The F-35 and the Warlords: A Look Back and a Look Ahead

Posted on | by Robbin Laird
05/10/2019

We recently visited the Warlords at Beaufort MCAS.

We had a chance to meet with the CO of the squadron and to watch flight demos at this year’s airshow hosted by Beaufort MCAS.

This gave us a chance to reflect back at the more than a decade of dealing with the Warlords as they have brought the F-35 to life as a combat capability.

We have had the opportunity earlier to observe the standup of the Osprey Nation and its contributions in launching what one Marine leader called a “tsunami of change.”

Clearly, the F-35 has continued that tsunami and we will be observing and shaping a broader strategic narrative of the next key USMC air system generating signifiant change, namely the CH-53K.

In this report, we have begun with the most recent visit and then went back to the exit interview with the “godfather” of the F-35B, namely, Col. “Turbo” Tomassetti.

We visited “Turbo” many times at Eglin AFB as the F-35 was first being stood up.

We included the final interview which we did with him, namely his exit interview from Eglin in 2013.

We then navigate through a decade of interviews which highlight the evolution of the Warlords standing up and operating the new aircraft.

The
Warlords
and
the
F
-
35
May
6,
2019
2
VISITING
THE
WARL
ORDS:
AN
APRIL
2019
UPDATE
FROM
THE
CO
OF
VMFAT
-
501
..................
3
THE
2019
BEAUFORT
MCAS
AIRSHOW:
THE
WARLORDS
AND
THE
LATEST
F
-
35
ON
DISPLAY
................................
................................
................................
................................
................................
6
WARLORDS
SERIES
1:
TURBO
TOMASSETTI
LOOKS
BACK
AT
HIS
CAREER
AND
THE
W
AY
AHEAD
FOR
THE
F
-
35
................................
................................
................................
..........................
8
“Turbo”
Tomassetti
Exit
Interview
................................
................................
................................
...
8
“Turbo”
and
“Easy”
Focus
on
the
Role
of
Squadron
Pilots
Driving
Innovation
.............................
12
“Turbo”
Assess
the
Past
and
Looks
Forward
to
the
Future
of
Marine
Corps
Aviation
and
Its
Contribution
................................
................................
................................
................................
...
16
WARLORDS
SERIES
2:
THE
TRANSITION
FROM
EGLIN
TO
BEAUFORT
................................
.....
21
WARLORDS
SERIES
3:
SECRETARY
WYNNE
DISC
USS
THE
NEW
PILOT
CULTURE
WITH
LT.
COL.
BERKE,
CO
VMFAT
-
501,
2013
................................
................................
................................
..
24
WARLORDS
SERIES
4:
VISITING
THE
READY
ROOM
OF
VMFAT
-
501,
2013
...............................
28
WARLORDS
SERIES
5:
LT.
COL.
GILLETTE
DISCUSSED
IOC
PROCESS
FOR
THE
F
-
3
5,
2013
.
30
WARLORDS
SERIES
6:
MOVING
BEYOND
THE
HARRIER
................................
.............................
32
WARLORDS
SERIES
7:
SECRETARY
WYNNE
VISITS
THE
33RD
FIGHTER
WING
AND
LOOKS
AHEAD
FOR
THE
F
-
35
PROGRAM,
2013
................................
................................
..........................
34
The
Train
ing
has
Reached
Critical
Mass
................................
................................
......................
34
All
is
Not
Perfect
................................
................................
................................
...........................
34
Overperformance
and
Underperformance
................................
................................
....................
35
The
Marines
are
Believers
................................
................................
................................
............
35
The
Internationals
Are
Coming
................................
................................
................................
.....
35
Where
are
the
Dual
Qualified?
................................
................................
................................
......
36
Take
Advantage
of
the
Integrated
Simulators
................................
................................
...............
36
Security
‘Uber
Alles’
................................
................................
................................
......................
36
Salute
to
the
Maintainers
................................
................................
................................
..............
36
WARLORDS
SERIES
8:
VISITING
MCAS
BEAUFORT,
2015
................................
...........................
37
WARLORDS
SERIES
9:
VISITING
THE
USS
WASP,
2015
................................
................................
42
WARLORDS
SERIES
10:
THE
UK
WORKING
WITH
THE
MARINES
AT
VFMAT
-
501,
2015
...........
46
WARLORDS
SERIES
11:
THE
B
AS
A
STRATEGIC
ASSET
................................
............................
50
WARLORDS
SERIES
12:
THE
COMING
OF
THE
“NEWBIES”
TO
MCAS
BEAUFORT
..................
52
WARLORDS
SERIES
13:
THE
CO
OF
THE
WARLORDS
AS
THE
XO
OF
THE
GREEN
KNIGHTS,
2014
................................
................................
................................
................................
......................
54
WARLORDS
SERIES
14:
THE
WARLORDS
IN
CANBERRA,
2014
................................
..................
58
WARLORDS
SERIES
15:
THE
WARLORDS
IN
COPENHAGEN,
2015
................................
.............
61
Major
General
Anders
Rex
................................
................................
................................
...........
67
3
Visiting the Warlords: An April 2019 Update
from the CO of VMFAT
-
501
04/29/2019
B
y Robbin Laird
During my most recent visit to 2
nd
Marine Air Wing, I had a chance to visit MCAS Beaufort and meet with
Lt. Col. Adam Levine, the CO of VMFAT
-
501, otherwise known as the Warlords.
As the base was busy for the airshow being held the weekend of
the 26
th
of April, the CO graciously
provided some time for an update on the USMC training efforts and shaping the pipeline for the training
aspect of the fast jet transition in the Marine Corps.
I first dealt with the Marines getting ready for F
-
35 as Eg
lin stood up the first training efforts.
My guide
to those efforts
was
Col. “Turbo” Tomasetti
.
The
n when the Warlords were first set up at Eglin, t
he CO was a Marine whom
I knew from his F
-
22 flying
days,
Lt. Col. Berke
.
The Mari
nes have had a very significant impact on the global standup of the F
-
35,
both because they were the first to IOC the aircraft, and because the kind of integration which the Marines
embody is very similar to what the smaller Air Forces of partners and alli
es seek from their F
-
35s.
My visit to Lt. Col Berke occurred during a visit of Secretary Wynne to Eglin in 2013.
And Lt. Col. Berke has embodied the impact of the Marines on the partners for he appeared at the
Williams
Seminar in 2014
in Canberra, Australia which highlighted fifth generation aircraft in the context of
Australian defense transformation and then in the
2015 Williams Foundation Seminar in Denmark
where
the same opportunity to speak and to shape understanding of the fifth gen revolution for allie
s was
highlighted.
Then in 2015, Murielle Delaporte and visited Beaufort shortly after the warlords had
transitioned to
Beaufort
from Eglin.
I later met members of t
he Warlords onboard the USS Wasp during sea trials.
But I have not been back to Beaufort for four years, and the Marines have been busy ramping up their
training efforts during that period.
Lt. Col. Levine provided a
comprehensive
update on those efforts.
It was obvious from the flight line that more planes, pilots and maintainers were populating the base since I
was last there.
4
It is also clear from discussions with the CO that Ed Timperlake’s forecast
that the
squadron pilots
and the squadrons using the F
-
35s would drive the
process of innovation, not the inside the beltway cubical commandos.
And that in
novation is being driven in part by a learning cycle from the
operational squadrons back to the training command.
The CO highlighted that as the operational squadrons gained experience in
executing the various missions in which the aircraft is involved tha
t
operational learning was being brought back to the training effort and
providing greater accuracy with regard to the demand side but also the
training effort was able to work better training for preparing for operational
missions.
The command has obvious
ly scaled up since the last time I was there with
more than 100 pilots trained and with the standing up of the second training
squadron at Beaufort over the next few months, that scaling up would be
accelerated as well.
The challenge is a significant one a
s the USMC will transition from their
legacy force to an all F
-
35 one within the next two decades and the task of
the training squadrons will be to train the “newbies” and the experienced
pilots from legacy aircraft to fly and operate the F
-
35.
The traini
ng cycle is eight months during which the pilots learn to fly the
new jet and then to take the jet through its paces with regard to variety of
missions for which the Marines use their fast jets.
When I was last there, no “newbies” were present; only experi
enced pilots.
Now the “newbies” are the majority of pilot trainees.
I asked the CO who is an experienced Hornet pilot how the two cohorts experience was different. It must be
remembered that heart of fifth gen aviation is a man
-
machine revolution, where th
e pilot is getting
comfortable with the performance of his aircraft generating data providing situational awareness and the
pilot interacting with his screens while operating the aircraft.
He made the point that the “newbies” had never experienced the much
more pilot intensive processing of
data which legacy pilots do, expected their machines to work in ways that could facilitate what they wanted
to do, but to do them faster.
In other words, they already assumed the new baseline of man
-
machine interaction a
nd wanted that
interaction to speed up.
The pilots of legacy pilots had much more appreciation of the fact that the F
-
35 was working from a very
different baseline than their legacy jets did.
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For an ebook version of the report, see the following

The featured photo shows Capt. Frank Zastoupil with Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 (VMFAT-501) flying the F-35B Lightning II during the 2019 Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Air Show, April 27.

MCAS Beaufort hosts the air show in order to bring the community together and demonstrate U.S. Marine Corps Aviation Combat Element and Marine Air-Ground Task Force capabilities. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Brittney Vella)