The F-35B has a unique war winning capability

By The Honorable Ed Timperlake

Credit: F-35B, http:// www.youtube.com

11/17/2010 – In the not two distant future the US Navy/Marine and USAF team may have to establish presence from the sea in a potential combat theater. The threat will be great: friendly forces can be intermixed with opponents who will do what ever it takes to win. From placing IEDs, to employing small unit ambushes, to spotting for artillery and Multiple Launch Rockets, the enemy will be unforgiving and aggressive. In addition there is a large land Army with armor and land-based precision weapons nearby to attack.

The opposing forces also have a tactical aviation component of Fighters and Attack Aircraft, along with Unmanned Aerial Systems and some proficiency in offensive “cyber war” ready to engage. To make it even more difficult the enemy has located and identified potential airfields that could be occupied and has targeted them to be destroyed by terminally guided cruise and intermediate range ballistic missiles.

Finally, the fleet off shore is vulnerable to ship-killing missiles. The problem for US war planners is to secure a beachhead and build to victory from that beginning. Traditionally, the “beachhead” was just that on a beach–but now it can be seizing territory inland first and attacking from the back door toward the sea to take a port and also grab an airfield.

The problem for US war planners is to secure a beachhead and build to victory from that beginning.

The USAF flying high cover after being launched from bases far enough away to be safe from attack can establish Air Superiority, and the Navy Fighters can go on CAP (Combat Air Patrol) to protect the Fleet. Both services can launch offensive weapons from their TacAir also from B-2s, surface ships and subs. UAS can go into battle for ISR and offense “cyber” can be engaged. US “smart munitions” can attack enemy offensive rockets and missiles launch sites. There will be significant casualities on both sides.

But the Marines do the unexpected and land where the enemy does not have ease of access –a natural barrier perhaps, mountain range, water barrier, very open desert or even on the back side of urban sprawl—. Once established, logistical re-supply is a battle-tipping requirement.

Once ashore the one asset that can tip the battle and keep Tactical Aviation engaged in support of ground combat operations if runways are crated is the F-35B, because every hard surface road is a landing strip and resupply can quickly arrive from Navy Amphibious ships by MV-22s and CH-53K.

Once ashore the one asset that can tip the battle and keep Tactical Aviation engaged in support of ground combat operations if runways are crated is the F-35B, because every hard surface road is a landing strip and resupply can quickly arrive from Navy Amphibious ships by MV-22s and CH-53K.

The F-35B is a 5^th Generation airborne stealth fighter with its own distributed intelligence center. Each aircraft has a total 360-degree knowledge. If the enemy launches an attack from the air or ground, airborne sensors can instantaneously pick up the launch. The battle information displayed in each F-35B can be linked to UAS drivers as well as ground and airborne command centers to coordinate both offensive and defensive operations.

The sortie rate of the aircraft is more than just rearm and “gas and go”: it is continuity of operations with each aircraft linking in and out as they turn and burn—without losing situational awareness. This can all be done in locations that can come as a complete tactical surprise –the F-35B sortie rate action reaction cycle has an add dimension of unique and unexpected basing thus getting inside an opponent’s OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) loop.

The sortie rate of the aircraft is more than just rearm and “gas and go”: it is continuity of operations with each aircraft linking in and out as they turn and burn—without losing situational awareness.

Enemy air is predictable by needing a runway and consequently all the problems of precision weapons crating their runways come into play for their battle plan—the F-35B does not have that vulnerability.

Now remove the USAF and USN Carrier Battle Group and instead of seeing USMC air and land forces engaged, it is only the Israeli Defense Force fighting for the survival  of the free state of Israel. Israel is a nation surrounded by hostile forces.  All of the threats mentioned above instead of being directed against US forces are  life and death problems for Israeli defense planners. Consequently is there any surprise that the IAF is considering the F-35B. The Lightning II V/Stol version must be kept in production, because its combat potential is nowhere near fully understood and exploited.

It is a perfect aircraft for the Marines:  think not only Israel, but other contingencies;  think  Korea or Taiwan in a major incident, or USMC being used to  keep the promise with allies that trusted US. American Marines going back in from the sea  to save an Iraqi town of innocents from  being overrun or to stop  the Taliban attacking a village is a debt that cannot be walked away from .

American Marines going back in from the sea  to save an Iraqi town of innocents from  being overrun or to stop  the Taliban attacking a village is a debt that cannot be walked away from.

For the citizens of Israel, the IDF is fully capable of making informed and appropriate choices for their Nation’s survival.  It is always up to them to do what they think best.

However, the F-35B maybe a perfect aircraft for their Combat  situation as described above.  If Israel has to fight for their very existence, the V/Stol capability may become invaluable — so why even debate not funding such a valuable resource for both the USMC and others — it can tip an entire war effort if employed successfully.

Discussing Fifth Generation Aircraft with the USMC Pilot of the F-22

In a recent discussion with Lieutenant-Colonel Berke who is based at Nellis AFB, the only USMC pilot of the F-22, the role of fifth generation fighters and how they are being used was discussed with Second Line of Defense.

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke has been an F-18 pilot, an F-16 pilot, a TOPGUN instructor and served as ground Forward Air Controller with the US Army for a year. He gained his Viper experience in an F-16A–flying aggressor tactics at TOPGUN; so you have a Marine Hornet Driver flying “foreign tactics” in a Navy training squadron in an AF Fighter. He is currently flying the Raptor and shaping tactics for the plane in its joint force role.  He will become the second squadron commander at Eglin for the USMC version of the F-35.

***

SLD: Could you explain why a USMC pilot is flying the Raptor?

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke: The decision was made a few years ago to put joint pilots into the Raptor.  The Navy did it in 2006 and the Marine Corps wanted to as well.  For the USMC, the transition to the JSF is a critical issue.  We can learn from the operational experiences of the Air Force F-22 transition.  So an exchange billet with the Air Force at Nellis was created in the Operational Test squadron to give a Marine exposure to the process. The intent was to get someone into the fifth-gen world; to see what the Air Force has done with the F-22 for the last few years and thereby get some fifth-gen perspective.  Then that pilot would hopefully be value-added to the Transition Task Force and the JSF team at Headquarters, Marine Corps. Also, it’s important to get some perspective on what the Air Force lessons learned have been with the introduction of the Raptor and to learn some of their roadblocks in moving from legacy to fifth gen.  We (USMC) are the lead for the IOC for the JSF and have a lot to gain from that experience. I have been selected to Command our JSF Squadron, VMFAT-501 at Eglin AFB.  I will replace the first Marine JSF Skipper who is there now.

SLD: Obviously there are two advantages to this.  I mean first of all the one mentioned, which is to begin to understand what the fused sensor experience is all about and the whole capability of an aircraft is not really an F series but a flying combat system. And second you get operational experience working the fifth generation capability with legacy aircraft.

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke: I think you’re hitting the nail on the head with what the JSF is going to do, but it’s also what the Raptor mission have already morphed into. The concept of Raptor employment covers two basic concepts. You’ve got an anti-access/global strike mission; and you have the integration mission as well. And the bottom line is that integration mission is our bread and butter.  When I say “us,” I’m talking about the Air Force and the F-22.  Most of our expected operating environments are going to be integrated and success depends on how we play with other four-gen assets.

The joint operational role for the Raptor is significant. I’d say 80% of our funded testing since I’ve been here in the last two years in some way, shape, or form involves integration; whether it’s integration with other airplanes like F-18s, F-15s and 16s, or integration with Aegis.  Maritime Interdiction Integration is a key element of what we’re doing. Virtually all of our tests are about how to make the airplane value-added to the conventional fleet, and that’s pretty much all we’ve done recently.

SLD: But let me just puzzle over something for a moment, which is the whole experience of flying an F/A-18 and shifting to an F-22. Just what’s that whole experience for you?

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke: It’s a major evolution. There’s no question about it. My career has been in F-18s, but I also flew F-16s for three years. I was dual operational in the Hornet and the Viper when I was a TOPGUN instructor.  I am now coming up on three years flying Raptors.  I was also on carriers for four years, so I’ve done a lot of integration with the Navy and a lot of integration with the Air Force.  Three years flying with the Air Force has been pretty broadening.

For me, it’s a great experience to see the similarities and difference between the services.  Navy and Marine aviation is very similar.  USAF aviation is very different in some ways.  I actually was with the Army for a year as FAC in Iraq as well.  So from a tactical level, I’ve got a lot of tactical operator experience with all three services – Navy, Army, and the Air Force.  This has been really illuminating for me having the experience with all of the services in tactical operations.  Obviously I will draw upon that experience when I fully engage with the JSF. But flying a Raptor, the left, right, up, down, is just flying; flying is flying.  So getting in an airplane and flying around really is not that cosmic no matter what type of airplane you’re sitting in.

But the difference between a Hornet or a Viper and the Raptor isn’t just the way you turn or which way you move the jet or what is the best way to attack a particular problem.  The difference is how you think.  You work totally differently to garner situational awareness and make decisions; it’s all different in the F-22. With the F-22 and certainly it will be the case with the F-35, you’re operating at a level where you perform several functions of classic air battle management and that’s a whole different experience and a different kind of training.

SLD: When you’re in a classic tactical aircraft, basically somebody else is doing the battle management in an AWACS or CAOC or somewhere. With this aircraft, with the F-22 and certainly the F-35, you’re really moving from a classic air battle management approach and that’s got to be a whole different experience and require a different kind of training.

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke:It absolutely is.  The irony is that when you talk about distributed battle management it is based on how the F-22 and F-35 provide for situational awareness.  With an F-18 or F-16, you have federated sensor systems; the information is stovepiped and the pilot must fuse the information in his own mind.

You basically receive a lot of data and you’re trying to shape that data into usable information. In the Raptor, the data is already fused into information thereby providing the situational awareness (SA).  SA is extremely high in the F-22 and obviously will be in the JSF; and it’s very easy for the pilot to process the SA.

Indeed, the processing of data is the key to having high SA and the key to making smart decisions.  There’s virtually no data in the F-22 that you have to process; it’s almost all information.  There’s a small amount, but it is presented to you clearly and it takes very little effort to process what’s going on. The fused data is so easy to absorb and it’s so easy to use.  A huge amount of brain cells, a huge amount of pilot effort is necessary to do that in the Hornet. You just don’t have to do it anymore in the Raptor and the JSF.  Ironically, that takes some getting used to.  The SA in a fused cockpit is so incredible that it takes time to adjust from a legacy mindset, but once you do, the payback is exponential.  The best SA I ever had in the Hornet pales in comparison to what the JSF will do for me.

SLD: And what is the impact of being able to share that fused data with other assets?

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke:The impacts of sharing data will be profound with JSF using MADL (Multifunctional Advanced Data Link) as a gateway; currently the Raptor requires an offboard gateway, but will eventually get MADL as well.  As a matter of fact, we just completed a test on IFDL (Intra-flight Data Link) distribution through to BACN (Battlefield Airborne Communications Nodes) to get Raptor data into Marine F-18’s with great success.

The F-22, especially when we get that data off board, gives tremendous SA to legacy assets.  Eventually when we can pipe the data either through a gateway or when we get MADL, those methodologies once they’re resolved will make the aircraft a fused sensor for 4th gen fighters. Or put in other words, the beauty of the F-22 is it’s basically a big flying sensor providing info to our integrated assets.

And the way we perceive our role as a big flying sensor allows us to be a facilitator for another force to execute their mission more effectively, more efficiently and with less risk. We quantify everything with the metrics of survivability and lethality.  Obviously the goal is simply to increase survivability and increase lethality, so we want to be more deadly while take less risk doing it.

SLD: Could you discuss further the interaction between the Raptor and the legacy aircraft?

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke:  The Raptor can facilitate the Hornet’s mission whether it’s by providing SA, meaning giving him sensor pictures that shows him where the highest threats may be.  Or by injecting a kinetic attack to let that Hornet pilot to get to a release point without having to deal with a particular threat. I can make the Hornet more survivable.  I can facilitate him getting to a point where he optimizes his sensor footprint or optimizes his kinetic release and I can increase his survivability by handling a particular threat.

I might not affect his ability to be more lethal in the sense that I can’t help him guide his weapons or maybe I’m not finding the target for him because I don’t have those type of sensors. But the result is a significant force multiplier that’s really hard to quantify because it makes everybody more survivable and hopefully by definition it makes the force more lethal.

SLD: So the F-22 underwrites the overall capability of the joint force?

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke: Exactly.  Our perception of what we do in the joint force is to enhance the entire joint force’s survivability. If we can keep somebody alive for longer or keep somebody alive closer to the threat, that makes them more lethal and then in turn makes us, and everyone, more survivable.  So there’s a lot of synergy back and forth, there’s nothing more lethal than four Hornets and two Raptors.

We’re a lot more lethal with four Hornets and we’re more survivable with four Hornets .  That’s something that’s often overlooked; how much less of an opportunity the threat has to kill a Raptor because there are Hornets flying with us.  It will be even more true with the JSFs operating; two JSF will be a lot more survivable with four Hornets than they are by themselves.   And everyone becomes more lethal as a result.

SLD: I think of the Raptor as the tip of a three-dimensional grid and the fact that you’re flying 60,000 feet or more in a maritime environment, and the F-18 certainly flies much lower, that extra 20,000 feet that I’m carrying up at the top of the grid and looking at the nap of the earth in a maritime environment is very significant, it seems to me, in terms of your CONOPs. You want to leverage the assets we’ve got now. But over time as you essentially ferret these things out and replace them with F-35s and F-22s and add other unmanned or whatever other assets, the capability that you’re seeing now for distributed operations will be really a sea change in terms of the ability of the fleet, both airborne and surface. And the fleet I’m referring to not just the surface ships and the airplanes to work together to expand their survivability and their lethality, to use your terms?

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke:  Yes absolutely.  The idea that we’re going to attack a cruise missile problem without the use of tactical aircraft surprises me from an analytical perspective, especially considering how often we do it and how much we consider it.  It’s hard to train to counter-missile operations, but it’s certainly a mission set that we investigate routinely.  The Raptor and JSF and their expanded sensor sets will play a key role. Working the relationship between Aegis and 5th Gen is central to the capability to kill missiles attacking the fleet or in dealing with longer-range targets.

SLD: Could you highlight the changing role of the combat pilot in the fifth generation aircraft?

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke: In the sensor fused cockpit of the Raptor, two things result.  It simplifies the information and presents it more accurately and more quickly.  It also provides such performance in a full 360-degree sphere. That allows a Raptor pilot almost 100% of the time to just make decisions. So he can essentially spend none of his time interpreting and spend all of his time deciding the best way to attack a problem.

That allows the pilot to decide what’s best for him and for all the airborne forces whether it’s other Raptors or F-18 strikers that you’re supporting or F15’s Eagles on a sweep, or any integrated mission. You don’t have the luxury of doing that in a legacy airplane.  The fused sensors enable all of this.  The JSF will only expand this capability with its newer and expanded sensor array.

As a flying sensor, you can accurately decide the best way to attack a particular problem for everybody else that is flying.  A Raptor flight lead (and a 5th Gen fighter is far more effective than a flight leader in another airplane) with the amount of SA that he has can help guide the other aircraft that don’t have that level of SA.

SLD: So from this point of view, the new role for the combat pilot, with new fused sensors and related capabilities, the new aircraft are game changers?

Lieutenant-Colonel Berke: People throw out those terms all the time, “the paradigm shift”, “a game changer”, “an evolutionary leap”, all those things, but it’s all true. It’s all accurate. And I can tell you from the perspective of a guy who has flown over 2,000 hours in a Hornet.  I was a TOPGUN instructor.  I was really at the top of my game. I was as competent as the Marine Corps could’ve taught me to be.

In spite of this background, it was a challenge and a major mental leap for me to go to the F-22.  It takes time to turn the corner with 5th Gen thinking.  But once you do, there’s no going back.  Your SA and your ability increase dramatically.  Truth be told, you’re always going to have limits in any legacy platform, for many reasons.  There’s not a pilot in the Air Force that’s flying Raptors right now that will not tell you the exact same thing.

But what they’ll also tell you is that the first class that flew the Raptor straight from flight school was exceptional.  They were surprised at how good they were at optimizing the airplane as a sensor.  The guys with no experience did extremely well; and I think a huge part of that has to do with them not bringing old habits or a lifetime of thinking a certain way.

Changing the way you physically move is one thing, but changing the way you mentally think is very difficult to do and it takes time.  When the concepts just don’t apply anymore and you’ve leveraged those concepts for 15 years, it’s not an easy thing.  This will be a challenge for all pilots transitioning to the JSF because it’s going to force them to think differently than they ever thought before. But doing so is crucial to the shift in air operations.  Once the mindset shift occurs, the true capability will be understood.

As I said before, once that happens the results are exponential.  In just a few years, we’re going to have STOVL JSF operating from forward bases.  Aside from all the operational and strategic implications, the tactical significance is huge.  A single F-35B pilot will have more SA than anyone flying a Marine aircraft ever has.  And he’s going to be directly connected to the entire supported force.

When you consider the fused cockpit of a JSF, you begin to understand just why all those descriptors are really accurate.  It’s an evolutionary leap. It’s a paradigm shift.  It’s a game changer!

 

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*** Posted On September 13th, 2010

 

 

In early June, the SLD team visited the latest National Security Cutter, the WMSL-751 or the USCGC WAESCHE.  The team toured the vessel while it was ported in San Diego for a training and repair mission.  Captain Lance Bardo, the Commanding Officer of the Waesche, who will soon retire, provided an overview on the ship, its con-ops and missions. 

   

 

Captain Bardo, a career cutterman, has served aboard eight cutters over 26 years, commanding six prior to CGC WAESCHE.  His seagoing duty has included Fisheries and Search and Rescue in the Northwest Atlantic, Bering Sea and off the California coast, icebreaking on the Great Lakes, as well as extensive counter drug operations in the Caribbean and East Pacific.  Most recently he served as Commanding Officer of CGC MIDGETT (2008), HAMILTON (2007) and BOUTWELL from 2002 – 2004 and led the interdiction of over $1B in contraband in the Eastern Pacific.. These are existing USCG High endurance Cutters – 378 feet long and referred to as 378’s in the interview below. 

[slidepress gallery=’cutter-slideshow’] 

The new USCG cutter brings to the table significant C4ISR capabilities, digital capabilities for operations and maintenance, an ability to operate much larger helicopters on its decks, an ability to operate remotely piloted vehicles, significant endurance, and an ability to operate for extended periods of time at sea. In crises like Katrina or the Gulf oil spill, the new cutter brings significant command and control capabilities to any task force managing a disruptive event. 

   

 

   

Captain Bardo added further emphasis on the crisis management capability of the new Cutter.  “And this asset is large enough with enough capability built into it actually to manage your response I mean that literally; we have nothing else in the Coast Guard or the Navy for that matter to manage domestic response the way this platform can.  And the Coast Guard has demonstrated over and over again, as recently as the current Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the Haitian earthquake, that we are at our best when we respond to domestic emergencies and a major offshore cutter is often the center of that.  The Navy is a great partner in those emergencies, but it is just not their primary mission.” 

SLD: Perhaps from this point of view it should not be called a national security cutter, because it narrows understanding of what it can do and what it can contribute? 

Captain Bardo: Maritime security cutter; maritime management. The “W” for Coast Guard maritime security cutter large was an attempt to kind of communicate its size and contribution to the service and the nation. 

SLD: What are the unique features of the ship you would underscore? 

Captain Bardo: Endurance; if you have endurance; you’ve got stability; you’ve got command capabilities; you’ve got a lot of flexibility inherent in the ship itself and crew and that’s what you really want to emphasize.  The platform enables this kind of tool sets or the toolset synergistically interacts with the platform. 

SLD: What other capabilities would you emphasize? 

Captain Bardo: Our flight deck is literally twice as big as our older cutters; four-thousand square feet versus twenty-three hundred on a 378 and I can land a sixty.  I can land all variety of helicopters that a 378 can’t. 

When the seas tossing the ship around, I have much stability to allow helos and UAVs to operate. 

On a 378, I had to make really hard decisions by taking saltwater into my fuel tanks; what it did is it added about three days to get rid of that water when you wanted to then fill up the tanks with fuel.  With this ship I don’t have the same problem, because I have a segregated tank. 

I don’t know what helicopters we will have to operate within the future but, I can tell you this: I can operate with a lot more flexibility than that 378 can.  I always had to manage my fuel on a 378; for aviation I had eight thousand gallons of fuel. I’ve got a thirty-five-thousand gallons of aviation fuel on this ship so, you can fly those helicopters for a long, long time on four times the amount of fuel; it really gives us a tremendous amount of flexibility; it’s not a platform for platform placement for a 378.  It’s a tremendous leap ahead in terms of growth capability as well. 

SLD: How would summarize the impact of the new cutter on operations? 

Captain Bardo: We can be fifteen hundred miles from where a crisis is occurring and be there in a matter of two days. We have the ability to talk to anyone anywhere in the world.  We have the ability to organize a lot of different agencies because of the ability to communicate.  We have the ability to put people actually on the scene with boats and aircraft.  We have the ability to remain on station for up to ninety days.  We can make our own water; we make our own electricity; we’re essentially a small city and a small commanding tool can be a global command and control platform. 

SLD: We’re facing a lot of challenges and many of them are unknown and we’re dealing with a lot of potential chaos; and asset like this really allows the Coast Guard to function in a kind of maritime management role for dealing with various future crises.  Can you talk to this point? 

Captain Bardo: We need to look forward in the kinds of threats that we might face; we might encounter and it’s hard to see them without a crystal ball to figure out exactly what those might look like but, this ship has got a lot of capability built in it to deal with uncertainty. 

The first thing that you run into in a ship at sea in your people wear out so, things like having a dedicated ballast system; it allows me to ballast the ship down as I use up fuel; gives the ship a little more stable ride; less fatigue on the people. 

The fact that the places where the people live are far more comfortable surroundings for them allows them after three weeks not to be tired of their forty, roommate’s; they are in state rooms with four or five roommates. 

From an operational perspective, those same kinds of things apply too.  For example; our ability to recover aircraft; the ability to keep the ship more stable; to have a configuration on the flight deck that makes it easier for pilots to land and to launch; to have enough fuel; to be underway with any variety of aircraft for sixty or ninety days without having to manage the amount of aviation fuel that we have; if we have enough on board gives us a tremendous amount of flexibility in the future for threats that we can even imagine right now. 

 

 

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*** Posted on August 8th, 2010

SLD talked recently with the USCG Miami Air Station Commander and staff about their AOR, their con-ops and the coming addition of the latest USCG aircraft, the Ocean Sentry.  The Air Station faces a challenging AOR in which there is significant maritime and air traffic which shapes commerce, law enforcement and environmental challenges.  Dealing with illegal immigration and drug trafficking is a major concern and because many of these migrants come from outside the region, in areas of known terrorist activity, even “normal” immigration issues carry with them national security concerns.

The interview covered a wide range of issues, but the comments selected here largely deal with the question of the use of aircraft in the region and how the new aircraft will be introduced and re-shape operations in the AOR.

SLD: How many aircraft do you have at the air station currently?

Captain Richard Kenin, Commanding Officer of the USCG, Air Station, Miami:

Right now, we have 10 aircraft.  When I was here in 1991, we had 21 aircraft at this unit.  We now have 10 aircraft with this unit.

SLD: You had 21?

Captain Kenin: We had 21 aircraft here in 1991 when I was here before and we now have 10.

SLD: And presumably, the geographical area has not shifted?

Captain Kenin: No.  What has shifted is the interdiction mission has shifted to Jacksonville, and our helicopters were sent away.  But those helicopters did a lot more than just drug interdiction.  They did all the other missions for the air station.  So they really downsized, redesignated the air station in favour of standing up the single mission unit,

Captain Kenin: We are phasing out the Falcons in favor of the Ocean Sentry. Our first
Falcon has already left.  So we now have 5 of these and as the HC144’s come online, these aircraft will depart.

Notice up there, we have 430 days away from home station (DAHS).  We have an aircraft deployed 24/7 somewhere down in the Caribbean.  So we typically have 4 aircrafts here and on a good day, we have 3 of those aircrafts available for flying.  We will pluck up that one.

The 144, you saw it out there is coming online here.  We are predicting to be, we are going to be initially operational kickboard with that aircraft in October 1st.  Which means we will be flying both the FALCON and the CASA together during our ready search and rescue mission as well as deploying.  And that will be the 1st of October; we will be planning on that.  And by then we will have 3 aircraft,.By next October when we will have only 144’s.  The long-range plan as you probably know is that we are going to have 7 of those aircrafts here.  Now they are saying 5 aircraft.  Some people are saying that might be 3 aircraft.

SLD: What are the major threats which you face in your AOR?

The first Ocean Sentry MPA for the Miami Air Station IOC October 2010

Captain Kenin:  We have to cover a large and busy AOR with these aircraft in any case and face a diversity of threats. Probably the biggest threat right now for us is migrants.  And the threat is not the Cuban migrant coming up from Cuba.  They come across for economic reasons; that is really not a threat.  The real threat for us from a Homeland Security perspective is people coming over from the Bahamas.  It is very easy to get into the Bahamas, and then it is only 40 miles across from the Bahamas to the US.  We have picked up loads, boatloads of Sri Lankans, of Nigerians, Pakistanis, these are people with the national security threat that we are really concerned about.  The 40 miles from Bimini, it is an hour and a half. Obviously, there is a serious threat from a search and rescue perspective as well.

SLD: Obviously a key element of dealing with this challenge is providing for the ISR to find the threats and then having the surface assets to prosecute the threats.  How will you shape your ISR mission with the new aircraft?

Captain Kenin: The HU-25 when it came online in 1980 was designed for a mission that we do not have anymore.  At that time, the thought was that we are going to search out of search and rescue.  And so we need an aircraft that could go out through location, locate the vessel in distress quickly and then the helicopter would find then pick them out the water.  And it was designed for that, and it did it very well.  It had very good sprint capacity to do search and rescue at distance.  It had great dash speed, and it was designed for a minimal amount of loiter time and then come back.

SLD: And presumable then you are saving the cost of the surface ship as well by using this aircraft.

 

The Cockpit of the Ocean Sentry

Captain Kenin: Exactly.  You had a plane that was the taking the search out of search and rescue.  The Coast Guard air force does it all.  And that was the leadership’s thought in pushing us towards a jet and it did that mission very well.  And it also did the mission that we moved into with air interdiction very well when we started interdicting drug smugglers it did that very well with a different radar.

But now the Coast Guards mission for its fixed-wing aircraft has changed.  We are now about maritime patrol.  And that aircraft does not have the endurance.  It can give you the legs.  But it cannot give you the endurance to do the new Coast Guard mission.  We need an aircraft that has the sophisticated sensor packages.  So what we have done all the years is with all the different things on that aircraft, making the aircraft much more complicated.  The avionic system was much more complex, I mean it takes more maintenance and care to operate and it has many add on capabilities.

Inside the Ocean Sentry: “The Ocean Sentry unlike the Falcon has significant cargo space.”

SLD: But these capabilities are not integrated.

Captain Kenin: And not integrated.  We have hung more things on them.  Individually, these packages are good.  It is good radar, it is a good FLIR, but they do not integrate well, and the aircraft just cannot stay out there long enough to do the mission.

And when we find a go fast mover across from somewhere, we cannot stay on scene with that aircraft to get the surface fleet to react and make the interdiction.  We can find it and we do it pretty well.  But after we find it, if we have already been flying 2-1/2 hours, well, all we can do is report a position and then go back and get fuel.

The aircraft was optimized for a particular mission set and what you are talking about now is that you have a multi mission set.  So you are saying maybe saying that the aircraft is out there to maybe when it launched, it had a certain responsibility for search and rescue or ISR supporter of drug interdiction.  But when it is out there, it does not have to come back to do the next mission, it is there and you can shift it seamlessly to, well now we have an emergency search and rescue over here, would you support that presumed that you can pass it off from service ship to service ship.  It should be passed on functionally.

SLD: Presumably multi mission in terms of not just ISR but multi mission in terms of lift and carry as well.

Captain Kenin: Yes. That gives you a lot of the flexibility given that you are a smaller air force yet a lot of flexibility built into the new aircraft.  Multi mission is huge especially in this AOR because there is so many different places that you go and need to shift tasks in flight.

SLD:  I assume that as you stand up the new aircraft it will take time to evolve the capabilities and your con-ops in shaping those capabilities.  It will be important to build in tolerance for evolution, tolerance for change in shaping capabilities over time.  Is that something you worry about, having the tolerance for evolution of the capabilities, rather than folks expecting perfection up front?

Captain Kenin:  You are right.  We need to build space for evolution.  We have a pretty good product, but not where we need to get to from the git go. The sensors themselves are pretty good.  The aircraft has a good  radar.  We are checking out; it has done pretty well in testing.  But the complaint about it is, it is difficult for the operators to use.  You want something that works well but it is the operators and you hit upon it.  It is, can the operators use it?

The most expensive sensor in that airplane, it is the pilot.  We have spent a ton of money on these people.  It is the sensor operators, those people, in any organization, at any airline out there, it is the pilot we train, it is the sensor operators.  Give them the tools that actually work.

And that is what we are dealing with regard to the pilot.  Now the concept is great.  It is multi mission.  Now, we paid a lot for it to be a multi mission.  If you look at like the Dash 8’s and those kind of airplanes, P 3’s, there is no ramp, there is no way they can be a logistics in that airplane.  But it is easier for them because they load up stuff in the back and they just do total sensor missions.  This airplane, we have a ramp.  I can throw a rotator blade on the back of it.  I can do a lot of different things. So I think it is a nice fit for what we do here because you can look at the AOR and there are a lot of short runways that we could not do in the FALCON.  Now we can.  They are all up and all available.

SLD: The CASA aircraft was designed in part to operate in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean has a great deal of similarity, I would assume that the fit is pretty good.

Captain Kenin: It is and we need the loiter time this aircraft has. We really need the airplane that can stay out 7 or 8 hours and that is important for a number of different reasons.  First is that you can actually cover the ground that you need to.  Second, it takes a long time for the ship to get there. And we have problems in the past when I found the ship, but now I had to leave and now we lost it.  And then by the time the ship or another asset comes, whether it would be CBP or another Coast Guard asset, it is difficult to find they are gone. And we play a lot of cat and mouse with smugglers in the Caribbean overseas, so it is important to be able to find these folks because they will try to dodge and hide until we are forced to leave

SLD: So the multi-mission capabilities of the aircraft coupled with the loiter time of the aircraft fits your AOR and you multi-mission con-ops pretty well?

Captain Kenin: We believe so. Our resources are multi-mission, our people are multi-mission. And the Navy and DOD and the other services have that luxury of having specialized people. But our guy is doing that and he is running up front dropping a pump, he is going back to fill the aircraft. He is doing all this other kind of stuff.

SLD: How would you describe the challenge moving forward?

Captain Kenin: We have been given a new aircraft, and everybody is excited. We all agree this is going to give us a lot more capability than the Falcon. But how do we mould and change our operations to still meet the operational commander expectations with this new aircraft? And that is something that we are developed in as we train on it and we will learn how to use it and learn what the capabilities are and have an ability to operate at a much smaller runway is huge. We can go places we have never been able to go before. So is our mission always down to Cuba now? That is the question…

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*** Posted on June 9th, 2010