Can you pass the “Ships Test?” Issues of defense requirements
Here’s an interesting slice of Lockheed Martin’s Inside Skunk Works podcast on something called the “ships” test: The bottom line is don’t add rules that […]
Lockheed Martin
Podcast: Managing Portfolios to Bridge DoD’s Valley of Death
I hosted a panel event with the the newly named Baroni Center for Government Contracting to discuss our recent report on how funding flexibility can […]
F-35 Program Manager says DoD must avoid past mistakes, own the technical baseline
This is perhaps the most interesting part from the April 2022 HASC hearing on F-35 sustainment. Representative Waltz asked Lt. Gen. Eric Fick, PEO for […]
Peter Theil talks defense industry consolidation
Robert O’Brien: One of the things we’ve seen that’s happened faster than the experts thought — particularly over the last decade — is that the […]
What Palantir and Lockheed’s financials say about the GovCon business
Here’s a good piece from Simply Statistics on Palantir: At first glance it seems their doing pretty well. Their gross profit (Revenue – Cost of […]
Zumwalt’s advanced gun system woes
The LRLAPs [Long Range Land-Attack Projectiles] were to have been coordinate-attack weapons, guided by GPS satellite signals and inertial navigation systems to specific points ashore. […]
Few defense firms closed due to Covid-19, and more industry impacts
Defense Contract Management Agency data shows that about 106 out of 10,509 primary Pentagon contractors are closed. 68 companies have closed but subsequently reopened. On […]
Can the F-35 reach $25K per flying hour target by FY 2033? It depends…
It’s possible for the F-35 program to reach its target of $25,000 per flying hour, but only if there’s a substantial change… The F-35 […]
Does Lockheed own all F-35 data created by military users? Problems of IP.
“We still have concerns, there still are roadblocks as we go to execute,” Fick said. “Everything from something as simple as U.S. government documents that […]
Big defense primes as gatekeepers to small, innovative firms
Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) announced on Sunday the creation of the MIT-Lockheed Martin Seed Fund, promoting collaborations […]
The need to demonstrate technical feasibility
Finally, it is clear that in the German case, as in the British, an early demonstration of the technical feasibility of the turbojet engine made […]
William Hartung on Lockheed Martin and the military-industrial complex
William Hartung joins me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss his book, Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex. […]
Amazon’s HQ2 courting the Pentagon?
This is the strange, slightly surreal world in which Amazon has decided to land. “They definitely moved to Crystal City to be closer to the Pentagon,” says William D. Hartung, security expert at the Center for International Policy and author of “Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.”