🔷 Marine Corps Aviation

Marine Aviation 2025

This week, the US Marine Corps released the 2025 Marine Aviation Plan, with some notable call-outs.

Background

The Marine Corps updates its aviation plan every ~3 years—the last updates occurred in 2022 and 2019—and it primarily exists to capture the aviation-centric vision and planning adjustments to support Force Design (formally known as Force Design 2030) and force modernization vision.

It’s a great way to succinctly capture the big picture for Marine aviation and articulate what is happening and why—something all the services should have [ahem, Air Force].

Project Eagle

This 2025 plan is the first version to integrate Project Eagle—the 15-year plan to transform Marine Aviation to 2040.

Unlike most Pentagon “plans” or “strategies,” Project Eagle is what the Marine Corps is using to inform their planning, programming, budgeting, and execution (PPBE). You can think of Project Eagle as the strategy (purpose & direction), and the aviation plan as the execution details.

Project Eagle quietly started back in 2022 but is now entering the third and most crucial phase: execution.

F-35 Changes

The biggest change has to do with the 420-jet F-35 program of record. While the top line is not changing, the mix of F-35Bs (STOVL) and F-35Cs (carrier) variants is.

The Marine Corps is slashing the number of F-35Bs—from 353 to 280—and doubling the F-35C fleet from 67 to 140 jets.

F-35B

The F-35B is the transformer-type variant—it trades fuel and weapons capacity for its short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) abilities.

The F-35B is largely considered to be the most suitable variant for expeditionary operations, and the Marine Corps—branded as an expeditionary force—is all-in on a number of expeditionary concept acronyms: Distributed Aviation Operations (DAO) to support Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO).

So, the decision to shift 20% of the total USMC F-35 program buy away from the F-35B is a bit perplexing.

Given the number of design compromises, complexities, and costs the F-35 program had to incur to support the Marine Corps STOVL requirement—the Air Force has to be even more bitter than it already is.

F-35C

The plan’s F-35C increase also highlights another long-standing peculiarity: the Marine Corps embarks on aircraft carriers to perform the exact same mission—with the same equipment—as the Navy.

Aircraft carriers don’t traditionally support the MAGTF, the fighting element structure of the Marine Corps and the #1 priority listed in the Aviation Plan.

Reading between the lines, the ‘support the joint force’ narrative is carefully woven into the plan’s verbiage—which is the US Air Force’s tagline purpose.

Congress should have big questions about these topics during this year’s budget hearings.

What Else

Enough wire-brushing; here’s what else is in the plan.

• XQ-58: work will continue towards fielding a minimum viable product (MVP) for an F-35 loyal wingman for the MUX TACAIR program by testing and refining the payloads

• Legacy Hornets: The 161 F/A-18C/D fleet will live through at least 2029, and they are currently getting AN/APG-79(v)4 radars. The #1 funding priority for 2025 is to integrate “existing joint extended range, anti-maritime, and land attack weapons” (sounds like JASSM and LRASM stealth cruise missiles).

• MQ-9: The number of planned MQ-9s to 2040 remains the same (18)—which seems pretty odd and out of line with most of the plan’s concepts. To be fair, though, they did add a 1:1 ratio of fixed and mobile ground control stations.

• F-5: The 13-jet F-5 aggressor fleet is on track to increase to 22 jets by 2029 to meet what is projected to be a whopping 40% increase in adversary air requirements (17,000 sorties/year). Expect the commercial ADAIR market to try and seize on this opportunity space.

• APKWS: the laser-guided rocket kit known as the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II is getting an IR-seeker upgrade, likely for expanded use as a low-cost counter-drone weapon.

• PASM: The AH-1Z Precision Attack Strike Munition (formally called the Long Range Attack Missile (LRAM)) is slated for a maximum range, live fire shot by the end of this year. This will get some attention because the world is not prepared for an attack helicopter that can shoot a 150+ mile missile.

What’s Missing

With all the items of interest and moving pieces, it's easy to miss some things.

One thing notably absent in the plan was any mention of Group 3 drones, the size class of drones between 69 and 1,320 pounds, and 2 notable efforts fall into this bucket.

The first is MARV-EL (Medium Aerial Resupply Vehicle – Expeditionary Logistics), a cargo drone program designed to carry 300 pounds for 300 miles.

The other is ISR—the Marine Corps has been experimenting with Group 3 ISR drones over the past few years on MEU deployments.

Maybe they are omitted because they are too small/low-cost to be included?

Maybe the Marine Corps isn’t ready to commit to them in a plan?

To be fair, these drones are captured in the Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems (IRAS) effort, but that plan includes MQ-9 and XQ-58, which are also in the aviation plan, so…

In That Number

$150 billion

The Senate Budget Committee released a budget blueprint that would add a whopping $150 billion to the Pentagon’s annual budget.

Details are thin, but mention 4 efforts: readiness, shipbuilding, the Iron Dome for America, and nuclear modernization.

This could be a monumental relief for both the Navy and Air Force, who are burdened with a massive $1 trillion shipbuilding crisis and a $169 billion ICBM upgrade program.

TRIVIA

On this day in 2003, the US launched Operation Eagle Fury in Afghanistan, a mission to corner Taliban leaders in the Baghran Valley, North of Kandahar. This led to a combat feat that had not been done since the Vietnam War. What was it?

A) snipers from helicopters

B) mule resupply convoy

C) airdrop fuel

On the Radar

Iran’s new aircraft carrier entered service, and it's…interesting. The unveiling also revealed the JAS-313, a fighter-like drone that evolved from Iran’s defunct Qaher-313 fighter.  

• The Merge’s Take: Because the carrier was adapted from a cargo ship, it has a wacky configuration. The superstructure prevents a full flight deck, so it's short and angled—odd-looking but likely suitable for its purpose as a drone and helo carrier. It has 1 elevator (that we can tell) and limited top-side space to stage aircraft—but it does have a small ‘soccer court’ below deck. Finally, Iran decided to show off a sub-sub-scale drone launch (a smaller training version of the 60% scaled JAS-313), which isn’t the flex they probably thought it would be.

Spain's Satnus completed its first CCA C2 flight campaign. The 2-week effort was to mature tech for manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) that will be part of the FCAS (Future Combat Air System). The C2 effort is meant to connect FCAS’s next-gen fighter, NGWS (Next Generation Weapon System), and autonomous drone wingmen, Remote Carriers (RCs). FYI, the US lexicon for RCs is Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA).

• The Merge’s Take: The flight test used a modified target drone as an RC surrogate—an approach that has become the go-to method for advancing CCA tech. Judging by the one partial picture in the press release, it appears to be a SCRAB III built by Sener’ SCR—one of the 3 companies in the Satnus joint venture.

Baykar delivered the first batch of Bayraktar Akinci drones to Morocco.

• The Merge’s Take: We’re highlighting this because, while it doesn’t sound like big news, it kinda is. Don’t confuse this with the Bakar TB2 drones that were used in Ukraine. Akinci is a twin-engine drone that carries 4,000 pounds, has a 4,000-mile range (via SATCOM), can fly for 24 hours, and can be equipped with sensors, cruise missiles, air-to-air missiles, bunker-busting bombs, and more. Akinci drone proliferation is happening in Africa (Libya, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Mali, and now Morocco).

They Said It

“Against the level of threat tested, the F-15EX is operationally effective in all its air superiority roles, including defensive and offensive counter-air against surrogate fifth-generation adversary aircraft.”

— Test report from Office of the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E), providing a rare positive review of a weapons program.

It’s also one of the first instances of the Pentagon officially recognizing that a modern 4th-gen fighter can gain and maintain an advantage over a 5th-gen adversary.

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Knowledge Bombs

• Anduril is raising another funding round—this one at $2.5B—adding to the $3.7B they’ve raised to date

• Saudi Arabia increased defense spending to $78B in 2025, now representing 7.1% of GDP, as it works to implement Vision 2030 (spending to incentivize the localization of 50% of all defense spending by 2030)

• Applied Intuition acquired autonomy software provider EpiSci

• The Navy’s F/A-18 IRST Block II pods were declared operational

• Canada is interested in joining the ‘Iron Dome for America’ initiative

• France delivered the first Mirage 2000-5 fighters to Ukraine

• Google dropped its ban on AI weapon development efforts

• The EU allocated $1B for emerging military tech under the European Defence Fund (EDF)

• DIU is exploring how SpaceX’s Starship in-space refueling capability might have defense applications

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ANSWER
C. The insertion of forces led to a 43-hour battle, and the operation lasted longer than anticipated. This led to a combat airdrop of 38,000 gallons of fuel for a forward area refueling point (FARP), the first heavy airdrop of the war—and likely the first combat airdrop of fuel since Vietnam.