10 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial
By: Mark D. Faram
The Navy will deactivate the Grim Reapers of Strike Fighter Squadron 101, consolidating all Joint Strike Fighter operations and training at California's Naval Air Station Lemoore, officials confirmed on Friday.
The squadron has been based at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. It was reactivated in 2012 as the Navy's initial F-35C fleet replacement squadron. At the time, the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force Joint Strike Fighter replacement squadrons were located there as well.
The move of the Grim Reapers' 15 aircraft is slated to be effective on July 1, according to OPNAV notice 5400.
“The Navy is moving forward with the deactivation of VFA-101 at Eglin AFB next year, and the re-alignment of F-35C assets into Strike Fighter Squadrons to support VX-9 Detachment Edwards AFB, Air Warfare Development Command (NAWDC) at NAS Fallon and maintain Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) production at VFA-125, while transitioning Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet squadrons to the F-35C Lightning II,” wrote Lt. Travis Callaghan, a Naval Air Forces spokesman, in an email to Navy Times.
The shift to California should see the Grim Reapers' 29 officers and 239 enlisted personnel replace their patches with those of the “Rough Raiders” of Strike Fighter Squadron 125, Lemoore's F-35C replacement squadron.
“This will co-locate the fleet replenishment squadron production of pilots directly into the operational squadrons scheduled for transition to F-35C,” according to a note in the directive ordering the move.
The extra aircraft, pilots and maintainers at Lemoore are expected to help the Pentagon meet its testing and evaluation requirements for the the Navy's first operational fleet F-35C squadron, VFA-147,
That major milestone for the Navy's JSF program is still slated to happen in 2019. The maiden overseas deployment of VFA-147 is anticipated in 2021 while embarked on the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson.
Deactivating VFA-101 wasn't the Navy's original plan.
Officials wanted to move the squadron to Lemoore in early 2017. Then the Navy decided to keep VFA-101 at Eglin and stood up a second training squadron, VFA-125, at Lemoore.
At the time, officials told Navy Times there was “no plan in the foreseeable future for VFA-101 to be stood down” because “the requirement is for two FRS while we are transitioning squadrons.”
The Grim Reapers could be resurrected if the Navy chooses to have an F-35 replacement squadron on both coasts. The OPNAV note requires the Navy to “maintain VFA 101 squadron lineage (name, UIC, insignia, call sign, etc.) for future reactivation.”
But bringing the Grim Reapers back to life likely won't happen for at least a decade. That's because the Navy has yet to start the process of naming a home base for its East Coast F-35Cs. It requires extensive environmental impact studies before senior leaders make the final decision on where the squadrons will go. And that, Navy officials say, isn't expected to start until the mid-2020′s at the earliest.
19 décembre 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
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23 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By: Mike Yeo and Valerie Insinna MELBOURNE, Australia — Singapore has told the U.S. Air Force it wants to co-locate its Arizona-based F-16 training detachment with its future F-35 training unit, with five locations in the U.S. shortlisted as potential sites for training international F-35 operators. In a statement to Defense News, U.S. Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said the service “plans to establish an F-35 Foreign Military Sales training Center in the Continental United States which could accommodate up to 36 F-35 aircraft.” “Based on negotiations with our foreign military sales customers as well as airspace and weather considerations, the Air Force is considering five candidate locations. Those include Buckley AFB, Colorado; Fort Smith Airport, Arkansas; Hulman Field, Indiana; Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas; and Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan,” she added. In a statement announcing that Fort Smith Regional Airport was under consideration, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton said that Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett signed a memorandum July 6 to establish the training center. He also revealed that Singapore — which is a Foreign Military Sales customer for the F-35B, having been cleared earlier this year to purchase four aircraft with an option for eight more — wants to co-locate its F-16 squadron, currently based at Luke Air Force Base, with its F-35s as a “long-term Foreign Military Sales location.” The Air Force's Stefanek explained that this is “to make room for additional USAF/Partner F-35s at Luke AFB,” and that once the new FMS F-35 training location is selected, that location will also be considered for Singapore's F-16 training detachment. Defense News understands that the future F-35 FMS training base would host some countries and their jets on a rotational basis, while others might maintain a permanent presence. The latter group would likely include land-scarce Singapore, which already maintains permanent aircraft training detachments in the U.S. in addition to the Luke AFB-based F-16s. The Asian nation is also setting up a rotating training presence in Guam for its fighter aircraft. Most of the shortlisted bases currently host few or no permanent flying units, and none of them are currently earmarked to operate F-35s in the future. It will take significant capital to set up an F-35 FMS training facility because existing infrastructure will need modifications to support the fifth-generation stealth fighter's operations. Luke AFB, which is located at the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, will reach its aircraft hosting capacity in the coming years. Its resident U.S. Air Force squadrons are set to convert from F-16s to the F-35A, and the base itself will continue to be the training location for F-35 international partner nations. This means the two international F-16 training detachments currently on base — Singapore and Taiwan — will have to move. Taiwan's F-16 jets were set to move to the nearby Arizona Air National Guard base in Tucson, but local media reported in August 2019 that the country is instead seeking to move to a base closer to the Pacific coast to better accommodate Taiwanese pilots training with U.S. Navy carrier strike groups. https://www.defensenews.com/training-sim/2020/07/22/singapore-requests-new-f-35-training-location-also-host-its-f-16-jets
6 novembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has awarded 24 companies new contracts for its Advanced Battle Management System, according to a Nov. 4 contract announcement from the Pentagon. The contracts, which have a ceiling of $950 million each, will help the Air Force build out ABMS, its platform behind the Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept, which seeks to connect sensors to shooters across domains. The contracts have a performance period of five years with a $1,000 minimum. Under the contracts, the companies will “compete for future efforts associated with the maturation, demonstration and proliferation of capability across platforms and domains, leveraging open systems design, modern software and algorithm development in order to enable Joint All Domain Command and Control,” the contract announcement reads. The 24 companies are Altamira Technologies Corp., Amergint Technologies Inc., Carahsoft Technology Corp., Geosite Inc., Lyteworx Automation Systems LLC, MarkLogic Corp., Rebellion Defense Inc., Rhombus Power Inc., Soar Technology Inc., Vidrovr Inc, Advanced Simulation Research Inc., Borsight Inc., Datanchor Inc., Digital Mobilizations Inc., EFW Inc., F9 Teams Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., Infinity Labs LLC, Radiant Mission Solutions Inc. Microsoft Corp., Ortman Consulting LLC, Peraton Inc., R2 Space Inc. and Sierra Nevada Corp. “This creative contract strategy is needed to support the agile and fast-paced nature of this program. These Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts provide each vendor the opportunity to receive anywhere from $1,000 to $950 million total over the next five years for work in up to seven different ABMS product categories,” Air Force spokesperson Capt. Clay Lancaster said in a statement. 70 companies have now received ABMS contracts. The Air Force awarded two other rounds of awards in the last few months, with 28 companies receiving identical awards in late May and 18 more getting added in July. The awards steam from a Broad Agency Announcement the service released in February. “This ID/IQ is part of a multi-prong innovative ABMS ‘contract lattice' strategy to enable an agile DevOps approach to software and hardware development — to include four month onramps with Combatant Commanders — that is necessary to deliver needed capabilities to the warfighter faster and more effectively in support of the National Defense Strategy,” Lancaster said. After the last round of awards, Lancaster told C4ISRNET that the awards were meant to establish a line of companies that can respond to future ABMS solicitations. He added that after awards are made to vendors, the service will have more technical discussions with the vendors before releasing more “focused” solicitations that will be open to vendors who received IDIQ contracts. Vendors will then respond to the solicitations with their proposals and task orders will be awarded. “These contracts provide for the development and operation of systems as a unified force across all domains (air, land, sea, space, cyber and electromagnetic spectrum) in an open architecture family of systems that enables capabilities via multiple integrated platforms,” the contract announcement reads. The Air Force has requested $3.3 billion in funding for ABMS, so it's unlikely the $950 million ceilings on the contracts would be reached. The announcement doesn't list specifically what capabilities each company will provide. Initial deliver orders will be funded with fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funds. Work is expected to be completed in May 2025. The third round of contract announcements are another step forward on the services' march toward joint warfighting. The Army and Air Force recently agreed to collaborate over the next two years to develop what they are calling Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control. Next year, the Army plans to integrate ABMS into its Project Convergence, the Army's effort to connect sensors to shooters. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/11/05/us-air-force-awards-abms-contracts-to-another-24-vendors