TRANSCRIPT MEDIA BRIEFING ON F-35 INITIAL OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY BY GENERAL HAWK CARLISLE, COMMANDER, AIR COMBAT COMMAND AUGUST 2, 2016 PENTAGON

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1 TRANSCRIPT MEDIA BRIEFING ON F-35 INITIAL OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY BY GENERAL HAWK CARLISLE, COMMANDER, AIR COMBAT COMMAND AUGUST 2, 2016 PENTAGON GEN CARLISLE: I'm General Hawk Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command over at Langley Air Force Base and I'm happy to announce today that we're declaring the initial operational capability of the F-35A, the conventional takeoff and landing variant of the F-35 US Air Force block. They re out at Hill Air Force Base with the 419th Fighter Wing that's an associate wing with our Air Force Reserve Airmen and our active duty airmen in the 388th Fighter Wing. The airplane's been doing very well out there and we've had some great successes recently. You may have heard last week we had some missile shots and did very good in an air-to-air configuration. A lot of them actually knocked down drones. Before that we dropped weapons out of the airplane very successfully. Now this is a condition-based declaration of initial operational capability. The airplane is flying very well. We have trained maintainers, we have trained aircrew, there's basic CAS, interdiction and limited SEAD. These are the conditions that we've met to declare the airplane operational. It's a tribute to get to this point in the program and a tribute to our Airmen who have done absolutely fantastic work. The folks out at Hill Air Force Base and the 388th and the 419th Wings have been outstanding and of course the work of the Joint Program Office under Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan and the work of Lockheed Martin has been outstanding. We're very happy with the initial operational capability and initial combat capability. What that means is if a Combatant Commander asks for a capability that the F-35 has I would deploy it in support of operations that the Combatant Commander needed it for. I'd be happy to take any questions you may have. Q: Just to do a reality check here so that people know what this can and cannot do. What limitations are on the plane at this point now that you hope within three years at full operational capability it will demonstrate? GEN CARLISLE: The bottom line is exactly what I said. It can do basic CAS. We had some things programmed into the airplane that we're not going to have coming until Block 3f. And then we have follow-on modernization in Block 4. So we know that we're going to continue to add capabilities to this airplane, just like we have to every airplane in the history of the United States Air Force. I flew A-model F-15s in Germany in the late '70s, early '80s and the airplane today is totally different than that. So we're going to continue to upgrade the airplane.

2 There are some things that we're still working on the airplane. Some of the software is significantly improved but there are still things we're going to work on in 3F that are going to get better. Some of the displays are things that we're going to change that make it more intuitive for the pilot. Some of the pilot-vehicle interface, the hands on throttle and stick mechanizations within the airplane will continue to evolve. But you have to get the airplane out there and fly it to make those - to determine those things. In fact the airplane is doing very well. The pilots are flying it and that is really the test. You know, everything that we do, if you look at our operational test folks and our line pilots who are flying it at Hill, and you say 'hey, if we ask you to go through a mission, will you be comfortable taking this airplane into a potentially contested environment?' And to a person they'll tell you yes. Q: just laymen's language, basic CAS, for those who don't know. What's basic CAS versus full CAS, close air support? GEN CARLISLE: I don't want to get into specifics because obviously this is still a program that we're working out there. But basically it doesn't have necessarily all the attributes with respect to things like an IR pointer. That is one I'll just give as an example that we use in A- 10s that is not currently in this airplane. But we knew that when we designed it to begin with. So it's CAS, but it's CAS at a kind of a basic level. There's some other things with respect to the link architecture that we're continuing to improve on so that we can hand off information to other airplanes and gain information from other airplanes. Q: Would you have a little bit more Intel about how the aircraft performed in the IOC readiness assessment? GEN CARLISLE: We had an interim readiness assessment by our operational test folks that put the airplane through its paces. We put it in different environments. We put it in challenging environments. I will tell you the things that you've probably heard from other folks: there's still some challenges with the displays on the scope and how you depict information. When you fuse that many sensors together -- and the fusion logic inside this airplane is fantastic you need to display and make it intuitive and logical to the person that is flying the airplane. We're still working on that and Block 3f will continue to improve it. Some of the things that operational testers discovered was that when they looked at the scope sometimes there were things that didn't make sense initially and they had to go to one level deeper of information by putting the cursor over it. That really shouldn't have to be done and we'll correct that as we get to Block 3f. We don't call them workarounds, we call them tactics, techniques and procedures. So TTPs. What the operational testers tell you, what the folks that are flying it today in training scenarios that are very challenging will tell you is that they're adapting to the airplane and learning where the information is coming from and where to get the best information. I think the other was some of what we call PVI, or pilot-vehicle interface, where you make things happen with respect to your sensor suite, your comms suite and your navigation suite. You do it by what's called HOTAS or Hands on Target and Stick, so you don't have to move your hands to change knobs. And we're working on some of those where again, you maybe have to do too many actions to get to a particular mode. We'll change those as we continue to improve in Block 3f.

3 Q: I just want to ask you, in very non-technical terms, because this plane has been getting a barrage of negative publicity for years and the average American has probably heard this is the biggest boondoggle ever. So leaving out all the technical stuff and talking to the American people, what are taxpayers getting for their money? Is this the plane that the U.S. Military needs and should have? GEN CARLISLE: In my opinion, it most definitely is. We are not at full operational capability. We will evolve this airplane and continue to improve it just like we have every airplane in history. And as we hit the block 3f and Block 4 we can get more in the airplane. The fact of the matter is, on this airplane the cost is continuing to come down and the most recent estimates from the program office are that it will be an $80 to $84 million price tag per airplane. We're going to get more planes and better capability with respect to its ability to take information, gather information and fuse data from multiple sources and present it to the pilot in a way that is situational awareness-enhancing for him. It will allow this airplane, with this massive amount of information and fusion and its ability to operate in a contested environment with stealth qualities to dominate the airspace. So the fact of the matter is, this airplane, like the F-22 did, is going to give us capabilities we do not have in the United States military today. It's a fantastic airplane and we continue to improve it. Q: But is it a boondoggle? GEN CARLISLE: Not at all. It is a fantastic airplane. It is something that the American military, given the national security strategy, needs. We look at the potential adversaries out there, the potential climates that we'll have to operate this airplane in, the attributes that the F-35 brings, the ability to operate in contested airspace, the ability to maneuver, to deliver precision munitions, the sensor suite that fuses data from multiple information sources, it's something our nation needs to be able to do what we're asked to do. Q: General, let me try it from a slightly different angle. We know you still dream about having more F-22s but that's not going to happen. Do we have an inferior aircraft to the F-22 and are we buying it in large numbers basically to make up for what we didn't buy with the F-22? GEN CARLISLE: No. Inferior is not a word that I would use with this aircraft. I think the way that I'd term it, and it's not the first time you've heard me say it, is that the F-35 is the best airto-air airplane in the world, except for the F-22. The F-22 is the best air-to-ground airplane in the world, except for the F-35. It's a combination. We see these airplanes operating in concert with 5th Generation F-22s and B-21s as well as 4th Generation airplanes and how they make the 4th Generation better. When we look at the primary mission of the F-35 and its ability to do the air-to- ground part, plus the spectrum of other missions it is the best capability airplane in the world. With its electronic warfare suite, its sensor suite, the stealth qualities, it's an amazing aircraft. It is a fantastic aircraft and it is an incredible air-to-air airplane. However, it's not the F-22 with respect to maneuverability.

4 Q: The Marines declared IOC last year and combat ready, but it still hasn't seen combat. Why do you think this is and would you release the F-35 for combat now? GEN CARLISLE: That's a great question we faced with the F-22, frankly when for a long time the F-22 was operational but it hadn't been employed in combat. We field capabilities that the combatant commanders want. So like in the case of the F- 22, if the combatant commanders are not calling for the active use of the capabilities the F-35B has, the Marines won't deploy it. And it's kind of how I started off. If the combatant commander called me and requested the capabilities the F-35 possesses, I would in fact deploy it. I would employ it in a combat zone for the missions that it is uniquely qualified to do, and I'd have all the confidence in the world that this airplane could do those combat missions. We'd use tactics, techniques and procedures, we'd make sure our pilots are trained as they are today to do the missions that we would ask them to do. So yes, I would deploy a squadron with some number of airplanes with IOC if the combatant commander needed them. Q: [Inaudible] GEN CARLISLE: We are doing missions. There's a Korea force package, there's the F-22s there's the EF-18 Prowlers, there's other things, attributes that we've put together. We do force package for the threat and the environment we're going to operate in. We will do it in concert with other airplanes. The fact of the matter is the F-35 has the stealth qualities to be able to penetrate contested airspace. Its ability to work its onboard sensor suite and deliver precision munitions give it some attributes that not many other airplanes have. The only other one that can do the contested environments right now is the F-22. There is a huge demand on the Air Force. If you look at the rotational presence we have as well as our operational plans to meet something that could happen potentially in the European theater or the Pacific theater, I am the person that has to manage the global force management and figure out where I'm going to get the airplanes to fill all these combatant commanders needs. So as I look at bringing the F-35 on, I need it so I can use it for the demands the combatant commanders are putting on the force structure that we have in the Air Force today. Q: Can you take me through the timeline for this jet from concept to combat, very briefly? GEN CARLISLE: Well, I'm probably not the right person to do that. I can give you my opinion, but I think the Joint Program Office would be able to get you that. As it came online with three variants, there was the idea that the program would be joint from the outset. You had the Department of the Navy and the Department of the Air Force building three different variants of the same airplane. We also started with partners helping develop it that were our closest friends and allies. We hadn't done that before. Certainly at that level with this size program there were challenges. I think the program office would be better equipped to talk about that. The Department of Defense, with the contractor had a problem with the idea that we could do the development, the engineering, manufacturing and development, and at the same time we would produce the airplane. It was commonly referred to as concurrency. We thought we had learned enough from the F-22 and the work that we had done with the acquisition process that we could do it simultaneously: produce airplanes and do the engineering, manufacturing and development. That proved to be a challenge. I believe that we've gotten through that portion of the challenge for the aircraft.

5 From my perspective -- and I see the perspective of the A model because that's the one I'm most versed in -- the successes and the trends are exactly where we need them. So obviously the B model had some challenges, and again, I'm not the person to talk about that, as we've covered, but it's doing very well flying for the Marines. Our A model had some challenges but we re happy with the trend lines and where we're going with that. This is initial operational capability and we're getting closer to fully operational capability with the Block 3fs and the follow-on modernization in Block 4. Q: My understanding is the F-35 unit intelligence support doesn t have access to the mission planning software that the aircraft uses and currently inherent post missions, such as the weapons systems video, cannot be created or disseminated. Do you know at what point you re going to address this? GEN CARLISLE: Our biggest challenge are our training units at Luke and Eglin. The airplanes rolling off the line today and the ones going to Hill have addressed those issues already. So we re already better in that. Part of the problem is going back and correcting those earlier airplanes and putting that software in the earlier airplanes, so we are making progress on that right now, I can get you a more detailed answer. But we are seeing the folks at Hill with the airplanes rolling off the lines today have already addressed those problems Q. Which problems you have addressed? GEN CARLISLE: The debrief capability and the post mission creation of the events that have occurred in the mission. Q. Would that require another block upgrade? GEN CARLISLE It s not a block upgrade, it s more equipment and the training equipment and some of the stuff that s back in the squadron, as well as some modifications to the software on the airplane. Q: So my question is, we've talked about all the software fixes, but there are some fixes like the ejection seat? GEN CARLISLE: I would send it, if we needed to send it into that AOR the combatant commander asked for. On the ejection seat, we've been working very closely with Martin Baker, and that was a limitation that we had to correct: the full spectrum of the weight of the pilots. Unfortunately we had some smaller pilots that hadn't been able to fly the airplane because of some of those challenges.

6 Q: So is it lifted now? GEN CARLISLE: No it's not lifted. But what we've discovered is we went back to Martin Baker and said we had to get through the full envelope with the ejection seat and they've done a lot of work on it and I'll tell you that I had a briefing a little while ago and they're about to bring me the most updated information they have and I think they've made very good progress in solving the challenges that they've had. It appears, at least at first glance, that they may have gotten to the full envelope in a representative manner with some modifications to the seat. So I'm awaiting that data. I haven't seen it all yet, but it looks very good. As you know, we've also went back and asked the program office to at least examine what it would take to retrofit to a different seat. So we've looked at like we did with the helmet when we had the helmet problem and we had an alternate path if we needed to go that way. Of course, we fixed it and the helmet is performing very well now. So the ejection seat, Martin Baker is working very hard on it and we've seen positive progress on it, and I'll get that brief shortly, but we've got an alternate path to go down or examine. Q: [Inaudible] GEN CARLISLE: You'll have to ask Gen. Harrigian when he's going to ask for the airplane. I think that where we need to be at right now with respect to the current fight that's going on in the Middle East. I think our assets are doing great work and our Airmen are doing great work. Q: So just a follow up, what are the merits of sending the F-35 to somewhere like Syria where you already have the F-22, versus sending the F-35 to Europe for air policing or going against Russia. GEN CARLISLE: There's a couple of things in there. One is some of our partners and allies are very interested in seeing the airplane. I think many of our partners and allies are really interested in interoperability. Recently at Langley we did a trilateral exercise with the French Rafale, British Typhoons and F-22s and that interoperability exercise was fantastic for all three countries. So I think that when the F-35 deploys to places like the European theater or the Pacific theater it will give our allies and partners confidence in the F-35. It will also give them a chance to see it in operation and see it in interoperability, working with their 4th Generation airplanes. As I've said all along, the F-35, like the F-22, when it operates with 4th Generation airplanes, makes 4th Generation airplanes that much better. It brings up the game of their entire fight because it has so much capability and situational awareness.

7 Q: Are there lessons that you've learned from the F-22 program when it actually took many years to actually deploy the F-22 that you might apply to this situation? GEN CARLISLE: I was the Air Force A-3/5 and worked in the building when the F-22 became operational and we didn't deploy it. We were ready to. There were actually on a couple of occasions when we were going to send it into different theaters, and we didn't because it was -- or at least people would have thought -- it was too provocative to send. So it was less about it not being able to, or us not wanting to, it was more the message that it sent and why we wouldn't send it over there. We didn't send it to the Middle East because it was considered to be a provocative move if we sent the only 5th Generation fighter in the world into that environment, so we didn't send it. I think the F-35, if you look at our partners, if you look at us, look at our Navy and Marine counterparts, I think you will see that airplane out there much quicker. Well, the Marines already have it in the Pacific Theater. And you'll see the airplane out there operating with our partners. Last week we had our first FMS students come through the training to fly the F-35. We have Australian airplanes there, so we're already seeing that occur. So that's different than the F-22. Q: Would you send it into the European theater in the near future? GEN CARLISLE: I'm not the policy person, I'm the operator. So from my perspective I think it sends a good signal. I think when you sent F-22s to the European theater there was great messaging that goes along with that and great capabilities with that. And I think sending F- 35s, -- we just had them at the Royal International Air Show and Fairford -- reassures friends and allies and it is a deterrent. Q. The original plan was to buy 110 a year and 48 a year would take you until the late '40s to buy out the full buy. What's the plan? Is it to get up to 110? Is it 80? Is it 60? How realistic is that in the near future. GEN CARLISLE: That's a great question. The discussion often goes to how many are we going to buy. That's a decision that can be made later. I need more, faster to replace aging aircraft, to get to more economical quantities. You know if you buy more it drives the cost down. My concern is I need more soon to replace all these old airplanes and airplanes that are going to require money to do service life extensions if I don't replace them with the F-35. So I would like to see the numbers go up to at least 60 if I can. Eighty would be optimal, but give the fiscal constraints that we're under today, 80 would be very hard to get to. But the Air Force is working within the top line that we're given and everything else that we're trying to do and we're trying to get to 60 with the airplanes and that is a challenge. The buy rate is one of the most important things. Q: And just following up on that, the F-22, the training airplanes haven't kept pace with what's on the more operational models. Do you expect to follow that model with the F- 35 and keep the schoolhouse airplanes at kind of a basic level of capability? GEN CARLISLE: We would like to keep them at the same level as the combat-coded aircraft. Optimally, the F-22 training-coded airplanes would be the same as the combat coded. We're examining what it would take to do that. And if it eases the training burden and makes them available in case of some kind of contingency, there's many benefits to doing that. So we're looking at it for the F-22. We haven't figured out the money yet to do that. Lockheed is helping us look at what it actually costs to do that. With the F-35 we would like to mod our own block airplanes and have a vast majority of them training coded to match the combat coded.

8 Q: Do you have any plans with deploy the F-35 at Kadena Air Base in future? And if you have, when? GEN CARLISLE: We will be putting it in Eielson Air Force Base, which is a Pacific theater base, But when it will get to Kadena or somewhere in WestPac, or somewhere west of the dateline I don't know when, because we're still working the beddown plan. I had a chance to talk to the Japan Self Defense Force when I called all the air chiefs to tell them we were going to make this initial announcement. He was very eager to have this airplane. He has some pilots in training at Luke Air Force base right now. Q: Are there certain combat missions, not training missions, combat missions, being carried out today by U.S. Aircraft that you could reasonably allow the F-35 to handle, given all its current limitations. Yeah. I could do, it would be very easy when you have pre-planned strike missions and oncall interdiction missions. There's many of those missions that I can support and air superiority can use them in that role as well. In defensive counter-air, or offensive counter-air. We could use it in many different missions. It would depend on the threat environment. But there are missions that are being conducted today that the F-35 could perform. Q: So you think we could reasonably see it soon going to the Middle East or... Well again, I'm not going to talk for the Combatant Commander or the Joint Force Component Commander, but you know, we have a global force management process where we put airplanes into the rotational process. Right now the F-35 on a rotational move to the Middle East is not happening in the near term. It is scheduled for down the road, but again, it's something that if the Combatant Commander needed it, they would ask for it and we would send it. Q: You said in the past the F-35 would be an expensive way to go after close air support missions in a permissive environment. As you look forward, what do you think about the Air Force's proposal to potentially introduce a low-end close air support aircraft sooner? What's your thought path to bringing down the cost per flight hour of the F-35? The idea of a low-end CAS platform is being discussed inside the Air Force. It's one that I'm struggling with a little bit in that given the evolving threat environment I sometimes wonder what permissive in the future will look like. With the proliferation of potential adversaries out there and their threats and we look at some of the challenges going on in the Middle East today with airplanes being shot down, helicopters shot down, so when I look at a permissive paths environment airplane, five, seven, 10 years from now, I'm not sure what that is going to look like from my perspective. I'm working my way through whether that's a viable plan or not given what I think the threat is going to continue to evolve to. To include the terrorist front and their ability to get their hands on potential weapons from a variety of sources. Statesponsored terrorism has state sponsored capabilities. So that's my problem. The other problem I have, is that if you look at the things within the Combat Air Forces portfolio that I'm responsible for and the modernization and taking care of those systems, I don't know where the money would come from. And if we got extra money, in my opinion, there are other things that I would do first to increase our combat capability before I would go to that platform. Right now, that's how I see it. This is really early in the preliminary stages. Obviously Secretary James, Gen. Goldfein are looking at this, and I think it's the right thing to do, to examine it, and that's what we're doing right now.

9 Q: And what about cost per flight hour? We're working hard on cost per flight hour. A great example is the LO maintainability. This airplane is an order of magnitude better than the F-22 with respect to LO maintainability. As a matter of fact, we're taking things we learn on the F-35 and putting them on the F-22. We just did some seal on some panels that are significantly better and less expensive so it makes it much more maintainable. We're looking at it across the board on the logistics side for how you drive cost per flying hour down. Q: Will it get to the cost of the F-16? You know, I'd love it to. Whether it gets there or not, we're on the right path. We are on a trend going down, and it's been going down steep enough, but whether we get there or not, I don't know.