The [USMC] service is buying both the F-35B, which can take off from a short runway and land vertically, and the F-35C, which was built for Navy carrier operations. The Bravo, the Marine’s primary version of the fifth-generation jet, can land on a 500-foot strip—opening up the number of available operating bases across the Pacific. But
landing is just one piece of the puzzle. Several logistics hurdles remain to be worked out before the Marines can actually
operate F-35Bs on austere bases.
With no organic logistics support on these bases, the service needs to figure out how the jets will load up on gas and weapons when they land, Schmidt said.
“There's some other
non-taking off-and-landing stuff you gotta consider as well, which you can argue with the shorter deployment, we didn't really get a chance to test that,” he said.
Schmidt said the deployment proved that
Iwakuni is a viable base for F-35s attached to a MEU, but that was already an
established F-35 base, and there’s more work to be done to
find other viable bases to move jets forward.
“How do we
move the entire squadron off the ship to places in the
? How do you get that logistics support?” Schmidt said.
“If I'm maintaining a base or maintaining a hub or a spoke somewhere other than Iwakuni, now I've got to have support coming to me. So how do we work through that?”
