We Now Know When Navy Aircraft Carriers Will be Armed with F-35s

US Navy leaders have announced that the first-of-its kind carrier-launched F-35C stealth fighter will deploy for its first operational deployment on the USS Carl Vinson -- in 2021.

The anticipated historical deployment could be accelerated by the 2019 budget proposal which supports a transition of the F-35C program from a developmental phase to more formal test and evaluation before being declared operational later this year, Rear. Adm. S.D. Conn, Director, Air Warfare Chief of Naval Operations, told Congress.

“Stealth technology and advanced integrated systems enable the F-35C to counter rapidly evolving air-to-air and surface-to-air threats. Whether the mission requires the execution of strike, Close Air Support, counter air, escort, or electronic warfare, the F-35C is vital to our future,” Conn testified.

The emergence of a carrier-launched stealth fighter is intended to give the Navy more combat attack flexibility and an improved ability to fight sophisticated enemy air defenses from a sea-based carrier. Such an ability can allow a maneuvering carrier to hold targets at risk from closer proximity if land-bases are far from the combat vicinity. As a 5th-generation fighter, the F-35C will be able to exceed the attack capabilities of the existing F/A-18 Super Hornet by having an ability to operate over higher threat areas, detect targets from much farther ranges and relay sensor data more efficiently.

With a broad wingspan, reinforced landing gear, ruggedized structures and durable coatings, the Navy's F-35C is engineered for harsh shipboard conditions. Its avionics equip the pilot with real-time, spherical access to battlespace information. The aircraft is engineered to provide commanders at sea, in the air and on the ground with an instantaneous, high-fidelity single picture view of ongoing operations.

Being engineered for a carrier, the F-35C's 51-foot wingspan is larger than the Air Force's F-35A and Marine Corps' F-35B short take-off-and-landing variants. It can fire two AIM-120 air-to-air missiles and two 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions. The F-35C can reach speeds up to Mach 1.6 and travel more than 1,200 nautical miles.

The F-35C is also able to fire the AIM-9X. In the future it will have an ability to drop a Small Diameter Bomb II - a high-tech weapon now in development able to track and destroy moving targets from great distances using a tri-mode seeker. The SDB II uses millimeter wave, laser and infrared guidance technology and has now been tested on an F-35.

The new stealth Joint Strike Fighter will join the carrier air wing and fly alongside the F/A-18 Super Hornet, E2D Hawkeye surveillance planes and other aircraft. Over the next five years, the Navy plans to acquire as many as 60 or more of the new fighters, Navy officials have told Warrior Maven.

The F-35C is engineered with a new technology called Delta Flight Path which helps pilot land on a carrier deck more easily.

Test pilots and engineers credited the F-35C's Delta Flight Path technology with significantly reducing pilot workload during the approach to the carrier, increasing safety margins during carrier approaches and reducing touchdown dispersion.

Carrier landing is never easy as pilots must account for the wind-speed, atmospheric conditions and speed of the ship. Pilots follow a yellow light on the flight deck of the ship called the Freshnel Lens to help the trajectory of the approach, called their glide slope, Navy experts have explained to Warrior.

In a previously released document described as the "Naval Aviation Vision," the F-35C is described as being engineered with reinforced landing gear and durable coatings to allow the F-35C to withstand harsh shipboard conditions while delivering a lethal combination of fighter capabilities to the fleet.

The aircraft has gone through several rounds of testing to advance what’s called carrier integration and carrier qualification – an effort to seamlessly integrate the new aircraft into the carrier platform and carrier air wing, service officials have explained.

Assessments of the F-35C have also included efforts to refine a precision-landing technology called Joint Precision Approach & Landing Systems, or JPALs.

JPALS, slated to be operational by 2019, works with the GPS satellite navigation system to provide accurate, reliable and high-integrity guidance for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, Navy statements said.

Also, Navy information described JPALS as a system featuring anti-jam protection to ensure mission continuity in hostile environments.

“JPALS is a differential GPS that will provide an adverse weather precision approach and landing capability,” a Navy statement said.

By 2025, the Navy's aircraft carrier-based air wings will consist of a mix of F-35C, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers electronic attack aircraft, E-2D Hawkeye battle management and control aircraft, MH-60R/S helicopters and Carrier Onboard Delivery logistics aircraft such as the Navy Osprey tiltrotor aircraft variant.

Pilots follow a yellow light on the flight deck of the ship called the Freshnel Lens to help the trajectory of the approach, called their glide slope, Navy experts have explained to Warrior.

So "Navy experts" explained this to "Warrior Maven"?

What? Who is "Warrior Maven"? Has he/she never seen Top Gun?

This isn't an article, it's a press release. And I thought the National Interest was an opinion journal.

The neocons have fallen a long way.

Yes...I got my helmet turned around sideways on my head the first time I had the opportunity to stand in the catwalk next to the waist cat during a launch cycle during my Plane Captain rotation.

One of our planes (an A-7) took off, and nobody really ducked or anything. So when a Prowler came up and wound up, I was so astonished at the noise level (Prowlers and the A-6) have unusual noise frequencies in there that other planes don’t seem to have, and they are nearly painful to the ear, even through the ear protection.

I was so zoned in on the noise (probably standing there erect with my mouth wide open) that when the signal to launch was given and everyone ducked, I was the only head sticking straight up, looking for all the world like a groundhog sticking its head out of its hole in the ground on a cloudy day.

When the plane shot off, I got a full face of exhaust, ripped my goggles off and turned my headgear sideways on my face. There were many knowing and grinning faces of ridicule as I sheepishly put my head back together trying to look like it was no big deal, but it was.

I didn’t even think that was possible to have the helmet ripped around like that, I thought I had it strapped down snugly and everything. I learned that lesson that day, for sure.

Saw a gal on a Dependants Day Cruise have the exact same experience. Cat 4 launch of a EA-6B. Didn’t duck fast enough, her cranial rotated 90 degrees, goggles askew. She was a good sport though and laughed it off.

If the deck was wet, you’d get a nice, cool spritzing of JP-5 , oil , etc./ s

Another EA-6B incident. Where there were ladders and /or light lockers, a big heavy piece of channel iron was bolted to the scupper to allow a solid surface to make the transistion from the flight deck to the ladder/light locker. Someone had failed to bolt one of those down. EA-6B launched, the jet blast picked up this channel iron, aprox 3 feet long, and chucked it up and over # 4 JBD , it sailed clear over the LSO platform into the sea.

A bit of chatter over the radio about that, lol.

Wow! Can you imagine if that thing had hit someone...it would have killed them!

Talk about things flying free on the flight deck...I had to go up with one of my shipmates and see the Air Boss once. We were flying our planes on at the start of a cruise, they had all landed and tied down, and a Sea King set down near us, so we were being buffeted with rotor wash. This was my first Med deployment, so I was still a somewhat green plane captain...

I used my TL-29 to open an avionics door in the side of the plane, and when it popped open, several large paper manuals about six inches thick in binders that were leaning against the inside of the door flew out as the door opened, landed at my feet, broke open, and filled the turbulent air with reams of paper it was like a snowstorm with 8.5 x 11 snowflakes!

They were being blown everywhere by the rotor wash! I stood there dumbly, not really knowing what to do, but I recalled hearing something loud and angry coming over the 1MC even though what was being said completely didn’t register.

A Chief Yellowshirt came over and yelled in my ear “THE AIR BOSS WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!”

LOL, me and the other guy marched up there and he was pissed. He didn’t attack us, but said loudly “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?”

I explained that someone had lodged the binders in there where I hadn’t expected any binders to be, and they just plopped out unexpectedly. I didn’t hear about it after the fact, so I guess it was one of those “The less said about it the better” things...nobody ever asked why someone put those binders in there, maybe that was normal when flying on board when starting a deployment.

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