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entire panoply of joint and coalition warfighting assets to deal with 21st century chal-
lenges.

The Marines are experiencing a similar transformation at Yuma MCAS as they bring the
F-35B on line and prepare for IOC next year.

According to the Executive Officer of the VMFA-121, Green Knights, Major Gregory
Summa:

In the F-35, the fusion engine does a lot of that in the background, while simultaneously, I can be
executing an air-to-air mission or an air-to-ground mission, and have an air-to-air track file up,
or multiple air-to-air track files, and determine how to flip missions.

Because the fidelity of the data is there right now, which allows me to determine if I need to go
back into an air-to-air mindset because I have to deal with this right now as opposed to continu-
ing the CAS mission.

And I have a much broader set of integrated tool sets to draw upon. For example, if I need an
electronic warfare tool set, with the F-18 I have to call in a separate aircraft to provide for that
capability. With the F-35 I have organic EW capability. The EW capability works well in the air-
craft. From the time it is recognized that such a capability is need to the time that it is used re-
quires a push of a button. It does not require that a supporting asset be deployed.

Question: Obviously your pilots need to be trained to combine the air-to-air and CAS capabili-
ties and to use the new organic tools sets as well?

Major Summa: It does. Now we’re going to have a pilot that’s versed in doing CAS, if he needs
to use the electromagnetic spectrum or exploit it to accomplish his mission, he’ll be educated and
have the equipment to do so.

If he needs to use it in the air-to-air arena to exploit it, to accomplish his mission, he’ll have the
training and the equipment needed to use it as well.

In the current situation, I would deploy a Prowler to work with my legacy fighters. The Prowler
would have to be sortied and would operate only for a period of time and in a specific operational

Second Line of Defense December 2014

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