USAF Weapons School Activates F-35A Squadron

[EOR]

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — The 6th Weapons Squadron will be activated as the F-35A Lightning II squadron for the United States Air Force Weapons School at 10:06 a.m. June 20, 2017.
The 6th WPS is projected to be the USAF Weapons School’s largest squadron by 2023, with 30 instructors and 24 assigned F-35As.

http://www.nellis.af.mil/About/Press-Re ... -squadron/

[popcorn]

The current WS patch.

[PhillyGuy]

Neat patch, but WTF, can anyone identify the two aircraft depicted on the lower left hand quadrant near the bulls-eye? One looks kind of like a bicycle handlebar carrying an envelope, the other a flying squid.

Link

Also interesting article about a new vision/emphasis and curriculum approach for the students coming into the USAF Weapons Training School.

The course will focus more on joint interoperability between legacy and future platforms and systems, as well as cross domain joint operations with the Army and Navy.

It seems the idea is to have a balance between specialist and subject matter experts who are very good in isolation and in their own platform/operational bubble, and to develop more general tactitians and managers of the battlespace.

It really is the future. He who has greater awarness and intelligence and can manage that information in order to communicate and command his forces effectively in real time, will be the victor in any near pear clash or conflict.

[popcorn]

The Cyber Course grads probably have the coolest patxh...

[PhillyGuy]

That is pretty cool. One of my favorites is the 31 Test and Evaluation Squadron patch.
Simple, short and to the point.

Then there is this gem, from a A-10 squadron.

25th_Fighter_Squadron.jpg (51.59 KiB) Viewed 57378 times

Cheers

[SpudmanWP]

Neat patch, but WTF, can anyone identify the two aircraft depicted on the lower left hand quadrant near the bulls-eye? One looks kind of like a bicycle handlebar carrying an envelope, the other a flying squid.

Here is a very large pic of it that you can zoom in on.

https://media.defense.gov/2016/May/18/2 ... 01-001.JPG

On the left is a dude with a hat & dagger and the right.... no freaking clue....

[neptune]

Neat patch, but WTF, can anyone identify the two aircraft depicted on the lower left hand quadrant near the bulls-eye? One looks kind of like a bicycle handlebar carrying an envelope, the other a flying squid.

Here is a very large pic of it that you can zoom in on.

https://media.defense.gov/2016/May/18/2 ... 01-001.JPG

On the left is a dude with a hat & dagger and the right.... no freaking clue....

.....design engineering/ drafting board with requisite lamp

[lbk000]

looks like a static search+track radar set to me.

[SpudmanWP]

I posted a question & got a response to a message from their Facebook account.

The 7 o'clock image represents the 8th WPS (AN-TPS 75 radar assembly), and the 8 o'clock image represents the 19th WPS (Intel).

Yup, makes sense

[spazsinbad]

Weapons School re-activates historic 6th WPS
21 Jun 2017 Senior Airman Joshua Kleinholz, 99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

"NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. – The United States Air Force Weapons School re-activated one of the service’s historic fighter squadrons during an assumption of command ceremony June 20, 2017 at Lightning Aircraft Maintenance Unit hangar, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.

The 6th Weapons Squadron, formerly known as the 6th Aero Squadron, the 6th Pursuit Squadron, and the 6th Night Fighter Squadron, has been inactive since February 1947 when it was subject to force-wide budget consolidations.... [HISTORY at the JUMP]

...“This squadron has a great history and legacy dating all the way back to World War I,” said Lt. Col. Michael Blauser, 6 WPS commander.

According to Blauser, the squadron will be carrying those time-honored traditions forward as it strives to make some history of its own with the F-35 weapons instructor course curriculum.

The USAFWS currently comprises 18 squadrons and provides the world’s premier postgraduate weapons and tactics employment training. The rigorous USAFWS curriculum, joined together with the F-35A’s state-of-the-art capabilities and the deep-rooted history of the 6th WPS, will produce humble, approachable, and credible weapons officers determined to maintain dominance over future battlefields.

“We’re headed into uncharted waters,” said Col. Michael Drowley, USAFWS commandant. “Every day will require steadfast leadership to ensure our fifth-generation capabilities are as lethal and dominating as possible.”

The 6th WPS is projected to be the USAF Weapons School’s largest squadron by 2023, with 30 instructors and 24 assigned F-35As."

Photo: "Lt. Col. Michael Blauser, 6th Weapons Squadron commander, displays the 6th WPS patch. The patch has represented the squadron since 1917 and features a skull at the center of spinning propellers. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Andrew D. Sarver/Released) https://media.defense.gov/2017/Jun/21/2 ... 39-004.JPG (0.6Mb)

Source: http://www.nellis.af.mil/News/Article/1 ... c-6th-wps/

[steve2267]

Like that patch. All it needs now is a bright yellow lightning bolt in the background.

[neptune]

[quote="spazsinbad"][quote][....provides the world’s premier postgraduate weapons and tactics employment training. The rigorous USAFWS curriculum, joined together with the F-35A’s state-of-the-art capabilities and the deep-rooted history of the 6th WPS, will produce humble, approachable, and credible weapons officers determined to maintain dominance over future battlefields. “We’re headed into uncharted waters,” said Col. Michael Drowley, USAFWS commandant. “Every day will require steadfast leadership to ensure our fifth-generation capabilities are as lethal and dominating as possible.”
,,quote]

....one can hope that "here" will begin the tactics for data linking the legacy "ordinance mules" with the C2 capabilities of the F-35, to extend persistence and maximum application of the smart weapons that these a/c have certified. The coordination and flexibility of weapons types from the F-15/16 with targeting assignments from the F-35 merged sensors will greatly magnify their capabilities more than just the sum of those weapons. Three, four and five heads are better than one, in combat over their large area of influence.

[spazsinbad]

From Combat Aircraft Magazine August 2019 - PDF to follow soon. Just the PDF page of this JPG attached now.

[spazsinbad]

Nellis Panther Tamers
Aug 2019 Jamie Hunter

"...Center of knowledge
While WIC students coming to Nellis are already well-versed in how to operate the F-35, the course is designed to make them the absolute experts in the F-35 tactics manual, known as the three-dash-one (3-1). ‘We teach to the current tactics manual that’s published for the CAF,’ explains Blauser. ‘When our graduates leave here they are the absolute experts on that, but they also know what’s coming in the next iteration and we keep our left-right boundaries set as such.’

The ‘Skulls’ are actually the administrative keepers of the tactics manual in conjunction with the 422nd TES, so it’s a carefully organized affair. While the F-35 is clearly an extremely complex aircraft, Blauser says that due to the sensor fusion between the various mission systems, operating the F-35 has actually made things far simpler for the operator. ‘One of the major strengths is the fusion and presentation to the pilot in order to make decisions. The F-16 is very much a federated system — you have to work the radar, pay attention to the RWR [radar warning receiver], and manipulate the targeting pod. In the F-35 the jet does a lot of that for me and displays it on the PCD [pilot cockpit display] in front of me as a fused picture of the battlespace — what my jet and the other F-35s in the formation are seeing — [as] opposed to me seeing and describing it on the radio. [In the F-35] there’s far less comm’. Blauser says the most common way for F-35 pilots to view the fuzed battlespace picture is a top down view: ‘it’s a one-stop shop display of everything.’

He adds that it’s far easier to determine what’s happening, and then make the appropriate decisions. This makes tactical employment very different in the F-35, right down to elements such as contracts within formations, the ‘who deals with what’ standard operating procedures.

Pilots at the 6th WPS currently fly with the Gen 3 helmet-mounted display (HMD) and the course teaches them how to best employ the distributed aperture system (DAS), the series of cameras that project an image into the pilot’s field of view. ‘In low light, DAS is the preferred sensor,’ says Blauser. ‘The fidelity is not quite as high as with [night vision] goggles, but I don’t think it needs to be, mainly because in the past we were concerned with visual formations at night and our ability to see our wingman, [whereas] now our formations are more spread out.’..."

Source: Combat Aircraft Magazine August 2019

[spazsinbad]

First ANG F-35 Pilot Graduates from USAF Weapons School
16 Mar 2021 Julie Paroline 158th Fighter Wing

"SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt., (March 16, 2021) -- Nationally recognized as the first Air National Guard (ANG) unit to be tasked with the F-35A Lightning II mission, Vermont’s 158th Fighter Wing now welcomes another title: home of the first ANG F-35 pilot to graduate from the U.S. Air Weapons School.

Active duty, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve officers are eligible to apply for admission to the U.S. Air Force Weapons School. After a highly competitive selection process, accepted students face roughly 6 months of the world’s most advanced training in weapons and tactics employment. This grueling, graduate-level classwork is designed to create tactical experts in various different combat specialties.

Prior to graduating, students must demonstrate their ability to lead and instruct, while also effectively integrating multiple weapons systems across land, air, space and cyber domains. To become a Weapons School graduate, officers become extensively familiar with both the weapons platform or system that they have trained on throughout their career path, such as the F-35, but also knowledgeable about how the whole of U.S. Air Force and Department of Defense can be employed in tandem to achieve synergistic effects.

After graduation, Weapons Officers are tasked to serve as advisors to military leaders, lead combat missions, and problem-solve to lead the force and integrate its combat power seamlessly alongside other military services. Simply, these Weapons Officers provide best practices for air, space and cyber combat techniques.

Maj. Howard “Cash” Shaner, F-35A Lightning II pilot assigned to the 134th Fighter Squadron, Vermont Air National Guard (VTANG), is the first ever Air National Guard F-35 pilot to graduate from this course. “It’s definitely an honor and privilege to attend and graduate. The knowledge and experience should benefit the VTANG much more than me personally,” said Shaner.

When Shaner attended USAF Weapons School in 2020, the graduating class boasted five F-35 weapons officers among the nearly 150 others from different communities, inclusive of space, intelligence, cyber, fighters, bombers, mobility and rescue. “We couldn’t be more proud of Maj. Shaner’s accomplishment as the first Air National Guardsman to graduate from the F-35A division of the United States Air Force Weapons School,” said Col. Nathan “Wiz” Graber, commander of the 158th Operations Group, Vermont Air National Guard. “The 6-month long course is a grueling endeavor that produces not only the Air Force’s finest tacticians, but even more importantly, leaders.”

The Green Mountain Boys have previously graduated officers from Weapons School in the past, but none have been F-35 qualified until Shaner. “One of my mandates is to find and build candidates to replace me in this role,” Shaner concluded. Looking ahead, the 158th Fighter Wing seeks to send more pilots to this course, while also having its eye on exiting their conversion from the F-16 to the F-35. In less than a year, the 158th Fighter Wing is anticipated to be at the end of their conversion timeline and declared fully mission ready with the F-35.

“When the 158th Fighter Wing exits conversion, Cash will be the lead instructor pilot of one of five operational F-35A squadrons. Considering the arena in which the 134th Fighter Squadron may find itself in the next conflict, it is heartening to know that we have the first and finest Air National Guard fighter pilot that has graduated from this extremely selective course,” said Graber. “Maj. Shaner embodies the USAF Weapons Officer motto of ‘Humble, Approachable, and Credible’ and will be an asset to the Green Mountain Boys for years to come!”"

Source: https://www.dvidshub.net/news/391509/fi ... ons-school