Mike Atwood (General Atomics): We’re really excited to see the formation of the Vanguard programs and realize his vision. The challenge we’ve had is though we have the digital engineering tools, there’s still an amount of bureaucracy in DoD at the execution level. Though we might bring systems engineering and the digital thread to bear, it’s hard for the DoD machine to take the empowerment at the execution level.
But I think Roper did move the needle. We are moving in the right direction. We’ve started making “e” models of systems that allow the government to stress those. People like Colonel Haley have been using that at AFWIC to do the requirements down select. We really haven’t seen the acceleration in building aircraft and getting them to the flight line. I think that will be the next five years.
How do we take the requirements development and system optimization and take that to manufacturing. There are exciting programs that will lead that and Skyborg will hang on the coattails of those programs. The core of what we’re seeing and what Roper was pushing is risk acceptance and empowerment at the lowest levels of decision-making. That will take more time than Roper had hoped, but we’re eager to see that happen.
… An early transition into operational theaters is really the bar I’m going to look to to see if Skyborg is ultimately succeeding. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to see a PACOM deployment as early as 2025. That’s usually called a QRC, quick reaction capability, or a joint emergent operation need.
That was from the Aerospace Advantage podcast, “Unmanned Wingmen? The Future of Air Combat.” A lot more of interest in the episode.
With Skyborg as with other programs, I think Mike Atwood pointed to two important problems: (1) Workforce empowerment (and training) to move fast; and (2) accelerating the actual building and testing of systems. It’s all well and good to feed digital models into a requirements process and then run small competitions and experiments. But that won’t get DoD over the finish line, and it seems that a lot of the Vanguard efforts are coasting on private IR&D rather than DoD contracts.
Why is it so hard to build, test, iterate real hardware?
Skyborg was designated one of three Vanguard programs back in 2019 and the FY2021 request consolidated a bunch of efforts out of different Program Elements. Actually, the Air Force tried to consolidate numerous other programs in RDT&E BA 6.3. Congress, however, rejected that approach except for the Vanguard programs which remained a portfolio (though they cut $10M out of the $157M request… $40M of which is for Skyborg itself). That helps flex money between priorities, but not actually building real systems.
Here’s one major problem. BA 6.3 is technically not supposed to result in prototypes. That’s the realm of BA 6.4 funding. (Even though some prototyping will happen in BA 6.3). Before the Air Force can get BA 6.4 funding, it will need to line that funding up and get it approved. Until then, a bulk of the building effort like we’ve seen with Kratos Valkyrie is privately funded.
Luckily, DoD and Congress still provide a good bit of flexibility in BA 6.4. But then there’ll be a much bigger hurdle to get to full-scale development in BA 6.5 as the program will have to undergo Milestone B certification. Before the Vanguard programs like Skyborg start entering BA 6.4 and especially 6.5, there will be a ton more scrutiny brought down on them. And Skyborg won’t be ready for operational deployments in 2025 until it goes through prototyping (BA 6.4) and full scale development (BA 6.5). So 2025 seems a long way off, but that’s about as fast as DoD acquisition can possibly go.
While workforce empowerment is definitely an issue, I don’t think we can blame the workforce for being unable to move significant dollars in a timely fashion to support the building of real capabilities for operational experiments. A lot of speed can be had in the early stages of a program, but that quickly turns into a quagmire with bigger dollars and operational equipment are in question. There’s no other way then to address criteria for DoD and Congressional oversight.
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