F-22s and F-35s Are Struggling to Talk to Each Other & USAF

[spazsinbad]

LINK TO FULL MARCH AFM issue (otherwise the link provided wants to download January even though it is MARCH! )

http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArch ... 0Issue.pdf (21.6Mb)

The F-22 and the F-35 Are Struggling to Talk to Each Other ... And to the Rest of USAF
March 2018 Brian W. Everstine [MUST BE READ IT ALL AT SOURCE - A LOT OF DETAIL NOT POSTED HERE]

"The Air Force is working to improve communications between the two aircraft and its larger networks

The F-22 Raptor, the Air Force’s fifth generation air superiority fighter, has been described as a “game-changer” in current Middle East operations, using its advanced sensors to see huge swaths of territory and steer coalition aircraft around threats. As a de facto “quarterback” in the contested zone, it makes all other aircraft in the fight more effective.
That communication, though, is largely limited to radio calls....

...The Air Force’s goal is to harmonize all these systems so that everyone can talk among themselves—both by voice and machine-to-machine—without an enemy listening in or figuring out where those stealth jets are.

Fixing the situation is “part of the larger effort to figure out how we’re going to move away from having a bunch of Rube Goldberg gateways trying to connect things, to having a jump to the next generation of networks and radios and how they talk to each other,” Air Combat Command head Gen. James M. Holmes told Air Force Magazine in November. The Air Force is looking at this problem with “two lines of effort” for the near-term and long-term.

For the near-term, the Air Force has multiple “small-scale experimentation campaigns” aimed at reducing risk and quickly fielding advanced data links, along with enhancing the current data links, reported Lt. Gen. Jerry D. Harris Jr., the deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements, in written answers to questions from the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee in June.

“These experiments are demonstrating correlation/fusion of data from multiple sources, including intelligence sources and fifth generation fighters,” Harris wrote.... [then lots of stuff about the F-22]

...Northrop Grumman has pitched a different way to help F-22s and F-35s securely talk in flight, by adding another aircraft—Northrop suggests its own RQ-4 Global Hawk—to fly in the area with its “Freedom 550” radio. This “production-ready … software-defined” radio is built using avionics Northrop developed for both the F-35 and F-22. That means the system can translate among IFDL, MADL, and Link 16.

Northrop tested the radio through more than 400 flight hours in 2014 as part of an Air Force-sponsored experiment called the Jetpack Joint Capability Technology Demonstration.

In February 2017, the company conducted a trial with the United Kingdom Royal Air Force, integrating the radio with the F-35B and Typhoon FGR4 aircraft. During the UK Ministry of Defense-funded trial, called Babel Fish III, Northrop’s system translated F-35B messages to Link 16, which was received by the Typhoon.

The demonstration was the first time non-US fifth and fourth generation aircraft have shared stealthy data, according to Northrop. “Being able to network sensor data between fifth generation and fourth generation fast-jets and other battlespace assets in a stealthy matter is critically important to enabling the full capability offered by fifth generation aircraft,” said Andrew Tyler, the chief executive of Northrop Grumman Europe, in a statement announcing the demonstration.

Lockheed Martin has offered an effort to let F-22s communicate with fourth generation aircraft, through its Project Missouri program. Using a Rockwell Collins radio for Link 16 and L-3 Communications devices for encrypted communications, the Raptors were able to transmit to ground stations and an F-35 avionics test bed in late 2013. The capability has flown in exercises since the initial demonstration, as recently as the Northern Edge exercise in May 2017....

...In July 2017, all types of USAF stealth aircraft—F-22s, F-35As, and B-2 bombers—participated in a Red Flag exercise at Nellis AFB, Nev. Marine Corps F-35Bs participated, as well. Pilots needed to talk with each other over “secure voice” systems as the jets flew “strategic attack scenarios” against an integrated air defense system, said Capt. Neil M. Fournie, the advanced warfighting chief of the 414th Combat Training Squadron.

Because the F-35 does have the the ability to share over Link 16, it was a more capable “quarterback” in that fight, when the battle was taking place in a “permissive” environment. During Red Flag 17-1, five months earlier, F-35As from Hill AFB, Utah, flew with British Typhoons to take out a “high-value target” in a training exercise. The F-35 pilots used Link 16 data to communicate with the Typhoons, while also using MADL to share a greater level of data, stealthily, with other F-35s.

“The thing that’s great about having Link 16 and MADL onboard and the sensor fusion is the amount of situational awareness the pilot has,” said Lt. Col. George Watkins, commander of the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill, in a release about the mission. “I’m able to directly communicate with specific formations, and I can see the whole war and where all the players are from a God’s-eye view. That makes me more effective because I know who to talk with and at what times, over the secure voice.” While the legacy Link 16 system lets F-35 pilots speak with older aircraft, the advanced system is the preferred method.

“It’s the data link that we use to communicate just between F-35s,” he said. “It’s a solid architecture and from my experience it’s been very stable. The pilots rely on it for fighting, and at night we fly what we call sensor formations and we use MADL to keep our situational awareness.”

Speaking last March, shortly after that Red Flag exercise, USAF Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein detailed this capability as he highlighted the need for next generation, multidomain command and control. F-35s, he said, were not only fusing information from other aircraft, but also from cyber and space assets that were participating in the exercise. The exercise included a combat search and rescue scenario, all while facing the threats of air defenses.
The F-35’s situation, as displayed on the pilot’s visor, was also “replicated in other command-and-control agencies,” which allowed the F-35 pilot to “perform as the quarterback of the joint team, as they went in to accomplish all of these simultaneous missions,” Goldfein said. “So when I talk to you about situational awareness, this was an example at the tactical level to produce operational effects.”...

...Air Mobility Command chief Gen. Carlton D. Everhart II floated an idea at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference last September that USAF’s 11,000-plus mobility aircraft, including KC-135s, KC-10s, and soon KC-46s, could link F-22s and F-35s during combat operations. “Why not use them as relay platforms?” Everhart asked.

Tankers could automatically offload data collected by F-35 and F-22 sensors, freeing up the fighters’ onboard cache, while also getting intelligence and surveillance data to analysts in a timely manner....

...The focus ultimately can’t be on communications between specific planes or on an endless litany of demonstrations, Holmes said. “The issue to me is not when we’re going to make the F-22 and F-35 talk to each other, it’s when we’ll have everything talk to each other,” he said. It is a priority, “but I’ve got all kinds of priorities.”

Goldfein feels strongly enough about “multidomain command and control” that he’s made it one of his three main focus areas during his tenure as Chief, and he’s directed a one-star general to research it...."

Source: http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArch ... -USAF.aspx

[neptune]

...Are Struggling to Talk to Each Other...

....nice, one side of the story! And to get this off my chest, "Horse Hockey!"

"now this ain't no sh*t"; in the beginning there were 150 frontline F-22 and 0 F-35, a little later there were 150 frontline F-22 and 100 F-35, recently there were 150 frontline F-22 and 260 F-35, in about 15yrs. there will be 150 frontline F-22 and 3,000+ F-35s (Oh!, but not all in the USAF). So......another story;

...F-35B uses MADL to communicate between Bees; Bees launch and land on LHA/Ds. Sooner or later one Marine will get the idea of communicating from a Bee at 20kft to a Bee sitting on the deck of the Amphib; that "SA thingee" (Gulf of Alaska?) and someone on the ship will want to see that "bigger picture/ overview".... LLS-1 had MADL installed for the SM-6 test with the Bee... Someone on the Amphib will want to see MADL installed for "Better" comm (MADL) with their Bees in operations and a "overview" (Gulf of Alaska?) of what is surrounding the ARG. Then the "other" Amphibs will want to see that "overview" for the LPD/ LSDs in the ARG.....and the escort DDG/CGs. The Bees will want to comm (MADL) with the MV-22s for their SA and the Marines "in the back", ....yes you guessed it! ...and the H-53s, etc. So now the DDG/CGs will go back to escort the CSG with the Marine installed amphib MADL and will be the only ships to see the "overview" (Gulf of Alaska?) from the F-35C and the story goes on and on....

Secure MADL communication is not a sophisticated technical effort between the AF F-22/35 it is a means of providing a proven data stream from aircraft to other users (a/c, ships, tanks, etc.). This is "installing" a proven comm system into users as needed.

Once upon a time there were no F-35s with MADL, but now we begin to see the uses beyond only the 150 great a/c of the USAF. This now is nothing more than antennas and avionics boxes; the interfaces to the users are simple data busses to computer driven data displays (a/c, ships, tanks, etc.). No magic required. Worse case....stick a hump on the back of the F-22 like the Israelis did on the F-15Ds.(sarc!!)

ps: 11,000 a/c are not required.
IMHO

[spazsinbad]

You must have been channeling Dan Goure or VICKYversa - but this aspect of NIFC-CA both USN/USMC has been around...

BTW F-14s on deck got good gen from their airborne counterpart before catapulting, I don't know if this info was transmitted to the ship also but certainly to the replacement F-14 before launch. The info is out there somewhere?

Lockheed Martin’s F-35: How the Joint Strike Fighter is Becoming a Key Missile Defense Sensor
31 Jan 2018 Dan Goure [BEST READ IT ALL AT THE SOURCE]

"Airpower enthusiasts have long promised that the introduction of fifth generation combat aircraft, particularly the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) when it is finally fielded in numbers, will change the nature of air warfare. The F-35’s combination of stealth, maneuverability, its Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, passive sensors and battle management software makes it ideal as both a strike platform and a forward operating sensor.

At last year’s Red Flag exercises, the F-35A racked up an impressive 15:1 kill ratio. It can locate and attack advanced surface-to-air threats with pinpoint accuracy, blowing holes in hostile air defenses through which non-stealthy aircraft can advance. It can also operate in stealth mode, employing its advanced sensors to multiply the effectiveness of older aircraft in air-to-air combat.

More importantly, the JSF improves the effectiveness of other Air Force capabilities. One Air Force pilot familiar with efforts to develop new concepts of operations for exploiting the unique attributes of fifth-generation fighters, explained their impact on future air warfare this way:

“Before…we would need to have the entire intelligence, surveillance, & reconnaissance (ISR) constellation of aircraft and satellites all working together to get us some information that’s going to be pretty old by the time they reach the target. Now, instead of waiting for all that stuff to be built in at an Air Operation Center somewhere, that information is now being immediately displayed to people that are in aircraft in the AO (Area of Operations) that can immediately apply some sort of effect, either kinetic (e.g. missiles) or non-kinetic (e.g. jamming).”...

...The same attributes that make the F-35 so powerful in air-to-air and air-to-ground warfare are opening up possibilities for a radical improvement in the way the U.S. military conducts air and missile defenses. The key to effective air and missile defense is the ability to see and track targets as early as possible. Today, this is accomplished by a mix of space-based sensors, forward-deployed radars and airborne platforms such as the Air Force’s E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and the Navy’s E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.

The U.S. Navy has been a pioneer in the area of employing distributed sensors and weapons to provide a flexible response defense against air and missile threats. The Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) system provides both engage-on-remote and over-the-horizon air defense capabilities using networks of sensors, weapons and platforms. The ability to engage from over the horizon dramatically increases the defensive envelope of current air defense systems.

Now add the JSF into the mix of systems and NIFC-CA becomes even more potent. Operating from large deck amphibious warfare ships, the Marine Corps’ F-35B nearly doubles the number of warships able to deploy airborne sensors as part of the NIFC-CA architecture. In 2016, the Navy successfully demonstrated that the F-35B could serve as a forward-deployed sensor for the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system. A live fire exercise involving the F-35B and Aegis is planned for this year. When the F-35B and the carrier-based F-35C are fully deployed, the Navy will have hundreds of potential airborne sensors with which to conduct air and missile defense operations....

...Eventually, the F-35 may be equipped with advanced interceptor missiles or even a tactical laser with which to directly engage ballistic missiles. But even when its magazines are empty, the JSF will be able to provide critical formation in support of other air and missile defense systems.

Source: http://hrana.org/articles/2018/01/lockh ... se-sensor/

[mixelflick]

How on earth can 2 Lockheed projects (which have both benefitted from the others development) have difficulty communicating? Or is this more of an Air Force/funding problem?

[SpudmanWP]

Remember that LM and all other manufacturers build what the customers ask for.

Part of the JSF requirement was a new datalink which lead to MADL. The USAF had a program at one time to update F-22s with MADL also, but that was cancelled due to budgetary reasons.

This is not the "fault" of LM, but a combination of the lack of planning on the part of DoD and the current budget restrictions that we are experiencing.

[neptune]

How on earth can 2 Lockheed projects (which have both benefitted from the others development) have difficulty communicating? Or is this more of an Air Force/funding problem?

....as Spud has said, It is not the fault of LM and NG in successfully developing the hardware and software system to "Share" the fused picture of the F-35 sensor arrays. In allowance to the USAF; 3,000+ MADL a/c were still in the future when NG was successful in the initial eight-year development of MADL. MADL is a high-data-rate, directional communications link. As implemented in the F-35, it is a system of antennas, transceiver avionics and computer interfaces that are distributed thru user subsystems (programs) in the CNI of the F-35. MADL provides the needed throughput, latency, frequency-hopping and anti-jamming capability with phased Array Antenna Assemblies (AAAs) that send and receive tightly directed radio signals. MADL uses the Ku band.

...in my earlier "rant" MADL connects to the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) in the USN networks. CEC's two major system functions consist of a Cooperative Engagement Processor (CEP) for sensor networking and a Data Distribution System (DDS) for real-time communications among the cooperating units(CU)/ships, etc. This is the basis of NIFC-CA.

...because MADL "works", all of the other existing comm systems are now "LEGACY" and with 3,000+ that will be distributed over NATO and other allies; it will be hobbled with a kludge of "Rube Goldberg" devices, programs, systems, aircraft, etc. that will add latency in place of a simple common designed MADL interface. Specifically IFDL and Link16 should be removed and replaced with a MADL device. A (one each) test F-22/F-15 should be designated to convert to MADL. Once those two designs are completed (in less than 24 months) then the "low cost MADL" results can be implemented in both fleets and the required legacy LINK16 applications. The costs for replacement will be reduced as the volume of required conversions are implemented.

...there is nothing unique about MADL in 2018 except "it works!, NOW" and in the tech industry another imaginative and innovative system design will soon replace it, but not until that "new" idea works.
IMHO

[blindpilot]

Remember that LM and all other manufacturers build what the customers ask for.

Part of the JSF requirement was a new datalink which lead to MADL. The USAF had a program at one time to update F-22s with MADL also, but that was cancelled due to budgetary reasons.

This is not the "fault" of LM, but a combination of the lack of planning on the part of DoD and the current budget restrictions that we are experiencing.

I don't think I would blame "lack of planning." A great many evils, including the death of over a dozen sailors are directly caused by the Congressional Sequestration impacts. That's right I blame Congress for killing those sailors, and getting this messed up. Buy something or not. Cancel a program or not. Ground one fleet, and support another ... but whatever you do don't lock into spending 90 cents on something that only works if you spend the dollar. Sailors die.

MHO,
BP

[steve2267]

As implemented in the F-35, it is a system of antennas, transceiver avionics and computer interfaces that are distributed thru user subsystems (programs) in the CNI of the F-35. MADL provides the needed throughput, latency, frequency-hopping and anti-jamming capability with phased Array Antenna Assemblies (AAAs) that send and receive tightly directed radio signals. MADL uses the Ku band.

...

...because MADL "works", all of the other existing comm systems are now "LEGACY" and with 3,000+ that will be distributed over NATO and other allies; it will be hobbled with a kludge of "Rube Goldberg" devices, programs, systems, aircraft, etc. that will add latency in place of a simple common designed MADL interface. Specifically IFDL and Link16 should be removed and replaced with a MADL device. A (one each) test F-22/F-15 should be designated to convert to MADL. Once those two designs are completed (in less than 24 months) then the "low cost MADL" results can be implemented in both fleets and the required legacy LINK16 applications. The costs for replacement will be reduced as the volume of required conversions are implemented.

Seeing how F-22 was slated to have MADL replace IFDL at some point, I don't see an issue with F-22.

However, Link-16 is omni-directional, isn't it? Since MADL is highly directional, and uses a system of antennas (phased array antenna assemblies), it sounds like backporting MADL to F-15 or F-16 or F/A-18 is far more involved? At least, it seems that having to wire multiple phased arrays all around the periphery of a Falcon or Hornet is not some minor change or update that swapping out an avionics box and perhaps a single antenna might be.

Hey, if it can be done, I'm all for MADLing all the older aircraft. It just seems this is not a trivial undertaking.

[SpudmanWP]

There are several reasons why removing Link-16 in favor of MADL is not the way to go.

1. MADL requires at least 6 antenna and the required locations may not be able to be used on the target aircraft.

2. Many systems will still use Link-16 so you will loose out on sharing data with those sources.

3. The better plan would be to "add" MADL (if possible) instead of replacing... Best of both worlds.

[optimist]

Don't they have re-transmitting platforms in the battlespace? The secure f-22 transmission is re-transmitted in omni link 16?
The answer is to improve the f-22 to current tech, or create a new tech for platforms, as it has been in the past. It won't stop at MALD as the final answer.

[SpudmanWP]

I was surprised that the F-22's inc 3.2b did not include MADL.

[charlielima223]

I found some articles a few years old demonstrating that the F-35 and F-22 can "talk" to each other and other aircraft using a modified Link-16

https://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/ ... ility.html

The flight tests concluded a year-long independently funded research and development effort called Project Missouri, which implemented and tested data links using an open systems architecture. The December tests between an F-22 and the F-35 Cooperative Avionics Test Bed (CAT-B) were flown to assess the capability to share information – in real time – among varied platforms. The effort demonstrated:

• Ability to transmit and receive Link-16 communications on the F-22
• Software reuse and reduction of the aircraft system integration timelines
• Employing Air Force UCI messaging standards

“We successfully integrated an F-22 with a Rockwell Collins tactical radio for Link 16 transmit and receive capability, and two L-3 Communications devices to support encrypted and secure operations,” said Ron Bessire, vice president of Program and Technology Integration at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works®. “The rapid integration of this equipment enabled secure information sharing between stealth and legacy platforms and improved overall battlespace awareness.”

http://aviationweek.com/awin/lockheed-s ... -f-22-f-35

“We demonstrated the data was being transmitted at a high [enough] rate to support rapid update of the air tracks to whomever was on Link 16,” Bessire says.

+++

Installation of a so-called “open system architecture” (OSA) rack and the radio took place within a year of starting the effort to add Link 16 to the Raptor, according to Bessire. The OSA racks also can enable other operations, such as distributed electronic attack, although this was not demonstrated.

“What we learned out of this demonstration is that there is tremendous power in the Air Force open-mission architecture standard,” Bessire says. The equipment was installed in the F-22's avionics bay.

which brings me to another point. Isn't the USAF looking to give the F-22 a more open system architecture?

[rheonomic]

Isn't the USAF looking to give the F-22 a more open system architecture?

I think there was another AFM article posted here about the F-22 and F-35 systems eventually converging (within reason, e.g. F-22 won't have DAS etc.). Whether that happens depends on the money, of course...

Eventually, all USAF platforms should support OMS. Without getting too much into the details, there's sort of a 'full' support level and then a 'partial' support level for older platforms. (There's some other name for the levels of support of the standard.)

[neptune]

[quote="steve2267] .....Hey, if it can be done, I'm all for MADLing all the older aircraft. It just seems this is not a trivial undertaking.[/quote]

....steve, legacy a/c were not designed for stealth communications, therefore there is no need to emulate the design of the F-22/35 with distributed antennas. Similar to the Israeli "dome" installed on the F-15D (NOT FOR MADL) an omni directional antenna array can be installed on "only the required" non-stealth a/c for a MADL upgrade. That simple?, low cost installation will facilitate the antenna design issue, until a better low cost design would be selected. The programs and boxes exist in other current installations in the F-35? and should be interchangeable.

...An inflight "comm node" (MADL to Link16) would provide Link16 to the legacy a/c before they are replaced by the F-35.

My biggest concern is "Violating" the stealth design of both the F-22 IFDL and the F-35 MADL with a kludge of Link16; exposing what is unnecessary.

Again, I am not advocating replacing Link16 in legacy a/c, that do not require MADL.Today we only have the stealth design in the B-2, F-22 and F-35 with the F-117(retired) and the perhaps soon to be, B-21. 20 B-2, 150 F-22 total are less of a MADL upgrade investment than jeopardizing the capabilities of the 3000+ F-35.

MADL is stealth comm, directional with a Low Probability of Intercept and secure. It should be the "Standard" for secure comms for the critical a/c in the US fleets. It is the comm of the future with our allies flying the F-35 and their legacy a/c flying with an inflight "comm node".

This is all I can contribute IMHO.

[steve2267]

Neptune, it sounded to me like you were wanting to MADL all the F-16s, F-15s, and F/A-18s in the world. (Well, US inventory anyway.) If that is not what you were saying, I apologize. I agree that it would be a great advantage if all current and future operational combat aircraft incorporate MADL as the standard. That just makes too much sense. (Therefore, Congress will refuse to fund it. )

I think I understand what you are describing as a 360° dome of MADL phased array antennas. However, would you not need at least two such domes for full spherical coverage? E.g. one dorsal and one belly mounted? But two such mounts would be far less expensive than six, distributed array antennas scattered around an aircraft not designed for them.