combat aircraft

Right: A VX-9

EA-18G Growler

down low and

pulling hard

on a mission

near China

Lake. Peter

Steehouwer

Left top to

bottom: An

F/A-18D roars out

of China Lake for

a local sortie.

Kedar Karmarkar

An F/A-18D

equipped with

a Litening

targeting pod

and practice

bombs is readied

by the plane

captain to taxi

at China Lake.

Kedar Karmarkar

LT Sean ‘Thorny’

Noronha and LT

Jason ‘Fuego’

Hirzel step to

their jet.

Kedar Karmarkar

VX-9 Det

Edwards is

responsible

for F-35C

operational test

work.

James DeBoer

environment for friendly forces by

denying them freedom of maneuver and

disrupting air defenses. This is evident

in the fact that almost all major ‘Red

Flag’ exercises at Nellis AFB, Nevada, are

now lown with an embedded Growler

element. VX-9 regularly deploys to both

orchestrate and participate in these high-

end training events.

Fleet representative

One of the main diferences between

lying in the leet and an operational

test squadron is the proiciency level

required to stay current in all mission

qualiications. In the leet, pilots can

ly close air support (CAS), suppression

of enemy air defenses (SEAD), basic

ighter maneuvers (BFM) and air

combat maneuvering (ACM) with the

aim of being tactically proicient for

deployments. In an operational test

squadron most of these mission sets are

daily events, but are lown and tailored to

the needs of a particular program.

The process of proving a requirement

through to ielding a suitable solution

is a hugely complex afair. This typically

starts with feedback from the leet,

before contractors begin developing

a solution, working with acquisition

teams before it enters light testing

UNIT REPORT // VX-9 ‘VAMPIRES’

78 October 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net