Page 52 - Renorming of Airpower: The F-35 Enters the Combat Fleet

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

Group Captain Townsend: “I think this plays very nicely into the fact that the Royal Air Force is the air-minded
service. We focus solely on being the expert deliverers of air power.

However, being a joint force, we have the additional benefit of having Fleet Air Arm pilots embedded within
the U.K. Lightning Force. So there is no Royal Air Force Lightning Force.

There is no Royal Navy Lightning Force.

We are just one force.

And we’re bringing together the expertise of both elements of light blue and dark blue uniforms to provide
the very best effect for carrier strike in the future.”

Question: It was clear looking at reactions to the USS Wasp sea trials, that the core point of the
integration of the ship with the airplane was largely missed. The Queen Elizabeth is a ship designed for
the F-35B and the F-35B will provide unique capabilities, which the ship can capitalize on in shaping its
concept of operations.

How would you describe this synergistic process?

Group Captain Townsend: “As an airman, I like anything that enhances my ability to deliver air power, and
the ship certainly does that. The ship has been tailor-made from first principles to deliver F-35 operational
output. The ship is part of the F35 air system.

I think this is the key change to where we were in Joint Force Harrier where the ship was really just a delivery
vehicle. The ship was just a runway.

The Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers are much more than that. They are right at the heart of the air
system’s capability fundamentally enabling and supporting what the air vehicle is doing three, or four, or five
hundred miles away from the ship. And that wasn’t quite the same in Joint Force Harrier with the invincible
class CVS carriers.

So it’s very different for us.

Everyone involved in embarked F-35 operations needs to understand what the air vehicle is going off to do
because everybody on the ship is much closer to that end delivery of effect. This is a very different concept of
operations from 15 years ago.

When I launched from the CVS in 2005 to fly an operational misison in Afghanistan, once I left the deck, I was
gone.

The next contact I would have with the ship was when I called for recovery, several hours later.

Whilst I was airborne the ship and I became very separate operational platforms. When a UK Lightning
launches from the QUEEN ELIZABETH, the information link between the air vehicle and the ship now means that
they remain connected during the operation greatly enhancing operational capability.

In terms of being an information node or a C2 node, we’re in a much different place now. And I think that’s
really quite interesting for us as air commanders in terms of our ability to control what is going on forward
with the airplanes.

Second Line of Defense

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