Navy Grapples with Slow Strike Fighter Training Output, Admiral Says

A T-45C Goshawk attached to Training Air Wing (TW) 1 lands on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) during commander, Naval Air Training Command carrier qualifications, March 14, 2021. U.S. NAVY / Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Jackson Adkins

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is struggling with supplying the fleet with enough strike fighter pilots to fill its squadrons, but is seeing some progress after resolving some training aircraft issues. 

The strike fighter training pipeline is “too darn long,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Harris, the Navy’s director for Air Warfare, speaking this week in a Navy League Special Topic Breakfast webinar, sponsored by General Dynamics. “We have had significant delays over a number of years inside that program. Flat out early, we underloaded the program because we were having difficulties, so we did not pull in enough aviators, which led to some of our strike fighter pilot shortfall that we have right now.”

Harris also said the Navy has had “a number of different issues associated with different aircraft inside the series,” referring to the daunting problems with the T-45 strike training jet’s oxygen system, which resulted in a pause in training pending corrective actions.  

“We made our way through that and started pushing up production in the T-45 line,” he said, “But we [also] went through some hiccups with our T-6. We switched vendors for the supply side of the T-6 and that caused perturbations down in the primary training. We have managed to make our way widely through the T-6 piece very successfully, pushing students through aggressively into the helicopter syllabus and now we’re getting all cylinders cooking in the strike fighter syllabus.” 

The admiral noted that training delays also occurred in the strike fighter fleet replacement squadron (FRS) on the West Coast (Strike Fighter Squadron 122) with the low aircraft mission capable rates a few years ago that now have risen to 80% or greater.  

“That helped to alleviate the pressure on the FRS there in [Naval Air Station] Lemoore, California,” he said. “We have that FRS now moving at full speed. So, for beginning to end for a strike fighter pilot, it should be roughly 2 ½ years. It’s taking three years and sometimes a little bit more to get those students through.”

Harris said his own son was awarded his aviator wings last week after a time “much longer than I would have liked” in the pipeline, but he noted that another aviator winged during the same ceremony completed the syllabus in 9.5 months, the design duration, evidence that progress is being made in shortening the time in training. 

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Richard R. Burgess, Senior Editor