Vanguard Magazine

a aerosPace www.vanguardcanada.com FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017 13 I nside the pilot briefing room, the whine of fighter jet engines revving up on the tarmac penetrated the closed door and glass windows. The din of aircraft mechanics working on a several F/A-18s (Super Hornets are called Rhinos here to distinguish them from the legacy F-18 Hornets) in various stages of repair in the hangar below punctuated every other sen- tence that Capt. Christopher Boyle uttered. The company has a supply chain of more than 560 companies in Canada. "Net-centric warfare is the reality… that's how we will be fighting," says Boyle, commander of the United States Navy's Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic Fleet (SFWL) at the Naval Air Station Oceana, in Vir- ginia. "Integrated, on-board systems will enable me to see whatever the other planes on my squadron are seeing…I can shoot anything they see and vice-versa. The ca- pability is a force multiplier." The ability of aircraft to rapidly transmit and receive data will become key elements of survivability – almost as important as speed and lethal weaponry – in the air combat of the very near future. Sensors, enhanced situation awareness, rapid target assessment and distributed weapon assignment are the focal point in the air combat of the information age, ac- cording to the seasoned Navy pilot who has amassed more than 3,000 flight hours. Boyle was speaking to a group of jour- nalists that were part of a recent Boeing media tour. Naval Air Station Oceana is the U.S. Navy's largest wing, with 18 squadrons flying more than 300 aircraft composed of six different variants of the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet. It is also home to the east coast F/A-18 Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) which trains pilots and Weapon Systems Officers (WSOs) in the Hornet and Super Hornet before they are assigned to operational fleet squadrons. The fleet squadrons de- ploy as part of Carrier Air Wings (CAWs) on aircraft carriers on both the east and west coasts. This single facility has more fighter planes than some countries have in their entire air force. Boyle was referring to a military doctrine which traces its origins back in the late 1990s. The concept promotes the use of information and communication technol- ogies to improve situation analysis, speed up target assessment, connect command- ers and troops to effectively flatten the hierarchy and dramatically hasten decision making and action. It is gradually being used in various services. For instance, during Desert Storm in 1990, it took up to two days for target planners to obtain a photo of target, con- firm coordinates, plan a mission and de- liver that plan to a bomber crew. Today, real-time imaging of targets allows photos and coordinates to be transmitted instantly to aircraft that are already in flight. The scenario — which requires a lot of integration between systems of disparate aircraft, vehicles and command centres — is one where the Super Hornet can thrive, says Boyle confidently. "You'll need F/A-18s integrating with other planes and then integrating with ships and the battle network," he says. "We'll be flying the Rhinos well into 2040; it still has a lot of development capability in it…it's the mission system that matters." super hornet mission systems has room for growth The Block II Super Hornet in production today was a brand new aircraft introduced in 2007, says Dan Gillian, vice-president of Boeing Military Aircraft's F/A-18 and EA-18 programs. "Advanced capability like the APG-79 AESA radar, Advanced Targeting Forward

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