Page 41 - Renorming of Airpower: The F-35 Enters the Combat Fleet

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

Could you comment on how you are leveraging the working relationship with the USN and USMC to get
ready for your own carrier, one which is specifically built for the F-35B?

Lt. Cdr. Kitchen: UK personnel have been working with the Marine Corps now for about two and a half years.
I personally have been here in the States for a year working with the Marine Corps at Marine Corps Air Base
Beaufort.

Our programs are aligned and they’re working in partnership in order to develop the capability of the 35B.
In terms of this ship deployment, we’ve got other UK maintainers who have been a part of the detachment.
We’ve got personnel who are working within the power line with the avionics department as well as any
maintenance control.

And they are able to contribute to the maintenance effort in exactly the same way as the Marines are. They
are trained in the same way in the schoolhouse down at Eglin. But the Marines also they are learning to look
at how the UK conducts maintenance and how that can possibly be involved in the future.

Lt. Cdr. Neil Mathieson: As I mentioned during introductions, myself and the team from the UK are here
observing OT and taking a lessons from the Marine Corps and the US Navy back to the Queen Elizabeth. And
the great news is we have seen a lot this week and validated a lot of our assumptions.

As you said, Queen Elizabeth has been specifically designed around about the thirty of the F-35Bs. So a lot
of the infrastructure, the support issues, how the deck is operated, a lot of what we have seen this week has
validated all of our assumptions, all design assumptions we have for the ship and puts us in a very good
place.

And obviously the partnership with the Marine Corps is crucial to all of that and it has been a fantastic
opportunity for us to come over and see what the USN and USMC have been doing.

Question: When you start getting B-35Bs in Britain?

Lt. Cdr. Neil Mathieson: We already are getting them. Our first squadron is being set up alongside VMFA-
501 at Beaufort. In 2018, that squadron will “lift and shift” from Beaufort and stand up as 617 Squadron in
the UK. Our presence at Beaufort will grow to approximately 250 at Beaufort.

Question: What has the British team learned from these trials that requires more work?

What about the deck, for example?

Lt. Cdr. Neil Mathieson: The US and Royal Navies are certainly aware of the impact of the impact of F-35B
jet launch on the deck. You will have seen on the flight deck something with a slightly different color coating.
That is a product that working with the Naval Research Lab as a research program with regard to high
temperature deck coatings.

The UK is working hand in glove with N95 to understand that deck coating improvements and take it across
with application on Queen Elizabeth. Commercial issues are involved as well as there is a company in the UK
that does this work as well as a company in the US that does the work.

And it’s really a research program just right now where we are measuring temperatures in the deck structure
and learning if that product is going to be good enough to coat with. So that’s one area we are learning
every single day.

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