

with the Marine Corps two decades later in 1985. It replaced the AV-8A in the light-attack role, which itself replaced the A-4 Skyhawk. While the AV-8A, which entered Marine Corps service in 1971, represented the first truly successful V/STOL design, the AV-8B delivered the performance expected of the Harrier from its inception. Close air support, interdiction, all weather strike, and expeditionary operations from forward fields, aircraft carriers or amphibious assault ships are typical Harrier missions for the Marines and allied partners Spain and Italy. The AV-8B Weapon Systems Program Office (PMA-257) is responsible for sustainment of the AV-8B for all three users and has managed upgrades including the AV-8BII+, which features the APG-65 radar. About 175 Harriers including 15 TAV-8B trainers are in operation across active squadrons and one training squadron.

AV-8B Harrier

EA-6B Prowler

The iconic Harrier debuted in the 1960s but the AV-8B entered service

Retired from Navy service in 2015, the long-serving Prowler

u Aviation Boatswainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mate (Equipment) Airman Daniel Alt clears the launch path of an E-2C Hawkeye assigned to the Seahawks of Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VA) 126 after attaching it to a catapult on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). The E-2C is now being replaced by the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 3RD CLASS KARL ANDERSON/RELEASED

U.S. MARINE CORPS PHOTO BY SGT. CHRISTOPHER Q. STONE

still flies with the Marine Corps though only four squadrons at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point operate about 20 EA-6Bs and the Prowler training unit (VMAQT-1) will stand down in 2016. Suppression of enemy air defenses in support of strike aircraft and ground troops by interrupting enemy electronic activity has been the central Prowler mission since the aircraftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1971 introduction. PMA-234, the Airborne Electronic Attack Systems and EA-6B Program Office, has guided the Prowler through several upgrades including the final ICAP III (Improved Capability) series that provided the aircraft with rapid detection capability, precise classification, and highly accurate geolocation of electronic emissions such as radars. The last EA-6Bs are slated to retire in 2019.

u A U.S. Marine Corps KC-130J Hercules aircraft assigned to the command element of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit takes off from King Faisal Air Base in Jordan on June 12, 2013, during exercise Eager Lion 2013. The Navy and Marine Corps operate three different C-130 versions.

F-5 Tiger II The Navy acquired the Northrop F-5F Tiger II in 1974 to perform the aggressor role, training Navy and Marine aircrews to deal with adversary combat tactics and dissimilar aircraft. The F-5 fleet was expanded and modernized with the purchase of 36 low-time F-5E/Fs from Switzerland in 2006. Along with American F-5Es, these were modified with radar warning receivers and enhanced radars and redesignated as F-5Ns. NAVAIRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s PMA-226 manages and supports the F-5 along with other specialized types. The Navy

operates 30 F-5Ns, the Marines 11. Three F-5Fs are split between the Navy/Marines. F-16 Fighting Falcon The F-16 was acquired in 1987-1988 to represent fourthgeneration adversary aircraft. The Navy ordered 22 singleseat F-16Ns and four two-seat TF-16Ns, versions of the Block 30 F-16C/D with air combat maneuvering instrumentation and other changes. Though highly successful, airframe fatigue and funding issues grounded the fleet in 1994. In 2002, the Navy received 14 F-16A and B models from the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group that were originally intended for Pakistan. PMA-226 supports 10 F-16As and four F-16Bs operated by the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center.

The Grumman C-2A is well known as the Navyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Carrier On-Board Delivery aircraft. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s derived from the Grumman E-2 Hawkeye with which it shares a common wing, but it has a widened fuselage and a rear loading ramp. C-2As began entering the fleet in 1965 and went through an initial overhaul in 1973. The E-2/C-2 Airborne Tactical Data System Program Office (PMA231) manages the Greyhound fleet, and has overseen a recent service life extension program (SLEP) for the C-2A that includes structural wing improvements, adoption of an eight-bladed NP2000 propeller, navigational upgrades, and a Ground Proximity Warning System addition. The SLEP should allow 36 C-2s to operate until 2027.

u An AV-8B Harrier II, assigned to Marine Medium Tilt Rotor Squadron (VMM) 166 (Reinforced), lands on the flight deck of amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4).

Corps 4), 11 C-12Ms (Navy 9/ Marine Corps 2), and six C-12Ws operated by the Marine Corps. The inventory of UC-12Ws is expected to reach 12. C-9 Skytrain

C-12 Huron The C-12 Huron is based on the Hawker-Beechcraft King Air 200/King 350 civilian private/ commercial transport aircraft. Managed by PMA-207, the C-12 fulfills a variety of missions, from high-priority transportation for personnel and cargo to range clearance, courier flights, multi-engine pilot training, and testing. NAVAIR oversees the operation of the UC-12B/F/M (King Air 200) and the more up-to-date UC-12W (King Air 350). The inventory includes 11 C-12Fs (Navy 7/Marine

The C-9B Skytrain provides passenger and cargo transportation to the fleet and forward deployment logistics support. The aircraft is a specialized version of the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 airliner. Modified with upper cargo doors, the C-9 can haul cargo, passengers, or a combination of the two. The Navy ordered its first five C-9Bs in April 1972 and retired its last aircraft in July 2014, replacing it with the C-40A. However, PMA-207 still manages two C-9Bs, which are operational with the Marine Corps.

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS DEBRA DACO/RELEASED

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61 C-20D/G Gulfstream The Navy acquired the C-20D in 1987 to provide passenger and cargo airlift for military and government officials and dignitaries in particular. The popular Gulfstream III provided the basis for the C-20D and the Gulfstream IV for the C-20G. The C-20D variant features accommodations for passengers, while the C-20G variant may be configured for cargo operations, passenger operations, or a combination of the two. Both aircraft are capable of long-range, high-speed over-water flights. PMA-207 manages one C-20D for the Navy and two C-20Gs â&#x20AC;&#x201C; one each for the Navy and Marine Corps. A further three C-20Gs are in service with the Naval Reserve. C-37A/B The C-37A and B are also Gulfstream-based executive transports used for global airlift. Acquired in the early 2000s, the C-37A represents the military version of the Gulfstream V and the C-37B is a version of the Gulfstream 550 aircraft. PMA207 provides support for one C-37A and three C-37Bs. C-26 Metroliner In the late 1990s, the Navy sought an efficient transport for high-priority resupply and personnel movement to remote, un-serviced, or feeder sites. The Air Force had already acquired a batch of C-26Bs for light logistical support and transferred six of these to the Navy, which re-designated them as C-26Ds. The C-26D is the military version of the Fairchild Metroliner 23 commercial light-lift aircraft. The twin-turboprop incorporates a cargo door with an integral air-stair door. Two additional variants, RC-26D/ EC-26D support range operations at Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands, Hawaii.

PMA-207 manages an inventory of four C-26Ds, two RC-26Ds, and one EC-26D. C-38 Courier Providing Test and Evaluation Support, acting as a chase aircraft and airborne radar target is the tasking for the C-38 Courier, a derivative of the Gulfstream G100 (formerly Astra SPX). Two C-38s came under PMA-207 management in 1997. The pair has seen use as chase aircraft for P-8A, E-2D, MQ-4C, E-6B, and C-130 testing among others. C-40 Clipper The C-40 Clipper replaced the C-9 in the on-demand fleet supply role known as Navy Unique Fleet Essential Airlift missions. Derived from the ubiquitous Boeing 737700C airliner, the C-40A can be operated in all-passenger (121), all-cargo (eight pallets), or mixed passenger/cargo configurations (70 pax/three pallets). The first C-40s joined Naval Reserve squadrons in 2001 and PMA-207 now oversees a fleet of 12 aircraft, which is projected to grow to 17. E-6B Mercury In Navy operations the E-6A replaced the EC-130Q, relaying National Command Authority instructions to fleet ballistic missile submarines, a mission known as TACAMO (Take Charge And Move Out). Based on the 707-320, the E-6 joined the fleet in 1989. The E-6B is a modification of the E-6A and can perform either the E-6A mission or the airborne strategic command post mission. It is equipped with an airborne launch control system capable of launching land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. The E-6B became operational in 1998. PMA-271 manages and supports the E-6B fleet, which is 16 aircraft strong.

P-3/EP-3 The Lockheed P-3 Orion is based on the L-188 Electra commercial airliner first introduced in 1962. Its long-range, anti-submarine warfare mission has broadened to include battlespace surveillance and anti-surface warfare. The P-3C variant entered service in 1969 and has undergone numerous upgrades to the baseline Update III version and Block Modification Upgrade with improved acoustic sensing. An Anti-Surface Warfare Improvement Program includes sensors, communications, displays, and weapons capability enhancements. PMA-290 manages the P-3C fleet (approximately 114 aircraft) and ongoing analysis of fatigue data under the Fatigue Life Management Program. The NAVAIR office also manages the EP-3E Aries (a converted P-3A) that carries out the multi-intelligence reconnaissance mission including tactical signals intelligence and full motion video. Some 16 EP-3Es are currently in the fleet. UC-35 Citation The UC-35 is based on the Cessna Citation. The UC-35C is a Citation V Ultra and the UC-35D a Citation Encore. Having entered service in 1999, it serves as a utility transport and is managed by PMA-207, which oversees two UC-35Cs and 10 UC35Ds. Training Aircraft Naval Undergraduate Flight Training Systems also falls under the auspices of NAVAIR, where PMA-273 supports seven trainer aircraft types for the Chief of Naval Aviation Training. They include the T-45, T-6/JPATS, T-44, T-34, TC-12, TH-57, and T-39, as well as related simulator suites, academic materials, and computer-based training integration systems. t

NAVAIR TODAY: ROTARY-WING PROGRAMS THE NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND MODERNIZES NEARLY EVERY ROTARY-WING COMMUNITY PENDING THE NEXT BIG STEP IN VERTICAL LIFT. By Frank Colucci

The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has made good on plans to modernize rotary-wing aviation across the Navy and Marine Corps. In January, the last MH-60S Knight Hawk off the production line completed the infusion of vertical replenishment, airborne mine countermeasures, and armed helo capabilities into Navy Helicopter Sea Combat squadrons. First flight of the CH-53K King Stallion last October began Development Testing of the Super Stallion replacement essential to Marine Corps Heavy Lift Helicopter squadrons. With the CH-46E Sea Knight formally retired in August 2015, the MV-22B Osprey tilt rotor dramatically increased the reach and speed of Marine Medium Lift squadrons. Multi-sensor MH-60R Seahawks in Helicopter Maritime Strike squadrons can now spot periscopes in crowded littoral waters and will integrate new weapons to counter swarming boat threats. Even without the intense operational demands of Afghanistan and Iraq, rotary-wing programs of record (PoR) continue to inject new technology into the fleet. They also position the Navy to share in a joint-service Future Vertical Lift (FVL) solution or some other next-generation rotorcraft.

The Navy expects its Seahawks and Knight Hawks to keep flying until around 2040. New UH-1Ys and AH-1Zs filling Marine Light Attack Helicopter squadrons (HMLAs) have 10,000-hour airframes good for about 30 years in service, and their digital avionics have processing power and throughput to grow. However, even the newest naval helicopters are limited by conventional rotors, drivetrains, and flight controls. The Armyled FVL initiative aims at faster, longer-range rotorcraft to replace helicopters starting with todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s UH-60 Black Hawk. Joint Multi-Role (JMR) technology demonstrators will fly advanced tilt-rotor and compound helicopter concepts next year to provide science and technology for FVL choices. The 30,000-pound JMR demonstrators are nevertheless sized to an Army Mission Performance

Specification. A notional Navy FVL derivative will have to fold and fit destroyer hangars. The Navy continues to support FVL, with NAVAIR leading development of common mission systems for the joint program. Service Life Assessment Programs for the MH-60R/S airframe will meanwhile enable air warfare leadership in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV N98) to make an informed decision on when to embrace FVL or pursue some other development path. Until more is known about the benefits and costs of next-generation rotorcraft, NAVAIR continues to manage programs of record based on stateof-the-art technology. Vipers and Venoms The Marine Corps launched the H-1 Upgrade program in 1996 to improve the performance and

maximize the commonality of its Bell attack and utility helicopters. With four-bladed composite rotors, totally new structures and dynamics, and integrated digital avionics, todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s UH-1Y Venom utility and AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters are the latest versions of Huey and Cobra long deployed with the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF). Rule-of-thumb comparisons credit the UH-1Y Venom with twice the range and twice the payload of the UH-1N Twin Huey it replaced. The AH-1Z Viper offers twice the range or twice the payload of the two-bladed AH-1W. Both new helicopters dramatically enhance performance at high density altitudes and give the Marine Corps modern targeting sensors and a measure of digital connectivity with ground and sea units. HMLAs ashore mix 15 AH-1Zs and 12 UH-1Ys. At sea with the MAGTF, the Marines rely on the 85 percent parts commonality between the two aircraft to save space and manpower. The UH1Y achieved initial operational capability (I0C) in 2008 and was joined by the AH-1Z in 2011. By early 2016, the Marines had received 126 of 160 UH-1Ys and 46 of 189 AH-1Zs in the current program of record. With the UH-1Y delivered first to replace the aged Twin Huey, AH-1Z production now stretches to 2022. NAVAIR will also manage the Foreign Military Sale of 15 AH-1Zs to Pakistan, the first international sale of the Viper.

U.S. MARINE CORPS PHOTO BY CPL. DAVID GONZALEZ

The Northrop Grumman integrated avionics system common to both helicopters manages crew workload and enhances situational awareness. The Marines want all their aircraft digitally connected to both their assault ships and the MAGTF ashore. H-1 interoperability plans call for full-motion video capability introduced this year and a next-generation multi-waveform radio â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the Software Reprogrammable Payload (SRP) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; around fiscal year 2021. The Marine Corps also expects both aircraft to receive integrated Aircraft Survivability Equipment (ASE)

u An AH-1Z lines up to share the deck of the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans with a UH-1Y off Korea.

and advanced threat, missile, and laser warning systems. The UH-1Y and AH-1Z will ultimately share a common solution to brownout landings and other degraded visual environment (DVE) hazards. Common weapons already include the laser-designated rockets of the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS). The AH-1Z today uses the laser-seeking Hellfire

missile and should achieve initial operational capability with the longer-range, multi-seeker Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) in 2019. Ospreys The Bell Boeing MV-22B is now the medium-lift platform of the Marine Corps and within the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Aviation Combat Element carries rifle platoons and cargo from assault ships to landing zones ashore. The fast, long-ranged tilt rotor has proven

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I N G E N U I T Y A C C E L E R AT E D

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS TIMOTHY WALTER

itself a truly transformational platform: With three air refuelings, MV-22Bs of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron VMM-265 flew 4,700 miles from Okinawa, Japan, to Brisbane, Australia, in 2014. The Marines are more than 70 percent through plans to fill 18 active-duty and two Reserve squadrons, each with 12 aircraft, plus a fleet replacement training squadron allocated 20 MV-22s. Marine Ospreys are due for integrated aircraft survivability equipment and enhanced networking capabilities. The V-22 Aerial Refueling System (VARS) brings the MAGTF tanker capability in mid-fiscal year 2018. The Marines fired a Griffin missile from an MV-22 last March and continue to study all-axis weapons for the Osprey. A major MV-22 upgrade expected around 2035 is supposed to draw on FVL and other emerging technologies.

u A Marine MV-22B lands aboard the carrier USS George H. W. Bush during preliminary tests for the U.S. Navy CMV-22B in the Carrier On-board Delivery (COD) role.

The MV-22B achieved IOC in June 2007. By early 2016, the Marines had 254 of 360 tilt rotors in the joint-service program of record. The U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command meanwhile had 48 of 52 CV-22Bs planned. Forty-four of 48 CMV-22B tilt rotors long planned for the Navy have been funded to revitalize Carrier On-board Delivery (COD) capability. The tilt rotor carries up to 20,000 pounds of cargo internally or 15,000 pounds externally and offers the Navy different ways of doing both COD and Vertical On-board Delivery (VOD) missions. Where todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fixed-wing COD Greyhound requires aircraft carriers steam into

winds for launch and recovery, a tilt rotor from a distant shore base may land vertically on a carrier in transit or between deck cycles and use a deck otherwise locked with parked aircraft. The tilt rotor also offers a fast, long-range replacement for the big MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters now used for shore-based VOD. Production of Navy CMV-22Bs with extra fuel tanks begins in 2018 for deliveries in 2020. NAVAIR will also manage V-22 Foreign Military Sales aircraft â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Japan has signed on as the first international Osprey customer. Fire Scouts Manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) promises to extend the reach, endurance, and utility of Navy and Marine Corps aviation. In 2014, Navy Squadron HSM-35 became the first composite expeditionary helicopter squadron to deploy the

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MASS COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS SEAN FUREY

MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Takeoff Unmanned Air Vehicle (VTUAV) aboard ship alongside the manned, multi-sensor MH-60R Seahawk. The Northrop Grumman Fire Scout Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) includes the VTUAV, air vehicle operator and mission payload operator stations, a Tactical Common Data Link, Unmanned Common Automatic Recovery System, deck landing system, and related equipment. Experience with the MQ-8B gave the system an MQ-8C Endurance Upgrade that trades the 3,300-pound Sikorsky-Schweizer 333 helicopter for the 6,000-pound Bell 407, with more than twice the endurance and nearly three times the payload. The MQ-8C program of record now calls for 40 air vehicles, including 38 operational and two test assets. An operational assessment at Point Mugu, California, last fall validated the performance, endurance, and reliability of the MQ-8C. Testing will continue in 2016 with the development of shipboard launch and recovery envelopes for the bigger helicopter on the littoral combat ship (LCS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; now redesignated as fast frigate). The MQ-8B UAS is currently deployed on the USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) and near workups on the USS Coronado (LCS 4). The Fire Scout system is designed to operate from any air-capable ship, and changes in the LCS program and their impact on VTUAV production are still being evaluated by the Navy. Current plans hold MQ-8C production at two aircraft per year until the PoR is complete. Separate from the Navyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) Fire Scout, the

NORTHROP GRUMMAN PHOTO

u Left: The MQ-8C Fire Scout Endurance Upgrade is shown here aboard USS Jason Dunham in 2014 and is undergoing Initial Operational Test and Evaluation in 2016. Below: An MH-60S Knight Hawk carries the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System, one of the airborne mine countermeasures systems integrated on the Knight Hawk.

67 u The multi-sensor, multi-mission MH-60R Seahawk has replaced both the SH-60B on destroyers and frigates and SH-60F on aircraft carriers.

U.S. NAVY PHOTO

Marine Corps cargo resupply with unmanned aircraft systems (CRUAS) demonstration used the Kaman Aerospace Corporation-Lockheed Martin K-MAX® helicopters in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2014. The two CRUAS demonstrators will go to Operational Test & Evaluation Squadron VMX-22 this year to develop a MAGTF Unmanned Expeditionary Capabilities Initial Capabilities Document that may define some future cargo UAS. Knight Hawks The last MH-60S off the Sikorsky production line completed a run of

275 Knight Hawks. The first production block entered the fleet in 2002 to replace the CH-46E Sea Knight for vertical replenishment (VERTREP), sling-lifting cargo pallets from supply ships to surface combatants. However, the MH-60S with its digital cockpit and databussed avionics architecture subsequently integrated airborne mine countermeasures (AMCM) and armed helicopter capabilities. (The Knight Hawk also was used as an air ambulance in Kuwait from 2004 to 2012.) The MH-60S with the AN/AAS-44C(V) Multi-spectral Targeting System (MTS) and weapons will also assume the role of today’s HH-60H Strike Rescue/

Special Warfare Support helicopter on a schedule to be determined. Whatever the mission, the Lockheed Martin Common Cockpit shared by the MH-60S and MH60R interfaces helicopter crews with their systems. The -60 Sierra AMCM suite now includes the ASQ235 Airborne Mine Neutralization System and AES-1 Airborne Laser Mine Detection Set operated via a removable cabin console. The U.S. Navy has completed the AMCM technical evaluation and trained a testing cadre at Squadron VX-1 for initial operational test and evaluation. The 23,000-pound MH60S will not tow the AQS-20 sonar or Mk 105 magnetic influence sled used by the 70,000-pound MH-53E. “Sundown” for the big Sea Dragon in 2025 corresponds with planned operational capability of the littoral combat ship mine countermeasures mission package, including the Unmanned Influence Sweep System. In the armed helo role, the Knight Hawk with its laser-designating MTS has been integrated with the Hellfire missile. Kits now add APKWS rockets and forward-firing M197 20 mm cannon. Other systems and structural enhancements are in the works, and the Navy expects an MH-60S Service Life Assessment Program (SLAP) around 2017 to stretch the life of the -60 Sierra. Seahawks While the versatile MH-60S puts new capabilities on any aviation-capable ship, the sophisticated MH-60R replaces both the SH-60B Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS III) helicopter on small combatants and the SH-60F inner-zone anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopter on aircraft

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U.S. MARINE CORPS COURTESY PHOTO

carriers. Carrier strike groups typically mix 11 MH-60 Romeos and eight -60 Sierras on the carrier and deploy helicopter detachments to smaller ships as needed. The Romeo Seahawk made its first operational deployment with HSM-71 aboard USS Stennis in 2009, and by early 2016, the Navy had 214 of 280 MH-60Rs in the PoR. The SH-60B and SH-60F will retire this year, and MH-60R production for the U.S. Navy will wrap up in 2018. NAVAIR is managing the first MH-60R Foreign Military Sales for Australia and Denmark. The multimission Romeo integrates sensors far more capable than those of the Bravoand Foxtrot-model Seahawks. The Navy acknowledges the AQS-22 Airborne Low Frequency Sonar (ALFS) of the MH-60R detects submarine threats at three to seven times the range possible with legacy dipping sonar. The latest APS-153 multimode radar follows 10 times the number of automatic

u First flight of the CH-53K on Oct. 27, 2015, marked the beginning of a two-year development flight test program for the Marine Corps heavy lift replacement helicopter.

target tracks processed by the SH-60B and provides automatic radar periscope detection and discrimination. The ALQ-210 Electronic Support Measures (ESM) on the MH-60R have 10 times the geo-locating accuracy of the ESM on the Bravo. The Ku-band datalink of the Romeo can now stream video as well as tactical plots to ships and other aircraft. Significantly, where the SH-60B was dependent on the LAMPS III ship to process sonobuoy returns and ESM signatures, the Romeo has onboard processing power for more autonomous operations. The MTS electro-optical gimbal shared by the MH-60R and MH-60S has been integrated with Hellfire missiles, but the radar-guided

Longbow Hellfire missile promises the Romeo a long-range fire-andforget weapon. Like the MH-60S, the MH-60R is being armed to counter swarms of fast attack boats. APKWS rockets achieved early operational capability in 2015. The MH-60R is scheduled for its own SLAP to suggest ways to extend the life of the airframe, and pre-planned product improvements include connectivity upgrades for the joint-service battlespace. King Stallions What started as a low-risk evolution of the CH-53E now in Marine Heavy Lift Helicopter (HMH) squadrons is today a revolutionary integration of 7,500 shaft horsepower engines, high-lift rotors, powerful splittorque transmission, composite structures, digital avionics, and fly-by-wire flight controls. The Sikorsky CH-53K heavy lift replacement helicopter made its first flight in October 2015, and

71 four Engineering Development Model (EDM) aircraft are to log more than 2,000 test hours over the next two-and-a-half years. The 88,000-pound King Stallion fits the same deck footprint as todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heavy lifter but with three T408 engines will haul 27,000 pounds of sling cargo more than 110 nautical miles to high-and-hot landing zones, three times the payload/ range performance of the CH-53E. A CH-53K full-rate production decision is due in the second quarter of FY 2017. Marine Corps plans call for 200 CH-53Ks to fill eight active-duty squadrons, one fleet replacement squadron, two Reserve component squadrons, and test units. CH-53K initial operational capability is scheduled for FY 2019 and full operational capability with the last active unit equipped in FY 2029. Delivery of attrition Reserve aircraft concludes in FY 2031. The Navy has no plans to procure an airborne mine countermeasures variant of the CH-53K to replace the MH-53E, but Germany and Israel are prospects for Foreign Military Sales. Until the King Stallion takes its place in the MAGTF, the Marines have 147 E-model Super Stallions scheduled to remain in the fleet until 2032. Sustainment plans give the CH-53E a T64-GE-419 engine upgrade, integrated survivability equipment, and the SRP radio plus LINK 16 connectivity.

SIKORSKY IMAGE

Presidential Helicopters Pioneering Marine Corps test squadron HMX-1 at Quantico, Virginia, now makes transporting the chief executive its primary mission. It continues to fly 11 1974-vintage VH-3Ds and eight 1989-era VH-60Ns awaiting a new presidential helicopter. The coming Sikorsky VH-92A integrates the civil-certified S-92A helicopter with a government-defined mission system and incorporates electromagnetic hardening, an enhanced environmental control

u NAVAIR is working to integrate the FAAcertified S-92 aircraft with a mature mission communications system and an executive interior to ensure an affordable presidential helicopter program.

White Hawk are receiving cockpit, cabin, and dynamic improvements including a Wide Band Line of Sight secure strategic communications system. Training in Transition

system, and fuel jettison provisions. Development testing is limited to the differences between the S-92A and VH-92A for FAA airworthiness certification and validation of required performance. Sikorsky has delivered two EDM aircraft to be instrumented for contractor testing and government-led integrated testing including a VH-92 operational assessment. Four system demonstration test articles used for integrated testing and initial operational test and evaluation ultimately transition to operational use. Twenty-one VH-92A production helicopters will modernize the presidential fleet from FY 2019 to FY 2023. The VH-92A should assume the HMX-1 operational mission beginning in the fourth quarter of FY 2020 and achieve full operational capability by the fourth quarter of FY 2022. To bridge the gap until the new presidential fleet is operational, both the VH-3D Sea King and VH-60N

Still to be modernized is the Navy training helicopter fleet. About 117 Bell TH-57 Sea Rangers remain the primary and advanced trainers for U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard aviators, and for those of foreign militaries. Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s TH-57Bs and -Cs were bought from 1981 to 1985 and are the last Navy airframes without digital cockpits. A digital TH-57D was cancelled in 2012 due to technical and cost issues. Funding was re-aligned to manage Sea Ranger obsolescence and keep the training platform viable for the near future. The Navy is analyzing industry input for advanced helicopter training options. In addition to digital cockpit upgrades, concerns about airframe fatigue and the costs to repair and replace limited parts underscore the need for a replacement airframe. The Navy will continue to work with industry to examine cost-effective alternatives to train future rotary-wing naval aviators. t

TESTING TALES THE INTERSECTION OF FLIGHT TEST AND THE UNEXPECTED By Jan Tegler

Done properly, the business of flight test should be efficient, productive and yes – boring. Under NAVAIR’s watch, flight testers have proudly achieved that professional distinction. And understandably, this tight-knit community is reticent to talk about “exciting” test flights. But even the most meticulous and the most prepared are occasionally overtaken by the unexpected. The two following tales, nearly a decade apart, marvelously illustrate the razor-thin edge between the known and the unknown. Filming the Unexpected Few aerial photographers are as well-known within naval aviation as Randy Hepp. Hepp spent 30 years at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River, Maryland, documenting flight tests though the lens of a variety of still and film cameras, initially as a photographer for McDonnell Douglas, then as senior photographer at the air station. Logging more than 4,700 hours in a host of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, Hepp even lectured on the importance of Safety Chase to pilots and engineers at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. Shortly after going to work with McDonnell Douglas at Pax, Hepp experienced one of the most widely known cases of the “unexpected” in

modern flight test history. On Sept. 30, 1981, he was seated in the aft cockpit of a TA-4J Skyhawk, filming a weapons separation test. The Skyhawk was flying chase on an F/A-18A to capture what occurred if the then brand-new Hornet had to jettison a VER (vertical ejector) rack and Mk. 82 bomb in an emergency. Lt. John B. Patterson was piloting the TA-4J with McDonnell Douglas test pilot Bill Lowe flying the Hornet. “We were testing the separation of the auxiliary emergency jettison (AUX) release – a mode in the F/A-18 where if you pushed a weapons release button and nothing happened you had a secondary emergency release option,” Hepp recalled. In AUX release mode, the VER rack and bomb were not ejected from their wing station. They simply flew off. Hepp, Patterson, and Lowe launched “to see if weapons would separate as we predicted.” The test hop was to take place over the water just east of the air station with both aircraft flying a south-north racetrack pattern with the release on the northbound run. There was a slight difficulty, however. The test called for jettisoning the VER rack and dummy bomb at a speed on the margin for the twoseat Skyhawk. “We briefed the flight and the release point was at 535 knots,” Hepp said. “This was a TA-4J with

U.S. NAVY IMAGES

By the time Naval Air Systems Command was established in 1966, testing and evaluation of naval aircraft, weapons, and systems was a rapidly maturing field. In the five decades since the command took responsibility for this exacting work, the Navy flight test community has become supremely professional – a group dedicated to delivering the most capable weapons systems to sailors and Marines with safety as their highest priority.

u Sept. 30, 1981: An F/A-18A’s ordnance rack and bomb strike a TA-4J Skyhawk during flight testing.

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY CMDR. IAN C. ANDERSON

the early (J52-P6A) turbojet, not the later, more powerful engine, so it could barely do 535 knots straight and level. In addition, we were going to be on the outside of the turn to set up the weapons release run – short of knots to be in position after the turn for the straight and level release.” Patterson and Hepp decided to “cheat” the racetrack pattern, making a tighter radius on the downwind turn back to the north, crossing under the Hornet to position their Skyhawk abeam of the F/A-18’s left wing. “It came time for the practice run and J.B. and I did our cross under and slide out to get into position. Everything worked just fine and we were ready to go.” A slight deviation from the plan occurred when the test-range supervisor extended the Hornet and Skyhawk on their downwind run because of a temporary fouling of the range. “That messed up our plan a bit and we were further to the south than we had anticipated as we made our turn-in to run on-target to the north,” Hepp explained.

u A pilot assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine (VX-9), looks out the canopy of his F/A-18F Super Hornet as he conducts a low pop-up maneuver above the south end of Panamint Valley near China Lake, California.

“That meant we needed more speed to get into position.” “We were closing the gap, straight and level at 5,000 feet and 535 knots … just about there off the F/A-18’s left wing. If we had had another five to 10 seconds, we would have been abeam of the Hornet. But we weren’t.” Then, the unexpected happened. “When they called ‘release,’ the bomb and rack were supposed to come off the station and fall away. It came off turning 90 degrees and it flew up and out to the left – not down and behind the Hornet.” Staring intently into the highspeed 16 mm motion picture camera with which he was filming the separation, Hepp didn’t immediately notice that anything had gone awry. He filmed the bomb coming at them until it was 10 feet away. Spotting the rack and bomb

climbing rapidly toward them, Patterson reacted. “J.B. did a 300-degree roll to the left to get away from the Hornet,” Hepp said. “As we were starting to roll, it hit our right wing and took off about half of it. Immediately, the roll reversed itself and we did two 360-degree rolls clockwise. Those two rolls took place in less than a second and a half. The impact wasn’t drastic. It didn’t make us yaw, but it ripped through the wing like it was nothing. The rolls were violent enough to snap our centerline fuel tank off and spill fuel.” The rolls also ripped the camera out of Hepp’s hand. It flew forward and wedged on the cockpit doghouse just above the instrument panel. “I could see the lens pointed back at me, but since we were moving backwards and forwards with lots of g, I couldn’t reach it. I just thought I’d leave it there and figure out what to do later. “I sat back against the seat and heard the radio call from the F/A-18, ‘Mayday! Mayday!’ I knew John had his hands full, so I wasn’t

U.S. NAVY PHOTO

u An A-6E Intruder aircraft from the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division Patuxent River Ordnance Systems Department, the type that Vice Adm. Jeffrey Wieringa was flying the day of his “g-jump” experience.

asking any questions. We were just about 1.5 miles off Pax River. After the two rolls, we went straight and level briefly and I assumed we’d go back and land.” “As I kind of relaxed – that’s a relative term – we did another flip. That’s when I saw a huge fireball go past the right-hand side of the cockpit. Prior to that, I couldn’t really see anything. My vision was blurred. I found out later that rolling at any more than 180 degrees per second, your vision blurs and your eyes can’t keep up. I had no idea that the wing had been torn up.” The fire was a clear sign to leave the aircraft, however. “I put my hands on the eject handle. As I looked down to make sure I had grasped everything correctly and was clear of my other cameras, John pulled his handle and the canopy came off. I sat there and waited, and waited. It seemed like an hour. I looked down and went for the handle a second time. As I touched it, the seat kicked me out. I wasn’t in the proper position when I ejected, but it worked out alright. “When we finally left the airplane, we were doing less than 100 knots at about 3,000 feet. I grayed out. I didn’t see anything, but maybe my eyes were simply closed. I did hear the bang of the ballistics in my

parachute. I felt the shock of the chute deploying and regained vision or opened my eyes. I’m not sure which to this day. I looked up at the chute and said, ‘OK, I made it!’” By the time Hepp reached the water, a SEPTAR rescue boat was nearly on top of him. He was picked up and taken ashore soaking wet but largely uninjured. Extensive safety training and quick reactions saved Patterson and Hepp. Hepp resumed his successful career thereafter and recounted the incident repeatedly in following years to emphasize the importance of proper safety procedures and training. G-Jump! Vice Adm. Jeffrey Wieringa, USN-Ret., spent more than three decades as a naval aviator, serving as a fleet aviator, a test pilot, and later as commander, Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, and assistant commander for Research and Engineering, Naval Air Systems Command, among other command assignments. Today, he’s vice president of engineering, global services & support at the Boeing Company, but in February 1989, Wieringa was serving as a test pilot and ordnance

systems department head in the Strike Directorate at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. Grumman’s venerable A-6 Intruder – an airplane Wieringa had flown on tours aboard USS Ranger (CV 61) with VA-145 and USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) with VA-165 – was in the late stages of its 34-year career, and a program to re-wing fleet A-6Es experiencing wing cracks was underway. Boeing was selected to build and develop a composite wing replacement for the Intruder. “There were two test pilots hired by Boeing,” Wieringa recalled. “They did the principal flying while I got to do some as the government flight rep for the A-6 re-wing program.” One of the tests being conducted was a salvo release of five 2,000-pound Mk. 84 bombs. Boeing was evaluating the weapons separation properties of the composite wing versus those of a conventional metal wing. “The test point with the A-6 composite wing was a 60-degree dive at 550 knots with a salvo release of five Mk. 84 bombs. Boeing did the test. The center weapon separated cleanly and went straight ahead. The inboard pylon weapon broached slightly and the outboard ones departed. They started ‘coning’ – rotating in a wobbly fashion. “When they impacted the water at Pax, there was a mile separation between the first bomb and the last one,” Wieringa continued. “Strike went back to their film room to see how they originally cleared the airplane with this load, but they could never find anything.” In the early years of A-6 operations during the Vietnam War, the Navy “cleared” weapons for use on the Intruder in three ways, Wieringa explained.

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77 “One was at Pax, filming the test flights. Another was at China Lake, and the third way was in combat. Because of combat needs, if an airplane came back from a mission releasing weapons and nothing bad happened, they just said, ‘it’s cleared.’” Unable to find footage or data of a salvo release of Mk. 84s from a metal-winged Intruder, Strike sent Wieringa and bombardier-navigator Lt. Ladd Wheeler up to do a salvo release with the same load on a standard A-6E. “Everybody was on pins and needles trying to figure how the metal wing would test out with a salvo release – if the composite wing looked like it did.” Wieringa and Wheeler launched from Pax River for a practice run on a very cold February day. Climbing to 40,000 feet, they set up on an east-west course over the Chesapeake Bay off the air station. “We rolled inverted and pulled into a 60-degree dive. The test point called for release at about 12,000 feet AGL (above ground level) at 550 knots and .5 gs. We were going downhill at full power but we weren’t fast enough. So I climbed up to 40,000 feet and tried again. We rolled over and into the 60-degree dive. This time we were 25 knots too slow. We tried a third time, then finally gave up.” Wieringa was puzzled as to why the A-6 couldn’t reach 550 knots. Wheeler had the answer: It was too cold. “I said, ‘What do you mean it was too cold?’” Wieringa said. “Wouldn’t the engines be producing more power?” Wheeler replied that the dense air-producing cold weather along with the draggy design of the Intruder’s engine inlets and the area behind its canopy likely kept the airplane from reaching the target speed. With temperatures climbing into the 40-degrees-Fahrenheit range, the test was rescheduled later that week.

“Ladd did the math again and said, ‘We’re gonna make it by five knots.’ We climbed up to 40,000 feet to make the first run, and sure enough, I beat the target airspeed by five knots. So we agreed that we were ready to go for real on a live run. “We set up on heading, rolled over, and pulled to 60 degrees. The airplane accelerated nicely and then at about 1,000 to 2,000 feet above the target altitude, it started un-commanded pitch oscillations. “My eyes were as big as saucers! That had never happened to me before, and I had over 2,000 hours in the A-6 at the time. We had five stations selected, the master arm was ‘on’ and ‘salvo’ was selected. I got into the flight control-loop and stopped the pitch oscillations. The g-meter in the center console is about four inches in diameter. That made hitting the required g easier. The dive angle was good, the airspeed was good, and the g was right. “I pickled the bombs and there was a big bang! Probably the biggest bang I had ever felt, and I had a lot of experience with weapons separation.” The simultaneous release of the five 2,000-pound Mk. 84s caused “g-jump,” Wieringa explained. “Basically, the ‘jump’ was the difference in the angle of attack of the airplane with bombs and then without them. Combine that with the .5 g we already had on the airplane, and the result was a plus-9g hit to the cockpit and a 21g hit to the tail! “When we watched film of the release afterward, you could see the tail visibly going up and down by a foot of travel. But it wasn’t perceptible in flight. I just remember a big jolt to the cockpit. It happened really fast.” Wieringa and Wheeler made a normal dive recovery with no drama – “the airplane felt fine.” “We looked at each other and wondered what had happened. Then we rolled over on a knife

edge to try and see what the impact of the bombs looked like. It looked nasty, because there was a big separation. That answered the question if there was any difference of the bomb separation between the composite wing and the metal wing. No, no difference.” A post-landing inspection of the A-6 showed no damage. Wieringa reported the incident to Cmdr. Steve Hazelrigg, then the chief test pilot at Strike. After watching film of the test, NAVAIR was informed of the problem. “There wasn’t any data to base a decision on from a performance and handling qualities point of view because the airplane was set up for the weapons separation test,” Wieringa noted. “Maybe a month later, a test pilot named Kurt Schroeder [Grumman chief test pilot] was doing the same test. If my memory’s right, they had three or five TERS [triple ejector rack] on the A-6, making it very draggy. I was in the Range Control Center watching the flight. “He gets to the test point, pickles the bombs, and it was ugly. They started bouncing off the underside of the airplane. They ripped right through the birdcage. The test conductor didn’t see it because it happened in a flash. I said, “Tell them to declare an emergency – multiple bomb-toairplane collisions!” Schroeder landed safely, and finally, Strike had the evidence it needed to discern what was causing the oscillations Wieringa had experienced. “This was a rare event where you had to have a really high drag-count and really high mach speed. At really high drag-counts, the center of pressure of the wing would fluctuate symmetrically but rapidly back and forth. That’s what was inducing the pitch oscillations.” Wieringa left later the test program to work on the ill-fated A-12 program with NAVAIR. Meanwhile, the re-wing program was scrubbed. t

NAVAIR TODAY: WEAPONS PROGRAMS By J.R. Wilson

Since its inception in 1966 as successor to the Bureau of Naval Weapons, NAVAIR has provided full life-cycle support for Navy and Marine Corps aircraft, weapons, and systems, including research, design, development and systems engineering; acquisition; test and evaluation; training facilities and equipment; repair and modification; and in-service engineering and logistics support.

Organized into eight “competencies” – program management; contracts; research and engineering; test and evaluation; logistics and industrial operations; corporate operations; comptroller and counsel – NAVAIR provides support to Naval Aviation Program Executive Officers (PEOs) and their assigned program managers. In the past half century, that has involved a wide range of airborne weapons and systems, with increasing levels of complexity, precision, and electronic capability, reflecting the rapid escalation of technology. Maintaining and operating a weapons development center of excellence falls to NAVAIR’s Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD). Key to NAWCWD is direct support to the fleet through Fleet Weapons Support Teams deployed with naval forces worldwide to provide hands-on assistance, with division senior scientists and engineers serving as on-site science and technology advisers stateside, at sea, and abroad. New weapons capabilities are taken directly to fleet squadrons by NAWCWD teams who train aircrews and maintenance personnel aboard ship. In times of conflict, the division’s land, sea and electronic combat ranges are made available to the fleet for training and development of urgently needed new weapons and electronic combat equipment is fast-tracked. Prototype systems

(such as the NAWCWD-developed Rapid Targeting System) are taken directly into world hot spots by division teams to provide additional capabilities for warfighters. NAWCWD maintains two primary weapons development and test centers in California. Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake, at the southeastern foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, is the Navy’s premier land range and weapons development laboratory. Across the state on the Pacific coast, between Santa Monica and Santa Barbara, NAWS Point Mugu hosts one of the Navy’s premier sea ranges. Operating under various names and commands since before NAVAIR stood up, the two facilities have played a vital role in the development of Navy missile programs, including Loon, Sparrow, Sea Sparrow, Regulus, Bullpup, Polaris, Trident, Harpoon, Tomahawk, SLAM, Standard Missile, HARM, AMRAAM, and Sidewinder. The Precision Strike Weapons Program Office, PMA-201, is responsible for research, development, acquisition, and sustainment of the Navy’s air-toground precision guided weapons, general-purpose bombs, aircraft armament-related equipment, and all cartridge/propellant actuated devices. Organized

into nine program areas, PMA201 teams comprise a multidisciplinary group of government and contractor personnel collectively responsible for the total life-cycle management of the Navy’s precision strike weapons capabilities. It also has the largest NAVAIR Foreign Military Sales (FMS) portfolio, with 39 coalition partners. NAWCWD also operates a number of labs and other facilities conducting research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) on improvements to existing weapons systems and next generation weapons across a broad spectrum of naval missions, from electronic warfare and unmanned systems to supersonic ordnance and systems integration. Those include: Advanced Weapons Laboratory (AWL) – From its unique dual towers at China Lake, the 127,000-square-foot AWL integrates common avionics, EW systems, electro-optical/infrared and reconnaissance systems, ground support equipment, mission and subsystem software, and radars and weapons to improve the warfighting capability of the F/A-18 and EA-18G weapons systems and put multiple systems in theater to meet urgent operational requirements. Those include advanced infrared systems, digital radios, new data links, improved weapons, and upgraded systems software. With new products constantly coming on line, AWL’s flexibility makes it adept at modifying laboratory, aircraft, and range equipment and procedures to suit particular requirements. Recent examples include the Active Electronically Scanned Array

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY CMDR. IAN C. ANDERSON

U.S. NAVY PHOTO

u Above: Matt Lotts, left, head of the Pacific Targets and Marine Operations Division of Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division in Point Mugu, California, discusses the BQM-74E unmanned target’s capabilities and limitations with Rear Adm. Victorino Mercado, director, assessment division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, second left, his science advisor Gary Shaffer, second right, and Rich Burr, NAWCWD director of Threat/Target Systems Department, during a tour in October 2015. Right: An F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine (VX-9) returns to its home at Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake. This aircraft was one of the first Super Hornets equipped with the revolutionary new APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar.

(AESA) radar, the latest versions of the AIM-9X and AIM-120 AMRAAM, upgrades to the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, and the Multifunctional Information Distribution System. Aerial Threat and Surface Targets Facilities – As battlespace requirements have grown more complex, these facilities continue to provide warfighters with advanced technology threat representative

targets, EW systems, and adaptive training environments in air, sea, and land domains and support global live, virtual, and constructive threat presentations for testing and evaluation, warfighter experimentation, mission rehearsal, and fleet training. Point Mugu is the only location operating all current subsonic and supersonic aerial targets, along with various seaborne targets including the Aerial Target Launch Ship. Airborne Electronic Attack (AEA) Facilities – Comprising 32,000 square feet of classified laboratory space at Point Mugu, the

center of Navy AEA RDT&E since 1968, these labs enable warfighters to detect, analyze, attack, and defeat electronic threats through complete AEA and electronic support systems integration, test, and life cycle support. During 15 years of warfare in Southwest Asia, they have provided EW database intelligence, information warfare, and electronic upgrades; helped JDAM achieve initial capability on fleet aircraft, and improved radar warning receivers, jammers, chaff, and decoys. New AEA techniques include agile spot and deceptive jamming, overhead sensor

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81 correlation for real-time “order of battle” awareness, and electronic surveillance and correlation. Electronic Warfare Facilities – An EW Center of Excellence and EW mission area leader within the Naval Aviation Enterprise team, these multiple EW components develop and evaluate active and passive EW systems and associated embedded software, investigate new systems and concepts during developmental T&E, perform inservice engineering support for EW systems software, EW suite integration and pre-/post-flight checkout and troubleshooting. These unique facilities focus on enabling the joint warfighter to dominate the electronic spectrum, and have supported aircraft in every major conflict for the past three decades. Explosive and Propellants Laboratories (EPL) – Used to continue U.S. munitions dominance by developing and demonstrating safer, higher power and more robust explosives and propellants, EPL provides ordnance assessment and other direct fleet support from one of the largest lab complexes of its kind. A diverse, one-stop facility to develop and scale-up energetic chemicals, explosives, and propellant formulations to improve warheads, bombs, and solid rocket motors, EPL’s ongoing research is funded by the Joint Fuze Technology Program, the Joint Insensitive Munitions Technology Program, the Insensitive Munitions Advanced Development Program, the Office of Naval Research Advanced Energetics Program, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Advanced Energetics Program, and the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program. Integrated Battlespace Arena (IBAR) – Comprising nine interconnected laboratories and facilities, IBAR provides advanced simulation and analysis of any aircraft, weapon, target, or terrain with unparalleled fidelity,

flexibility, and dependability, with the information it uses and creates datalinked through fiber optic, SIPRNET, Ethernet, or microwave telecommunication with any ground, air, or sea platform. During the wars in Southwest Asia, a geo-referenced database developed by IBAR registered and correlated tactical imagery terrain models to help counter the enemy’s radio-controlled IEDs and enhance coalition EW and unmanned systems. Supersonic Naval Ordnance Research Track (SNORT) – A key facility for testing future supersonic weaponry, SNORT comprises a 4-mile-long, dualrail, precision-alignment track to test rockets, guided missiles, model and full-scale aircraft, and components under freeflight conditions at subsonic through supersonic velocities. A very slow-speed, reusable vehicle also is being developed to test future Navy unmanned aerial systems. Test vehicles on SNORT’s supersonic sled track, the second longest and fastest in the world, can reach speeds up to 6,000 feet per second. Available tests include long-duration runs, controlled deceleration, aircrew safety, terminal ballistics, rain erosion, vehicles and barriers, aeroballistics, damage and destruction, and soft recovery. Weapons & Armaments Technology Lab (WATL) – One of NAVAIR’s newest facilities, WATL provides global support to the Navy, Air Force, and FMS customers using centralized weapons support equipment, test measurement and diagnostic equipment, and general purpose electrical/electronic test equipment. That includes supplying forward-deployed U.S. Central and Africa Command forces with more than 50 deliverable EW payloads, ground stations, and data links. Developed under difficult and compressed timelines by the Information Operations Team, those systems provide crucial in-theater capabilities for tactical operations.

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82 u Left: An Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System rocket is launched by a UH-1Y helicopter. Below: An F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to the Salty Dogs of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 conducts a captive carry flight test of an AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM) at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland.

Current NAVAIR weapons programs include: AGM-88E Advanced AntiRadiation Guided Missile (AARGM) – Now in Full Rate Production after achieving Initial Operational Capability (10C) in 2012 and deployed operationally on Navy and Marine Corps F/A18 and EA-18G aircraft; and compatible with F-35, and F-16 C/J. An air-to-ground missile used for suppression and/or destruction of enemy air defenses (SEAD/ DEAD), it is primarily used against re-locatable integrated air defense targets and targets that utilize

shutdown tactics, which AARGM counters through the use of a multi-mode seeker. Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS II) – Design conversion of an unguided Hydra 2.75-inch rocket with a laser guidance kit, giving it precision-kill capability as an inexpensive way to destroy targets while limiting collateral damage in close combat. Production began in 2011 and successful Initial Operational Test and Evaluation was completed January 2012 on AH-1W and UH-1Y helicopters, with IOC in March 2012. APKWS was deployed aboard both platforms in Operation Enduring Freedom, with a greater than 90 percent probability of

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY GREG L. DAVIS/RELEASED

Weapons Systems Center for Integration (WSCI) – A large laboratory complex used to meet current and emerging warfighter and fleet requirements by rapidly developing, integrating, demonstrating, exercising, and delivering innovative system of systems (SoS) products and capabilities. With input from Navy, Marine, Air Force, special operations and coalition warfighters, WSCI’s four secure labs focus on weapons modeling and simulation, supporting network enabled weapons, mission gap product development, prototyping, horizontal integration, and support for government lead system integration (LSI) roles.

hit. In March 2014, APKWS II was successfully integrated onto MH-60S; AH-1Z integration is underway, as is integration with fixed-wing aircraft. Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) – An Army-led program managed by PEO Missiles and Space, Joint Attack Munitions Systems (JAMS) Project Office, JAGM is a precision-guided munition providing improved air-to-ground missile capability against high-value stationary, moving, and relocatable land and maritime targets. It uses a multi-mode seeker for precision point and fire-and-forget targeting day or night in adverse weather, battlefield obscured conditions, and against a variety of countermeasures. Its multipurpose warhead is lethal against a range of targets, from armored and thin-skinned vehicles and maritime patrol craft to urban structures and field fortifications.

U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY DANE WIEDMANN/RELEASED

U.S. NAVY PHOTO

u Left: A Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) integrated on an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. The program’s flight test team is conducting initial testing to ensure proper loading, unloading, and handling of the LRASM on the F/A-18 E/F. Below: An F-35C Lightning II test aircraft piloted by Cmdr. Theodore Dyckman conducts the first separation of an AGM-154 Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW) from an F-35.

Intended for AH-64 and AH-1Z helicopters, JAGM currently is in technology development. LAU-61G/A Digital Rocket Launcher (DRL) – Developed in response to a Navy urgent operational needs statement, the DRL was introduced to the fleet through a Rapid Deployment Capability project; Early Operational Capability (EOC) on the MH-60S was declared in March

2014 and on the MH-60R in March 2015. The DRL increases MH-60S combat capability by enabling target engagement with 2.75-inch unguided and guided rockets, including the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System (APKWS). DRL’s digital interface makes it capable of employing a wider variety of rocket configurations, offering significant flexibility to engage different target sets with

sequential and selective single fire, selective and all ripple fire, and rocket-inventory tracking, not available in its legacy predecessor. AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon C-1 (JSOW) – The newest in a family of multiple weapon variants, the JSOW C-1 is the Navy’s first air-to-ground network-enabled weapon capable of attacking stationary land and moving maritime targets. Its components include GPS/INS guidance, a terminal infrared seeker and a Link 16 weapon data link. Fielded in 2016 for the F/A18E/F and F-35B/C, it provides a stand-off range capability of 70 nautical miles for its broach multistage warhead. Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) – Scheduled for EOC in 2018 on the U.S. Air Force B-1 Lancer and 2019 on the U.S. Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, LRASM is a near-term solution for the offensive anti-surface warfare air-launch capability gap, providing flexible, long-range, advanced, anti-surface capability against high-threat maritime targets. It reduces dependency on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, network links, and GPS navigation in EW environments, using semiautonomous guidance algorithms for less-precise target cueing data to pinpoint specific targets in a contested domain. GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bomb Increment II (SDB II) – Planned for integration aboard the F-15E, F-35B/C and F/A-18E/F,

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Congratulations to Naval Air Systems Command on 50 years of service to our country. For decades, Rockwell Collins has shared the same level of commitment to providing the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps teams with the most trusted aviation and high-integrity solutions in the world. We are dedicated to helping keep you safe, connected and informed while achieving your missions.

Communications, navigation/landing and EW solutions Simulation and training solutions F-35 Helmet Mounted Display System

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U.S. NAVY PHOTO COURTESY OF LOCKHEED MARTIN BY PAUL WEATHERMAN/RELEASED

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u Above: An F-35 Lightning II launches an AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) over a military test range off the California coast. Left: A Tactical Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile conducts a controlled flight test over the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) western test range complex in Southern California. The Tomahawk has been continually developed over decades.

the SDB II is an air-launched, precision-strike standoff weapon with capability against moving and fixed targets in adverse weather conditions. Using a GPS/INS initial guidance system, it can receive updated target coordinates midflight via two-way datalink (Link-16 or UHF), giving airborne or ground controllers the ability to send inflight target updates and or abort

a mission post-release. With a 40-mile-plus stand-off strike range, the weapon operates in three attack modes: Normal to engage moving targets through weather; laser illuminated for terminal guidance; and coordinate for fixed or stationary targets at a given set of coordinates. Harpoon Block II+ (A/U/ RGM-84) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; When fielded to

the fleet in the fourth quarter of FY 2017, Harpoon Block II+ will join JSOW C-1 as the Navyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only two air-to-ground network-enabled weapons. Providing a rapid-capability enhancement that includes a new GPS guidance kit, reliability and survivability of the weapon, a new datalink interface enabling in-flight updates, improved target selectivity, an abort option, and enhanced resistance to electronic countermeasures, Block II+ is the latest version of the all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile system first introduced in 1977. With sea-skimming cruise monitored by radar altimeter/

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We are fortunate to have local partners who enable us to support the men and women of the Sea Services and their families. We could not do it without you! We extend a special thank you The Navy League Pax River Council would like to extend a special thanks to our 2016 Blue & to our Blue & Gold Members. Gold Sponsors!

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We are fortunate to have local partners who enable us to support the men and women of the Sea Services and their families. We could not do it without you! We extend a special thank you to our Blue & Gold Members.

The Navy League Pax River Council would like to extend a special thanks to our 2016 Blue & Gold Sponsors! We are fortunate to have local partners who enable us to support the men and women of the Sea Services and their families. We could not do it without you! We extend a special thank you to our Blue & Gold Members.

The Navy League Pax River Council would like to extend a special thanks to our 2016 Blue & Gold Sponsors! We are fortunate to have local partners who enable us to support the men and women of the Sea Services and their families. Navy WeLeague couldof not do itStates without you! We extend a special thank you the United | Patuxent River Council to our Blue & Gold Members. Navy League of the United States | Patuxent River Council

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active radar terminal homing, it has an over-the-horizon range of more than 67 nautical miles. Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS) – Designated as the mission planning system for naval aviation in 2006, JMPS provides the information, automated tools, and decision aids needed to plan aircraft, weapon, and sensor missions rapidly and accurately, loading mission data into aircraft, weapons and avionics systems. Future JMPS platforms include the CH-53K King Stallion, MQ-4C Triton, and P-8A Poseidon. Digital Precision Strike Suite (DPSS) – A collection of technologies to increase the success of smart weapons first-pass attacks, one of the programs to come out of this development is the Precision Strike Suite for Special Operations Forces (PSS-SOF). A self-contained laptop system correlates real-time target images with existing geographical database

u A SLAM-ER loaded on an F/A-18C for first flight and launch at Naval Air Station Point Mugu.

imagery and assigns a latitude, longitude, and elevation to any part of the target, with targeting data then transmitted to the aircraft and weapon in less than a minute by one operator. DPSS is used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan. AIM-120 Advanced MediumRange Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) – A follow-on to the AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, AMRAAM is a faster, smaller, lighter allweather, day/night missile with improved low-altitude target capabilities. With first Navy IOC in 1993, an F-35 version will join existing F/A-18, EA-18G and AV8B naval fighters on operational status. Three dozen other nations have procured AMRAAM, enhancing U.S./allied/coalition

interoperability, commonality, and sustained overall logistic support. Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) – Although one of the oldest weapons in the U.S. Navy inventory, with the Block II TLAM-A having achieved IOC in 1984, the Tomahawk remains the Navy’s premier precision strike standoff weapon against longrange, medium-range, and tactical targets. The Block IV TLAM-E version is still in production 12 years after IOC with the Navy and eight years after being declared in-service by the United Kingdom. First used in combat during Operation Desert Storm, Tomahawk cruise missiles fly at extremely low altitudes at high subsonic speeds, piloted through an evasive route by several mission-tailored guidance systems. The Block IV TLAM-E can deliver a 1,000-pound class unitary warhead to targets up to 900 nautical miles away, can be redirected in-flight to any

of 15 pre-programmed targets or, using GPS coordinates sent in real-time, any new target. It also can loiter over a strike area looking for emerging targets or use its on-board camera to provide battle damage information. AGM-84K Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) – First deployed in 2000 as a Harpoon derivative, the SLAM-ER is an air-launched, day/night, adverseweather, over-the-horizon, precision strike missile for attacking long-range land and sea targets, both pre-planned and targets of opportunity. It incorporates a GPS-aided guidance system; imaging infrared seeker; two-way datalink for man-in-the-loop control; improved missile aerodynamics for flexible terminal attack profiles; penetrating high lethality ordnance; and automatic target acquisition. The SLAM-ER

can be launched and controlled from F/A-18C/D/E/F and P-3 platforms. Free-fall (unguided) General Purpose (GP) bombs – BLU-111/ MK-82, BLU-110/MK-83, BLU-117/ MK-84. Harkening back to World War II ordnance, GP bombs are only as accurate as the platform and crew delivering them. Primarily blast and fragmentation devices, they range in size and weight from the 500-pound BLU111/MK-82 to the 1,000-pound BLU-110/MK-83 and the 2,000-pound BLU-117/MK-84. Other direct attack weapon systems developed and sustained by NAVAIR include: Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) – By adding a GPS/INS guidance kit and a tail control system to an existing “dumb” bomb, JDAM provides an inexpensive precision-guided, allweather “smart” munition for use

by Navy and Marine Corps fighterattack aircraft against single or multiple targets on a single pass. Direct Attack Moving Target Capability (DAMTC) – Combining existing precision strike weapons capabilities with advanced GPS/ INS and laser technology, DAMTC creates an all-weather, day/night SoS weapon to neutralize stationary and moving/maneuvering timesensitive targets-of-opportunity in any operational environment. Laser-Guided Bomb (LGB) – Paveway II series (GBU-12, GBU16, GBU-10, GBU-24) detects and tracks laser-illuminated targets. The GBU-12 features a 500-pound general-purpose warhead; GBU-16 a 1,000-pound bomb modified with a common Paveway II laser guidance kit; GBU-10 utilizes a 2,000-pound GP bomb; and the GBU-24 a 2,000-pound BLU series bomb body to penetrate hard targets. Dual-Mode Laser-Guided Bomb (DMLGB) – A modified LGB converted to dual-mode configuration using common components. By combining proven laser terminal guidance with all-weather, fire-and-forget capability and GPS/INS, the DMLGB offers theater commanders increased air attack flexibility. Low Collateral Damage Bomb (LOCO) – With the increase of urban warfare in Southwest Asia, where prime enemy targets are deliberately located among civilian facilities, such as schools, hospitals, and mosques, the LOCO was developed to reduce collateral damage – both civilian and nearby friendly forces – while providing a reliable strike capability against such targets. t

U.S. NAVY PHOTO

u An F/A-18 Hornet assigned to the “Marauders” of Strike Fighter Squadron Eight Two (VFA-82) on patrol. The aircraft is carrying a Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) on its left wing pylon and a laser-guided bomb on its right wing pylon.

NAVAIR TODAY: UNMANNED AIRCRAFT PROGRAMS “OPERATIONALIZING” AMERICA’S NEW SECURITY STRATEGY By George Galdorisi

“Experience suggests that the right technology, used intelligently, makes sheer numbers irrelevant. The tipping point was the Gulf War in 1991. When the war was over, the United States and its coalition partners had lost just 240 people. Iraq suffered about 10,000 battle deaths, although no one will ever really be sure. The difference was that the Americans could see at night, drive through the featureless desert without getting lost, and put a single smart bomb on target with a 90 percent probability.” Bruce Berkowitz The New Face of War

The U.S. military has long depended on technology to provide it with “overmatch” against potential foes. One of the most rapidly growing areas of innovative military technology adoption involves unmanned aerial systems (UAS). In the past decade, the military’s use of UAS has increased from only a handful to more than 5,000. The exploding use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs (as well as their surface, subsurface and ground counterparts), is already creating strategic, operational, and tactical possibilities that did not exist a decade ago. We are on the verge of a military revolution. The earliest recorded use of a UAV for warfighting occurred on Aug. 22, 1849, when the Austrians attacked the Italian city of Venice with unmanned balloons loaded with explosives. The first pilotless aircraft were built shortly after World War I. In the United States, the Army led the way, commissioning a project to build an aerial torpedo, resulting in the Kettering Bug, which was developed for wartime use, but which was not deployed in time to be used in World

War I. Development of, primarily, UAS, continued through World War II and into the second half of the last century. The expanding use of unmanned systems today – and in particular armed UAS – is changing the face of modern warfare in profound and sometimes unforeseen ways. Indeed, the possibilities engendered by these unmanned systems is altering the very process of decision-making in combat operations. It is not a stretch to say that the rise in drone warfare is changing the way we conceive of and define “war” itself. These systems have been used extensively in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will continue to be even more relevant as the United States’ strategic focus shifts toward an era of high-end warfare. These unmanned systems are of enormous value today and are evolving to deliver even better capabilities tomorrow, but it is their promise for the more distant future that causes the most excitement. That said, what this promise involves is opaque to most people because few understand the scope of the UAS in use by the U.S. military

today. Much of that cutting-edge UAS work is conceived, engineered, tested, developed, and fielded by the Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Maryland. A National Mandate One need only take a cursory look at the highest level guidance issued by the Department of Defense – whether it is the National Defense Strategy, the National Military Strategy, the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations, or others – to understand how important unmanned systems are to the military’s efforts to safeguard America’s security and prosperity today and especially tomorrow. There is little question that these unmanned systems will be counted on to play a vastly more central role for the U.S. military in the near future as well as long term. Indeed, the widely heralded “Third Offset Strategy” and “Defense Innovation Initiative” point to unmanned systems as one of the pillars of America’s future defense efforts – initiatives that are enshrined in

the Long Range Research and Development Plan. This plan looks to take the most promising unmanned systems from concept to capability as rapidly as possible.

US MARINE CORPS PHOTO

Organizing the Department of Defense’s Unmanned Systems Efforts Since unmanned systems cross so many disciplines and touch virtually all aspects of what the Department of Defense (DOD) does, in 2000, DOD created its first Unmanned Systems Roadmap. As this book goes to press, the latest instantiation of this publication, Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap: 2016-2041, is being issued. This comprehensive document is both broad in scope – covering all U.S. military unmanned systems fielded or in development – as well as rich in detail, showing

u The UCLASS program was descoped into the Carrier Based Aerial Refueling (CBARS) program in the 2017 budget. Shown here is the Northrop Grumman X-47B conducting the first fully autonomous aerial refueling.

technical development paths for these systems. Given how many unmanned systems the U.S. Navy has in the field or in development this year, the Navy will issue its companion unmanned systems roadmap that details the Navy’s plans in these areas. This document will leverage the strong imperative Navy leadership has placed on fielding unmanned systems in such documents as the 2015, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower (CS-21R) as well as the Chief of Naval

Operations’ 2016 Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority (DMMS). Stewardship of the Navy and Marine Corps Unmanned Aerial Systems The Naval Air Systems Command has stewardship for a wide variety of Navy and Marine Corps UAS. The Naval Aviation Vision puts a punctuation mark on the “why” behind the Navy’s focus on UAS as a critical ingredient of its warfighting effectiveness: The UAS family of systems provides the Navy and Marine Corps with a tiered, joint, interoperable UAS architecture for battle space awareness, maritime domain awareness, force protection, and force application required by supported commanders. UASs

93 u The MQ-4C Triton is designed to work in concert with the manned P-8A Poseidon aircraft.

are tailored to support specific force levels, from strike groups to individual ships, aircraft, and ground units. Because of their increasing presence, importance, and integration on the maritime and littoral battlefields, the roadmaps for unmanned systems are now included alongside the manned aircraft platforms in the mission categories they serve. The key to this vision statement is, “included alongside the manned aircraft platforms.” One of the key tenets – if not the key tenet – of the U.S. military’s strategy is human and machine collaboration. Indeed, the focus of the aforementioned Third Offset Strategy is manned-unmanned teaming. As we detail the attributes of the Navy and Marine Corps unmanned aerial systems, it is important to remember that these UAS are not designed to operate completely autonomously, but in close concert with their manned counterparts. For example, the MQ-4C Triton UAS is designed to work in concert with the P-8A Poseidon. In the same manner, the MQ-8C Fire Scout is designed to deploy on the same ship (both versions of the littoral combat ship, now designated a fast frigate) with the MH-60R helicopter. This is important, for unlike other services, where unmanned systems are sometimes looked at as one-for-one replacements for manned systems, for the Navy, unmanned systems – especially UAS – are designed to be warfighters’ partners.

US NAVY PHOTO

The Naval Air System Command’s Family of Unmanned Systems Mindful of the caveat that in publications such as The Naval Aviation Vision, UAS are listed

with their manned counterparts in a particular mission area, for the purposes of what we are looking at, these UAVs are: the MQ-4C Triton, the MQ-8C Fire Scout, the X-47B UCAS, the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) system (now transitioning to the CBARS system), and the Small Unit Remote Scouting System (SURSS) program (which includes the RQ-11B Raven, RQ-12A Wasp IV, and RQ-20A Puma, as well as other small UAS already in the field). The MQ-4C Triton The MQ-4C Triton provides combat information to operational and tactical users such as the carrier strike groups, expeditionary strike groups, and joint forces maritime component commanders. Often working in concert with its manned partner, P-8A Poseidon, in this important role, the MQ-

4C Triton provides intelligence preparation of the environment by providing a more continuous source of information to maintain the common operational and tactical picture of the maritime battle space. Additionally, MQ-4C Triton-collected data posted to the Joint Information Environment (JIE) supports a variety of intelligence activities and nodes. In a secondary role, the MQ-4C Triton is also used alone or in conjunction with other assets to respond to theater-level operational or national strategic tasking. Powered by a Rolls-Royce AE3007H engine, the MQ-4C Triton cruises at an airspeed of 320 knots, has a service ceiling of 60,000 feet, has an unfueled range of 8,200 nautical miles and an endurance of 30 hours. This latter capability gives it an on station time vastly exceeding that of any comparable manned aircraft. The MQ-4C Triton falls into the category of large UAV,

weighing in with a max gross takeoff weight of over 32,000 pounds, a length of over 47 feet, and a wingspan of 130 feet. From a mission perspective, the MQ-4C Triton can carry an impressive array of sensors and communications equipment, including: communications relay capability; beyond line of sight communications and 360-degree field of regard sensors such as Multi-Function Active Sensor Maritime Radar and an Electro-Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) sensor; and Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver and Electronic Support Measures (ESM) receivers. The MQ-8C Fire Scout The MQ-8C Fire Scout system is designed to provide reconnaissance, situational awareness, and

Rear Adms. Brian Corey and Mike Moran, NAVAIR Commander Vice Adm. Paul Grosklags, and Cmdr. Sam Hanaki check out an MQ-8C Fire Scout during a tour of Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division facilities in Point Mugu, California.

and an internal payload capacity of more than 700 pounds. Working in concert with the MH-60R Seahawk, the Fire Scout provides the LCS with persistent, over-the-horizon support for all the bulk LCS/FF warfare areas.

precision targeting support for ground, air, and sea forces. The MQ-8C can operate from a variety of air-capable ships and, along with its manned partner, the MH-60R Seahawk, provides an essential part of the main battery of the littoral combat ship (LCS)/fast frigate. The MQ-8C provides longer endurance, range, and greater payload capability than the earlier MQ-8B. The MQ-8C has a cruise speed of 115 knots and a dash speed of 135 knots, a service ceiling of 16,000 feet, a range of 150 nautical miles, a maximum endurance of 12 hours,

X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D)

The mission of the Navy Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D) is to mature technologies for a carrier-suitable unmanned aerial system, while reducing risk for UAS carrier integration and developing the critical data necessary to support potential follow-on acquisition programs. The Navy UCAS-D program developed and demonstrated a carrier-suitable UAS air system in support of persistent, penetrating

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surveillance and penetrating strike capability in high threat areas. The program has evolved technologies required to conduct launch, recovery, and carrier-controlled airspace operations. In fiscal year 2013, the Navy completed the UCAS-D carrier demonstration objectives. During three at-sea periods, the X-47B conducted a total of 37 deck touchdowns, 30 precise touch-and-go landings, and multiple catapult launches, arrested landings, and planned autonomous wave-offs. In 2014, the X-47B completed its first cooperative flight tests with manned aircraft in the carrier environment. In April 2015, the X-47B conducted the first fully autonomous aerial refuelling, taking fuel from a KC-707 tanker. Powered by a Pratt & Whitney F100-220U engine, the X-47B can travel at high subsonic speeds. With a length of almost 40 feet and a wingspan of 62 feet, the maximum gross takeoff weight for carrier operations is 44,500

u The Navyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unmanned X-47B lands aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). The aircraft completed a series of tests demonstrating its ability to operate safely and seamlessly with manned aircraft.

pounds. Payload provisions can accommodate electro-optical, infrared, radar, and electronic support measures sensors. MQ-25 Stingray The Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) system was planned as the next step in the Navyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s evolutionary integration of UAS into the carrier strike group. It would have provided a carrier-based unmanned aircraft system supporting long-endurance, proven intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (ISR&T), and precision strike capability to joint and naval warfare commanders, as well as an emerging mission

area, that of a carrier-based airborne refueling asset. UCLASS was developed as three-segment system consisting of a control system and connectivity segment, a carrier segment, and an air segment, with the Navy functioning as lead system integrator. The system would maximize the use of existing technology to launch and control the air vehicle, transfer data, and support persistent surveillance and precision strike operations. Additionally, the system would be integrated into carrier-controlled airspace operations and maintained in accordance with standard fleet processes as tailored for unmanned applications. The release of the fiscal 2017 DOD budget altered the program, envisioning a Carrier Based Aerial Refueling System (CBARS) that would emerge with some elements of the UCLASS program, such as control systems, intact. The CBARS would maintain some strike capability but would be devoted

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u Above: The RQ-21A Blackjack is being procured for the STUAS role. Left: A Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle is launched from the flight deck of the amphibious transport dock ship USS San Antonio (LPD 17). Scan Eagle is a runway-independent, long-endurance, unmanned aerial vehicle system designed to provide multiple surveillance, reconnaissance, and battlefield damage assessment missions.

to aerial refueling, enhancing the capabilities of the manned aircraft aboard Navy aircraft carriers. NAVAIR is expected to issue an RFP for the newly named MQ-25 Stingray program later this year. Small Unit Remote Scouting System (SURSS) Program The Small Unit Remote Scouting System (SURSS) Program includes

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99 the RQ-11B Raven, the RQ-12A Wasp IV, and the RQ-20A Puma. These UAS are small, reusable, man-packable, and portable. They provide a means to see the battlespace beyond line-of-sight restrictions. The systems fulfill a need for organic, real-time reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) and battle damage assessment (BDA) at the small unit (battalion and below) level. These systems support numerous unit types across the Marine Corps Air Ground Task Force and the Navy fleet. The RQ-11B Raven The RQ-11B Raven is a battery-powered, hand-launched small unmanned aircraft system (SUAS) that provides over-the-hill intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) to Marine Corps units. The system, equipped with electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) cameras, transmits still images and full-motion video to a ground control station (GCS) and remote video terminal. The RQ-11B flies either under manual operator or via a preprogrammed route, and each system contains two air vehicles, one GCS, and one remote video terminal. Systems are being upgraded to include a digital data link and a more advanced gimbaled EO/IR. The RQ-12A Wasp Part of the Small Unit Remote Scouting System program of record, the RQ-12A Wasp micro unmanned aerial vehicle weighs less than 3 pounds and the system provides real-time reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition and battle damage assessment for Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC) units. RQ-12A Wasp uses a digital data link (DDL) and dual electro-optical and infrared gimbaled cameras to transmit still images and full-motion video to the ground control station and remote video terminal.

The RQ-20A Puma The RQ-20A Puma provides near real-time, land-based and maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations to Marine Corps units. It also provides small units the ability to detect improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and IED-emplacement teams. Puma is a battery-powered, hand-launched SUAS. It can scan an area 360 degrees using a lightweight, electro-optical and infrared gimbal camera. It is employed at the company level to develop pattern of life, perimeter security, and persistent surveillance of targets and areas of interest. Each system consists of three air vehicles, one ground control station, and one remote video terminal. Other Small UAS RQ-7B Shadow The RQ-7B Shadow is an expeditionary, multi-mission tactical UAS that provides dedicated reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition and designation, and communications relay to regimental-sized and larger Marine Corps units. Used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Shadow has flown well in excess of 20,000 combat hours in support of Marine Corps, joint, and allied operations. Scan Eagle The Scan Eagle is a 40-pound UAS used in both land- and shipbased operations. It has a cruising speed of 50 knots and a ceiling of 15,000 feet. It is equipped with a nose-mounted internal-stabilized camera turret that carries either a digital camera or infrared sensor. In summary, these smaller UAS provide a short-duration, line-ofsight reconnaissance capability at the unit level. These lightweight, cost-effective UASs have become integral and essential tools for ground and maritime forces and have become ubiquitous through-

out the operational environment, with demand from operational forces showing no sign of abating. The RQ-21A Blackjack The RQ-21A Blackjack, a larger twin-tailed follow-on to the Scan Eagle, was selected in 2010 for procurement by the Navy and Marine Corps to fill the requirement for a small tactical unmanned aircraft system (STUAS). The system provides persistent maritime and land-based tactical RSTA data collection and dissemination capabilities to the warfighter. The air vehicle’s open-architecture configuration can integrate new payloads quickly and can carry sensor payloads as heavy as 25 pounds. Into the Future with NAVAIR Unmanned Aerial Systems The Naval Air Systems Command’s family of unmanned aerial systems, the Navy and Marine Corps UAS, are ushering in a military revolution, the limits and boundaries of which we can only dimly perceive in 2016. From the top levels of Navy leadership the mandate is clear: Developing a UAS – vice a manned alternative – to support Navy, Marine Corps, joint, and coalition warfighters is the preferred solution as the Navy looks to the future. While unmanned aerial systems are envisioned to soon usher in revolutionary warfighting capabilities, how big a game changer these UAS will be remains an open question. This is because NAVAIR is dedicated to getting these assets to the fleet and the field on an accelerated schedule. The reason for this strategy is simple: As fleet sailors and Marines begin to use these highly capable UAS, they will likely find ways to employ them operationally and tactically that developers have not yet envisioned. There are many reasons why the next decade will likely be remembered as the decade of Navy unmanned aerial systems. t

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NAVAIR TODAY: AVIATION SYSTEMS PROGRAMS By Jan Tegler

Aviation Systems is one of NAVAIR’s five primary products. Organized in 13 areas of activity, 10 program offices (PMA) support the development, acquisition, and life cycle management of a diverse array of aviation systems and programs across the Naval Aviation Enterprise.

Here’s a look at each of the 13 aviation systems activities with examples of ongoing development or support highlighted. Air Combat Electronics With customers across the Navy’s diverse collection of aviation platforms, NAVAIR’s Air Combat Electronics Program Office, PMA-209, oversees development, integration, and cradle-to-grave support for common avionics solutions in safety, connectivity, mission computing, and interoperability. It’s a complex undertaking, requiring the program office to balance the unique requirements of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters while striving to leverage prior investments in these platforms, common architectures and interfaces, and coordinate opportunities across the enterprise when platforms require new capabilities. The goal is to arrive at common or “family of systems” solutions to support “tomorrow’s capabilities within today’s budget.” PMA-209 breaks down its development and management of cutting-edge Air Combat Electronics systems into four areas. Communication & Airborne Networking (CAN) – The CAN Team provides innovative communications solutions, from concept and technology development of new systems to full life cycle support of all its products. Examples include two-channel radios capable

of simultaneously supporting Link-16 tactical data exchange and Very High Frequency (VHF)/Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Line of Site (VULOS), Soldier Radio Waveform (SRW), and Integrated Waveform (IW) for aircraft, boats, ground vehicles, and ships. Safety & Flight Operations (SFO) – The SFO Team develops and implements open architecture network and data-centric environment Ground & Airborne Collision Avoidance Systems, data collection and analysis capabilities, and crash recorders to maximize current as well as future fleet readiness. Military Flight Operations Quality Assurance – or MFOQA – software is an example. Now being fielded by fixed-wing and helicopter squadrons, MFOQA is employed in post-flight analysis for naval aviators, maintenance personnel, and squadron leadership with the purpose of “alerting fleet leadership to aircrew behaviors that, in the aggregate, could lead to unsafe situations of which they may not be aware.” Mission Systems (MS) – Mission Systems team members deliver and support common hardware and software solutions, for example internal aircraft networks, information processing, displays, and digital map systems. A major area of development for MS has been the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) – a set of standards and processes for airborne computer systems

to establish an open, modular, partitioned environment resulting in a more flexible and cost-effective airborne computing environment. Navigation & Sensors Team (NAST) – NAST focuses on areas of navigation, compliance with worldwide aviation mandates, and air traffic management, providing avionics and instruments/systems adept at operating in a network and data-centric environment. The NAST team recently demonstrated an RNP-RNAV flight management system aligned with the FACE standard that enables multiple tactical aircraft types to safely interoperate within civil airspace. Airborne Electronic Attack NAVAIR’s PMA-234 is the Navy’s go-to organization for acquiring, delivering, and sustaining Airborne Electronic Attack (AEA) systems for a wide range of manned and unmanned Navy and Marine Corps platforms. The program office oversees AEA systems including: • ALE-43 (V) Bulk Chaff Pod • ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System • ALQ-231 Intrepid Tiger Pod • Electronic Warfare Services Architecture • Jammer Technique Optimization Group • Low Band Transmitter • Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) Two of the primary AEA systems PMA-234 is focused on are the ALQ-99 and the NGJ. First fielded in the early 1970s, the ALQ-99 was designed to provide vital jamming capability against radar and communications targets in the suppression of enemy air defenses.

101 u Raytheon imagery of the Next Generation Jammer, aboard an EA-18G Growler.

Upgraded several times over their four-decade-plus history, ALQ99 jamming pods currently equip USMC EA-6B Prowlers and USN EA-18G Growlers, but the aged system is due for replacement. PMA-234 works in tandem on ALQ99 sustainment and development of the NGJ, an external jamming pod using the latest digital, software-based, and Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technologies. In late 2015, the NGJ successfully completed a preliminary design review (PDR). PMA-234 is now working with Raytheon on detailed design of the system, which is expected to be operational by 2021.

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Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment PMA-251 provides life cycle acquisition management for Navy and Marine Corps systems and equipment utilized for the launch and recovery of current and future fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment encompasses systems ranging from catapult and arresting gear to visual landing aids and aircraft firefighting equipment. Programs under PMA-251 management include: • Advanced Arresting Gear • Compact Swaging Machine • Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) • Expeditionary Airfields • Information Systems • Launching Systems • Recovery Systems • Visual Landing Aids EMALS has been one of PMA251’s prime focuses in recent years. The new launch system is more efficient than traditional steam catapults. Employing stored kinetic energy and solid-state electrical power conversion, EMALS can launch a wider variety

of platforms – from lightweight unmanned vehicles to heavy strike fighters – functioning with a high degree of automation and lower maintenance requirements. Still under development, the system has been incorporated in the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and will equip future Ford-class carriers. Aircrew Systems PMA-202 manages and sustains all systems that directly support aircrew and troops or passengers in the performance of their missions. These include programs and equipment that optimize human performance, protection, and sustainment in aviation operations. Current programs and equipment include: • Aircrew Endurance • Combat Survivor Evader Locator System

• Ejection Seat Endurance • Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS), Night Vision Cueing and Display (NVCD) • Legacy Aircrew Chem Bio Respirator Protective Assembly • Navy Aircrew Common Ejection Seat The NVCD is a good example of PMA-202’s recent work. Having achieved full operational capability in December 2015, the NVCD is a capability that builds on the daytime attributes of the JHMCS, allowing the cueing of weapons and sensors at night while also providing the JHMCS standard “head up display” data over the eye in addition to camera video recording of the pilot’s viewpoint. ASW Sensors PMA-264 plays a critical role in the acquisition, development,

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103 and sustainment of airborne anti-submarine warfare systems. The program office supports the fleet, the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft Program Office, the H-60 Helicopter Program Office, the Persistent Maritime and the Unmanned Aerial Systems Program Office, and the Navy and Marine Corps Multi-mission Tactical Unmanned Air Systems Program Office, overseeing programs and systems including: • Sonobuoys • Multi-Static Active Coherent • High Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare (HAASW) • Airborne ASW Intelligence HAASW is a high priority for PMA-264. The program will allow the Navy’s new P-8A Poseidon to conduct its mission at higher-than-traditional fixed-wing ASW altitudes by employing a suite of modified sonobuoy sensors. Higher altitudes will enable greater communications range with large area buoy fields and greater coverage from other onboard non-acoustic sensors. Working in coordination with the new High Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon Capability Air Launch Accessory (ALA) – an add-on kit for the U.S. Navy Mk. 54 lightweight torpedo that allows the weapon to glide through the air from altitudes as high as 30,000 feet – HAASW will give the P-8A the ability to attack submarines from long ranges. Common Aviation Support Equipment PMA-260 manages the procurement, development, and fielding of Common Ground Support Equipment and Automatic Test Equipment that supports every type/model/series aircraft within naval aviation. The range of equipment PMA260 supports includes: • Aircraft Fluid Service Units • Automatic Wire Test Set • Common Radio Frequency Communication/Navigation Test Set

• Consolidated Automated Support System (CASS) • Electronic Consolidated Automated Support System (eCASS) • Reconfigurable Transportable Consolidated Automated Support System • Heavy Maintenance Crane • Hydraulic Power Supplies • Intermediate Level TACAN Test Set • Jet Engine Test Instrumentation • Large Landbased Air Conditioner • Mid Range Tow Tractor • Shipboard Helo Handler The 21st century update of the Navy’s Consolidated Automated Support System is an example of a program PMA-260 is fully engaged in. eCASS provides shore-based and afloat intermediate and depot level maintenance and repair capabilities for all naval aircraft, ship, and submarine electronics systems. Currently in Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP), eCASS is expected to be fielded and operational in 2017 and will begin replacing the aging legacy CASS stations at Naval Air Systems Command and Naval Sea Systems Command activities. Department of the Navy Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures PMA-272 is NAVAIR’s Advanced Tactical Aircraft Protection Systems Program Office. The unit manages the development, demonstration, and acquisition of operational advances in strike aircraft survivability equipment. Now deployed on the USMC’s CH-53E, CH-53D, and CH-46E medium-lift and heavy-lift assault support helicopters, the AN/AAQ24(V)25, DoN LAIRCM system is managed by PMA-272. The system combines an advanced, two-color Infrared Missile Warning System (MWS) and Directed Laser Countermeasures to defeat shoulder-launched missiles, meeting the Marine Corps’ urgent needs for a “… state-of-the-art, reliable, carrier-based and land-

based Missile Warning System (MWS) and Infrared Countermeasure (IRCM).” Global Positioning Systems NAVAIR’s PMW/A-170 is a program office with dual roles. The unit oversees the Air Navigation Warfare (NAVWAR) Program. NAVWAR provides Global Positioning System (GPS) protection for naval air platforms by giving the warfighter continued access to GPS through the use of anti-jam antenna systems designed to counter GPS electronic warfare threats due to intentional and unintentional interference. Typical installations replace a platform’s existing GPS antenna with a larger NAVWAR antenna and separate antenna electronics, while leaving a platform’s GPS receiver in place. Future designs may combine the NAVWAR antenna and antenna electronics into one unit. PMW/A-170 is also the Navy’s Communication Program Office, providing broadband satellite service to ships and potentially aircraft as well as other communications products that may have naval aviation applications. PMW/A-170 products include: • GPS Antenna System 1 (GAS-1) – Fielded on the MH-60R/S, C/ KC-130, HH-60H, P-3C, MV-22, and AV-8B. • GAS-1N – A small, four element Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna for use with GAS-1 Analog Antenna Electronics in place of the standard GAS-1 antenna. Fielded on the AV-8B. • Advanced Digital Antenna Production – A basic anti-jam digital antenna being fielded on the MH-53E, CH-53E/K, P-8A, CH-46E, F/A-18E/F, and EA-18G. • Conformal CRPA – A basic anti-jam digital antenna for use with Advanced Digital Antenna Production (ADAP) Digital Antenna Electronics (AE) in place

104 of standard ADAP antenna on the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G. Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures The Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) Program is another responsibility for PMA-272. The program provides self-protection capability against surface-to-air and air-to-air radar guided threats. IDECM equipment detects, identifies, and manages electronic countermeasure response to radar threats. IDECM is fielded in four Block configurations consisting of towed decoys and associated integrated countermeasures. IDECM Blocks 1-3, when integrated with the F/A-18E/F, provide significant improvement in survivability against RF threats. IDECM Block 4 is a supplement to the ALQ-214(V)3 that will result in an ALQ-214 configuration suitable for use on the F/A-18C/D (replacing the ALQ-126B) and the F/A-18E/F (with either the ALE-55 or ALE-50 towed decoy). Joint and Allied Threat Awareness System PMA-272 also oversees the Joint and Allied Threat Awareness System (JATAS), a developmental program to provide an advanced threat warning system for Navy and Marine Corps assault support aircraft. JATAS will provide detection, declaration, crew warning, and countermeasure cueing for missile, laser, and unguided ballistic hostile fire threats. JATAS is being integrated onto the MV-22B, MH-60R, MH-60S, AH1Z, UH-1Y, and CH-53K platforms. JATAS will replace the AN/AAR-47 Missile Approach Warning System. Naval Air Traffic Management Systems PMA-213 is the Naval Aviation Enterprise’s program office for all Navy and Marine Corps air traffic

management systems. The program office maintains naval air traffic management systems, delivers advanced air traffic control and landing capability and improved combat identification capability. Four programs fall under PMA213’s oversight: • Air Traffic Control Systems • Combat Identification • Landing Systems • Joint Precision Approach & Landing Systems (JPALS) JPALS has been an area of development for PMA-213 for several years. Due for initial operational capability in 2019, JPALS is an all-weather landing system based on differential GPS for land-based and sea-based aircraft. The system provides accurate, reliable, and high-integrity guidance for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, and features anti-jam protection to ensure mission continuity in hostile environments. Naval Aviation Training Systems The procurement, development, and fielding of training systems for aircraft operators and maintainers is the mission of PMA-205. The program office administers support via a wide range of training programs and facilities including: • Integrated Learning Environment • Individual Training • Safety and Survivability • Common Systems • Marine Corps Aviation Training Systems • Navy Fixed-Wing Training Systems • Ocean Systems Training Ranges • Navy Rotary-Wing Training Systems • Tactical Training Ranges • UAS Training Systems The Integrated Learning Environment (ILE) is an example of advanced training for Navy aircrew. The Air Combat Training Continuum (ACTC) is part of the ILE, providing the framework for post-Fleet Readiness Squadron tactical aircrew training. The

mission of ACTC is to provide fleet, joint, and allied force commanders with combatready naval aviators capable of effectively executing in all mission areas. Strike Planning and Execution Systems PMA-281 is naval aviation’s home for reliable strike planning and execution capabilities. The program office is responsible for the acquisition and life cycle management of a range of mission planning, control system, and execution tools that are developed and integrated in partnership with other NAVAIR program offices, other services, and foreign nation customers/ partners. Tools in use and under development include: • Electronic Knee Board • Joint Mission Planning System • Joint Mission Planning System – Expeditionary • Theater Mission Planning Center • Air Wing Ship Integration • Unmanned System Common Control System The Air Wing Ship Integration effort is being applied via four programs including the Digital Camera Receiving Station (DCRS), Naval Strike Warfare Planning Center (NSWPC), Integrated Strike Planning and Execution (ISP&E), and Carrier Ready Room Transformational Technologies Upgrade. The programs are aimed at providing capabilities in the manipulation, storage, and processing of digital imagery from carrier-borne aircraft; debriefing tools for the carrier strike group and intelligence community; integration of strike mission planning, targeting, execution, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and debrief support systems for Nimitz and Ford class carriers; and technologies upgrades for Nimitz class carrier ready rooms. t

NAVAIR: 50 Years of Naval Air Systems Command

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