"Since the first F-35B arrived at MCAS Yuma, Arizona on November 16, 2012, VMFA-121 has made tremendous gains as it proceeds toward an initial operating capability (IOC) target of July 2015. Every step forward, no matter how minute, is part of a carefully-crafted plan designed to move the Marine Corps firmly into the leading edge of F-35 operations....
...One of the biggest reasons for the delay in proceeding at full rate with STOVL qualifications was completion of the new auxiliary landing field (ALF). This is replacing Aux 2, which had been the Harrier fleet’s lone facility for conducting vertical landing and take-offs and short-take offs for decades. The new ALF will more realistically replicate landings on the LHA/LHD assault ships that will deploy with F-35s as the central part of their strike force. It will have two different ‘decks’ to choose from, one each basically pointing north and south to take advantage of the prevailing winds around MCAS Yuma. Better training for F-35 operations, as well as the Harrier and rotary-wing platforms, will thus be provided.
STOVL operations
Lt Col Gillette also spoke about the ease of STOVL flight in the F-35 and what that means to his squadron and future USMC F-35 units. ‘I was an F/A-18 guy, so landing a jet vertically was something completely new to me. What I will tell you, from the experience of going through STOVL training and then going out and executing the shortened take-off, or slow landing, and then the vertical landing, is that this is something the engineers at Lockheed Martin got 100 per cent correct. It is amazingly easy to be extremely precise in the Mode 4, which is what we call VL. The beauty of the flight control logic is that it never changes regardless of the flight control mode you are in. So, imagine I am flying conventionally: if I want to go up, I pull back on the stick, and if I want to go down I push forward. Same for left or right. If I want to go forward I push ahead on the throttle and if I want to slow down I pull the throttle aft. That is also the basic control law the F-35 flies in what we call ‘up and away’, which is just normal conventional flight. When you transition to Mode 4, or STOVL, the flight control logic does not change as I decelerate and come to a hover.
‘Additionally, just through the advances in technology, when I tell the jet to hover over this point on earth it can do it hands-free. The F-35 will wind-correct, lean its wing into the wind and sit right over that point. When you think about that from a training continuum, and compare that to the Harrier fleet and their STOVL efforts, they [have to] spend so much time getting a pilot proficient at landing and maintaining that proficiency. Whether through simulators, practice flights here at Yuma or going out to the ship for periods at sea, the time spent in STOVL is extensive. I think with the F-35, in terms of time, money, flights, simulators, and so on, there will be a reduced amount of resources required to retain the same level of proficiency the Harrier units do now. Now, like anything it is cosmic until you go out and do it. But once you do and see it, you are like, ‘This wasn’t hard!’ And that was my big take-away from my first STOVL landing, which was on November 13, 2013. I don’t want to say it was mindlessly easy, but pretty close to that.’...
...Marines on the move
Marine air power is expeditionary in its very nature, able to pack up and move with little support, and the USMC F-35 squadrons will be no different. So far the F-35 community, and especially VMFA-121, has enjoyed the comfort of operating from state-of-the-art hangars and new buildings. However, an important lesson the squadron must learn is how to re-locate to somewhere where the established architecture is absent. During 2014, VMFA-121 will move twice. First, during late spring or early summer, it will simply move hangars, taking the first step necessary before going off-site to another location in the fall.
Prior to the delivery of the 2B software, the 16 F-35Bs the ‘Green Knights’ own will be shuffled off for airframe modifications. Throughout 2014, the squadron will have to manage the flow of airframes combined with the goal of meeting operational objectives...."