 Good morning. On behalf of CSIS, Dr. John Hamery and Dr. Kath Hicks and the U.S. Naval Institute, we welcome you to the next installment in our Maritime Security Dialogue series. The entire series is funded with a generous sponsorship of Lockheed Martin. I'd like to recognize our Admiral Stan Bosen, who is here today, who is our key sponsor at Lockheed Martin. Thank you. Our moderator today is Admiral Joseph Prier. Admiral Prier is a 1964 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. His last command was as Commander-in-Chief Pacific Sink Pack. I love the sound of that. He then served two presidents as ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 1999 to 2001. Foremost, a carrier-based attack pilot for his first 24 years of service, he also spent three years as a test pilot at Pax River. He has extensive flight and combat experience with over 5,600 flight hours and over 1,000 carrier landings. He was qualified in 52 different types of aircraft, held numerous senior operational commands, including two aircraft carrier wings, and led the formation of the Naval Strike Warfare Center at Fallon. Later, he was a Group Commander and Commander Sixth Fleet. We welcome Admiral Prier as our moderator, and I'll go directly into the other introductions. Admiral Prier, thank you for joining us here. Thanks, Pete. Lieutenant General John Davis is a Marine and a Naval Aviator. During his career, he's flown over 4,500 hours in the AV-8B Harrier, the F-5 and the F-A-18, and is co-pilot in every type model series of aircraft in the Marine Corps inventory. He commanded VMA-223 and the 2nd Marine Air Wing. He also served as Assistant Air Ops in the 3rd Maw in 2003 and in Iraq for their drive up to Baghdad. Lieutenant General Davis served as Deputy Commander of the Joint Functional Component Command Network Warfare at Fort Mead, and later came back as Deputy Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. He has served as Deputy Combinot for Aviation Headquarters Marine Corps, the leader of Marine Air, since June 2014. Welcome. Vice Admiral Mike Shoemaker is a 1982 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. During his career, he's accumulated 4,400 flight hours serving at 20 commands worldwide. He's commanded two fighter squadrons, a carrier air wing, two carrier strike groups, and served as the commander of Naval Air Forces Atlantic. He currently leads the entire Naval Aviation Force of the Navy, 10 deployable aircraft carriers and air wings, and more than 300 aviation commands. He has served in his current position as Commander Naval Air Force Pacific and as Commander Naval Air Forces U.S. Navy, the Air Boss, since January of this year. Let's give them all a big welcome. Okay, the heavy lifting is done. Good morning, and it's great to be here with all of you today. It's a particular thank you to CSIS and to the Naval Institute for hosting this event. You might think from the introductions that the people up here knew what they were talking about, but we'll see how that goes. My role is just to keep the things moving. But Pete offered me the chance to say a few sentences to use his words of introduction to sort of set the stage here. So let me try a few of them on you. Lieutenant General Davis and Mike Shoemaker, Vice Admiral Mike Shoemaker, and Mike's shoulders are ones on which I rode for a couple of years in the past, but they are foremost their leaders, their aviators, their tacticians, and they are people of great experience and skill. Their charge now and the jobs that they have now is to have both the people and the machinery of naval aviation ready to go at any time. And these missions are to support our nation's objectives as well as to support the troops on the ground. And it's a big job. They do this by having people trained and by having up aircraft. And these two things go together to give the capability to man our airwings and to man our carrier decks to respond in the world. So this is a big job that they have. In addition, they grapple with an acquisition system, which is in the process of delivering an airplane that has been in the works for two decades in order to get here. The challenges with this airplane are not primarily technical ones. They are bureaucratic ones and systematic ones in the acquisition process. And they grapple with that as well. Current readiness is what they are about. So what naval aviation does and what these guys are responsible for doing and for answering the bell each time is to respond to crises in the world for the nation's objectives with tactical air power and also to support troops and to have carrier airwings and aircraft carriers in place where rapid response is required or there are no land bases available. They are very able to do this and what you have here are two committed officers who are committed to the nation's well-being and they are accountable and responsible for responding and answering the bell for naval aviation in the world and they are going to tell you how they do it today. So I will turn it over now to Mike Shoemaker. Great. Well, thanks, Admiral. First off, I would like to just thank CSIS for hosting today. It is great to be here, certainly with my counterpart on the Marine Corps side, Dog Davis. Admiral Daly, thanks for enabling us to support in this event. And boss, great to see you again. Our time at SinkPak was I traveled all over the AOR out there and a great experience working with him and his wife Suzanne and I stood on his shoulders, not the other way around. So it is great to be here to talk about the future of naval aviation and Navy and Marine Corps aviation. And as you look around the world today, I will start with the fact that our naval forces and our strike groups in particular remain in high demand. And that's across all of our combatant commanders. They all would like, I think, to see a little more care strike group presence. They clearly understand the value that those carriers and air wings and the surface forces that accompany that strike group provide in terms of an undeniable deterrent value, the persistent forward presence, the access they provide, and then the options they give them to respond to, you know, from, you know, across the spectrum of threats and then to provide if needed, respond to natural disasters. Even in contested waters and airspace, our current air wing today can operate with given the maneuverability of the strike group and the composition of that air wing can operate in that environment. And so I'll talk about not so much today's air wing, but the future air wing, which is our focus today. First off, I'll give a lot of credit to my, one of my counterparts, my right-hand man in the Pentagon, we remember Mike Nasty Minnazer, who is the guy that does all of our aviation programming requirements. And as Admiral Priyer talked about, works through that acquisition process to deliver those capabilities that I need that I think the nation needs. And so he's been charted to drive toward our Naval Aviation Vision 2025, which Admiral Bus, ahead of me as the Air Boss, spent a lot of time working on last year. And that's a great document. And so as Nasty works that, he's been very, in a very tight environment, fiscal environment, and the challenges we have back there, been able to keep our tight model series transitions on track. He's been able to deliver those integrated warfighting capabilities that I need that the nation needs and our strike group commanders need. In terms of the platforms, the payloads, the sensors, and the networks. He's just done a superb job in that capacity and in a very, very tough environment. So if you look ahead in our future air wing, we've transitioned out of legacy platforms and into what we'll have probably for the next decade plus in a few communities. First one is in our EA 6Bs. We've gone out of prowlers. We did the sundown for the prowlers last month. We're totally transitioned now to the EFE 18G grower, which will provide the really the electromagnetic spectrum dominance in our in our strike groups and air wings of the future. It'll provide advanced airborne electronic attack, the ability to screen and protect our strike group and joint forces as well as support our joint joint forces on the ground. The the room in the Rotary Rotary world, our MH 60 Romeo and Sierra transitions are just about complete as well. We've got the last Foxtrot hotel squadron combination is out on Teddy Roosevelt right now when they come home, they'll transition that a complete a complete, you know, complete transition in that community from from legacy platforms to the Romeo, MH 60 Romeo and Sierra helicopters. The Romeo comes with a very capable anti surface warfare and a submarine warfare package. It delivers. It's got an airborne low frequency sensor, an advanced periscope detection system on board and you combine that with its data link, its radar, it's forward looking infrared radar, the instability, a very capable electronic warfare suite. It's a it is the inner defense zone against the submarine for the carrier strike group commander. Pair that up with our MH 60 Sierra's again designed to be in a surface warfare platform but just very complimentary to the Romeo works closely with our special operating forces provides our combat search and rescue for that for the air wing. Together a very potent combination and I got to watch them in action. Numerous times in striking command as we transit the Strait of Hormuz and then operate in North Arabian Gulf. In the electronic the airborne electronic AEW or airborne early warning or transition right now from our E2C's to E2D's. We've got two squatters transition one just about to complete back in in Oceana or in Norfolk. One is deployed the first is deployed right now in Teddy Roosevelt BW 125. This brings with its advanced radar new electronically scanned radar brings some incredible capabilities significant improvements and ability to search and track targets. And then also to command and control and coordinate the missions across the carrier strike group whether it be integrated air missile defense long range and surface warfare long range and air warfare. It is essentially the quarterback for the strike group and comes with some very very good capabilities in that Delta. In the strike fighter worlds we phase out of our legacy platforms will replace the legacy F 18 seat with our F 35 seeds and and that's been a bit of a slow process but one that we need to make need to need to happen and have a man has worked very hard to ensure that we deliver the initial operating capability of that that platform will be this in 2018 when the first water stands up in the more and then we'll gradually stand up to have hopefully about half of our will be you know one of those squatters each of our airwings into the middle middle or so of the of the next decade. And so that's a capability that we need to get to the to the airwings right now it comes with obviously with its with its stealth capabilities ability to penetrate both air and surface threat envelopes but probably the most important capability brings is ability of fuse information collect the the signals and things that are out in the environment they're fused it all together and deliver that fuse picture to the rest of the strike group through the networking that we've got we have designed there so very critical to the integrated warfighting capabilities that will come in that future air wing the and also pass all that information is said back to the E2 back to our other ships and and decision makers in the in the strike group. Our super hornets right now will remain that they're the bulk of our airwings right now well over three quarters of the air wing composition are super hornets and they'll continue into the you know obviously into the well into the next decade and beyond. And they're the workhorses of fleet ability to carry and deliver advanced advanced both air to air and air to surface weapons they'll be a perfect complement to the F 35 with a high low mix of capability in that future air wing that I think be very valuable. The Triton in one of our unmanned systems we've got I'm sorry we got back up here. So the last of the of the transitions will be the in our unmanned systems. The first of those is the is a fire scout which we've been flying now for we've got almost 15,000 hours operating that platform off of our frigates in support of special operating forces off the coast of Africa and then conducting counter and or not and our narcotics mission missions down off the coast of South America. So very proven proven platform will integrate it with our Romeo and Sierras into our into our LCS our littoral combat ships or whatever the small combat looks like in the future with the integrated packages that go with that. And so that that capability is being demonstrated right now forward in Singapore with a Romeo and a fire scout operating on Fort Worth and they've been there on a third rotation in that very successful detachment. Additionally unmanned world we've got Triton which will be essentially is to follow on from the broad area maritime surveillance demonstrated we had operating in fifth fleet for the last few years. I've got three of those air vehicles now it will provide our joint force commanders and our fleet commanders with a persistent maritime ISR intelligence surveillance reconnaissance capability designed to set up an orbit in each of our combatant command AORs which will give it a you know multi sensor package that will be able to feed that information fuse it and provide it to the to those decision makers. It'll complement the the the pH that will eventually come online. Again a very capable anti-submarine warfare platform that will can do the the entire anti-submarine warfare kill chain from the initial detection all the way up to engagement. So a complementary asset Triton will complement complement PA. Lastly in the unmanned world will be the unmanned carrier launched airborne surveillance and strike asset U-class. Obviously going through some reviews right now in the building and and I think is is a former strike group commander where I see that platform's value is clearly in where it can can operate inside those contestant environments provide the combatant commander or more importantly the strike group commander information ahead of the strike group moving into there essentially the eyes and ears of the of the carrier strike group manors you move into that contestant environment ability to conduct integrated targeting integrated targeting and an ID capability feed that information again back to the networks to the strike group. You put it all together in our advanced in our advanced four class carriers which will deliver in the spring of 2016 and that I think that will be the nucleus of our future carrier strike group so very capable air wing paired up with that that that platform very critical enabler of us power projection well into the 21st century. Again everyone others talked at length about the value of that platform. I'll hold off I want to talk a little more about Ford later but but suffice to say that I think when you put that air wing in the future together with Ford we've got a very very capable lethal combination that can sail and operate in contested waters and airspace around the world. Lastly I think the you know everyone mentioned the current readiness challenges that we have and and general Davis will talk of this as well as a type commander that's my responsibility is to ensure that that force going forward as man training equip for success and we're challenged right now in that current environment. It comes from you know about a decade plus 14 years or so of of you know sustained combat operations and has taken his toll on the force and we're looking now to reset and recapitalize a bit and that our optimized fleet response plan which fleet forces has developed were just in the throes of getting the final implementation of that plan. I think that'll give us an opportunity to provide those windows where we can get our carry maintenance and maintenance done our aircraft as well as predictable deployment lengths inside of a 36 month or 36 month cycle. And so I think as we move into that into that OFRP plan it'll give us the the regular deployment deployments that our that CINOS talked about our sailors are looking looking for and then the predictability for them and also the ability to surge outside of those deployment windows. I think that'll that I think that will allow us to to focus on that reset and recapitalization. So I'm looking for to deliver that capability. So wrap up I couldn't be more proud of what our sailors are doing around the world right now at CINOS shore as they as they represent the United States Navy and represent the nation. So thank you. Thanks you dog. Thanks sir. Thanks for being such a good teammate. Good morning everybody. It's a real honor to be here. I know a lot of faces in the crowd and thanks for all you do to keep our nation safe to keep the fence at the top of everybody's interest out there. Thanks to our foreign partners for being out here. We couldn't do it without you. I'm a I'm a I'm a very proud naval officer. A very proud naval officer. One of the first of my family and now my family's got a lot of Marines and sailors associated with it. But I'm also a very proud Marine. United States Marine Corps exists for one purpose. That's to be the nation's force and readiness ready to deploy and move out at a moment's notice and fight our nation's nation's battles wherever and wherever they may fall right against any foe in a climate any place. So coin on my realm. The sole reason I exist is to provide General Dumford and my Marine Corps with ready aircraft ready crews ready to go take that fight from sea bases and shore bases expedition bases ashore. The Marine Corps has unique gear that allows us to flow from a sea base and flow ashore and back again. It's an imperative that our gear can do can do that equally well. So unique allows extreme agility but also looking for the combat power out there to strike that blow when need be and also to as General Mattis used to say no worse enemy. We're focused on that the war fighting capabilities but also to no better friend. Okay when the problems happen out there in the world the natural disasters you want Marine and Navy forces offshore ready to come ashore and we're actually we take great pride be all do that. If you can move men in material ashore provide combat power you can also provide the food and the logistics that people need to sustain themselves in their darkest hour. I'll tell you I've got a couple of main focuses and I think ever for you said it said it the best it's about machines but really I'd invert that it's actually more about the people. Number one thing is is that we're going to equip the man not man the equipment and we're going to give our Marines the very best tools to go take the fight them and do what they've got to do. So for me if my number one job is readiness I've got some challenges out there I'll talk about that just as you had talked about in the current race realm but three main jobs for the deputy command off for aviation. One future the building the future force future combat capability and for the Marine Corps recapitalizing the entire fleet of marine aircraft we're in the process of doing that we're about halfway through a process we started before 9-11 2001 right so we're about halfway through that's we're executing the plan we started back in the late 90s we're executing that plan now and we've been doing that oh by the way well we've engaged in 14 years of conflict alright in combat hard combat and to a large degree United States Marine Corps still for deployed and still out there and still fighting our deployment to dwell ratios are still very very low which is a bad thing we're still a good if you want to be busy bad if you're trying to recapitalize or reset the force we are out there for deployed many of our tackier units are one to two dwell that's right at the razor's edge of not being able to train the next wave getting ready to go very very busy so building the future force recapitalizing I'll talk about the platforms are doing that with the other one is current readiness future readiness new stuff current rain says the current stuff being Marines being good stewards of taxpayers dollar trying to extract maximum utility maximum value of everything we own I'll tell you we're not doing a very good job of that right now and that's my it's got a lot taking a lot of my brain cells right now how we extract maximum value of all the gear that we have and provide maximum readiness to that gear we have very very good combat improvement equipment it is old but it is good okay properly maintained we can still get more life out of that we're going to extract every ounce of life out of platforms every ounce of combat capability to fight the name of the battles at winter nations balance we can transition transition to will be very proud to turn those airplanes into the boneyard when we're done with that will be good airplanes at the height of their combat capability as we transition the new stuff because the threats that luminar bow require the new gear last but not least is what we called basically connecting the Marine Aircraft Task Force so we're buying very high-end gear we want to connect that to the most potent war fighting asset in the battlefield which the Marine Corps put the point in the sphere so taking systems and the sensors the capabilities have my aviation component and pushing that down to the man on the ground the Marine on the ground because at the end of the day the Marine Corps fights is this Marine Aircraft Task Force we do pretty well fighting joint we take great pride that joint in combined but we we are kind of designed for fit function to be in a Marine Aircraft Task Force that's way we've been trained from the day we come in the Marine Corps it's how we process that it's how we plan and I think it provides that extra combat agility and combat capability in the battlefield that gives us kind of our own little mini joint force in a microcosm we say so we've got our future gear that we're buying the current gear that we're going to maintain the sustain and we're going to connect that in many ways we are moving out of the single mission platform so how do you extract maximum utility out of everything you have you make everything multi-mission everything multi-mission every platform or sensor every platform a shearer every platform or shooter what am I talking about we took a C-130J and we made it into an airplane called harvest talk okay it was very difficult to get it through the hill but they they approved that but half the airplane is an air refueler the other half the airplane is a weapons platform so I can pass gas and shoot at the same time but in the same mission home out there we use that to great effect in Iraq and Afghanistan we had a relatively low threat environment over the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan with harvest talk we could have a tanker that's up there passing gas could also have an airplane up there with a sensor that could do convoy escort watch overwatch the roads but also to a small yield precision weapons that our crews are trained to use and flow great effect going to put an airy fueling package in a v-22 called farce why would you do that because we need it to have an airplane can do that putting a rear airy fueling capability in v-22 allows the past ten thousand pounds of gas to the strikers or the helicopters or tilt rotors or whoever is a tremendous combat capability we have put assets on board these on board these marine expedition units the v-22 probably is the airplane that is the most air the most in-demand airplane the Department of Defense today we were producing them off the production line pretty quickly we can't train the crews fast enough to go man them and sustain them the rates we need to but putting a v-22 on an amphibious ship or on a on a expedition base ashore replacing an airplane at helicopter the ch-46 we just retired about a week ago down at the Udhar hazy museum but that airplane had a combat radius about 50 nautical miles from a ship from a sea base maybe about 75 place that with an airplane that goes 450 miles without your refueling combat radius that routinely flies two thousand miles across the ocean okay like it's no big deal right what happens an airplane for 50 mile transit doing about 100 miles an hour 110 miles an hour that's x number of minutes that's about 30 minutes not a lot changes in the battlefield in 30 minute transit a lot can happen in 450 miles even doing 280 knots indicated a lot can happen in two thousand miles and eight an eight hour transit so the guys in the back the airplane again we talked about that Lance Corporal that's the most important guy out there in the battlefield getting that Lance Corporal his platoon commander his his squad leader the information they need to keep up with a changing environment has actually driven change in the Marine Corps so we've got this disruptive technology of v-22 now giving the information the guys in the back how do you do that requires more calm gear more thought goes into how we push information to the guy in the back that airplane and more importantly because the customer is not a guy you push stuff do the guy he pulls stuff from he's the Google generation that marine he or she pulls stuff from the information they want to be able to pull the information they want tell her the information they want and bring it at airplane we're doing that right now in 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit we've been doing it for about the last five or six WTI classes with our infantry officer class we do long range raids both CH-53s and v-22s with a package we call digital interoperability in the back there plane we're pushing streaming video from from F from from maybe eight F-18s from UAS into that cut into the back the back of that airplane out there and we're achieving great success with that again we're employing that operationally right now in 15th view so v-22 has changed the battle space for us in many many ways many positive ways but also forces to rethink how we how we're doing business the gear so best bottom line is we replace the CH-46 with the v-22 and again that's a that disruptive technology out there has really changed the way that we look at our Marine Expeditionary Unit the Marine Expeditionary Unit days gone by is no longer the Marine Expeditionary Unit today Disaggregated Ops is absolutely enabled by an airplane like that command and control is challenged when you when you push a Marine Expeditionary Unit the ARG the amphibious ready group and spread it out over 2,000 miles or one ships off the north coast of Africa and the other ships are in the Persian Gulf and they connect that with C-130s and v-22s okay under one mu commander we do that routinely we had forces in Afghanistan forces off the shore of the of Africa and forces in the Mediterranean and one minute or a Marine Expeditionary Unit a few years back really phenomenal capability we are going to replace our CH-53 Echo with a CH-53 kilo we are about about 60% through our transition from the UH the H-1 whiskey and the UH-1 November to the H-1 Zulu and the UH-1 Yankee step change and increases in capability greater planes out there coming into the fleet the air the av8 the F-18 and the prouder are all in the process of transitioning right now to the F-35 we just stood up our first F-35B squadron VMFA 121 in New Arizona the next one will be VMFA 211 and we already have our training squadron which show is basically a mixed bag of the Brits and in US Marines down there in Buford area Buford North Carolina or South Carolina train fly the F-35B right now the F-35 for us is that fifth generation platform that is going to change I think change the battlefield much like the V-22 has changed us bottom line giving us access to the contested battle space that we've not had access to before it will absolutely positively change the Marine Expeditionary Unit on the way they view the amphibious forces based at sea and our expeditionary forces in a way that I think is yet to be defined but I think will be for our adversaries will be quite worrisome for us should be a great source of great comfort that aircraft the F-35 is an airplane actually can go from fifth generation to fourth generation and what do I mean by that no other airplane can go from fifth to fourth and back to fifth again I'm buying pylons for the airplane I get the I get the pylons and 3F software which comes in 2017 I can load up an F-35B with about three thousand pounds more than I can put on an F-18 right now right so I can have an airplane that does fifth generation stuff for the opening salvo the fight when I have to go to a level of effort I can load the pylons on load ordinance on their do level effort come back sail to another part of the world take the pylons off and go do the fifth generation thing again that gives we talked about multi-mission airplanes but also multiple layers of capability in those platforms as well still a new platform we're still learning growing into it but tremendous offers us tremendous utility for Marine Corps that's going to have one type model series aircraft ability to go fourth and fifth gen I give us that fighter capability give us that attack capability that we need in the out years and bottom line MFA-121 just did a an operational raise inspection to get them ready to convince us that they were actually indeed ready to go do be declared initial operational capable and I did a fantastic job and the interdiction mission we had them do and the the offensive counter are the the close air support and the army conditons really interesting I won't give you the exchange rate on the defensive counter error but it was really good zero losses and there's a bunch of bad guys that would constructively wouldn't be sorted again and the on the army constant one was the most interesting one we gave them a really high end threat environment to go against and normally to go to close air support or army conditons you want to be able to get into kind of a low threat environment to go up there and look for targets and guys not in their heads we've done that before we gave them a high threat environment okay to go out there and basically do army constants go out there troll looking for four structure targets in a battlefield out there using the sensors they had on the airplane and we gave them difficult targets to find and we also gave them a difficult threat which in that in my my world is a the CO the weapons school would be a prohibitive threat they went out there they found those targets they dealt with that they came back they said hey we did it as a four ship I'm sure no one ever asked us to do this again but we did it we survived the threat we found the targets we killed the targets I said don't ever rule out you have a capability don't rule out what someone's going to ask you to go do right don't rule out you never take away a capability from the adversary and certainly when we never want to take away a capability something we've got available to us so on the F-35 so not without us challenges but bottom line is we are absolutely convinced we're in the right spot we're going the right direction and now for us it's about equipping the men and the women that are going to fly that airplane with the right power tools on the people side of it we always talk about the guys we're going to stick doing the flying doing the fighting or doing working as sensors for one of our UAS let's not forget the the folks that maintain that I'm going to talk to you about some of my challenges in current readiness okay it's not just aging platforms and lack of spares and depots that are producing airplanes at the right they are it's also retaining and training and keeping the right enlisted force out there to keep those guys working on the airplanes with the skill sets they need to generate the readiness we need I'd say if there's one thing that we haven't done as a Marine Corps general Dunford talks about all the time it's focused on the leader to lead and the barn for aviation platforms and making sure that our guys have the right training continuum the recurrent training out there and valuing the guys with the qualifications you know we always we like patches we wear patches WTI top gun we covet that that's really cool what's really cool to me right now is readiness and how I get readiness is not only having a full-up part spin but also to having a very competent experience maintainer to come out that knows exactly what they need to do that are trained that are well led from the the Lance Corporal all the way up to the gunnery sergeant in my barn and my aviation main is hangers and we are working really hard to make sure that we once we get them we identify them we keep them we train them or you retain them that's a strategic imperative the Marine Corps general Dunford our commandant is all over that I retain the aviators as well the pilots and that and the air commandant controllers and our and our weapon systems officers that do this job is really imperative as well so it's not just about the power tools it's about the aircraft and a lot of people we talk about the sea base I'll tell you that for the United States Marine Corps everything we do is is can flow from a sea base our future will be everything will be sea basable but about two-thirds of our combat power is is land-based expeditionary and that's for our plans that for the big plans that we have to go support our nation we go from a sea base ashore back to sea base again a lot of that's ashore so right now I say I've got I've got actually more plans to put ashore and expeditionary environments than I do with float right so float ashore float ashore that's the utility Marine Corps that's what we're working on a force and readiness I'll tell you that our current readiness challenges well I'll cap with it's not so good story we have way too many air planes that we can't employ the way we need to we can't generate the readiness we need to and bottom line we have to turn that around Matt animal shoemaker and I spent all day yesterday at Navy supply two weeks goes all day then at the fence logistics agency I've been on the hill I've been to talk to everybody it's been in the press it's no real surprise that we are not where we need to be as a force and readiness United States Marine Corps of aviation readiness that is my problem it's my responsibility it's mine to fix I am accountable to fix that we have a strategy to do that we've had two outside looks in at marine aviation two of our type models series we're getting ready to start the third they tell me I can achieve my reign of school it's just not the way I'm doing it right now so we are taking those lessons learned we're basically driving that home we're going to drive change in the way we do business okay and for that part of that's funding part of that's the human capital side of it but also to its how we operate and how we sustain and bottom line is that's the to me at the end of the day the history books will not remember that the F-35 was a little bit late to need all right that there is some maybe some dysfunction out there and the and the in the different zip codes out there in and around this town what they'll only the history books will care about is were we shoe and I and our naval air forces naval air forces ready to go and game day yes or no that's all they're going to care about it's all they're going to care about thank you we choose ready yeah thanks very much that's a couple of information rich presentations and thank you both very much what we're going to do is do some questions and answers here well we'll do them as long as you want until 10 o'clock whichever comes first and I had a couple of warm up questions but I think I'm going to forego mine and if if we get a lull I may squeeze them in but in the meantime yes back there sir yes sir Britt Mitchell Renaissance Institute Baltimore a pastor Britt actually my question is this I wouldn't have come today except that on NPR last Saturday morning they had a story on from a naval air development facility somewhere talking about how they had developed drones that are not just drones like normal drones but they send them up in either batches of 24 or 32 and the drones themselves pick their own leader and I assume pick the mission and it scared me to death so bad I got out of the shower and wrote on a paper towel to come here today great report but could you touch on that is that really viable that's an information rich question what either of you like to feel that I would say I didn't see it um yeah you unmanned air systems unmanned systems both air and ground and and sea are are a big part of the naval forces future I don't know of any I'm not working on a swarming drone project right now yeah and uh but I do think that we integrate we're going to integrate man and unmanned with everything we do all right and I bottom line is the end of day you're going to hold senior leaders accountable for how this both the man and platforms are used and bottom line is I think we'll we will do everything we're going to do everything the right way we're not we're not I haven't seen but artificial intelligence I think there is probably a future out there for for platforms to be self-organized self-thinking but we're I don't have anything in the works right now on that okay over there hi Kevin Winsing two questions one on v 22 how do you see the export potential for v 22 with our allies and the second question are we building enough amphibious assault ships and so forth to carry the marine core you know aviation expeditionary forces thanks I think the I think the tilt rotor technology has tremendous potential we have already have foreign partners that are ordering the airplane and more that more to follow I think we like all our stuff we need to drive cost out reliability in and I think that's probably that the coin of the realm for v 22 it's a great airplane and I think probably more to follow on that I think it's people have seen utility of that and yes we need more amphibious ships and we're actually taking a page from the marine playbook as we transition from our you know venerable C2 greyhounds that are doing our our carry on board delivery right now and we'll use the bring the cv 22 into the carry environment as our logistics connector for the strike groups of the future and then given all the things that General Davis talked about flexibility that platform gives us an option to do other things as well with it when you talk about the the support to the the Marines in terms of amphibious ships you know that's a you know one we continue to work inside the building you know from the my counterpart Alma Rowan who's the surface warfare or surface warfare boss or sea lord we call him is obviously working that in inside the budget a challenging environment but we're working to do what we can to support the Marines with the ships they need we'll move to this side yes sir here he comes Good morning gentlemen Otto Kreischer with Seapower Magazine both of you have touched on on the need for sensors reconnaissance could you kind of elaborate on on that how you're integrating your systems the big problem we're going to have in the A2AD environment is getting information so the strike groups can go in in safely talk about how your platforms that you're building are going to integrate at the sensor information so you can have the ISR picture you need right well I touched on that a little bit when I described U-Class and how Navy and Visions employing that as you said that would be I think our initial platform they're going to that contested environment that A2AD environment you just described certainly ahead of Triton or Poseidon you know our P-8s they can't couldn't operate in there without the initial kind of understanding of that environment which the which that U-Class will provide and then also the ability to operate there to be able to conduct you know the the integrated provide an integrated picture and targeting of assets and also if needed it can do the time critical strike or quick reaction strike capability will come with that with that as part of the part of the platform so I think that's a critical piece at least from the strike group perspective there are other assets will potentially use to you know from a theater that'll be theater controlled or the joint air component commander may control but that's one that I know we need at the strike group level controlled by the strike group commander to operate with the strike group and head of the strike group into that environment if I could just we need to make sure that all the forces at sea are integrated into that picture I think it's it's actually leveraging everything it's out there go back to every platform a sensor share shooter so when I say platform it's mad it's unmanned it's cyber capabilities it's space capabilities it's everything that we have I think this generation assets allow you to get a little bit closer see a little more our big challenge frankly right now with the fifth gen air platforms we have looking at 35 is how do I at airplane is a pretty smart player how do I leverage everything that's on that player and get it back to the guy on the ground or whoever else needs that information in a bandwidth in a flow rate that they can use and share that so and to include how we share that with coalition partners are out there so I think it's a challenge but it's also an opportunity yes ma'am hi Lee Hudson inside the Navy Admiral Shoemaker could you give us some insight into what you think the aviation mix should be for the future frigate will it be the same as LCS or do you see it being different can you say that again I didn't the aviation mix for the future frigate or the modified LCS whatever you want to call it the oh for the yeah or new surface combat yeah surface combat right sure I'm not sure the design again that kind of falls in my counterparts laying the sea lord I just talked about but I know that we'll be are prepared and and have our acquisition programs and the the future of our MH 60 Romeo and Sierra program includes integrations into whatever that platform may be right as you mentioned fire scout as well and fire scout as well right yeah okay okay thank you yes sir Bill Sweetman of Aviation Week talking about the the need to slap and extend the life of super hornets the problems of readiness the problems we've had with the with the the classic hornet a couple of questions one is is it correct that the department of navy plans to bring in F-35C at a rate of slightly less than one squadron per year in the 2020s I've heard things about a production rate of perhaps 12 F-35Cs a year the next part of that question is that leaves us it appears very dependent on being able to slap the super hornets at a very high rate and how are we gonna make sure that we avoid the problems we've had with the classic hornet slap which I think as we well know is not gone as planned a lot more things are found in those airframes than we expected so how do you avoid that trap how do you keep those those problems guarantee those squadrons are going to be full in the 2020s thanks yeah that's a great question I knew it was coming I see our little chicklet chart sitting next to you they're a powerpoint slide that Amber Minnaz and I both use as we describe this and it's does everybody understand hear the question okay yeah so so we're we're in this situation for a number of reasons we've you know we've delayed the the initial introduction of the F-35C and from the Navy side in fact it's about almost seven years when we plan to IOC that capability and so that forces to keep our classic hornets I like that term our partners use that term the classic hornets around a lot longer so a 6,000 hour airframe that we had to extend to eight or 9,000 hours to keep it in the fight and that was and that's a pretty significant engineering feat to do that so we didn't plan the you described the Rhino SLEP or Service Life Extension Program we didn't plan it well for the hornets but we're working through that right now in our in our aviation depots and the utilization as we we all both of us have talked about the the utilization of the force over the last decade plus and so the hours we put on those classic hornets quickly drove them to those 8,000 9,000 9,000 hour limits and forced us to induct them you know earlier than we expected so we got a bit of a backlog at our depots we've got I think the capacity there is improving at the depots we've learned a lot about how we do the throughput there and what we and we as we've repaired those classic hornets that will apply to the to the SLEP program for our Rhino's so I think we've you know we've this is not a problem we've solved I mean General Davis has a you know a significant portion of his strike of his strikers our strike fighters are the our F-18s them and the Harriers but we've got to keep his legacy hornets or classic hornets in service for about another 10 or 12 years and we've got a few less in the Navy we're doing the same thing so the problem is is getting through the Super Hornet SLEP which be in the middle of you know 2020 to 2025 or so with the things we've learned from applying those things we've learned from a pretty good plan right now to to move forward and avoid you know a significant reduction or gap in our strike fighter inventory as those airplanes come out of service to get repaired and then get back into service so it's not an inconsequential challenge we have ahead of us and when we General Davis and I stay focused on a lot part of the how we transition to talk about the Marine Corps side of that which you you have to take care of the Harrier and the Classic F-18 in order to make your transition of 35 so it says strategic to compare if the Marine Corps to take good care of these airplanes I will brag a little bit in Admiral L.J. Sewell who runs a commander a fleet readiness center is doing a great job and basically come up with a plan to rework our F-18s both Classic and the SLEP for the supers and gives us reason to believe actually I don't do hope I look for the numbers and we're actually making the numbers in our in our depots now that we're supposed to again with help from an OEM we have Boeing working a third line to help us make the numbers we need to get the airplanes back in a line one thing we're going to do Congress is very good gave us 6 F-35Bs to to replace our bastion losses and will that allows us to stand up take stand down an F-18 squadron BMFA-122 a little bit early about a year early and stand up as an F-35B squadron so part of the way we reduce the pressure on the dawn with Classic F-18 is by the Marine Corps moving out of the F-18 right now scheduled reserves shutting down in 2030 the sooner we can do that if we were to get more airplanes we'd actually be able to move out of the Classics a little bit early and sooner in F-35 so have to take care of the old nor to get to the new serve yep I was going to touch on that you've mentioned I think the chart there probably has there's a couple assumptions one that delivers 12 per year and one at 20 per year that's 20 per years where we had hoped to be I think the current realities of the budget environment and other priorities inside Navy may drive something between those two numbers but obviously we're still on path to IOC this capability with our first squadron in 2018 and I'll keep working as hard as I can with leadership in the building to ensure we can stay on the path and get out of classic hornets replace them with our F-35Cs as quick as we can okay over here morning gentlemen Air boss sir this question is for you it's a personnel leadership question recently wrote an article in proceedings about CAG and who we select as CAG we haven't had a non-VFA CAG selecting in five years this leaves out roughly half the air wing in the experience and leadership capability that that brings with it it also limits the career progression of more than half of your junior and mid-level officers and directly impacts retention of some quality personnel I'm wondering what are we doing to make sure that a we don't go another five years without selecting a non-VFA CAG and how can we ensure that this leadership position better reflects the composition of the carrier air wing thank you yeah great what is that your article yes that's well written I read it this morning I was over with C&P Bill Moran he said you might want to read this for you go over to but I well done and as you know he's on a he's on a big talent management push right now and I he's doing some wonderful things and and I agree completely with your article I look across our carrier force the force of future I just described and I look at the you know the leaders or the the aviators that are flying in Growler that are flying in our E2Ds that command and control that joint fight you know and the situation awareness they have and the understanding of the missions across the the strike warfare commanders responsibilities to even include our helicopter squadron COs I got this question at twice now both of our national helicopter association events east and west coast and and we had a and I I don't think it'll be too long before we find a the right helicopter CO who's come up through the ranks and is is is fully capable of leading an air wing they're integrated right now and many of the of the events we do I talked about straight or Hormuz transits when I was on a couple of strike groups there they lead those events all of the self-defense of the carrier involve those guys as strike leads they're integrated with their fighter counterparts so they understand kind of the the full portfolio of what an air wing commander would be would need to do so I think we're you know and all takes is a little bit of you know as we put language and precepts for statutory boards language and precepts for administrative boards I control those and I intend to take your recommendations and move forward with them yeah nice nice article on the aisle good morning gentlemen I'm Dan Grazier from the Center for Defense Information and a general this questions for you you you mentioned multi-mission platforms which results in multi-mission people and then you also mentioned the one to two dwell issue to then train people how do you find that balance where you can train people in multiple missions with such limited time in which to train well first off we need to get more time training so it's one of the things we laid out there I'm a firm believer that and use employing and leveraging simulation but I'm also a firm believer that a pilot or an air crew has to have 15 hours a month the airplane no less than that so we drive our systems to make sure that we can do that and our T and our manuals train race manuals support that um I'll say that I might not be as multi-mission as my two sons are right they're a lot more multi-mission than me and then and then and they're my oldest son's two daughters are probably be a heck a lot more multi-mission than him when they finally come around to go do this I would say that this is the you look at the way that people multitask and they operate things right now I remember when I was I was a wrote a master's thesis on urban close air support 1994 and I remember people saying hey that's a helicopter mission just too hard to do for a jet I said and things are moving too fast for a jet guy to do cast an urban environment I said it might be for us because I was a major I was really old then I'm a major but don't tell that to the captains you know and so look at that was that was what our brains thought in 1994 too much going on for a jet guy to do cast an urban environment now they're doing it like it's cool now we're doing it with UAS bottom line it's I think changed so I think the more this we bait again man equip the man don't man the equipment so give these kids the tools they'll water your eyes the v-22 we had a bunch of old guys thinking about how we're gonna use it we turn over the young guys they're using completely differently the demand signal for the comms is not coming from me it's coming from the customer in the back the airplane like I can't ride for eight hours and go into a a hot LZ I gotta have the gouge so I think we'll we'll man the equipment all right we'll equip the man not man the equipment we'll basically push the information these guys I don't I gotta make sure that we deliver the training systems that give them the minimum amount of actual flight training out there and then leveraging simulators a lot of times their simulator construct is one's ease or two's ease or one guy in a box with an instructor I've seen things where entire units go to a simulator to train unit training pre-deployment training in a simulator I think there's a lot more we can do to leverage to make sure that when that kid does get into that airplane that is this it's he's ready for the A ticket ride not not to do discovery and learning once he gets in that that he or she gets in that airplane back here General Airbus good morning Mediacs I'm full disclosure I'm one of your growler guys sir the naval the naval service leads the and naval aviation particularly both in the navy Marine Corps lead the joint force in the spectrum in a lecture magnetic maneuver warfare as as you've been developing for for quite some time now sir I'm curious though do you do you see a need for any structural changes either from a man or man train equip standpoint or or operationally either in the department of the navy or or the across the joint force or even in the inter agency in our allies and partners to ensure that we we truly can develop EMW into something where we have unity of effort in the in the spectrum in a domain that is necessarily joint contested combined that's that's probably the part of the global commons that is more key to military operations and and all aspects of civil life than than we even recognize today I can tell you as a growler guy we we in the last couple of years of operating that aircraft and the new platform forward we often show up as the smartest guy in the room and have to kind of point out how you know both the military plan and the greater Paul Mill context that we operate in or planned operate in isn't isn't set for success in a kill chain versus kill chain fight against adversaries where we don't have overmatch anymore mm-hmm curious to say any better no but we are we're actually doing all of that in fact your community is leading our integration to electromagnetic maneuver warfare certainly for aviation not that they're the only platform that would participate certainly as we deliver F-35 that comes with some is some very very good electronic warfare capabilities but we're just scratching the surface on what growler can do and I think and how they integrate they've been up and doing some of our exercises with Air Force counterparts up in Alaska northern edge and then down at at Nellis as part of red flags down there and the guys that are going the squad of participating there are I think are opening some eyes and the capabilities of that platform so we've we've got to keep that at the forefront as we move forward in this EMW world and certainly use that expertise across all the Navy elevation in fact across the joint force if I could just I and I got the rare honor of serving four and a half years if at Fort Mead as a guy who filled college math and bottom line is I think it's going to be complete team ball and I think you need to have everybody in the fight the bill the we used to call the non-kinetic fires are just as important as the kinetic but it requires a lot of thought a lot of planning just like you say structural changes to make sure we do that right training changes to make sure we do the things right I'd also say that it's kind of like not having raised not an electronic warfare you have to have electronic warfare and I think it needs you you almost ubiquitous you need to have that every platform I've got out there I'm trying to strap something on that airplane that gives it an EW capability both high threat low threat my guys in the ground my trucks my airplanes my ships everything that we've got out there we're trying to get that kind of capability to include people out to the weapons school you've got more for cyber out there playing to help us out and basically some of those scenarios so I think final line this is requires a lot of thought our man and unmanned systems are going to be key players in this the unmanned systems have to have to dwell the range and the the payload to be able to and the the common links to be contributors there and also by the way survivable as well so that it can't get knocked down in a contestant environment the for those of you that are on a tight schedule it's a couple of minutes after 10 but we're going to shift a central daylight time for about five or 10 minutes here so you're good right behind you sir George Nicholson analyst for special operations two weeks ago they had the directed energy summit that secretary kindle secretary maybes attended the commander of the air force special operations command Lieutenant general brad hide hold got up and said one of his highest requirements right now is directed energy of putting that on the new ac 130 ghostwriter gunship they give it a full comprehensive offensive and defensive capability and he made the statement of in our block 60 it's supposed to be 10 years out I'm telling you right now it's only a couple of years out that we're going to have that from your perspective general Davis your kc 130 jays with that kind of capability of putting on it but admiral also the capability on navy aircraft when secretary maybes was asked the question he said well our focus isn't on that all we're worried about directed energy right now is our ground capability your comments yeah if I could really quickly it's one I'm embarrassed I missed that conference so I actually kind of had a religious moment my guys like how the heck did I know about that I would have been there because that's that's actually we're big part of our lad follow on is directed energy how you do that we think it's got tremendous capability tremendous potential a lot of it's about wait so right now some of the systems are pretty heavy so I can get up on a c 130 but I'd like to go get up in everything I own right and so hauling around a 3000 pound tray might be a bit much for some of my platform so more and more I think we're going to push the edge of the envelope and not to try to get that capability on land and in the air probably at sea as well but absolutely it's a it's part of the the quiver in our future and my surface counterpart obviously is working very hard to deliver that capability to his ships and we look at and I talked about a little bit out forward and its ability to generate you know electrical generating capacity about three and a half times what an image class brings so clearly we can incorporate that technology as part of self defense or even offensive manner on that on forward as general Davis said we've got to figure out the smart guys in the room and engineers to figure out how we can miniaturize this stuff to make it applicable to aviation platform but I you know as opposed to firing very expensive air to air to surface weapons if we could do you know those kinds of directed energy that I think that's a clearer than air we've got to got to keep focused and keep working in yes sir morning a Rick Burgess C-Power magazine a fratimal shoemaker your your 10th carrier wing is under strength for squadrons so what is your schedule to bring that back to life thank you yeah right now there I think it's in 2016 or 17 as we look into the into the you know the budget negotiations and the fiscal realities and constraints that I mentioned emerald manizer is under right now that's you know we're considering whether that's you know whether we can afford to do that we've looked we've looked at the you know the the carrier plan as we flow it out and I think one of the reasons we even talked about that as an offset is there's there's I think an ability with with a little bit of risk to be able to support our 11 we eventually get to 11 carriers that rotation with nine airwings we've got some work to do but you know we consider you've got one typically in a in a deep overhaul a reactor core overhaul complex overhaul another one in in maintenance or so I think we've got the ability to do that so the plan right now was to stand it up in I think in in 2017 but again it was it was one of the things we looked at potentially as a as a cost savings measure into the into the very tight budget environment right now yes Ricky Matsumoto George Washington University undergrad there was a recent report that the Pentagon recently rejected the Navy's plan to carry out shotgun survivability tests on the second ship of the new Ford class carriers which was expected to enter service in 2016 which might delay the first ships deployment but least half a year from your perspective are there any strategic implications or consequences of that decision or are there any thank you yeah I think the the memorandum was signed by Secretary Kendall was that we would shock test do the shock those initial shock tests for Ford before her first deployment and so that's what we're working toward and and obviously we we kind of heard us getting back into the mix bring us back from 10 to 11 carriers so we're looking at that plan right now and where that would play out in the in the deployment cycles but the direction was to conduct them forward and we've we've got that guidance and we're moving out yes sir Hi and Chen Wenhua China daily I have a larger question I think this is talk about the capabilities I mean the Mikhail Gorbachev just said last week when one state has the immense military might and greater military but just than any other state this create insurmountable obstacle to a nuclear free world I think how much should we be concerned about you know the talk about the military capabilities you know we are talking about arms race I mean U.S. Russia maybe China and other countries I mean actually I really want to demoderate Ambassador Prue to talk about it thank you did you just get a question thank you yeah the I will if I can paraphrase that is how concerned should we be about the arms race and talk about arms race I think it's something that we we all need to be very concerned about but not stampede on this subject and that they're I just read a quotation by Thomas Jefferson recently about the peace being the delightful interlude while the factions are reloading so this is a it's a the peace we have right now is sort of an awkward one but with the with Russia with China with General Dunford's testimony and others on where the big threats are I think these are things of which we need to be very cognizant and work in our country on those but I don't think we need to stampede into an arms race I don't I don't see other countries doing that right now and but prevention is the is our business preventing wars is our business and you and we need to be very ready to do that so the discussions need to be taken seriously but not not stampeding on it yes ma'am in the front row Hi Megan Eckstein with usni news General Davis he spoke a little bit about multi-missionizing v-22 I wonder if the Navy has similar plans now that you're buying into it and what the conversation between the two services is about coming up with a common variant for naval v-22 presence I think they're a little bit different right now the Navy is going to use the airplane as a carry on board delivery system obviously we've got number of years operating the airplane and we practice having weapons on it we had Bill came on put a sensor on there and some some precision weapons the sensor integration package the the digital interoperability for long range communications and now the the airy fueling capability so again Marine Corps and Navy have slightly different missions so I'm not going to speak for the Navy but like all stuff you know they'll they'll chart their own course with the v-22 yeah I totally agree and we'll learn from the Marines and obviously partner close with them as we bring this this capability into the into the fleet but I think we'll end up you know the what I've promised our cadre of cod pilots and air crews that they'll be the ones that move into this new into this new platform and then we'll you know we'll have some extended range from adding beefing up the range of the of the platform as I mentioned you know it'll do the primary logistics connector for the striker but we'll look at other options you know brings a lot of flexibility we've we've done very short demo I guess a about I guess it was two summers ago out on the east coast and the air the air boss the ship's up so the flight deck were a lot still to learn about how we would integrate that but they were they were they were pleased with how it turned out and and I think that's a it'll be a great capability we deliver but we'll continue working and partnering with the Marines as we will follow you we'll take one last question to the patient gentleman over here at the red tie I thank you James Drew from Flight Global could you talk to me a little bit talk to us about the future vertical lift that the army is working on they've set some this very far out in the future and the companies that are currently working on that are very keen to bring that forward would the Navy ever or Marine Corps ever consider going it alone on future vertical lift and then also maybe taking like the valor or the radar and also could you just ask me could you just say whether you're concerned about Lockheed Martin's purchase of Sikorsky and whether that could affect any of your programs I'm not worried about it as long as they produce the helicopters that from the Sikorsky they're supposed to and I've got a couple that are in the in the line see a 50 kilo the in the presidential helicopter the H92 sustained the stuff that we got sustained the 53 ECHO sustained the the H3s and H60s I have an HMX1 totally happy I mean so that's business expect them to do business do well if I could shoe on the future vertical lift hey we're very interested in future vertical lift very interested in what the folks are bringing what's really interesting about future vertical lift is it's both variants that they're looking at to fly by wire airplane okay which means can be can be do a lot of things for us and a for a Marine Corps can do kind of a replacement possibly with the H1 and we look to do more and more stuff with an airplane like that more speed more range more agility looking to get much more range out of the airplane than we have right now and then also too if it's fly by wire it could also be unmanned so I have a group four or five UAS challenge out there for the United States Marine Corps and getting a group four or five UAS onto a sea base with a fly by wire and high reliability that airplane could also be if it's got high enough reliability it's got high enough payload capability it could be both group four or five could be manned or a manned optionally and basically give me to me if they build it the right the right kind of airplane tremendous utility tremendous agility from a platform like this we're pretty excited about what's what's in store and we obviously partner with that as we come out of Romeo and Sarawak again I just mentioned we delivered to the fleet and they'll be around until easily the middle of next decade or so but that future vertical lift will be I think you'll see a I won't say similar to how we did Joint Strike Fighter but a joint program across all the services to see how we deliver that capability okay on behalf of all of us I would like to thank General Davis and Admiral Shoemaker for mostly for what you do every day but especially for being here today and thanks so much for enlighten us all great thanks thank you thank you all here