Aviation

Rebuild the Rainbow of Carrier Aviation

A recent article by Navy Commander Daniel Cochran asked the question: “Will the Aircraft Carrier Survive?” The article examines the aircraft carrier’s (CV) ability to physically survive modern, hypersonic warfare, and hints at the CV’s metaphorical survival as the crown jewel of the U.S. Fleet. This represents merely the latest salvo in the ongoing war of words regarding the fate of the CV, a debate which began with the advent of Naval Aviation over a century ago.

The article’s opening sentence is particularly interesting: “Since the First World War, the importance of sea-based aviation has evolved, including the increasingly diverse mission sets aircraft carriers provide.” Unfortunately, this sentence is only true in theory. The carrier could be (and has been) the ultimate modular weapons system. If an enemy needs be attacked, the strike aircraft fly on board and ammunition is onloaded; if a humanitarian disaster strikes, the jets fly off and helicopters fly on, etc. However, since the end of the Cold War this modular system, the carrier air wing (CVW), has withered in airframe diversity and aviator expertise. Because of this, the answer to the question “will the carrier survive?” is very much in doubt.

If the U.S. Navy wants the flat tops to survive in the metaphorical and literal senses, the CVW must be reinvented, diversified, and specialized.

The Rainbow That Was

Several recent studies have refocused the carrier debate away from the CV itself and to the real problem in modern CV operations: the carrier’s weapon system. In the Gulf War, CVWs deployed with a mix of seven or eight specialized airframes, tailored to and optimized for a variety of mission sets.

A typical motif in CVW patches is a rainbow of colors. More than a striking visual, these colors symbolized the CVW’s squadrons and their unique purposes. Fighter aircraft were trimmed in red and yellow; attack squadrons had light blue, orange, green, and black. Airborne early warning (dark blue), antisubmarine (dark green), and electronic attack (maroon) rounded out the CVW rainbow.[1] These colors infused squadron identity from patches to paint schemes, and history buffs can infer a lot about a squadron’s past by looking at the colors of their patches (e.g., the “Vigilantes” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 151 sport yellow thanks to their F-4 Phantom II heritage, VFA-105 bears green from its days in the medium attack A-7 Corsair II).

With the end of the Cold War, however, shrinking budgets and lackluster threats combined to force naval aviation into tough choices about the future of the CVW. Projects such as the A-12 Avenger, F-14 Super Tomcat, and upgrades to the A-6 Intruder died unborn, while the S-3 Viking shuffled into early retirement. In the midst of this change, the FA-18 Hornet family emerged all the stronger. A capable light-attack platform with air-to-air chops, the Hornet was the Navy’s first intentionally multirole aircraft. Although as far back as World War II fighters had served as attack aircraft and attack aircraft had scored a few stunning aerial victories, multirole beyond a combat adaptation became the sine qua non of CVW aviation after Desert Storm. [2] From the Hornet’s success came the Super Hornet, a replacement for the “legacy” FA-18A-D, the A-6, the F-14, and, thanks to its ability to refuel other aircraft in flight, the S-3.

The Super Hornet, or “Rhino,” was the perfect aircraft for the post-Cold War “end of history”: the current era of U.S. air and sea dominance. Not tailored to one specific mission, it can do a little bit of everything, and with its reliance on software and some modest hardware upgrades, the platform’s capabilities continue to improve. Multirole is now the standard on CV decks worldwide: the F-35 Lightning II, French Rafale-M, Russian MiG-29K (v2.0), and Chinese J-15 (likely) all have multi-role DNA.

Multirole People: Masters of None

While software and hardware changes have blurred the lines between mission sets in the multirole world, pilots and naval flight officers (NFOs) have had to adapt to the platforms they fly.

The specialization mind-set of the past led to memorable, movie-ready quips like: “Fighter pukes make movies, bomber pilots make history.”[3] Each community prided itself on its esprit de corps: whether it was the “Mutha” award for squadron “fighter spirit,” or “Top Scope” for the best bombardier navigator. From the earliest days of aviation, aviators took pride in their mission and aircraft and derided those with the temerity to fly another aircraft.

But the age of the Hornet erased the “fighter guys” and “bombardier navigators” from CVW lexicons, replacing them with “strike-fighter guys” and “weapon systems officers.” Beyond community pride and friendly rivalries, however, something else disappeared in the blurring of the CVW rainbow: expertise.

This conversation should be couched in the disclaimer that U.S. strike-fighter aviators continue to exemplify the confident, swaggering, aggressive spirit that animated the victors of Midway. The problem is that unlike their forefathers, today’s brown shoes have to devote less time to more missions.

Although by no means scientific, the oft-repeated aphorism that “it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert” in a given field provides a useful tool for discussing aircrew expertise. Most tactical aviators reach 1,000 hours of flight time in the Super Hornet by their second or third flying tour. Along with those 1,000 airborne hours are several thousand hours spent in the simulator, studying, briefing, and debriefing each event. Factor in briefing labs, practice sims, lectures, and time spent preparing for flights that are ultimately cancelled, and it is reasonable to extrapolate that a 1,000-hour Rhino pilot has spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 hours being a Super Hornet aviator. The problem is that being a Super Hornet aviator consists of at least three mission sets (fighter, strike, and tanking)—more if mission areas are subdivided (e.g., “strike” consists of antisurface warfare, air-to-ground bombing, close air support, etc.).

A breakdown of the author’s first 1,000 FA-18F flight hours, not including combat sorties.

In my own logbook, the first 1,000 hours in noncombat missions can be divided into several mission areas. These pie pieces show a bias towards air-to-ground (A/G), although combining air-to-air (A/A) training and red air flights divides the time more evenly. This is slightly different from fleet averages over the past five years, in which East Coast-based VFA squadrons have a nearly dead-even split between A/A and A/G training.[4] This indicates that squadrons have to divide their time evenly between major training areas, also leaving time for tanker missions, carrier qualifications, and general aviation training.[5]

In fairness, mission sets in a multirole aircraft cannot always be so easily divided, and skills trained to in one mission set may have benefits in another mission area. This is akin to professional hockey players, who tend to have skill at juggling a soccer ball, a capacity often displayed during pregame warmups. However, the skills required for hockey will only get you so far in 90 minutes on a soccer pitch (and vice versa).

A 1,000-hour strike-fighter guy likely will not be as tactically proficient nor as focused on either strike or fighter missions as a 1,000-hour attack guy and a 1,000-hour fighter guy, because by necessity the VFA pilot has to divide his 1,000 hours into smaller pieces. This requirement is codified in naval aviation training through the use of “training and readiness” matrices: treasure map-like spreadsheets that dictate how much training an aviator should get in each mission area before a combat deployment.

Faces, Jobbers, and Muhammad Ali

The good news for the multirole aviator is that the “jack-of-all-trades” approach has benefited from 20 years of air dominance. Arguably since Desert Storm, and certainty since operations in the former Yugoslavia, the CV has operated like a professional wrestler. A beefy showboat, beloved by the crowds, the carrier has planted its feet, rolled up its sleeves, and with help from its tag team partner, the Air Force, it has delivered perfectly scripted haymakers against undersized “jobber” opponents designed to give the “face” an “over.”[6]

Analysts familiar with this approach look at Russia and China and see that they are no “jabronies.” The talking heads correctly conclude that the current CV-as-Ultimate Warrior operating construct will not work against these foes.

Against peer adversaries, the CV needs to be less like a pro “wrassler” and more like a middleweight prizefighter, embracing The Greatest’s immortal advice to “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” The CV can succeed by combining maneuver and reach, dancing on the periphery of its opponent’s range, delivering jabs until a well-placed cross finds its target.

The CV must adjust how it fights and operates in the face of these up-and-coming prizefighters, and as a boxer carries an arsenal of punches and a tendency to fancy footwork, so too must the CVW seek variety, specialization, speed, and maneuver.

The Unmanned Rainbow

Recent analyses have looked at two in-work programs as potential fixes to the CVW’s short-legged, multi-role problems.[7]

The first is the MQ-25 Stingray unmanned air vehicle (UAV), designed as a tanker aircraft. Although this promises to remove the airframe fatigue and flight hour sump of tanker operations from Rhinos and their crews (14 percent for the author, which is slightly more than the five-year average for fleet tanker squadrons), critics bemoan the program’s “downgrade” from a multirole or stealthy strike platform to a tanker, while the projected fuel offload for the MQ-25 is by no means eye-watering.[8]

However, despite its flaws the MQ-25 provides a platform for future growth. By incorporating the MQ-25 into the CVW as a first step, aviators can get over their hang-ups about drones, experiment a little, spend a little, and learn a lot about incorporating unmanned solutions into the CVW. This will pave the way for future development of follow-on variants or platforms to fill gaps in current CVW capabilities, particularly anti-submarine and antisurface warfare (ASW, SUW), and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).

The second program is the replacement for the Rhino, the FA-XX. As the designation implies, the FA-XX seems destined for multirole operations, and it is likely that follow-on drone programs will also follow the multi-role template, instead of pursuing specialized platforms like an AQ-X, SQ-Y, or RQ-Z for strike, ASW, or ISR respectively.

Advances in technology, such as processing power, machine learning, and artificial intelligence will make these platforms better multi-role aircraft than even the current crop of FA-18s and F-35s, but without specializing its people, the Navy will still find these aircraft flown by jacks of all trades.

Rediscovering Expertise

The problem with future developments of UAV and other unmanned systems is that, until these systems are truly autonomous, UAV operators still will have to divide their pie chart to tackle multiple missions. The multirole UAV operator will fly the tanker while also configuring and employing it for strike missions. This may seem like a small ask for systems that may launch, land, and transit independently, but this “hands-off” time also equates to less time for the operator to control his or her weapons system.

Future pilots will be constrained in the same way current multirole pilots are, required to tackle the breadth of their platform’s capabilities, with the added role of directing and employing drone wingmen (e.g., an FA-XX on air defense may have control of FQ-X “loyal wingmen”, an added burden beyond flying their own aircraft).

There are other barriers to specialization, especially the pro wrestler concept of operations and what millennials call “FOMO” or “fear of missing out.” Stubborn Syrian Su-22 pilots aside, today’s Rhino fleet are strike platforms. Asking a Rhino squadron to specialize in fighter missions right now is akin to being put in “time out.” No squadron skipper wants to watch his squadron orbit the boat waiting for an air raid when all the action is ashore.

The author’s first 1,000 FA-18F flight hour breakdown, adjusted to include combat sorties.

My first 1,000 flight hours shift dramatically to an A/G focus when flights in combat are included, accounting for almost half of my flight time (this is just slightly higher than the five-year Atlantic Fleet average). A squadron commanding officer, faced with this breakdown, would not voluntarily handcuff his or her squadron to an A/A-only (or even A/A-biased) role.

Furthermore, the aforementioned training matrices make this impossible, as squadrons cannot choose to specialize in a given mission even if they want to. Several CVW commanders (CAGs) have experimented in the past with making squadrons more specialized, but the realities of training requirements keep these plans on the drawing board in CVW Ops.

Another stumbling block is inventory. Today’s CVWs consist of about 50 strike-fighters and EA-18G Growler electronic-attack aircraft (also a multirole aircraft, but more specialized in practice). That translates to about 30 aircraft available for flight operations at any time, with others in periodic and unplanned maintenance. Limiting half of those 30 aircraft to a single role likely is unpalatable to and removes flexibility from CAGs.

Future models for the CVW do not significantly change these numbers, with the CVW of the next decade hovering at about 50 strike-fighters. Even the proposed CVW in a recent study by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments focusing on unmanned platforms recommends a CVW in 2040 with around 45 tactical strike and fighter aircraft.[9]

Naval aviation leaders can mitigate the numbers problem using UAVs that may have a smaller physical footprint on the flight deck and increased numbers of rotary wing UAVs deployed to surface ships to free up space on the CV itself.

Reevaluating the training matrices that drive strike-fighter training may also yield renewed expertise. Possible solutions could be making more mission areas optional, allowing squadron commanders or CAGs to prioritize different roles for their squadrons, or developing separate fighter and strike matrices to allow (or force) a higher degree of specialization.

Additionally, the FA-XX should be built to focus on the most dynamic and demanding of tactical missions: long range air-to-air combat. The last two air-to-air engagements occurred in the visual arena. Advances in electronic attack capabilities, restrictions on rules of engagement, and the need for quick on-the-spot changes argue for continued human presence in fighter aviation, and as such FA-XX should be built with a “big F” and a “little a.”

Strike missions are not cakewalks, and given threat developments in air defense systems, camouflage, concealment, and deception, and antistrike countermeasures, the need for a “man in the loop” on strike missions endures. However, this mission arguably is more easily outsourced to UAVs where a sensor feed to a shipboard station and a sensor feed to an aircraft display are functionally the same, with the added benefit of decreased risk to strike aviators.

Ultimately, specialization is about developing expertise. Modern technology continues to smooth the wrinkles of multirole, blurring the color palette of the CVW rainbow. But small aircraft fleets and expensive flight hours, combined with current limits on truly autonomous systems, argue that tactical naval aviators should explore specialization to counter modern threats. Doing so will develop a community of mission area experts, masters of their trade, who will rebuild the rainbow of carrier aviation excellence.

Endnotes

[1] See: John M. Elliot, The Official Monogram: U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Aircraft Color Guide Vol. 3 1950—1959 (Hong Kong: Monogram Aviation Publications, 1991), 125.

[2] Peter Mersky, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps A-4 Skyhawk Units of the Vietnam War, (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 2007), 43.

[3] Flight of the Intruder, DVD, directed by John Milius, (USA: Paramount Pictures, 1991).

[4] Note: Because these numbers have not been cleared for release, I will not get into specific breakdowns of the hours or mission areas. Percentages referenced in this article are derived from data covering the past five years of operations for FA-18A-F squadrons based at NAS Oceana, Va.

[5] Note: General aviation training involves transit flights, maintenance check flights, evaluations, and other training flights of a non-tactical nature. This data also relies on mission codes that denote the primary mission of a particular flight. These missions are occasionally, but not always, logged in divided time increments, i.e., a single mission may log 0.5 hours on A/A mission and 0.5 hours on an A/G mission in the span of one sortie. However, this logging practice is not strictly adhered to and logging one mission set for a full sortie is more common than breaking one flight into multiple missions.

[6] Note: in professional wrestling, a “jobber” or “jabrony” is a weak opponent purposefully used to make super stars look super; a “face” is your classic wrestling good guy, and an “over” is a match designed to catapult the star to new levels of fame or infamy.

[7] Note: For an in-depth discussion of the modern CVW’s problems with long range missions, see: Clark et al, Regaining the High Ground.

[8] Note: The unclassified specifications for the MQ-25 call for a 15,000 pound fuel offload for FA-18s at 500nm from the CV, which equates to roughly half a full load of fuel for two Super Hornets. See: Clark, et al, Regaining the High Ground, vii.

[9] Clark, et al, Regaining the High Ground, 55, ix.

 

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