Page 120 - North Atlantic and Nordic Defense

North European and North Atlantic Defense: The Challenges Return

The F-35 may actually be its own follow-on.

th
So any discussion of “what is a 6 gen Fighter” might be premature.
Instead of the old paradigm of needing to completely build another fighter to move from the WWII Battle of
Midway F-2A “grape” to Joe Foss and his Green Knights flying the F-4U “Whistling Death,” the Marines can
just change and update their F-35 system, sensors and weapons.

The Marines are already IOC in flying the F-35B with a pre-planned product improvement design philosophy.

It is a software upgradeable platform to pull and replace or add system capabilities and thus have total
flexibility to add new sensors and improved AA missiles and as non-stealth “bomb truck” is carries more than
current F/A-18 with much great accurate battlefield sensing.

Again this makes the case for understand better a Pu function beyond just ordinance carried.

Evolving concepts of USMC operational development is at chapter one, because recognizing and exploiting
man-machine three-dimensional knowledge is truly a brave new world.

Consequently, all F-35 T/M/S are capable of constantly updating into the next generation of U.S. fighters but
not by building a new airframe but staying inside the F-35 basic airframe and adding the next generation of
systems and weapons.

It will take about 10 years of U.S. range time and combat experience to figure out all the competitive
advantages of the F-35 and a weapons revolution.

The learning curve to improve sensors, system capability and weapons carried quickly compared to building
another airframe may be a new American and allied way of industrial surging.

The arsenal of democracy may be shifting from an industrial production line to a clean room and a computer
lab as key shapers of competitive advantage.

For the first time in history, individual F-35 pilots –A, B or C – will have the best database of real time
knowledge in the history of combat aviation.

And all of this is internal to their cockpit and enabled by advances in computer processing and sensor
information fusing.

Each F-35 pilot combined with human sensing (seeing visual cues outside the cockpit) will be enabled by
machine driven sensor fusion to allow combat “situational awareness” (SA) better than any other opponent.

Concurrent with their ability to look-see, which is limited by physical realities, the F-35 pilot will be able to
“see” using cockpit electronic displays and signals to their helmet allowing them not to just fight with their
individual aircraft but be able to network and direct engagements at significant range in 360 Degrees of 3
dimensional space out to all connected platforms.

A fleet of F-35s will be able to share their fused information display at the speed of light to other aircraft
and other platforms, such as ships, subs, satellites, and land based forces, including UAVs and eventually
robots.

Second Line of Defense

Page 119