She didn’t have a smudge on her. Not a leak found anywhere. She even had that “new jet smell.” Skies were blue, everything was perfect. Those were the conditions on that July day in 2011 when Lt. Col. Eric Smith took off from the Lockheed facilities at Fort Worth, Texas, within the first operational F-35 to fly to its permanent home at Eglin Air Force Base, within the Florida panhandle. And the remainder, based on Smith, who would go directly to pick up three of the primary six F-35s from the factory, is history.
“It was only a great day – i used to be a bit bit nervous because I knew that if I messed it up it might be at the front page of each newspaper within the country,” said Smith. As he approached the runway at Eglin, he found bleachers jam-packed with people and a red carpet rolled out to indicate the start of an era for not just the plane, but for the newly reorganized 33rd Fighter Wing, Eglin Air Force Base and the way forward for Air Force air superiority for the 21st Century.
The pick of the 33rd Fighter Wing “Nomads” to transition the Air Force’s newest and most lethal fighter into this century and beyond was no accident. With a history that dates back to World War II when the wing was a pursuit group, the 33rd showcased the F-4 Phantom during Vietnam and the F-15 Eagle through crises similar to Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, and post 9/11, when the Nomads provided armed over-watch throughout North America for Operation Noble Eagle, securing two presidents of america and multiple space shuttle launches.
“On Oct. 1, 2009, we stood up as an F-35 unit,” said Lt. Col. Matt Renbarger, 58th Fighter Squadron commander. “We were handed keys to an empty building, with five pilots, a technical sergeant, two lieutenant colonels and 3 majors.”
Renbarger and Smith both admitted that those early days, following the coming of the primary F-35, was a whirlwind of planning, creating policy and guidelines and putting together a coaching program with a syllabus, academics, and a totally new maintenance program.
Smith said that the early days with the primary few aircraft were a challenge, not just for the pilots, but for the newly trained crew chiefs to boot. “There was plenty of tech data that the technicians needed before they can work at the airplane, so the primary six planes we delivered sat for roughly eight months before we were issued flight clearance. We didn’t receive our first flight clearance until March of 2012. “
Renbarger said that, like anything present day and right out of the box, there have been plenty of things that needed to be learned that weren’t known before. He said that as a coaching unit, it was more Air Combat Command versus Air Education and coaching Command. “It’s not one other mindset, but it’s more of a unique mission. Here we create new pilots and maintainers, so we don’t have the downrange focus. Training pilots is our product.
“When test pilots at Edwards find something they let us know, and after we find something we tell them. When software is released they’ll come down here and let us know things they’ve learned. We’ll take new capabilities and convey them into our training syllabus. The parents at Edwards bring us the most recent in an effort to teach the folk who teach the folks. We teach the academics and the academics teach the scholars.”
Renbarger said there’s a lot to love in regards to the F-35, from the standpoint of the pilot, the maintainer, the instructor, all the way down to the base line of mission success. “I’ve never seen a pilot get back from his first sortie with no huge smile on his face. It’s something new, and programs like this only come around every 30 years or so, and to be at the ground floor – it’s the precise time.
“Most pilots come from the F-16, F-15 and A-10 legacy aircraft. Sensors at the front of the F-35 let us have that 360-degree awareness. That was the large breakthrough. Computer technology it’s 30 years or more advanced than the legacy aircraft is what makes the F-35 so advanced.”
Lt. Col. Anthony Pelkington is the 33rd FW chief of safety and was one of many first of the legacy pilots selected for the F-35 program. He said that for pilots transitioning from those legacy systems, the F-35 is a giant deal.
“For 10 years inside the F-16, I handled essentially monochrome cathode ray displays – approximately 6 inch square – and I’ve got two of them. Now I move as much as a contiguous 8 x 20- inch color display that may be a huge breakthrough for the pilot’s situational awareness. Plus, there’s much more capability within the display itself.
“In the F-16, I had a radar display with a selectable, like turning pages in a book, something that might show my ordnances like I had a stick figure map with monochrome lines on a black background. It could attempt to give us a semblance of where we were to maybe a weapons system. But I needed to choose. Every body of these displays was limited to the confines of that small 6-inch to eight-inch screen.
“In the F-35, we’ve this large amount of screen real estate. i will now see multiple sensors immediately, that’s great because I don’t have got to pick and decide. I don’t ought to remove my situational awareness with what the radar is telling me when it comes to traffic to increase situational awareness and what the objective pod seems like. It’s all there available for me.”
Pelkington added that the most effective aspects of the fifth generation fighter is its ability to speak with all aspects of the aircraft, in addition to customize information to slot each pilot’s needs. “The displays seek advice from one another, the sensors confer with one another, and many information is displayed in sensible formats with other sensors in a single combined picture. Now i will increase large formats on displays so i will see things easier – i will even increase many formats if i would like with yet another orientation on how the displays will look. Whatever i need to do to help my situational awareness i will be able to do and the truth, as a pilot, is that i will be able to customize that setup quite easily to a format that most closely fits how a pilot understands.”
The wing’s safety chief said that one of many biggest advantages to the F-35 over legacy aircraft is the expansion in options. “Choosing between a pilot’s eye and ‘god’s eye are all within the system now and weren’t within the F-16. I had one particular display option for radar format for the F-16 – I couldn’t choose anything. I needed to learn how to read it in that manner. Which didn’t necessarily match how somebody searching on a battlefield could see the image. So that you always needed to do this conversion to your mind. With the F-35 you’re able to choose the display format that most closely fits your ability, and there are multiple options to permit you to determine things from a ‘god’s eye’ perspective. It allows me to peer from a miles greater perspective than the F-16 ever allowed.”
The equipment
Tech. Sgt. Andre Baskin is the wing’s aircrew flight equipment NCOIC, liable for equipping pilots with the specialized gear required to fly the world’s most state-of-the-art aircraft. He and his small staff of specialists agree that the variations between the F-35 helmet and the remainder are many.
“One of the largest differences the F-35 helmet has over the others is that the brand new helmet encompasses multiple gadgets along with night vision goggles, and for that function you would need to modify the pilot’s flying helmet and add the components on there,” said Baskin. “With the F-35, it’s all encompassed within the helmet. The cameras at the jet work in sync with the helmet and regardless of the jet picks up visually might be displayed at the visor within the helmet.”
From a pilot’s perspective, Renbarger agrees that the nicest portion of the recent helmet is that everything is self-contained. “The smartest thing in regards to the F-35 helmet is that it has a huge visor with a massive display, and we will display an evening vision camera visual at the visor after which a distributor aperture system this is basically a hard and fast of cameras which are all around the airplane and work within the infrared spectrum. That may be displayed on our visor to boot.
“When we get our helmet fit, there’s actually a sophisticated scan process that takes a picture of our heads and give a laser cut-out foam insert for the helmet that’s molded to our heads. Then there’s ear cups that close the helmet around our head and a custom nape strap within the back that really locks the helmet down on our heads. There’s little or no, if any, motion within the helmet after we move our head around. Okay balanced, an exceptionally well fit and it feels great wearing the helmet. It’s very specific to every individual pilot.”
Pelkington also mentioned the adaptation between the standard G-suit, which offers pilots a couple of G and a half protection, to the only utilized by F-35 pilots. “Some pilots acclimate to the Gs by genetic makeup, some by experience and might develop a tolerance for five-ish Gs. With the brand new fit you can now go as much as 7 or 8 Gs without ever having to strain. When you’re keen on pulling Gs — on making certain your eyesight doesn’t gray out – your mind isn’t fascinated with the adversary or the location or the attention of the battlespace. Whilst you can pull 7 or 8 Gs while not having to consider it, combined with the fusion of all of the systems and the display at the glass arrange how you desire to see it…it’s a great reduction in pilot workload.”
The maintainers
Senior Master Sgt. Paul Fulkerson is the production superintendent with the 58th Aircraft Maintenance Unit who’s at the ground floor of maintenance for the F-35. He said that for F-35 maintainers, the most important element that sets them apart is the electronic maintenance program called ALIS. Standing for Autonomic Logistics Information System, ALIS, in line with Fulkerson, has all the forms had to perform maintenance at the new aircraft.
“With ALIS, there aren’t any paper forms and the system allows maintainers to mainly manage the fleet with the data at the computer,” said Fulkerson. “With the F-16s, we needed to use paper tech data to accomplish maintenance, where you followed it step-by-step to do the duty. With ALIS, our maintainers us ‘tough books,’ where they read the tech data at the screen.”
While an excessively young aircraft, Pelkington said the F-35, maintenance-wise, is especially stable and makes lots of information available to both the pilot and maintainer that isn’t available at the legacy aircraft.
“Oftentimes, in a legacy aircraft, you don’t know that something is incorrect until you have got a significant systems failure that generates a warning within the aircraft. The aircraft can not perform to spec. a considerable number of warnings within the F-35 are typically advisory, that claims ‘this goes to need to be worked on by maintenance once you land.’ Within the F-35, there’s no mission degradation. When a pilot gets back, there’s a load of knowledge on every aspect of the way the aircraft performs. From the upkeep standpoint, it gives them a terrific opportunity to catch issues before they become problems.”
Staff Sgt. Michael Sanders is an F-35 crew chief who have been with this system for the past three years and has greater than a decade of expertise at the F-16 and F-15 as a backshop engine maintainer. He explained that while maintainers within the legacy aircraft normally specialized in a single area, which include engines or avionics, within the F-35, maintainers do all of it.
“My job is absolutely different now from previously. We might handle all teardown and build-up required for the engine, whereas now, we perform maintenance at the F-35 as a complete. We’re trained on all maintenance tasks, including the engine. I traveled TDY to Connecticut where I performed teardown and buildup for the brand new aircraft.”
Training
The F-35 Academic Training Center, or ATC, is a sprawling complex answerable for every facet of F-35 training at Eglin. From pilots to maintainers to support Airmen, the ATC has developed, or is within the means of developing, the learning syllabuses, procedures, guidelines, certifications and “textbooks” so we can become the learning standard for many years to come back, in keeping with Renbarger.
He said that for pilots, training within the F-35 simulator is by far, the most efficient there’s. “I’ve flown in F-16 simulators and F-22 simulators and the F-35 simulator is really state-of-the-art. They’ve got one of the best visuals, full dome coverage, 360-degree views, target set build-up, they’ve runways and really much replicates flying the airplane. I haven’t heard one pilot say it wasn’t the appropriate simulator they’ve ever been briefly of flying the airplane.”
Renbarger added that as the F-35 is a single-seat plane, the primary time a pilot flies the F-35, he’s by himself, making the simulator much more critical. “The operational flight software that runs the airplane – that very same software is inside the simulator,” said Renbarger. “In other aircraft I actually have flown, there were differences between the simulator and the airplane. Here is as close as I’ve ever seen between the simulator and airplane. Very same cockpit. The cockpit sits on a rail and also you sit within the cockpit and it drives forward and raises up contained in the dome and the screens you notice are the very same screens you spot at the jet.”
On the upkeep side, students are confronted with an analogous real-world view, with a weapons load trainer mock-up of the F-35 that contains everything however the tail and the cockpit. Tech. Sgt. Adam Zakrzewski is an ATC instructor with Detachment 19 of the 372nd Training Squadron. He said that in training at the F-35, students will practice opening and shutting doors, checking the hydraulics levels, oil levels, etc., but there’s a major difference between maintenance on legacy aircraft versus the F-35.
“There are much more steps in getting access to the legacy aircraft than there are to accessing the F-35,” said Zakrzewski. “I’m an old A-10 guy, where you’ve got to unfasten 200 screws to get a door panel open. At the F-35, there’s one interface connect and click on two buttons.”
Tech. Sgt. Justin Weddle is an ATC instructor and flight chief with the sector training detachment of the 372nd Training Squadron, who says that during normal maintenance training, instructors would give students a PowerPoint presentation, cover some TOs and provides students hands-on training at the aircraft.
“The maintenance group would need to admit defeat an aircraft or whatever students were training on akin to a weapons system, AGE, anything like that. On the ATC, and within the F-35 training plan, we start with an EML, or electronic mediated lecture, just like the standard PowerPoint, but it’s done through an electronic system.” Weddle said the scholar will then transition, within the same classroom and setting, to more self-paced training at the computer. “It’s only a reinforcement of what the teacher has said during his part of the educational.
“Students will then battle through an ASMT, that’s an aircraft systems maintenance trainer. It’s essentially an avatar, and from which you go and do whatever task you’re learning about. Whether you’re installing a hydraulic pump or another part of the aircraft. On one side of the screen, students can have their avatar and at the other they’ll have their joint tech data laptop and that they can follow all the steps exactly. That way the learning just isn’t all front-loaded, it is usually weaved out and in of the learning course.”
F-35: Fighter of the future
In addition to the Air Force’s F-35A, the Marine Corps and the Navy have their very own versions of the F-35. The F-35B will give the Marine Corps a quick take-off and vertical landing capability, while the Navy’s F-35C will give them a carrier-based capability. Smith believes that for the way forward for the F-35, it might not change the manner we fly, nevertheless it will make the U.S. and its allies the dominant air power for the following 30 to 50 years.
“That’s the wonderful thing about the F-35. There are three variants available, but all three are going to exploit the identical system software. In order they develop something new for our country, our allies who fly the F-35 gets that very same capability. Which will make integration much smoother.”
Since Smith’s journey home with the 1st F-35 in 2011, Air Force, Marine, Navy and U.K. pilots have amassed greater than 3,100 flying hours within the three versions, flying greater than 2,300 sorties.
To folks that have spent the past the past four or five years learning the intricacies of a brand new aircraft — methods to fly it, how one can fix it and the way to create a plan to show it, the F-35 has become far more than an airplane showcasing state-of-the-art technology. For the boys and girls of the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin, chargeable for getting the F-35 ready for its grand entrance because the dominant airpower for the 21st Century and beyond, it has spawned a very new culture and standard of living.
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