Engineering News

Young pilots, straight out of flight school, are adapting much more rapidly to the latest, most high-technology, fighter jets, known as Fifth Generation (5th Gen) designs, than veteran fighter pilots with many years' experience. This was highlighted by Lockheed Martin F-35 test pilot Billie Flynn on the first day of the 2019 Aeronautical Society of South Africa conference, in Pretoria on Wednesday.

There are currently only two 5th Gen fighter types in operational service today, all American designs. They are the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor supersonic air dominance fighter, and the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II multirole fighter. The best known (but by no means only) characteristic of 5th Gen combat aircraft is their use of very low visibility technologies -- popularly called stealth.

They also make use of advanced avionics, cockpits and flying helmets. Flying such aircraft is very different to flying 4th generation fighters. Flynn described the F-35 as being, "by any standard, supremely advanced". While the F-22 is operated only by the US, the F-35 is already in operational service with eight nations, while more have it on order.

The young people now graduating as fighter pilots in these eight countries have grown up with digital technology, computers, the Internet, and complex computer games. This experience is proving invaluable in mastering the advanced systems of the F-35. 

These young pilots are proving to be much better at flying and fighting the F-35 than veteran pilots are. "They are quicker, more adaptable, than we would give them credit for," he highlighted.

As a result, the US Marine Corps has changed its fighter pilot training syllabus. The effect is to remove the traditional strict tactical hierarchy of flight leader, section leader, and (junior) wingmen (one wingman for each of the leaders). The young (formerly "junior") pilots are much more familiar with the technological concepts employed by the F-35 than the older pilots are. Thus, the younger pilots have valuable inputs to make during an operation, and the more senior pilots have to take them seriously. The US Air Force is following suit.

Moreover, these young pilots are actively pushing the development of the F-35's systems, Flynn reported. They are demanding more and more functionality from the aircraft's systems.