ying these jets on combat missions in
the Middle East has put an enormous
strain on the Navy’s strike ghter
community. This has led to only one
in three of the Navy’s Super Hornets
being fully mission capable and ready
to y in combat at any given time. To
remedy this issue, the Navy recently
announced plans to scrap nearly 140
older ‘classic’ Hornets from its inventory.
The cut isn’t as drastic as it sounds, due
to the fact that the Navy has purchased
additional Super Hornets over the last
few years, including 24 in the latest scal
spending budget.Work is also being done to speed
up the supply of parts needed to get
aircraft back in the air. Miller told this
publication: ‘Let me start o by saying
naval aviation is an extremely complex
business. No single stakeholder owns
the process of generating fully mission
capable aircraft. It is an enterprise of
naval aviation professionals, leading
every day, with one common goal: man,
train and equip deployable, combat-
ready naval aviation forces that win in
combat. An enterprise e ort is required
to build and maintain combat-ready
naval aviation forces. My task andnumber one priority is to improve
aircraft availability and full mission
capable rates.
‘I will do this by aligning to three focus
areas: people, parts and aircraft. People
are our most important resource and
building our sailor aviation maintenance
expertise will be prioritized moving
forward. Prioritization of parts and
maintenance actions will be managed
by aviation triad teams consisting of
supply o cers, wing maintenance
o cers and Fleet Readiness Center
maintenance o cers. Simultaneously,
we must reinvigorate naval aviation’s
supply chain to have the agility and
speed in keeping pace with ight-line
demand. An increase in [fully] quali ed
maintainers paired with [su cient]
available parts will result in more
mission-capable aircraft.’
Under its plan to have the F/A-18E/F
Super Hornet as the dominant aircraft
type on its carriers over the next 15-
years, the Navy has also begun several
programs to keep them ying and
inject new technology. These programs
include service-life modi cation
initiatives as well as capability upgrades
for the F/A-18E/F, including Block III.
Miller says: ‘Block III capabilities of the
Super Hornet, when combined with the
fth-generation capabilities of the Joint
Strike Fighter, signi cantly increase theAbove: General
Atomics is
pitching an
MQ-25 solution
to the US Navy
for unmanned
aerial refueling.
General Atomics
Left: Carrier air
wings conduct
pre-deployment
training at NAS
Fallon, Nevada.
Jamie HunterMy task and number one priority is to
improve aircraft availability and full
mission capable rates
VADM DEWOLFE MILLER
(^10) INTRODUCTION
US NAVY & MARINE CORPS AIR POWER YEARBOOK 2018
6-12 Leadership Interview_v2.indd 10 01/06/2018 10: