In naval aviation, the landing signal officer (LSO), or “paddles,” is critical to the safe launch and recovery of aircraft to carriers and large-deck amphibious ships. For the latter, the short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) LSO is responsible for training fixed-wing pilots to conduct safe and expeditious launch and recovery of their aircraft during day and night.
Currently, the Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II community does not have enough LSOs for deployments, nor is there a clear way to solve this issue without making manpower sacrifices. To qualify as Marine Corps F-35B STOVL LSOs, individuals must monitor 25 vertical landings, control 25 vertical landings in the daytime, and monitor 20 and control 25 vertical landings at night. This requires, under the best circumstances, roughly 64 engine operating/flight hours (at roughly 7.8 maintenance manhours per flight hour) and more than 120 aircrew manhours. It requires four pilots planning, briefing, and conducting day and night carrier qualification, one training LSO providing instruction and mentoring, and one unqualified LSO being evaluated. This does not factor in aviation fuel costs, manhours associated with all shipboard personnel required for flight operations, or LSO support equipment such as performance calculation software and night-vision goggles.
A deploying F-35B squadron requires upward of 16 carrier-qualified F-35B pilots, 3 to 4 of whom are training as LSOs. Add to this the MV-22 Ospreys, CH-53 Super Stallions, and AH-1Z Vipers/UH-1Y Venoms that also need to conduct deck-landing qualifications on a Marine expeditionary unit (MEU) workup and one can see how the fight for available deck space could become contentious. This is typically why the aviation combat element continues carrier qualifications and deck-landing qualifications through the late-stage workups.
Learn from the Navy LSO Program
The Navy’s aircraft carrier (CVN) LSO school has the training curriculum down to a science. A robust academic and simulator package and a safety seminar that reviews mishaps and near misses prepare CVN LSOs to be successful at night on a pitching deck. The LSO school simulator provides a cost-effective means to get the “reps and sets” in a controlled environment to build and reinforce standards and fundamentals on the platform. With this foundation and the high volume of launches and recoveries on a CVN, LSOs can further refine their skills over the course of a few launch and recovery cycles.
The Marine Corps recently approved a STOVL LSO school, although it is barely more than a concept at this point. A STOVL LSO school with a simulator could drastically reduce the time to train an LSO from months, depending on ship availability and workup cycle, to weeks and reduce the cost per student as much as tenfold.
Partner Nation Integration and F-35B Interoperability
In the past few years, Marine Corps F-35B squadrons on board big-deck amphibious ships have worked with ally and partner nations that also operate the F-35. For example, while in the western Pacific near Okinawa in September 2021, two U.S. F-35Bs launched from HMS Queen Elizabeth, conducted an opposed-strike training mission, recovered on the USS America (LHA-6), refueled and reloaded ordnance, then launched on another opposed-strike training mission before finally returning to the Queen Elizabeth later that evening.
This evolution displayed both the interoperability and partner nation integration the F-35B brings. Contributing significantly to the success of these evolutions were the three U.S. LSOs with a combined eight MEU deployments and their ability to maintain standardization and adherence to procedures around the ship. This standardization is atrophying, as there will soon be five Marine aircraft groups with F-35Bs, not to mention more partner nation F-35B-capable ships.
This should further incentivize the Marine Corps to establish its own F-35B STOVL LSO school. Without this, the service will not be able to afford the $3–4 million to train a single LSO. A properly funded school with a simulator could reduce that cost to roughly $500,000 to $1,000,000 per LSO and allow a throughput to support U.S. MEU operations and partner integration. In addition to properly training and standardizing the Marine Corps LSO cadre, this STOVL center of excellence could be a liaison to help standardize shipboard and expeditionary landing site supervision with other countries that operate the F-35B.
Supporting EABO
In a future fight, expeditionary advanced bases and sea basing would require solutions that address the tyranny of distance. As the Navy and Marine Corps continue to research these, they must look to the interoperability of the F-35B to identify austere landing sites or partner-nation F-35B-capable ships. Memoranda of agreement on standard LSO certification requirements with F-35B-capable partner nations would be a huge leap in integration and interoperability. However, this cannot be done without first establishing and staffing an F-35B STOVL LSO school so it can accommodate partner nation students.
Vast distances will have to be covered and creative solutions devised to extend aircraft range. Marine Corps aviators will continue to support Marines on the ground as part of the stand-in force. Operating efficiently in this environment will rely heavily on standardization in the F-35B fleet and among partner nation F-35B-capable ships. Arriving to another ship or an austere site and knowing how to aviate, navigate, and communicate to land, rearm, refuel, and launch is something the Marine Corps F-35B fleet has practiced only a few times on a small scale. Taxiways have been used to simulate austere F-35B expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) sites. A STOVL LSO school also would establish and update EABO procedures for the F-35B.
Standardizing these procedures and training LSOs in a formalized setting would help ensure future success. If the Marine Corps is truly committed to Force Design 2030 and training to its pacing threat, the excuse that “we cannot afford the bodies to staff a schoolhouse” will no longer suffice. To continue down this path is negligent at worst and naïve at best.