“Very small differences can have very large impacts [on radar cross section], the most visible part on the A10 was the blades inside the turbine, not the giant engine cowling they were inside, the tiny blade. The biggest return on a destroyer was the guard rail on deck, ect ect.” From a good comment on NavyMatters.
PICTURE: Dutch investigate F-16 damaged by own gunfire.
“Air Force programs using the new Section 804 middle-tier acquisition have collectively shortened their schedules by a total of 60 years, he said, while programs operating under traditional DoD 5000 regulations have cut another 30.” Take those numbers from William Roper with a grain of salt, but he is definitely saying the right things. From Breaking Defense. Here’s a bit more: But instead of taking decades to field a new fighter, Roper asked, “what would an adversary do facing an Air Force that it knew could design a new airplane every four years?”
Related: “At the Air Force’s inaugural Pitch Day, officials hear direct proposals from 59 small companies — and contracts are awarded within minutes through swipes of a government credit card. Over the course of a week, the Air Force awards more than 200 contracts valued at $75 million. The fastest contract award happens in just three minutes. Prior to Pitch Day, the fastest service contract award took three months.”
JEDI looks to be getting complicated: “According to the government’s filing, Ubhi worked AWS until January 2016, when he came to work for the Defense Digital Service… Ubhi recused himself from the JEDI procurement in October 2016, when AWS entered talks to buy a startup, Tablehero, that Ubhi had helped found. A footnote in the motion states that Ubhi returned to work at AWS in November 2017. The government say his work on the JEDI program “was limited to market research activities,” but Oracle asserts that he played a central role in crafting the procurement and “zealously advocated for the single award approach.”
Unrelated to the F-15X? “The US Air Force (USAF) effort to upgrade its Boeing F-15 Eagle combat aircraft took a step forward on 8 April, with a significant developmental milestone and a further contract award for two of the proposed enhancements.”
A Marine Corps legacy that acquisition needs to emulate: QPME: Warfighting: History of the MCDP, Roots of Maneuver Warfare, and the Doctrine in Action. (Recommended for all those unfamiliar with FMFM-1/MCDP-1.)
Navy fighter aircraft readiness update: “Currently, between 63 and 76 percent of Super Hornets are mission capable, Conn said. The mission capable rates were about 46 percent for F/A-18Es and 49 percent for F/A-18Fs when the Mattis memo was issued.” The real question is whether the numbers reflect the reality.
Related: On Navy and Marine Corps F-35s, “we are seeing readiness rates increase, commensurate to what we’re seeing on other aviation platforms,”
“You can systematize innovation even if you can’t completely predict it.” Podcast featuring Eric Schmidt on his new book,Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell. And here’s my review of his previous book with Rosenberg.
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