Only when the contractor is taking risks to develop the state-of-the-art and do something better than has ever been done before can there be much progress in product capability. The state-of-time-art is most often improved by doing and only by doing. Sitting and thinking seldom improves the state-of-the-art.
I have been repeatedly impressed in putting this paper together by how often unexpected and great discoveries and progress came about during or as the result of prototype competitions. Paper competitions assume that people can get smart by studying. Prototype competitions add that very great increment of smartness which can be learned only by doing.
The economists and political leaders of Western Europe have been very busy during the last twenty years deciding that each of the countries of Western Europe cannot afford competition even by prototypes. They have been promoting mergers in their industry and concurrently have been restricting their defense departments and government-owned airlines to buy from chosen sources. There has been a strong tendency toward directed single source procurement and many forms of restraint on trade…
This desire to restrict competition is not limited to Western Europe. This disease can also be found thriving in Washington D.C. Many economists and politicians will stand up and make strong speeches about how America is great because of its freedom of enterprise and competition. Many of these same economists, bureaucrats, and politicians will return to their daily work and engage in actions which are highly in restraint of competition, and usually on the assumption that a competition costs money—and lots of money—and that we can no longer afford competition. It seems to me that in most circumstances they could not be further from the real truth.
I am left with the impression that the Soviet Union has devised a very strongly competitive climate for the development of their aeronautical productions. It would appear that nearly always there are two entirely different products under production procurement for each acknowledged mission. The air shows lead me to believe that these parallel production competitive procurements are chosen from a still larger number of prototype systems.
That was George Schairer, former VP at Boeing, providing a passionate defense of competitive behavior in the defense industry, which means funding redundant projects which some uninformed outsider could point to as clear cases of waste which, nevertheless, are absolutely necessary to maintain a healthy R&D program.
Source: COMPETITION IN DEFENSE PROCUREMENT-1969, HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ANTITRUST AND MONOPOLY OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES SENATE, NINETY-FIRST CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION, PURSUANT TO S. Res. 40, JULY 14, 1969
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