Raytheon’s precision landing system could be coming to more allied ships, expeditionary airfields soon

TR_123456 · Sep 3, 2021

F-35B Jets from VMFA-211 take off from HMS Queen Elizabeth during Exercise Falcon Strike in June 2021. (U.K. Royal Navy)

WASHINGTON — Raytheon Technologies is pushing its aircraft precision landing system out to more customers globally, making it easier for allied navies to cross-deck on each other’s ships and for Marine jets to island-hop as high-end warfare concepts push the fleet in those directions.

The company’s Joint Precision Approach and Landing System was designed to help planes land on aircraft carriers at sea with less stress on the pilot, as the system aboard the ship communicated with the aircraft to guide them to a safe landing. JPALS has already been installed on the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships and been integrated with the F-35B and C Joint Strike Fighter jets. The system will also be integrated with the Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray unmanned tanker as that vehicle goes through development and testing.

Still, company officials say JPALS grows more useful as more customers apply it, and argue international adoption creates new opportunities.

CJ Jaynes, a retired rear admiral and the executive technical advisor for precision landing systems at Raytheon, told Defense News the U.K. Royal Navy has installed JPALS aboard Queen Elizabeth, currently on the U.K.’s first aircraft carrier deployment in more than a decade, and on Italy’s Cavour.

She said Japan is also interested in the capability and that the company has talked to South Korea and France.

This is particularly important for how the U.S. has said it plans to fight in the future: a squadron of U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs are deployed on Queen Elizabeth now, and Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger said this week he intends to have Marines operating off Japan’s Izumo-class helicopter destroyer by the end of the year.

Looking across the entire network of allied fleets, “if you’ve got JPALS on all of your ships, all your aircraft carriers, then you can land on any of the aircraft carriers using JPALS, so that’s really where the interoperability comes,” Jaynes said, speaking to Defense News last month during the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space conference.