MIRAMAR MARINE CORPS AIR STATION, San Diego, Calif. – The Marine Corps’ second F-35C Lightning II squadron hit a key milestone this week, reaching initial operational capability just 16 months after forming up as a unit.
The “Tomcats” of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 311 reached IOC in July 31 and prove they can operate the stealthy, sensor-heavy tactical aircraft.The squadron, which got its first aircraft in spring 2023, is the Marine Corps’ second F-35C squadron to reach IOC.
“It’s a milestone and achievement on readiness that supports Force Design, that supports the TACAIR transition plan” and expands next-generation capability at Marine Aircraft Group 11 and 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Lt. Col. Michael Fisher, VMFA-311’s commander, said in an interview.
The Tomcats have six F-35Cs and the squadron is awaiting deliveries of another four jets from Lockheed Martin to round out its end strength to reach FOC, or full operational capability. “That’s our next stepping stone and the next milestone we want to achieve,” Fisher said.
The F-35C is the Joint Strike Fighter variant built for both land-based operations and aircraft carrier operations, as its features include a tailhook, beefier landing gear and larger, foldable wings. The first Marine Corps F-35C squadron to reach FOC, the “Black Knights” of VMFA-314, is currently deployed with Carrier Air Wing 9 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72).
While it is the Marines’ second F-35C squadron to become operational, VMFA-311 currently is not assigned to a Navy carrier air wing or focused on carrier duty, officials said.
“If we get designated as a TACAIR or we are going to go on a ship, the Marine Corps will shape us to make sure we have the experience to support any type of evolution of that,” said Fisher, who has experience with carrier landings as an F/A-18 Hornet pilot before he converted to the F-35C. If so, “we’ll be trained and ready to go.”
While focused largely on land-based operations, Tomcats pilots’ training includes practicing the flight profile and landing patterns of a ship-based aircraft. “We don’t take arrestments, but we act like everything else is the same,” he said. High-fidelity simulators also allow pilots to practice carrier landings in the virtual training environment.
The Marine Corps has planned for an inventory of 67 F-35Cs to support missions including its tactical aircraft integration mission that’s been filled by its F/A-18C Hornets and, currently, VMFA-314’s jets with Lincoln. Under the service’s 2022 Aviation Plan, two F-35C squadrons would be based on each coast, with VMFA-314 and VMFA-311 supporting West Coast-based I Marine Expeditionary Force, and two deactivated F/A-18 Hornet squadrons – the “Thunderbolts” of VMFA-251 and the “Silver Eagles” of VMFA-115 – would eventually reactivate as F-35C squadrons in North Carolina to support 2nd MAW and East Coast-based II MEF.
That plan also stated its “commitment to naval integration and TAI persists through the TACAIR Transition to F-35,” and noted a second squadron “dedicated to TAI” would activate in fiscal 2024. But it’s unclear which Marine squadron will be next TAI-designated. The Marine Corps is updating its plans and will release the 2025 Aviation Plan by year’s end, officials said.
“Per the signed TAI Memorandum of Agreement between the Navy and the Marine Corps, the service will provide (2) F-35C squadrons to support,” a service spokesman, Capt. Pedro Caballero, told USNI in an email response.
But “VMFA-311 will not be the F-35C squadron designated for TAI,” Caballero said.
Integrating capabilities
The Tomcats last year activated as an F-35C squadron with an initial crew of 84 Marines and one aircraft, taking the nickname and lineage of VMA-311, an AV-8B Harrier jump jet squadron in Yuma, Ariz., that deactivated in 2020. With additional personnel and with aircraft fresh off delivery from the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, in Texas, it achieved in September its “safe for flight” certification, which allowed the squadron to sign for their own aircraft and begin independent flight operations
In the past year, pilots had flown about 1,700 hours in more than 900 sorties, tallied more than 800 hours in flight simulators, and completed 2,400 maintenance actions as part of the process to reach IOC, according to 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.
“It’s a lengthy process. It’s a stair-step approach, so IOC is one step to getting the squadron fully operational,” Col. William Mitchell, the MAG-11 commander, told USNI News. “Now we can deploy them and actually go out and be forward-deployed, to support the combatant commander and support our mission.”
Getting to full capability requires “becoming a little bit more proficient in some of our training requirements” and logistics metrics, Mitchell said, “and we need at least eight aircraft to be FOC.”
The squadron is still waiting on delivery of its additional F-35Cs, which Fisher said will arrive from the manufacturer bearing TR-3, or Technology Refresh 3, the latest package that upgrades the aircraft’s displays and data processing power to support the planned Block 4 improvements. Testing and other issues have delayed the rollout, but primary contractor Lockheed Martin last month announced the delivery of the first new F-35s configured with the upgrades.
“The next version of the F-35s that are coming out, they’re all TR-3s. We’re just waiting on deliveries from those,” Fisher said. “Eventually, the majority of the aircraft (already at the squadron) will be upgraded.”
As the second F-35C squadron, VMFA-311 is helping grow the service’s experience in integrating the jet’s capabilities within the maritime and joint forces in the multi-domain fight, a big focus across MAG-11 and Marine aviation to support TACAIR integration as the inventory grows.
“How do we best integrate our newest, most lethal, fifth-generation at-sea platform with our fourth-generation aircraft, like the F/A-18?” Mitchell said. “How do they complement each other, and how do we utilize that within the MAG and, in the case of -314, in the carrier air wing?”
The squadrons are drawing on the integration of Marine Corps’ F/A-18’s Hornets and Navy’s F/A-18E/F Hornets within carrier air wings. “We’ve learned a lot of lessons in how they complement each other, how we can enhance each other and make us a stronger force,” he said. “Both platforms bring unique capabilities, and working them together just makes us that much better.” That integration includes regular training and operating with F-35Bs, the Marine Corps’ short takeoff-and-landing jets.
“The F-18 is a more capable platform when it comes to maritime strike,” noted Mitchell, “but the F-35s, with their stealth and more advanced systems, bring another capability that the Hornet doesn’t have. They can complement and work different mission sets together, and have I think a better effect.”
“If I’m going downrange in a contested environment, I want to be in an F-35,” he said. “It brings a great capability to the joint force. It’s going to make the Marine Corps more lethal. It’s going to make our aviators more survivable.”
Building flightline capabilities
The past year has been hectic for VMFA-311’s Marines, who work from temporary buildings and a shared hangar while construction crews build a new Hangar Bravo where the older Hangar 1 stood, all part of an ongoing modernization along Miramar’s flight line. It might be another two years before they move into their permanent spaces.
The Tomcats have “a rich history and legacy and it runs through their veins, and that translates into combat capability. You can’t build that overnight,” Mitchell said, crediting good leadership and esprit de corps across the squadron spaces.
The squadron deployed multiple training detachments, including twice to Tyndall Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle, where they integrated with Air Force and Navy fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft. “They have certain tools and techniques of how they operate an F-35, and we have some too, so we get a cross-pollination. Both teams learn together,” Fisher said. Those deployments challenged the Marines to move aircraft, personnel and support equipment cross-country and “be able to operate on day one.” The squadron also sent a training detachment to the Navy’s TOPGUN and the Marine Corps’ Weapons and Tactics Instructor courses.
Along the flight line, Marines have been busy organizing their workspaces, supporting flight operations and deploying to joint training exercises, while building their skills and knowledge about the aircraft’s systems, maintenance, standard operating procedures and tactics.
Sgt. William Dunn, an avionics technician, joined the squadron last year after working on F/A-18C/D Hornet jets and then F-35Bs with VMFA-242 in Japan. Learning the new aircraft is “definitely a big learning curve” compared to legacy systems, Dunn said, and maintenance can differ compared to the F-35B.
“It’s still a work in progress,” he said. “People need to get better with what they are doing and continue learning. It’s an all-hands-in experience to get to that end goal of where we want to be.”
Unlike Hornet squadrons, Dunn noted, the F-35Cs avionics department combines the communications/navigation and electric shops. With the F-35, “everyone is all integrated, avionics-wise, so everyone all works on the same thing,” he said. Moreover, “we all collectively start to learn and eventually start to understand all the same systems, rather than having to rely on two different shops for two different things.”
“There’s a lot of things on this aircraft that definitely simplifies it, compared to F/A-18s,” he added.
Each Monday, the squadron’s shops hold technical training sessions, such as reviewing radar systems or hydraulic systems and flight controls. “The more you understand the system, it’s like second nature,” said Cpl. Andrew Carr, an airframe mechanic who joined the squadron two years ago. “If you can understand it, then you can know what’s going wrong where, and it’s easier to locate and to fix the problem.”
“You can never stop learning with this aircraft,” said Carr, who like many Tomcats noncommissioned officers certified as a collateral duty inspector, a coveted qualification. “As long as they’re able to do it and to maintain the currency for the program, we encourage it,” noted Cpl. Antonio Salazar, a powerline mechanic.
Dunn said he sees Marines taking initiative to ensure aircraft are up and ready. “A lot of people here are very willing to take their time to explain to you different systems,” he said. If a hand is needed, people are more willing to do that.”
Squadron communication “gives the Marines a purpose,” Salazar said, “which is good for maintainers who are just constantly working, and especially if you have aircraft that are constantly breaking. It takes a ton of man-hours. It gets tiring. Without an end goal, it just seems like we’re just working for nothing. So definitely, being able to understand the purpose, being able to have the interaction with our senior leaders, is good for the younger Marines.”
The squadron holds fun events on the first Thursday of each month, with kickball, ultimate Frisbee and even a trek to a local waterpark, which help buoy squadron morale, Marines said. “When you have an informative and understanding command, it makes the flow and drive a lot easier and better. You want to operate better,” Carr said. It helps the Marines to “know the purpose” of what they do, Salazar said. “The CO is very good with his communication of why we’re doing this.”
One day last week, Tomcat ordnance crews worked in a weapon-handling area not far from Miramar’s flightline, loading and arming several F-35Cs with 2,000-lb. guided bombs and 25-mm rounds ahead of planned live-fire training on military ranges east of San Diego.
“It is an amazing weapons platform. It’s really fun to fly,” said Capt. Joshua “Shakespeare” Gabriel Falgoust, who previously had flown the AV-8B Harrier. With its large suite of sensors, communications systems and weapons, “you have a lot of (situational awareness) in the air and you’re able to attack lots of different targets in multiple ways.”
“The challenges in this aircraft are being able to absorb all of the information it provides,” Falgoust said. “In other aircraft, like fourth-gen aircraft, you had to pick out information or find the information. This one, you have to pick through all of it and find out what makes sense.”
“It’s giving us our best bit for success against our enemies,” he said, before boarding his jet to do a bombing and strafing mission.
Falgoust, who’s tallied more than 150 flight hours so far in the F-35C, said the IOC milestone “opens the door for the squadron to deploy and take on any missions directed… Each day we get one step closer” to FOC.
“Today,” he told reporters, with a grin, “we’re going to go drop bombs and blow shit up.”
