October 19, 2016
The United States Air Force is badly in need of a new jet trainer.
The existing aircraft, the Northrop T-38, was first built in 1961. The average
age of the current fleet of some 400 T-38s is over 43 years. The T-38 has
already undergone one major, expensive upgrade and service life extension
program in the early 2000s and will require another one if not replaced in a
timely manner.
But the gap in capability between an aircraft representing the
technologies of the last century and a combat force that will consist
predominantly of fifth and even sixth-generation platforms is growing. The T-38
is unable to conduct 12 of 18 advanced pilot training tasks requiring that they
be performed in fighter and bomber training units at significantly increased
costs.
The Air Force knows it has already delayed replacing the T-38 far
too long. The rationale for delaying acquisition of a new trainer, a lack of
money, makes little sense when one considers the increased costs of sustaining
a 40-year-old aircraft that will be 60 years old by the time the last one
leaves service, the costs imposed on other training units and the expense of
upgrading an aging and obsolescent aircraft. Already the Air Force has
been forced to undertake replacement of life-limited structural components on
some 150 at-risk T-38s to ensure an adequate trainer fleet through the end of
the 2020s. These are upgrades needed merely to keep the old T-38s flying and do
nothing to enhance their performance.
The current plan is to release the formal Request for Proposal
(RFP) in December and award a contract by the end of 2017. According to Air
Force and industry sources, initial operating capability is to be delivered in
2024 and full operating capability in 2034. Any further delay in completing the
acquisition process or in providing aircraft will put the Air Force in an
untenable position. The service has an array of major programs that will be in
full rate production in the 2020s and 2030s including the F-35 fighter, B-21
bomber, KC-46A tanker, intelligence platform replacements and a new search and
rescue helicopter. After that there is the potential sixth-generation fighter
and a follow-on strategic tanker.
Clearly with only seven years between contract award and initial
operations, the T-X program cannot go through the standard acquisition process
which normally takes 12 to 20 years. Initially, it was believed that the Air
Force would specify an existing airframe or non-developmental item. Three of
the four teams expected to compete for T-X will offer a variation of a current
platform: Lockheed Martin and KAI with the T-50A, Northrop Grumman heading a
team including BAE Systems, L-3 and Rolls Royce with an airframe design from
Scaled Composites and Raytheon teamed with Leonardo to provide the Alenia
Aermacchi M-346. But the Air Force changed its mind and will allow a
clean-sheet design so long as the offer can meet the proposed schedule. Boeing
and SAAB have unveiled just such an aircraft and state that this is not a
developmental aircraft. Darryl Davis, president of Boeing’s Phantom Works stated in a recent interview that “It is a production jet at
this stage.”
The T-X RFP is being released against a backdrop of repeated Air
Force acquisition debacles that have resulted in cost overruns and program
delays. But the T-X program could well represent a new start for Air Force
acquisition. The T-X RFP reflects a number of important lessons learned the
hard way. Because all entrants are expected to be production-ready, the
contract for the T-X will be firm, fixed price. The winning team will have to
absorb any cost overruns. In addition, there will be no concurrency; the
winner must go through a thorough test program before beginning production.
While fixed pricing and the prohibition on concurrent development
will protect the Air Force from major cost increases, they do not address the
danger of schedule slippage. As discussed above, any delay in delivering the
T-X will cost the Air Force dearly. Not surprisingly, all the potential
competitors assert that their offering is sufficiently advanced, or even in
production in some form. One would assume that this makes it unlikely that
there will be a schedule problem.
But what if there were a delay? It is difficult to see how the Air
Force could write a contract such that there would be consequences in 2023 or
2024 if the winning team failed to meet the required schedule. An attempt to do
so would undoubtedly produce years of protests and legal wrangling.
The Air Force must carefully evaluate all the offerings with an
eye to the companies’ ability to ensure schedule stability. Is sufficient
allowance made for software development, systems integration and even tooling
and workforce training? Do the offerors’ management plans engender
confidence that the teams will be able to respond to the inevitable unforeseen
event to meet the contract deadline? In the absence of concurrent development,
how will the ramp up to production be addressed? As the era of long development
periods for major acquisition programs comes to an end, the Air Force needs to
make time as important a factor in its procurements as it has cost.
Dr. Dan Goure is a Vice President of the Lexington Institute. He
is involved in a wide range of issues as part of the institute’s national
security program.
Original post: nationalinterest
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