Lockheed prepares to launch global F-35 training facilities.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin

The F-35 joint strike fighter has been pegged as one of the most advanced aircraft to ever fly. To train pilots and maintainers, students go through rigorous coursework and then use advanced simulators. Manufacturer Lockheed Martin is now preparing to expand the aircraft's training centers abroad.

Over the next two years, Lockheed will stand up nine international training sites and centers, said Mike Luntz, F-35 training director at the company.

That will "extend and expand the reach of the training" the company can provide, he told National Defense in an interview.

The sites will include: Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan; Amendola Air Base, Italy; Royal Australian Air Force Base Williamtown, Australia; Cheongju Air Base, South Korea; Misawa Air Base, Japan; 0rland Air Base, Norway; Marham, United Kingdom; Grottaglie Air Base, Italy; and Nevatim, Israel.

It aims to stand up all of the facilities by the end of 2018, he said.

Not only will the sites provide each respective country with on-demand training, but eventually the simulators could connect with those in the United States for coalition exercises, Luntz said.

"We are in the process of developing the capability to link the simulators over the wide area network," he said. Lockheed will first start with the Air Force, then the Navy, Marine Corps and the United Kingdom, in that order, he said.

The ability for other countries to access this network would be subject to approval from the United States, he said.

In the case of the Air Force, the network is called the distributed mission operations network, or DMON. Each service and the United Kingdom will have their own network with their own protocols. They will be released in a phased timeline, he said.

Creating such a network for other countries should be relatively easy depending on how much their requirements differ from that of the U.S. services' networks, Luntz said.

"If they come up with a different network protocol than, for example, the protocol with the United States .... then that would require us to modify the software based on their requirements," he said. "So from that perspective, we have not received all the requirements from all the different countries."

A recent study conducted by the F-35 joint program office found that many of the countries did not have numerous unique requirements, Luntz said. "We're anticipating that they're going to be similar to one of the U.S. services, but that's really a requirement that...