Page 28 - Renorming of Airpower: The F-35 Enters the Combat Fleet

The Renorming of Airpower: The F-35 Arrives into the Combat Force

The experience we had at Edwards reminded us of the comments made by Col. Seymour, one of the pioneers
in bringing Osprey into the USMC, about the challenge of cultural change with regard to maintaining the
Osprey.

“A key challenge is to let the maintainers know they are not stakeholders but Marines. For example, I had a
gunny sergeant who said he preferred CH-46s to Ospreys. “He said that I’m a 46 guy.” I looked him in the face
and said, “Well, you’re in the wrong unit, gunny. There are no 46 that’s left here on the East Coast. You want me
to get your orders to Okinawa, because, you know, that’s the only place for flying 46s.”

I told him that you don’t get a vote. This is not a democracy. Conway decided. McCorkle decided. Hagee decided.
Amos decided, you know, we’re going to fly the Osprey. It is what it is, so either embrace it or leave.”

He then underscored where that Gunny is now in terms of working the Osprey. “The same gunny now will brag
about being, the gunny who fixed problem X, Y, or Z in the maintenance department on a V-22. He owns it now.
It’s like okay, you know, it worked, it’s normalized if you will, and that’s why you see this, this growing success.
Success begets success internal to the Marine Corps culture.”

We saw the same approach and the same attitude at Edwards – get on with it and make the new plane, and
the new maintenance culture the new norm, rather than trying to think in terms of the last century’s approach.

With regard to avionics or mission systems maintenance, the maintainers talked about how they used the
screens in the cockpit similar to how Major General Silveria had discussed how the pilots do: they configure
the screens to the task and to support their work flow to get the outcomes they need to get to.

“The cockpit gives us easy access through the multi-function displays and touch screens to the information
about the mission systems. We can modify the screens to do the maintenance task required. The screens make
ergonomic sense and are easy to work with to shape the work approach to get the job done.”

With regard to weapons and weapons loading, we learned that a major step ahead was that the training
weapons did not need to be armed at the end of the runway with a specialized team of weapons loaders.
The weapons for the F-35 can be loaded onto the aircraft, over the various weapon stations on the aircraft,
and armed by the pilot in the cockpit. The airplane can load as much as 18,000 pounds of ordinance on the A
and C models, and 16,000 on the B model. For example, the plane will carry 8 small diameter bombs, in a 4
plus 4 configuration inside the A and C models.

With regard to Low Observable Maintenance, the F-35 is radically different from earlier stealth coated
planes, for it is built into the aircraft, and is maintained as such. The maintainers took us through the steps of
how to maintain LO on the aircraft, and then took us to the ALIS system to show us the LO page for the
particular F-35C which was in the hanger that day. The ALIS screen showed everywhere on the aircraft that
repairs had been made, what repairs had been made and by whom and on what date.

By a process of external examination of the airframe after a fight, the maintainers and then the crew chief do
a visual examination to determine if a repair is needed. They then go to the ALIS system and bring up the
needed repair and trace the repair from the screen and then take it to the airframe to guide the repair
process.

In the various ALIS discussions, the point was highlighted that because of the accurate data built around each
aircraft in the squadron and the squadron itself, it would possible to build out fleet knowledge over time, as
the flight time and operational experiences get built into the fleet. This would include understanding of things
like weapons and LO maintenance because they are integrated as well into the ALIS system.

Second Line of Defense

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