Page 47 - Renorming of Airpower: The F-35 Enters the Combat Fleet

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

The training at the centers is for the maintainers and pilots. And that commonality can over time be leveraged
as well to re-shape thinking about the role of logistics in combat capabilities as well. Again this is an inherent
potential that needs to be realized in organizational practice, and does not happen by itself.

FIGURE 10 POTENTIAL LOGISITCIS SHARING ACROSS THE PACIFIC FOR US AND ALLIED F-35 FLEET.

As Ninja, the Italian pilot who crossed the Atlantic and who learned to fly the F-35 at Luke AFB commented
with regard to the impact of learning the aircraft from the ground up in a coalition-training environment:
“All the student pilots at Luke fly the aircraft in the fleet whether US, Australian, Norwegian or Italian.
And the training allows us to learn common TTPs from the ground up.
We are building a fifth generation approach from the ground up.”
The approach to sustainability for the F-35 is built upon a new digital foundation. It is designed more akin to
new commercial aircraft – like the 787, A380, or A350 – than legacy combat aircraft. Again, the digital
revolution can lead to significant change in maintenance practices but only if it is accompanied by
organizational change in how maintenance organizations operate.
The F-35 is the first combat aircraft to be built in numbers in the new digital age. The plane speaks a
universal language. Because the F-35 was born at a time when DOD was keenly focused on implementing
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