assignment every three years so their
experience is not lost.’
The extremely specialist world of VX-31
is only possible thanks to the retention
of key people in niche roles. Many have
chosen the desert lifestyle for years
and have seen many systems and types
come and go here. The Super Hornet
has a wide role in the US Navy and
accounts for a large portion of the work,
not to mention the various international
customers that rely on China Lake and
its infrastructure in order to support
speci c projects.
Rationalized eets may have seen the
range of types at China Lake dwindling,
but with rounds of regular upgrades
and more capability than ever before,
this more than makes up for the fact
that there’s less iron on the ight line.
For VX-31 ‘Dust Devils’ the job involves
gaining the most capability for the eet
— capability that requires an awful lot of
modeling, engineering and pure, good
old-fashioned, ight-testing.According to the CTP, Gephart, a
considerable part of the maintenance
team consists of non-aviator ight test
engineers. ‘They have gone through
two to three years of training at NAVAIR.
They are not experts in ight-test but in
structures, avionics and weapons.’
Many of these maintainers are civilian
contractors. In addition, China Lake
accommodates hundreds of engineers
who are not part of the squadron, but
Somerville considers them part of the
team. ‘These people work on various
parts of the base in specialties such as
telemetry or the ranges, and play an
important role in our activities. In the
recent past these engineers were also
military but that has changed, which
has its advantages. Most of them come
from a military background and they
bring a lot of experience. Contrary to
military personnel, they don’t get a newNO F-35FOR VX-31
VX-31 isn’t directly involved in F-35
Lightning II activities, but CDR
Somerville notes, ‘Within a couple
of years, we will have the F-35 ying
from our carrier decks alongside
H-60s, F/A-18s, EA-18Gs and E-2s.
The F-35 is going to have to be able
to do a whole slew of things when
aircraft are ying together, such as
exchanging information.’ While VX-31
doesn’t have any F-35s assigned, it’s
unclear where future integration
testing will be conducted. It could be
at China Lake or at nearby Edwards
AFB, or on the east coast at Pax River.Above left: VX-31
still fl ies a brace
of AV-8B Harrier
IIs, a night attack
jet (seen here)
and an APG-65
radar-equipped
AV-8B+. Richard
VanderMeulenhttp://www.combataircraft.net // October 2018 75