AviationWeek.com/awst AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/MARCH 30-APRIL 12, 2015 57to support the ground element in envi-
ronments which previous aircraft could
not” because of its stealthy qualities.
Block 3F will feature improved data
fusion, full use of the infrared search-
and-track capability, use of the can-
non and wider use of the radar. The
electro-optical targeting system in the
meantime, however, allows for night
CAS from the F-35, Silveria says.
Block 4 will further expand those
and a variety of munitions, including
the 250-lb., all-weather, moving-target
SDB II now in development. The F-35A
will be able to employ its cannon when
the 3F software is approved, and of-
ficials at Edwards AFB, California,
expect to begin testing the gun when
it is installed on a test aircraft by June.THE PLAN
The Air Force is taking a number of
steps to transform CAS, not only for
permissive airspace but to establish
the technology and tactics needed for
CAS in contested airspace.
The service hosted a CAS Summit
with representatives from its sister ser-
vices this month to identify a way for-
ward. Chief among the steps ahead is to
consolidate CAS aviator experience in
the Air Force. Pilots from the A-10 com-
munity will be assigned to squadrons
of F-16s, F-15Es and, eventually, F-35s
focused on that mission. “We want that
CAS expertise to go to those squadrons
that are dedicated to CAS to keep...
that culture alive,” Carlisle says. “When
we get to the Block 4s of the F-35s, those
are going to be great CAS platforms.”
The service is also establishing a
CAS Integration Group at Nellis to act
as an umbilical cord on training, tactics
and technology for the mission. It willinclude members of the other services
as well as ground-based air controllers.
USAF is also planning to incorporate
live virtual training into the curriculum
to boost the number of JTACs available
to meet demand. “In 1990, we had 100%
of the requirement at 450,” Carlisle
says. During the Gulf war, airpower was
used to take down defenses and poten-
tial airborne threats in Iraq, so CAS was
not needed as much. “Today, we have
over 1,500 and we’re still not meeting
the requirement.” Another option is
to use contract aircraft to train more
JTACs, he notes.
The CAS Integration Group will also
examine how to transfer relevant CAS
lessons to operations likely in a contest-
ed environment. “If we’re in a contested
environment where there’s an ability to
fight your way in, to defend yourself in
the airspace and still conduct a mission,
that’s a higher level of training and it
takes a lot of work,” Carlisle says.
Finally, the Air Force is examining
ideas for future CAS weapon systems,
including, potentially, a dedicated plat-
form. This is only in a study phase, but
Carlisle says careful review is needed
not for capability as much as poten-
tially fielding extra tails to augment
the dwindling numbers of fighters.
“There is a capability requirement
for the future threat. There is also a
capacity discussion,” Carlisle says. “As... you look at the real high-end play-
ers and... if they get to the capability
we anticipate they will get to... we
have to keep thinking about how we
maintain that capacity.... There may
be an inflection point in the future that
says at this point we need more capac-
ity and to get that we have to do it at
lower cost.” However, given the threat
A-10 AC-130W^1 B-1 B-52 F-15E F-16 Block 40/50 F-22 PredatorMQ-1 ReaperMQ-9 F-35A^2MUNITIONS
GBU-10 2,000-lb. laser-guided Paveway II
GBU-12 500-lb. laser-guided Paveway II
GBU-24 2,000-lb. laser-guided Paveway III
GBU-28 5,000-lb. bunker buster
GBU-31 2,000-lb JDAM
GBU-32 1,000-lb. JDAM
GBU-38 500-lb. JDAM
GBU-39 250-lb. Small-Diameter Bomb
GBU-49 500-lb. Enhanced Paveway II
GBU-54 500-lb. laser JDAM
Cannon
OPERATING COST PER FLIGHT HOUR (Fiscal 2013) $17,398 $28,455 $54,218 $67,475 $37,504 $22,954 $62,106 $4,403 $3,976 ——
(^1) OCPFH for AC-130H = $31,338, AC-130U = $46,138 2 OCPFH for F-35A is December 2013 SAR Projection, inf ated from f scal 2012 to f scal 2013 dollars, NET December 2016 in service Source: U.S. Air Force
U.S. Air Force
Close Air Support
Aircraft and Munitions
and budget environment “we are not
there yet.”
Meanwhile, Air Force laboratories
are continuing to examine a long-
held desire to field true “dial-a-yield”
weapons, which could provide tailored
destructive efects “dialed in” by the
pilot to reduce the destructive power
or increase it based on scenario. Also
hoped for are multirole weapons that
can be carried internally in the F-35 to
allow for their use in a contested en-
vironment. “The other capability that
has always been key is either point- or
cue-and-shoot. With the A-10 you pull
your nose around, we’d like to do that
same thing but maybe cue and shoot
where... you use the helmet-mounted
cueing system,” Carlisle says. “We do
that for some weapons as well, but we
haven’t developed them” for a forward-
firing-type CAS environment, he notes.
Beyond this, Welsh says that he
wants out-of-the-box thinking on CAS
weapons—including such concepts as
directed energy to smaller, precision-
guided systems. “We should be focused
on the next generation of close air sup-
port weapons.... There are differ-
ent ways to look at this problem that
technology can solve,” he says. “A large
number of forward-firing laser-guided
rockets [for example]. Is it something
that fragments from a rocket into a
thousand bullets... so you have thou-
sand-round bursts” instead of the [far
fewer rounds] “we get out of the gun
in the front of an airplane today, [yet]
the efect looks exactly the same on the
ground?”
Although these ideas are on the table,
there is little consensus as to the Air
Force’s ability to fund its plans to re-
vamp the mission. c