Air Force reorganizes acquisition for Fighters and Bombers

The Air Force Materiel Command’s Air Force Life Cycle Management Center will split Fighters and Bombers Directorate into a Fighters and Advanced Aircraft Directorate and a Bombers Directorate – both led by a general officer Program Executive Officer, and the Tanker Directorate will return its three tanker program offices to the Mobility and Training Aircraft Directorate…

 

— PEO for Bombers will be led by Brig. Gen. John Newberry, based at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and will include all current personnel and program execution responsibilities for the B-2 Spirit, B-52 Stratofortress, and B-1 Lancer Program Offices.  Additionally, Newberry will have organize, train, and equip responsibilities for the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office’s B-21 personnel assigned to the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.

 

— PEO for Fighters & Advanced Aircraft will be led by Brig. Gen. (S) Dale White, based at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and will include all current personnel and program execution responsibilities for the A-10 Warthog, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Viper, F-22 Raptor, Attack Systems, Skyborg, and Next-Generation Air Dominance Program Offices.  Additionally, White will have organize, train, and equip responsibilities for the Joint Strike Fighter Program Office’s F-35 personnel assigned to the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.

 

— PEO for Mobility and Training Aircraft, Ms. Lynda Rutledge, will continue to execute in this capacity, adding in the KC-135, KC-10, KC-46, and Open Skies Treaty Aircraft Recapitalization Program Offices.

That was from an AFLCMC update, “Air Force realigns Program Executive Officers.” HT: Tim B.

Fighter Organization

Remember when Will Roper stood up PEO Advanced Aircraft on Oct. 2, 2019? It was a bold move to turn the F-35 follow-on program (the sixth gen PCA) into a century-series program of rapid developments. Call Next Generation Air Dominance, presumably there would be multiple programs of record, not just one, and they would be handled by something like a dedicated PEO. That left the legacy aircraft platforms with PEO Fighter/Bomber.

One way of conceiving such an organization is something like the Space Force’s SMC 2.0, where you have a Development Corps and a Production Corps. Presumably programs get handed off. In the Air Force, you could have PEO Advanced Aircraft and PEO Evolutionary Aircraft for fighters. But then this could create a second “valley of death” between development and the production/mods.

Rather than splitting up old and new systems into separate PEOs, the Air Force elected to merge them into a single PEO for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft. I think that makes sense. I’m not really sure how SMC 2.0 will work out for the Space Force given acquisition and budget realities. Worth a shot, though.

Over time, if aircraft systems are descaling, it would make sense to disaggregate PEO Fighters and Advanced Aircraft into two or three PEOS — or more. Each PEO could do “cradle to the grave” development and production of its own aircraft within common architectures. Think about it. The current PEO Fighter/Bomber is just one several dozen PEOs throughout the Department. And yet, PEO Fighter/Bomber is itself responsible for more military aircraft acquisition than any other nation.

In the current structure, the PEO for Fighters and Bombers manages more than 4,500 aircraft which is larger than all other air forces in the world.

Soviet Russia used to have 12 separate airframe bureaus and 12 engine bureaus. I think we can manage two or three total. And that could be one way of splitting up the PEOs. Rather than divvy up programs, one PEO could address propulsion, one airframing, and one autonomy and ISR. Of course the inter-dependencies could create their own problems, but it is an interesting design. Far more use of subsystem prototyping could be done using the Middle Tier pathway.

(Note: I’d bet the ultimate reason PEO Advanced Aircraft got merged into Fighters is that it hasn’t been funded at a high enough level to justify being a PEO. The Air Force asked for $1 billion for NGAD in FY 2020, and Congress slashed it to $500 million. It’s not clear Congress would support NGAD ramping up significant even if the Air Force was willing to make Night Court style tradeoffs.)

Bomber Organization

Naturally, with the much anticipated first flight of a bomber in over 30 years — not to mention the B-52 re-engine program — Bombers gets elevated in status to a PEO. But the B-21 is actually being developed under the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which is run by a Board of Directors but is roughly equivalent to a smallish PEO itself. But presumably it would go against the RCO’s mission to take the B-21 into production. I’d think the program will get formally handed over at some point, and PEO Bomber is already involved in development.

Interestingly, the new Bomber PEO will “have organize, train, and equip responsibilities” for RCO personnel on the B-21 assigned at AFLCMC. That could be a segway into the handoff. Something like half of Air Force PEOs are run out of AFLCMC, but not the RCO. I wonder what proportion of B-21 personnel that covers?

It makes sense to me how the services’systems commands like AFLCMC will “organize, train, and equip” the combatant commands. But it just sounds weird to me that PEO Bomber will “organize, train, and equip” another acquisition office — the RCO. Presumably AFLCMC controls a fair amount of the installations, and so perhaps it should coordinate personnel assignments, facilities, and so forth. The F-35 situation seems similar, where you have a kind of standalone organization.

But too much involvement of AFLCMC into the RCO may lead to lead to the RCO becoming less special. It will be interesting to see whether the same fate could befall the Space Rapid Capabilities Office due to SMC 2.0 re-organizations.