Here’s how Marine air power will shift with the Corps’ 2022 aviation plan10 May 2022 Todd South"New aviation platforms and gear that link Marines across the sea-air-land are shifting how Marine aviation heads into the next fight. Top leaders in Marine Corps aviation have laid out an ambitious new plan for the Corps as the air side reorients itself to complement the service’s overhaul through Force Design 2030.
Lt. Gen. Mark Wise, deputy commandant of aviation, along with top Marine aviation leaders, shared details of the Corps’ first publicly released aviation plan since 2019. “It is our way to articulate to everybody this is the direction we think Marine aviation is going and we encourage questions as it happens because if something changes, why did it change?” Wise said. “Because there should be a good reason for it.”...
...“Multiple communities will be stressed over the coming years, resulting from either divestment or transition,” according to the 2022 aviation plan. “This is a critical period for the Marine Corps and for Marine Aviation.” Some of those stressed communities will continue to be F/A-18 pilots and maintainers. That’s in part because those jets provide more than half of the tactical air capability across the entire force.
At the same time, those older jets are seeing a transition as the Corps procures and fields more F-35 squadrons. Those jets have an average age of between 27 years to 35 years ― older than most of their pilots. The pilot numbers for those aircraft will decrease as the Corps increases numbers of trained F-35 pilots.
F-35 Lightning IIData from the aviation plan show that while the Corps produced 36 F/A-18 pilots each year in 2020 and 2021, it only planned to train 26 new F/A-18 pilots in 2022. That number will drop to as few as eight new pilots in 2027.
At the same time, the F-35B and F-35C classes have gone from 28 total new pilots in 2020 and will rise steadily to produce 75 pilots annually by 2027, according to the plan.
Many of those new F-35 pilots will be heading to sunny California as the Corps has balanced modernization across the East and West Coast. Those pilots and Marines on their ships will have the new jet, but still will be working with older model CH-53E...."
Source: https://www.defensenews.com/news/your-m ... tion-plan/ 
08 May 2022, 21:24
Does this mean they can see the 'light at the end of the tunnel'? 
Are they so DETACHED in the PIPELINE that they have the DTs? 
