ABOARD USS WASP: When the Marines decided to bring the press aboard the USS Wasp for the F-35B’s first set of operational tests — takeoffs, landings and flights designed to nearly simulate combat conditions — they provided the world with a glimpse of how they will fight using amphibious ships, F-35Bs and V-22 Ospreys. We…
By Colin ClarkModernizing military simulation with open systems architecture
Best-of-breed common models and architecture enable virtual training and testing with the same data in a cyber-resilient posture.
WASHINGTON: As I watched the seemingly endless string of F-35Bs take off from the deck of the USS Wasp earlier this week, I was struck by how routine it all seemed. During eight days of flying, the F-35Bs flew 108 sorties, racking up 85.5 hours, deputy Marine Commandant for aviation, Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, told us on…
By Colin Clark
ABOARD USS WASP: When you start getting bored during an operational test after watching the seventh or eighth F-35B float down the carrier deck and slip up into the air, you know the Marines and Navy are doing something right — or being very lucky. The six pilots have put their planes into the air close to…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: As the Marines started doing operational testing of the F-35B aboard the USS Wasp, the head of Marine Aviation is visibly and demonstrably confident the aircraft will meet the date for the plane’s Initial Operational Capabiility. “To me the F-35 program is right on track where it should be,” Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, the head…
By Colin Clark
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA.: The new presidential helicopter made its first flight in December, the Marine Corps colonel in charge of the program revealed this morning. That was only seven months after contract award, a stark contrast to the multi-year delays that killed the previous program, the VH-71. But don’t get too excited. No miracles are…
By Richard Whittle
WASHINGTON: Frank Kendall, the head of Pentagon acquisition, will not visit the Paris Air Show next month. In contrast to the flurry of senior American leaders who made it to the Farnborough Air Show last year when the F-35 was expected to make its first public appearance overseas, the Paris show looks to be a considerably…
By Colin Clark
A new approach to speed, scale and efficiency for the industrial base
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WASHINGTON: The most senior Marine on the Navy staff is going home to Quantico. It’s just 35 miles down I-95, but it’s a world away. Sometime this summer — the exact date’s still to be determined a Marine spokesman told me — Maj. Gen. Robert Walsh should pin on a third star and move from the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CAPITOL HILL: The House Armed Services Committee wants to add up to six F-35B STOVL jets to the Marine Corps budget, even as it demands new oversight into Lockheed Martin’s long-troubled F-35 program. The House draft National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2016 would not add any F-35Cs, the Navy variant. Instead, it will include up to a…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
A high-level cybersecurity task force will present its plan to the Chief of Naval Operations sometime tomorrow. Called CYBERSAFE (one word, all caps), the initiative is intended to overhaul information technology in the comprehensive way the SUBSAFE instruction overhauled all submarine safety after the USS Thresher disaster. Fixing up IT procurement, though, is just one step towards a larger…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
BALLSTON, VA: A soufflé is fluffy but a SOFLE – a brand new military acronym that stands for Special Operations Forces Liaison Element — is sinewy and powerful. Just ask Marine Lt. Col. Andrew Christian, who led the first such unit for the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit during a seven month deployment to the Pacific…
By Richard Whittle
NATIONAL HARBOR: Navy Secretary Ray Mabus may want to move drones to the top of his priorities, but what kind of unmanned systems do the Navy and Marine Corps want to buy? Don’t think Predator or even the Navy’s new 131-foot-wingspan Triton. Imagine a swarm of buzzing, scuttling or swimming robots that are smaller but smarter. While a…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD: Amidst unabated budget gloom, Navy and Marine leaders aren’t looking for salvation in big new programs. They’re “repurposing and reusing existing capabilities” to get the maximum out of existing hardware for minimum cost. It’s a vision of the future in which a junior Marine Corps officer might call for fire support from a…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
PENTAGON: “You ever seen what an attack helicopter does to a small boat? That’s a Cuisinart.” The Navy’s long been nervous about the survival of its high-cost high-seas warships in coastal knife fights. (That anxiety drove the development of the controversial Littoral Combat Ship). Iran, in particular, is notorious for its shallow water mini-submarines and…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
ABOARD USS WASP: The continuous sorties of F-35Bs flying on May 26, watched by British and US press, was almost numbing. Six planes aboard the ship flew sortie after sortie, four from the Green Knights squadron at Yuma and two from the Warlords at Beaufort. As Lt. General Davis, deputy Marine Commandant for aviation, said in response to…
By Robbin Laird