Page 62 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2021

62 AIRPOWER
NOVEMBER 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
production configuration and was not modified in any way for the trial - which represented the first ever live sharing of F-35 MADL data with a non-US participant.
The perhaps circuitous routing of the data was because it was a proof-of-concept demonstration rather than an evalu- ation under operational conditions, but it isn’t the first time Lockheed Martin and US forces have experimented with MADL’s capability to support Joint All-Domain Operations.
“Back in September 2016 an unmodified F-35 partici- pated in what we call an ‘engage on remote’ scenario, in which it provided all sensor cueing via MADL to a ground station. The MADL ground station then provided all that information to an Aegis weapons system at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. That Aegis system
LEFT: Australia’s F-35A program is on track to achieve Final Operational Capability (FOC) at the end of 2023
BELOW: RAAF F-35 and EA-18G Growler aircraft fly alongside a United States Air Force B-52H Stratofortress during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2021
“There’s a lot of tactics and procedures being developed for that today,” Widerstrom added. “We have Link 16 on F-35 as well and we’ve developed procedures that allow us to have F-35s that remain out of the hostile environment such that they can broker (data) back utilising other wave- forms – link 16 or otherwise.”
The demonstration has obvious relevance to Defence’s Air 6500 Joint Air Battle Management System program and perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Lockheed Martin is also one of two short-listed companies (the other being Northrop Grumman) for the project.
AUSTRALIAN PROGRAM MILESTONES
Since achieving IOC in December 2020, the RAAF’s F-35 program has achieved several significant milestones, as it looks towards the declaration of FOC in a little more than a year’s time.
The first four F-35A pilots to complete their operational conversion course with No.2 OCU at Williamtown gradu- ated in early July, at the conclusion of Exercise Rogue Am- bush 21-1 in Darwin.
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“IMPORTANTLY, THE RAAF AIRCRAFT WAS IN STANDARD PRODUCTION CONFIGURATION AND WAS NOT MODIFIED IN ANY WAY FOR THE TRIAL”
then engaged a low-altitude representative target and fired an SM-6 missile utilising only F-35 data, none of its own tar- geting capabilities,” explained F-35 Combat Air, Australia Business Development Lead, Chris Widerstrom.
“A further demonstration oc- curred in December 2019, when two F-35s provided initial cue-
ing for the US Army’s Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS), which controlled a PAC-2 Patriot missile battery. Two manoeuvring low-altitude cruise missile surrogates were then launched, detected and tracked by the F-35s.”
Widerstrom said MADL provided a secure, low probabil- ity of detection ‘broadband’ data capability when compared with older data sharing systems such as Link 16, which he compared with ‘dial-up internet’ connection speeds. This means however that a coalition partner does not need an F-35 – or a MADL receiver – to participate in joint all- domain operations.
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