The U.S. Marine Corps will discipline the ATAWS on its F/A-18 Legacy Hornet fleet beginning in early 2026.
The Naval Air Warfare Middle Weapons Division has introduced on Nov. 19, 2025, that the U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18 Legacy Hornet fleet will quickly obtain the Computerized Terrain Consciousness and Warning System (ATAWS). The certification of the brand new system is the results of a joint check program by the “Mud Devils” of Air Take a look at and Analysis Squadron (VX) 31 at Naval Air Warfare Middle Weapons Division, in partnership with the “Salty Canine” of VX-23 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland.
Lengthy-Awaited Functionality
The press launched notes how Managed Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) has lengthy been one in all tactical aviation’s most unforgiving hazards. In 2022, the U.S. Air Power stated CFIT incidents account for 26 p.c of plane losses.
Typically, CFIT happens when a totally practical plane is unintentionally flown into the bottom. This could occur for a wide range of causes, with two notable ones being Spatial Disorientation (Spatial-D) and G-induced Loss Of Consciousness (GLOC).
Spatial Disorientation is the shortcoming to find out one’s place, location, and movement relative to their setting. This could occur not solely in fighter jets, however in each kind of plane, each army and civilian.
A state of affairs that generally causes Spatial-D is the flight in Instrument Meteorological Situations (IMC), the place dangerous visibility situations would stop a pilot from utilizing exterior reference factors and, in some instances, his senses would cease to “agree” with the present angle of the plane. For an occasion, the pilot’s senses may very well be tricked to suppose the plane is in degree flight, whereas in actuality it’s in an inverted dive.
GLOC might occur throughout maneuvers with excessive g-loading, which draw blood away from the mind and in the direction of the decrease a part of the physique. GLOC will not be utterly sudden, as it’s preceded by tunnel imaginative and prescient, greyout and blackout.
Whereas the sooner phases would solely see a pilot quickly visually impaired, GLOC is an entire incapacitation. In line with statistics, this incapacitation averages 12 seconds, adopted by 15 seconds of restoration from the occasion.
The press launch famous that, between 2010 and 2016, the Navy and Marine Corps misplaced a number of F/A-18 Hornets in coaching and operational mishaps. These losses bolstered the necessity for an automated safeguard that might save aircrew and plane from potential CFIT occasions.
Notably, the press launch goes on to say that this work was impressed by the Air Power’s Computerized Floor Collision Avoidance System (AGCAS), which in 2022 has been credited for saving 12 F-16s and three F-22s from crashing. Marine aviators and flight check groups pushed for the same functionality within the F/A-18A–D, launching improvement below the Navy’s program workplace for the plane, PMA-265.
“The Marine Corps F/A-18A–D legacy Hornet neighborhood was the driving pressure behind ATAWS,” stated Lt. Col. Timothy Burchett, commanding officer of VX-31. “Each Hornet saved means yet another plane and aviator obtainable for fight.”
ATAWS
The Naval Air Warfare Middle Weapons Division defined ATAWS builds upon the Hornet’s present Terrain Consciousness Warning System (TAWS). TAWS, additionally current on the Tremendous Hornet and hosted within the Digital Map Pc (DMC)/Digital Video Map Pc (DVMC), alerts the pilot of potential CFIT dangers.
The system constantly predicts the plane’s flight path relative to the earth’s floor, utilizing terrain knowledge, altitude, velocity and angle to calculate when a collision is definite with out pilot motion. When the system’s calculated flight path reveals a crash is almost imminent, visible and audible warnings are issued within the cockpit.
If the pilot fails to reply, ATAWS takes over and ranges the wings robotically, earlier than a fast pull-up to clear the terrain. As soon as the plane is at a secure altitude, ATAWS returns the management of the plane to the pilot.
The service additionally defined that, since legacy Hornets use solely handbook throttles and don’t function auto-throttle functionality, ATAWS can solely intervene by flight management inputs. The service additional careworn that ATAWS solely engages solely after a pilot has missed all warnings and there’s not time for a human response, and is thus the final likelihood for a profitable restoration.
“Any time a system is designed to deliberately take management of the plane away from the pilot, excessive diligence is required,” Burchett stated. “We needed to be completely sure it might not intrude with a mission or take motion when it shouldn’t.”
Testing
In line with the press launch, the testing lasted from 2023 to 2025. VX-31 and VX-23 carried out a joint check marketing campaign, divided into three phases, to make sure ATAWS operated safely and predictably in varied flight situations. Collaboration was an enormous a part of the ATAWS check effort, because it united VX-31’s mission techniques consultants with VX-23’s flight sciences crew into one built-in check unit.
“This was the most effective check program I’ve ever been part of,” stated Burchett. “The groups from Patuxent River and China Lake had been so nicely built-in that you just couldn’t inform the place every crew member got here from in the event you didn’t already know the individuals concerned.”
As a part of the primary part, VX-23 accomplished 32 flights evaluating system logic responses to completely different dives and recoveries. VX-31 then flew 16 flights throughout the second part, centered on nuisance testing over flat desert and mountainous terrain to ensure the system wouldn’t set off false warnings or recoveries.
The ultimate part mixed each squadrons at China Lake for 16 full-performance flights over seven consecutive weeks. The flights included maneuvers consultant of operational situations, reminiscent of high-G maneuvers and low-angle strafing runs, and solely minor anomalies had been noticed.
“The crew executed 177 check factors that challenged and careworn the system,” stated David Pineda, a VX-31 flight check engineer. “These check factors validated that ATAWS met or exceeded the modeled efficiency.”
Maj. Brian “Wedge” Walpole, VX-31 Legacy Hornet division head, stated the system’s consistency between simulator and precise efficiency confirmed its readiness. “No matter terrain or flight profiles, the system flew just like the simulator, and we verified the mannequin by flight check,” Walpole stated.
Future
The Naval Air Warfare Middle Weapons Division says that, following PMA-265’s approval, ATAWS can be fielded to the F/A-18 fleet in early 2026.
“ATAWS instantly advances warfighter functionality by guaranteeing property can be found for forward-deployed energy projection,” Burchett stated. “Each time an plane is misplaced to a mishap, it instantly degrades the flexibility of the Marine Corps to ahead venture energy.”
Maj. Ken “Lloyd” Endicott, VX-9 operational check director, careworn the system “makes safety from CFIT way more sturdy, however it doesn’t exchange disciplined flight planning and conduct.”
Classes discovered from the legacy Hornet throughout the integration of ATAWS will now be utilized to the mixing of the Computerized Floor Collision Avoidance System (AGCAS) within the F/A-18E/F Tremendous Hornet and EA-18G Growler, says the service. VX-31 and VX-23 will incorporate system enhancements based mostly on the legacy Hornet check outcomes and reap the benefits of extra performance of the Tremendous Hornet, reminiscent of doubtlessly automating a throttle response.
“The outcomes of the check had been extremely profitable, which is an absolute testomony to the entire crew of designers, engineers, and check pilots who diligently labored this system for a few years,” he stated. “ATAWS will save lives. There’s no greater return on funding than that.”
