inventory of the US Navy. It’s an airborne
testbed and a versatile platform for
evaluating various test articles including
seekers, fuses, and radar systems.
‘Generally speaking, the type of
work we do is software updates and
integration testing of new weapons
and weapon load-outs,’ explains CDR
Elizabeth Somerville, commanding
o cer of VX-31. ‘[This] work can be to
x bugs in current software or new
capabilities. During operational use as
well as tests, bugs are discovered which
the navy characterizes and prioritizes.
Then it is determined which have to be
absolutely xed by the next software
update, such that we can’t go on with
them, all the way down to issues that are
just annoying and not really preventing
the war ghter from doing the mission.
Of course, we like to deliver the most
lethal and capable weapons systems to
the eet, but sometimes we have minor
nuances with interfaces that we don’taddress. It would be too expensive and
too time-consuming to cover them all.’
A lot of time is spent on crew-system
interfaces, Somerville emphasizes.
‘With the complexity of today’s
mission systems, a lot is about how the
aircraft communicates with the crew.
The challenge is how to present the
information to a human being so that
he or she makes the right decision at the
right time. However, the thing with crew-
vehicle interfaces is there is no [single]
answer. It often depends on who is ying
that aircraft and how they want to have
the information presented. These are the
really fun engineering challenges.’Block upgrades
Individual software xes are typically
not applied ad hoc to eet aircraft but
collected in a block upgrade. VX-31
releases these bundles for each type
about every two years. ‘We refer to them
as systems con gurations sets [SCS],’work that relates to weapons and
mission systems.
To say that NAS China Lake and its
world-renowned ranges are large is a
massive understatement. Altogether,
these ranges account for an astonishing
1.1 million acres of desert. That equates
to 85 per cent of all land the US Navy
utilizes for RDT&E.
The ‘Dust Devils’ currently y all models
of Hornet and Super Hornet, the EA-18G
Growler and a pair of AV-8B Harrier IIs.
Its eet numbers about 30 aircraft in
total, many of which are in and out of
modi cation. A notable absentee is the
F-35. With development testing still
wrapped up in the Integrated Test Force
at NAS Patuxent River, there’s no role for
VX-31 with the Lightning II right now.
In addition the squadron operates
a search and rescue (SAR) ight with
MH-60S helicopters, and for test support
it ies a North American T-39D Sabreliner
— the sole remaining example in the
VX-31 is the
center of
capability
development
for the EA-18G
Growler and will
start fl ight-testing
with the type’s
Next-Generation
Jammer in 2019.
Jamie Hunterhttp://www.combataircraft.net // October 2018 71