Marine F-35 pilots who switched over from the Harrier jump jet have had to unlearn almost everything they know

The first clip a erstwhile Marine Harrier aviator brings an F-35 combatant jet successful to onshore connected the platform of an amphibious warship, skills honed by hundreds of hours successful the aged pitchy mightiness activity against them successful the caller Lightning II.

The AV-8B Harrier, the Marine Corps' short take-off and vertical-landing fighter, saw its pilots cautiously negociate 3 different controls — 1 to power direction, an motor throttle, and a nozzle lever that directed motor thrust, allowing the craft to hover.

The operation of controls allowed Harriers to enactment level while hovering supra a moving ship, but it meant changeless mini corrections from pilots, who trained to onshore connected ships by delicately hovering astir a landing pad successful a container shape of precise movements — left, backward, right, guardant — halting aft each one.

The fifth-generation F-35 stealth combatant flies differently.

On their first approaches to onshore successful the newer jet, erstwhile Harrier pilots whitethorn consciousness that they are moving excessively quickly, instinctively making corrections that worked successful the Harrier, specified arsenic pulling backmost and adding power. In the F-35, those aforesaid movements tin make the craft accelerate and climb, said Maj. Travis Theimer, the executive serviceman for Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211, who logged astir 700 hours successful the Harrier earlier transitioning to the F-35.

Business Insider said pinch pilots aboard the amphibious battle ship USS Makin Island past period during a travel to observe deployment training for the Marines assigned to the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

"I would stake that each Harrier aviator connected his first [deceleration] to the [landing] pad has gone faster and climbed over," he said, noting the reliable modulation to the F-35.

The Corps retired its last operational Harrier squadron this year, ending decades of flying the distinctive jump jet. Many of those Harrier pilots person been reassigned to the F-35, meaning they must unlearn immoderate of the skills that erstwhile kept them safely successful the air.

Harrier pilots had to give importantly much attraction simply to flying the aircraft, without an auto-throttle to power airspeed, though it did person an altitude-hold system, Theimer said. The pitchy was chiefly an air-to-ground onslaught aircraft, supporting crushed troops passim the post-9/11 wars successful Iraq and Afghanistan pinch missions for illustration violative strikes and equipped reconnaissance.

The F-35 stealth fighter tin do those jobs, too, but it besides performs missions the Harrier typically could not, he said, including air-to-air fighting, locating and striking force aerial defenses, and sharing accusation pinch adjacent craft and troops connected the ground.

The F-35B, a version utilized by the Marine Corps for operations aboard amphibious battle ships, tin besides return disconnected and onshore vertically for illustration the Harrier, but astir of that analyzable activity is handled by its onboard computers. Its blase flight-control strategy tin support a hover and moreover allows the craft to lucifer the velocity of a warship it's landing on, aiding pilots overmuch much than Harriers could.

Such assistance, however, doesn't mean the F-35 is easier to master.

It's a awesome alteration for aviators, said Lt. Col. Michael Jones, the commanding serviceman of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211, a erstwhile F/A-18 Hornet pilot.

"They were astir apt riding a unicycle, and now they're transitioning to a bike," Jones said.

The F-35 is "not elemental to utilize tactically," Jones said. But its automation, formation controls, and speed-control systems let pilots to attraction little connected "stick and rudder" activity and much connected the tactical fight.

For pilots utilized to flying the Harrier, the alteration tin consciousness for illustration going "from watching connected your telephone a movie to going to an IMAX," Theimer said. The caller pitchy is adjacent parts weapons level and sensing tool. The biggest learning curve, he said, is figuring retired really to sorb and use each of that information.

The F-35 combines information from its ain sensors and different connected craft and systems into a azygous battlefield picture. That gives pilots much options during combat operations, but besides overmuch much accusation to process and enactment on. "I'm 1 personification pinch 1 quality brain," Theimer said. When pilots effort to negociate air-to-air, air-to-ground, escort, and mission-command duties astatine once, "things commencement to autumn retired of your skin; you commencement to suffer way of things," he said.

Even aft hours successful an F-35 simulator, Theimer said his Harrier profession had near him pinch instincts that did not easy construe to the F-35 and had to beryllium unlearned.

"When you get connected brainstem power, you conscionable spell to musculus memory, and the musculus representation was counterintuitive to what the F-35 really did," he said. The answer, he said, has been "just practice, conscionable tons of reps" focused connected approaching a hover and "breaking my musculus memory."