SHAPING THE FUTURE OF ISR MILITARY
F-35s, UAVs and Sensors
F-35 international operators will have
access to multidomain ISR capabilities
currently being developed for the F-35 by the
US through participation in exercises such
as Red Flag and its recent deployments to
Europe (by the 388th Fighter Wing) and Japan
(by Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121).
Speaking in Washington DC on May 23,
Marine Colonel Peter McArdle Branch Head for
Aircraft, Weapons and Requirements, Aviation
at Headquarters, US Marine Corps, said: “One
F-35 capability in development, is the ability
to pass synthetic aperture radar-generated
coordinates from the F-35 automatically to the
Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System,
used by the US military to re the High Mobility
Artillery Rocket System.”
For this, the F-35 uses the same
Multifunction Advanced Datalink (MADL)
system it uses for air-to-air communications.
The US Army’s Command Post ComputingEnvironment – the rst unit is scheduled
to be equipped by 2019 – is designed to
receive targeting information downlinked
from F-35s and decon ict it with Blue Force
Tracker inputs that show the locations of
friendly forces. Because the MADL transmits
the information in NATO-standard K-series
message format, international F-35 users
can integrate it with their own command and
control systems.UAVs: more users,
greater capabilities
Since the 1990s, coalition air operations
have made increasing use of UAVs to carry a
wide range of sensors. In the ghting against
ISIS forces around Sirte, Libya, between
August and December 2016, even without
US or coalition boots on the ground, US Air
Force Block 1 MQ-9 Reaper UAVs were able
to combine sensor capabilities to detectindividual snipers and designate the target
using the onboard laser target designator for
attack by another, armed, Reaper.
General Atomics is currently producing
Reapers for both the US Air Force (which has
retired its predecessor, the General Atomics
MQ-1 Predator) and international users,
including the UK, France, Spain and Italy, who
will be joined in late 2017 by the Netherlands,
at which time it intends to procure one system
comprising four air vehicles.
The rst combat mission of an upgraded
Block 5 MQ-9 Reaper took place on June
23 as part of Operation Inherent Resolve
over Iraq and/or Syria. In addition to its ISR
mission, over the course of a 16-hour sortie
the Block 5 Reaper delivered one 500lb
(227kg) GBU-12 laser-guided bomb and two
AGM-114 Hell re missiles. Mike Holmes
said: “We are procuring MQ-9 versions,
now that Block 5 has been elded. Two