ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, -- With the F-35A Lightning II aircraft scheduled to join the 48th Fighter Wing’s inventory, the third Site Activation Task Force convened here, Nov. 14-17.
“The purpose of this is to look at all the things that need to be done in order to position the F-35 and have the first aircraft arrival in Nov. 2021,” said Lt. Col William Vause, 48th FW F-35 program integration officer.
During the three-day conference, more than 80 subject matter experts broke into nine working groups; manpower, intelligence, operations, logistics and maintenance, communications, civil engineer, program management, security and environmental, to plan how the two F-35 squadrons will integrate into the Liberty Wing mission.
“There are three main areas of discussion that took place during this SATAF; manpower, intelligence support and operational,” Vause said. “The intel working group looked at the facilities and infrastructure needed to provide intelligence support to the F-35 at Royal Air Force Lakenheath and the operational portion was looking at what we need to do to bring the 6-bay full mission simulator.”
There’s an estimate that more than 1,200 Airmen will be added to the 48th FW manpower to support the 5th-generation aircraft mission. The SATAF will continue to meet until the arrival of the F-35. The next meeting is scheduled for March 2017.