By Geoff Fein

The Navy will be facing a drop in its tactical air resources in the 2016 time frame, as the earlier model F-18 Hornets age and just as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) makes its entry into service, according to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).

Around the time the services will begin taking delivery of the first Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35s, the Navy will be facing what CNO Adm. Gary Roughead called a significant dip, if not a hole, in the service’s tactical air.

“If we want to be able to maintain the fleet response plan as we have it…when you look into the 2016 time frame and the age we will then have on the earlier Hornets, the ability to have a enough inventory to be able to quickly turn the air wings in support of the fleet response plan is going to become very problematic. So I am looking at that hole as well, and we get to that before we get to what I would call the significant JSF decisions,” Roughead told Defense Daily in a recent interview.

Boeing [BA] builds the F-18 Hornet.

Over the past year, the Navy and Marine Corps have held ongoing discussion regarding the F-35B, the short take off vertical landing (STOVL) variant of JSF. The Marine Corps has been open about the fact that being an expeditionary force will require them to have an aircraft that can not only land and take off from austere locations, but an aircraft that will provide Marines on the ground the network centric capabilities to conduct operations. That will only occur with the F-35B STOVL, the Marine Corps has maintained.

“When I look at the F-35, I surely don’t see a bomb truck. I see an aviation system, a multi-purpose platform that will allow us to provide situational awareness over the battlefield down to the infantryman. This aircraft will be able to do that because of the systems we will put [on it] that will link with [unmanned aerial systems], the guys on the ground, [satellites],” said Lt. Gen. John Castellaw, former deputy commandant for aviation (now Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources) in a 2006 briefing. “It will have significant, extremely valuable, non-kinetic capability with the sensors it will have onboard. It will have [electronic attack] capability (Defense Daily, Dec. 8, 2006).”

The JSF discussions between the Navy and Marine Corps were similar to the talks the two services conducted last year about amphibious ship numbers the Marine Corps needs to carry out its missions (Defense Daily, Jan. 29), Roughead said.

“From my standpoint, we have to move to JSF. Obviously, our desire is the carrier variant,” he said. “I know the Marine Corps are very committed to the STOVL. Similar to the amphibious ship discussions we have had, the discussion on JSF have been productive. It’s not a good thing to say we have some time before we really get into some of the crunch decisions because we find out that in the pace of what takes place around here you are into the crunch before you know it.”

However, with JSF, there are some decisions the Navy does have the luxury of holding off a bit on, Roughead added. Particularly the luxury of holding off until the service has seen JSF flying and performing. “I think that’s a proven approach.”