Failure to communicate: Did Lockheed miss the mark when pitching the F-35 to Canada?27 Jan 2022 CHRIS THATCHER [LONG article - a 7 page PDF attached]
"...In its debut at Exercise Red Flag in 2017, the F-35 recorded a kill ratio of 20:1 against fourth generation aircraft, according to the U.S. Air Force. Flynn said the real number was much higher. “The best I ever had on my very best day was two to one,” he noted of participation in the exercise in 4th gen fighters. “When you start winning at 20 to one, that is a complete game changer. The F-35 is an extraordinarily survivable airplane.”
Strangely, perhaps, given the permanent basing of F-35As at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, the aircraft strengths in NORAD operations have failed to connect with Canadians. Both Boeing and Saab have been more successful telling an Arctic story, Flynn noted. He even posed in a Winnipeg Jets jersey in a climatic chamber at -40 C (-40 F) during the F-35’s cold weather testing to make a point.
“We tried to tell the Arctic story, we talked about the climatic chamber often and the special icing tests that pilots would see in North Bay or Bagotville. But Boeing was better at telling their story than I was. I don’t think that we convinced a lot of people.”
Canadians don’t tend to see the vast and sparsely populated Arctic as a threat vector – Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) leaders have often joked they would first have to rescue anyone who chose to invade through the North – but Flynn and Lockheed tried to explain the power of the F-35’s networked sensor technology to protect across such open space with limited assets. He tried repeatedly to demonstrate “how it wasn’t just one aircraft with a radar looking out over the Polar icecap at Russia; it was four to eight F-35s with all their sensors looking hundreds of kilometers away. You actually have a chance to protect Arctic airspace with that sensor coverage that is orders of magnitude beyond what fourth generation fighters are capable of.”
In fact, the F-35’s exceptional sensor capabilities and data fusion have been a tougher sell than might be expected. The aircraft offers seamless integration and interoperability, Flynn believes, “not just with other fifth gen fighters, but within the broader CAF context; with the future surface combatant; with the future multi-mission aircraft; with remotely piloted aircraft; with space assets; with battle commanders at NORAD with the terabytes of data that are gathered every time an F-35 flies. The future of NORAD joint domain operations is dependent on platforms like the F-35 gathering data; they are not just there as a kinetic weapons platform, but also as sponges for electronic intelligence. As an ISR platform, the F-35 is unmatched.”
The F-35 may also be better suited to the revolutionary transformation the RCAF anticipates in its future aircrew and fighter lead-in training programs. But that message, too, has had minimal traction beyond the Air Force. Flynn has seen the U.S. Marine Corps adapt for “independent decision-making” in its tactical flying because of how the F-35 operates.
“An F-35 pilot is expected to contribute to the effectiveness and survivability of an entire four-ship as an equal member of the formation,” he said. “That is entirely different than how the relationship between flight leads and wingmen has been since the Red Baron days of the First World War. There is a hierarchical approach to fighter pilot flying in the conventional forces where in the four-ship cases, the flight lead is in charge, he has a wingman, and the No. 3 is the deputy lead, and is in charge of his wingman, No. 4. And the wingmen’s job is just supporting the formation.
“With the F-35, the formation will not survive unless all four members contribute and think independently. The Marine Corps learned early on that they couldn’t have No. 2 and No. 4 asking permission from their flight leads to execute their tasks. The wingmen needed to be given permission and assume responsibility as independent members of the formation. And the Marines evolved their F-35 tactics, they were forced to reassess how they develop pilots. This new way of flying is so different that it drives you to train pilots differently from the beginning of their pilot education. Highly advanced fighters like the F-35 are driving a revolution in pilot training.”..."
Source: https://skiesmag.com/news/did-lockheed- ... 35-canada/ 
23 Apr 2022, 00:24
