Marine Aviators Chart Flight Path to Modernization Goals.

• Author: Roaten, Meredith

The Marine Corps is overhauling its force to take on peer competitors in austere environments. A new aviation plan ensures that its aircraft--everything from fighter jets to helicopters--don't get left behind.

In May, the Marine Corps released its latest aviation plan, the first since the 2020 publication of its service-wide strategy for modernization--Force Design 2030, which calls for the service to cut end strength, divest legacy systems and procure new platforms, all in the name of operational flexibility.

The new aviation plan builds on the foundation of the Force Design 2030 vision, highlighting plans for a more agile, expeditionary force.

"While operating from austere, distributed locations and across extended distances, we will be minimally sustained, fully networked and entirely interoperable with the Joint Force and America's allies and partners," according to the report.

Lt. Gen. Mark Wise, deputy commandant for aviation, said, "The good news is capability-wise, we got off to a pretty darn good start, and we are pointed in the right direction. I would say that confidently."

Marine aviation is an ecosystem where all the platforms should be looked at as complements to each other, he said. Force Design 2030 has shown which additional capabilities are needed to integrate into the force, he said at the Modern Day Marine conference in Washington, D.C

"Making premature decisions is a really, really bad idea," he said." So this [plan] is making sure that we get this right."

The plan spells out the future for the service's three main jet fighters.

The F-35 fighter jet is the centerpiece of fleets across the services, and the Marine Corps is no exception. Wise said the F-35 gives the service the flexibility to engage in a fight with the entire joint force.

"So if you take it from a defensive depth standpoint, and you put it in terms of what we're trying to do, you start with the F-35B and see what it's been teaching us, not just in how you can employ fire or attack aircraft, but employ them and look at them in different ways," he said.

The F-35's strength doesn't just come from lethality, Wise said. The platform's ability to build situational awareness with its sensing technology makes it unique in the fleet, he added.

Lt. Gen. Matt Glavy, deputy commandant for information, said the F-35 is a "flying server" and could be key to information advantage.

"But everything that we're doing in the cloud, masking data, masking computational power, [it's] all about fusion and correlation of...