WASHINGTON — The Navy’s air warfare director told Congress that some of the service’s experienced aviators are “ready” to leave the service, citing fewer flying opportunities and quality-of-life issues.

Rear Adm. Scott D. Conn, testifying April 10 before the Seapower subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, cited a Government Accountability Office report that said that Navy pilot shortage was 9% overall and 26% in first-tour aviators.

Conn said some of the shortages were tied to the grounding of T-45 jet trainers when the Navy was investigating oxygen system problems.

“We’re going to have to extend people in assignments or rotate people or, as squadrons are in the maintenance or basic phase [of training], maybe we don’t push those people to them,” Conn said.

“Some of the authorities you have given us, in terms of bonuses, the department head bonus, and the increase of rates, has had some impact across most types/models/series [of aircraft communities],” he said. “We have seen no impact in the [strike-fighter] community.”

Responding to a question about aviator accession from Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), Conn said the Navy was “bringing in our goal.”

Retention is a concern, Conn noted.

“We’re seeing a lot of experienced [aviators] — some of our best — deciding to go to other things,” he said. “We’re in a competition for talent. The airlines are continuing to hire. Some of these folks are going to grad school. Some are starting their own businesses. The economy is doing well.”

He added: “It is a challenge that we have particularly at the more senior levels.”

The Navy has every departing pilot complete a survey. Conn said that three factors are the most influential in aviator departures: First, “not doing what they signed up for — they’re not flying enough, which means we need to get our readiness where it needs to be to get them in the air. Two: some quality-of-life issues, more so in our nonfleet concentration areas, [Naval Air Station] Lemoore being one of them. Three is the pay gap.”

WASHINGTON — The Navy and Marine Corps’ strike fighter inventory shortfall is easing even as the Navy slows its aircraft procurement to pay some bills to improve readiness, the Navy’s director of air warfare told Congress.

Rear Adm. Scott D. Conn, testifying April 10 before the Seapower subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, responded to a question from Sen. Maize Hirono (D-Hawaii) as to why the Navy’s planned strike fighter procurement over the fiscal 2020 five-year Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) was 289, compared with 308 planned in the 2019 FYDP.

“Quite frankly, some of the reduction in aircraft [was] to pay bills,” Conn said, including getting “wholeness in some weapon systems.”

“F-35 C2D2 [Continuous Capability Development and Delivery strategy] Block 4 came with a bill that we had to pay,” he said, regarding the next phase of F-35 development.

“In terms of strike fighter inventory management, our lowest point based on PB20 [President’s Budget 2020] is about a 51-aircraft deficit in [fiscal 2020],” he said. “That decreases to single digits by FY24. That is [being accomplished] through the F/A-18 procurement in PB20, the F-35C procurement in PB20 and also the service-life modernization effort, taking those Block II [Super] Hornets, making them Block III, getting them to 10,000 hours.”

Conn said the Navy finally is in a position “of buying and producing more aircraft than we are burning up every year in terms of flight hours. That’s going to allow us to get out of older airplanes, provide best-of-breed opportunities for the Marine Corps, to enable us to start to strike some of our old airplanes, [such as] Block Is that will never be Block IIIs. It provides enormous opportunity in this budget request.”

Conn also credited a sustainment system introduced in January in bringing the “‘best of industry’ to look at the various functions we do to maintain our aircraft — at the depot level, at the squadron level, how we do engineering, how we do supply — and we’ve seen some pretty good results from targeted focus in [Naval Air Station] Lemoore, California, and FRC [Fleet Readiness Center] Southwest [in Naval Station North Island, California].

He said the Navy has been able to reduce planned maintenance intervals for Super Hornets from 120 days to 60 days.

“And the quality of product is better,” he said. “It’s getting on the flight schedule in a week, let alone weeks or months. We’ve been able to reduce our turnaround time 40% for some of our highest degrader list [items]: generators, interrogators and displays in cockpits. We’ve been able to drive down backlogs in servo cylinders that were keeping our aircraft down. We had a backlog of 60 of those parts in January. We got it down to zero in March. All that is allowing us to improve the mission-capable rate.”

Conn noted that in January the Navy had about 257 mission-capable Super Hornets. “Last week, we had a high — a snapshot in time — of 304. 80% would be 320 of the roughly 400 [primary mission aircraft inventory].”

ARLINGTON, Virginia — President Trump has formally nominated two generals to serve as the next chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In an April 9 announcement, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan said that Army Gen. Mark A. Milley had been nominated for “appointment to the rank of general and assignment as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Shanahan also said that Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten had been nominated for appointment to the rank of general and assignment as Joint Chiefs vice chairman.

Milley serves as the Army chief of staff. Hyten is commander of U.S. Strategic Command. If confirmed by the Senate, they would replace Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. and Air Force Gen. Paul J. Selva as chairman and vice chairman, respectively.

Shanahan announced two other nominations:

Trump has nominated Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Eric M. Smith for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and assignment as deputy commandant for Combat Development and Integration, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, and commanding general, Marine Corps Combat Development Command. Smith serves as the commanding general, III Marine Expeditionary Force, and commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Japan, Okinawa. He would succeed Lt. Gen. David H. Berger, whose nomination to be the next commandant of the Marine Corps was announced March 27.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Eric T. Fick was nominated for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and assignment as director, Joint Strike Fighter Program, Office of the Secretary of Defense. Fick serves as deputy director of the office. He would succeed Navy Vice Adm. Mathias W. Winter.

WASHINGTON — The Coast Guard’s top officer told Congress that there have been some cases of “sanctuary” localities failing to cooperate on a law-enforcement case, but that such events are “anomalous.”

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl L. Schultz testified April 9 before a joint hearing on Capitol Hill of the Transportation and Maritime Security subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

“I have been told that some of the sanctuary state and city programs are actually inhibiting cooperation between local governments and the Coast Guard,” Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Arizona), the ranking member, said, addressing Schultz. “Have you heard any of that and can you explain it?”

“The Coast Guard absolutely exists on partnerships,” Schultz replied. “We’re the lead law-enforcement agency in the maritime domain and we work with state and local folks.

“There have been some examples in Southern California,” Schulz said. “I would say they’re anomalous, not day to day. Day to day, we continue to work well, but I’ve talked to field commanders in recent visits who tell me we don’t have 100% predictability that a local sheriff or a local police marine unit is going to launch on a case to the degree that we had yesteryear. But we’re working across those things It’s not something that I think is a big inhibitor to our mission, but I have heard some of those stories.”

WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps’ fleet of AV-8B Harrier II attack aircraft may serve until 2028, the Corps’ aviation chief told Congress, a two-year extension of the previous plan.

“We will continue to be a fourth-gen/fifth-gen [tactical aircraft] fleet out until about 2030, with Harriers probably going to 2028 and F/A-18s going to 2030-2031,” said Lt. Gen. Steven R. Rudder, the Marine Corps’ deputy commandant for aviation. He testified April 4 during a hearing of the Tactical Air and Ground Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

The Corps earlier had extended the Harrier’s planned service out to 2026 in view of the delays in the F-35B Lightning II joint strike fighter. Rudder’s comment indicates that the Harrier may serve until 2028, three years longer than planned.

The F-35B has deployed on two amphibious assault ships, USS Wasp and USS Essex, flying the aircraft’s first combat missions in September from the deck of the Essex.

According to one source, a planned F-35B deployment on a third ship this year was assumed instead by a detachment of AV-8Bs.

Rudder said the Corps plans to achieve a 100% fifth-generation tactical fighter force by 2030. He said the mixture percentage of fourth-gen to fifth-gen fighters in the Marine Corps today is 80-20.

The Marine Corps operates three operational F-35B squadrons and its first F-35C squadron, VMFA-314, is in transition.

WASHINGTON — The Navy’s director of air warfare said the service expects to deploy the MQ-4C Triton high-altitude, high-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle later this year.

“The Triton is going forward this year, probably later this summer,” Rear Adm. Scott D. Conn, director of air warfare in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, said during an April 4 hearing of the Tactical Air and Ground Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

The deployment will mark the achievement of Early Operational Capability, which originally was planned for last year at Andersen Air Force on Guam for two MQ-4Cs assigned to Unmanned Patrol Squadron 19. The deployment was postponed when one of the two Tritons experienced a landing mishap on Sept. 13 at Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California.

The MQ-4C eventually will be deployed to several bases and will be used to establish five orbits — patrols — with a 24/7 presence over the oceans. Its sensors will be used to search for, detect and identify shipping and other targets of interest. The Triton will work closely with the Navy’s fleet of P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.

“We’re going to continue to build capability and capacity with that system,” Conn said, noting that the capacity and capability need to be increased before the Navy can retire its EP-3E electronic reconnaissance aircraft in 2021. “We are on track to do that.”

WASHINGTON — The Navy’s analysis of alternatives (AoA) for its next-generation air-dominance fighter aircraft is almost finished, a Navy admiral told Congress.

“That AoA will be complete this spring,” Rear Adm. Scott D. Conn, director of air warfare in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, said during an April 4 hearing of the Tactical Air and Ground Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

“The final report will come out this summer, and that will inform future choices reflected in future budget cycles in terms of what we need to do to get after the lethality that we need at a cost that we can afford.”

The F/A-XX air-dominance fighter will be a sixth-generation aircraft that eventually will succeed the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighter in the Navy’s carrier air wings.

The F-35C Lightning II joint strike fighter achieved Initial Operational Capability in February and will join the Super Hornet in carrier air wings. Strike Fighter Squadron 147 is the Navy’s first fleet F-35C squadron.

Conn said the Navy expects to attain a 50-50 percentage mix of F-35Cs and F/A-18E/Fs by about 2030. The Navy has ordered 78 Block III Super Hornets and plans to modify more than 100 older Super hornets to the Block III configuration.

“Any additional resources that would be available from an F-35 perspective would provide us some buffer to meet our transition schedule as we get transition squadrons from Super Hornets into the Joint Strike Fighter,” Conn said.

WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps plans to continue experimentation with its two K-Max cargo unmanned aerial vehicles (CUAVs) and hopes to procure more to add to experimentation in logistics for distributed operations.

“We see this as the future of distributed operations in how we logistically supply ourselves,” said Lt. Gen. Steven R. Rudder, the Marine Corps’ deputy commandant for aviation, responding to a question about an unfunded requirement for $18 million for the K-Max unmanned cargo helicopter from Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Connecticut) during an April 4 hearing of the Tactical Air and Ground Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

The Marine Corps owns two CQ-24A K-Max unmanned helicopters and deployed them to Afghanistan in 2011 through 2014 as an experiment in logistics to forward operating bases. Operated by contractors, they transported 4.5 million pounds of cargo, much of which would otherwise have been transported by 900 convoys of trucks through territory subject to ambush and improvised explosive devices.

“We endeavored to make them a program of record and are still working down that road,” Rudder said. “But we were not able to secure funding to get that flying in the fleet for test and operational usage for experimentation. We have since been able to secure funding for a cooperative research and development contract that we’re working with [the K-Max vendor].

“In the next few weeks [the two CUAVs] are going to be trucked back to Connecticut, and we’re going to give them to the vendor to let them work through a couple different things,” Rudder added. “One is autonomous logistics delivery. There are certain things you want on call but there are other things that you need going autonomously. The K-Max, with its lift capability and the way we conceive distributed operations in the future, if we get those airplanes, we’re going to configure them [the same] as we’re configuring a test vehicle in Connecticut with autonomy, which will allow them to have terrain-following radar and, [with] a push of a button, it will take the cargo to a particular point that was programmed in, drop that cargo and do it all day long. We’ve seen efficiencies with this over time.

“With the money we have funded right now — to do those two aircraft that we own — we will bring those back from Connecticut, hopefully by the end of next summer, to begin experimenting in [Marine Corps Air Station] Yuma [Arizona] and [Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center] Twentynine Palms [California], but the emphasis right now is to create a few more air vehicles so we can expand this usage,” he said.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has awarded two contracts to Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. to advance the fielding of the new MQ-4C Triton high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle.

Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) on April 1 awarded a $12.8 million contract modification to upgrade three Tritons “from a baseline Integrated Functional Capability (IFC) 3 software configuration to a Multi-IFC 4 software configuration,” the contract announcement said. “This modification updates drawings and associated technical data in support of the MQ-4C IFC software configuration upgrade.”

Northrop Grumman also was awarded a $7.2 million acquisition contract modification to extend “the period of performance and provides additional funding to procure long-lead components, material, parts and associated efforts required to maintain the MQ-4C Triton Unmanned Aircraft System planned low-rate initial production Lot 4 production schedule.”

Two MQ-4Cs have been delivered to the Navy’s Unmanned Patrol Squadron 19 detachment at Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California. The Triton was slated to reach Early Operational Capability last year with a deployment to Guam, but the deployment was put on hold after one of the MQ-4Cs was damaged in a landing mishap at Point Mugu.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The loss of a Marine Corps AH-1Z helicopter March 30 was the first crash of a U.S. naval aviation aircraft since the beginning of the calendar year.

Two Marine pilots were killed when the AH-1Z Viper helicopter gunship crashed in the vicinity of Yuma, Arizona, at about 8:45 p.m. March 30, according to a Marine Corps release.

“Both pilots were conducting a routine training mission as part of the Weapons and Tactics Instructor course 2-19,” the release said.

The training was being conducted by Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One based at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma. The helicopter was assigned to a Marine helicopter light attack squadron, but the identity of the specific squadron has not been released.

An AH-1Z carries a crew of two.

The cause of the crash is under investigation. The names of the deceased pilots have been withheld pending notification of their next of kin.