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SOCOM Slashes Acquisition Red Tape

Joint Aircraft:Pentagon Determined Not to Repeat Past Mistakes

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J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5 • N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E 1

NDIA’S BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE

VOLUME XCIX, NUMBER 734

WWW.NATIONALDEFENSEMAGAZINE.ORG

Commentary

12 History of U.S. Weapons Proves Value of Realistic Operational Testing

Budget-driven reductions to testing may ultimately threaten combat success.

BY J. MICHAEL GILMORE

Viewpoint

15 Canceling the DDG-1000 Destroyer Program Was a Mistake

After halting production of the Zumwalt-class ship, the Navy may be vulnerable to future threats.

BY BEN FREEMAN

Analysis

17 Concern Grows About International Aerospace, Defense Competitiveness

Most military contractor executives say their firms are ill-prepared for the challenges of selling to overseas markets.

BY ALEKSANDAR JOVOVIC AND MATTHEW BREEN

International Trade

19 Know When Software Falls Under Export Control Regime

In collaboratively developing or licensing software, a company may violate International Traffic in Arms Regulations by improperly disclos-ing or transferring it as an unauthor-ized export.

BY JEFFREY RICHARDSON

Space 26� The development of new space systems has all but come to a halt. The pause in new pro-grams could continue for three to five years. If the Air Force doesn’t begin work on its next-generation of communications satellites after then, it could start to see capability gaps.

January 2015Twitter.com/NationalDefense Facebook.com/NationalDefense

www.NationalDefenseMagazine.org/blog

Exclusive content on

our blog

Cover Story 34� The history of joint aircraft programs is one of failures and cancelations. Few interservice programs have come to fruition. One notable exception is the F-35 joint strike fighter, which has faced many development challeng-es. Undeterred by the past, pro-ponents of new joint rotorcraft hope to avoid the pitfalls that have plagued similar programs.

Cover: Sikorsky-Boeing and Bell Helicopter joint multi-role artwork.

Business + Industry News Homeland Security News8 10

Special Operations 24� Special Operations Command has achieved recognition for the speedy procure-ment of new gadgets for its commandos. Its ability to do away with red tape could serve as a model for the other services.

SPECIAL REPORT: National Defense looks at the state of military acquisitions, including joint programs, ground robots, space, Army trucks and the increasing use of challenge prizes and rapid fielding initiatives to bring new technologies to battlefields.

2 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

January 2015

volume xcix number 734

EditorSandra I. Erwin (703)247-2543SErwin@ndia.org

Managing Editor Stew Magnuson(703)247-2545SMagnuson@ndia.org

SEnior Editor Valerie Insinna(703)247-2542VInsinna@ndia.org

StaFF WritEr Yasmin Tadjdeh(703)247-2585YTadjdeh@ndia.org

dESign dirEctor Brian Taylor(703)247-2546BTaylor@ndia.org

EditoriaL aSSiStant Sarah Sicard(703)247-9469SSicard@ndia.org

advErtiSing Dino Pignotti(703)247-2541DPignotti@ndia.orgFor additional advertising information, go to the Index of Advertisers on the last page.

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National Defense (ISSN 0092–1491) is published monthly by the National Defense Industrial Association(NDIA),2111WilsonBlvd.,Suite400,Arlington,VA22201–3061.TEL(703)522–1820;FAX(703)522–1885.advertising Sales:DinoK.Pignotti,2111WilsonBlvd.,Suite400,Arlington,VA22201–3061.TEL(703)247–

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NEWS fEaTurESOperations and Maintenance

20 Military Challenged to Maintain Decades-old aircraft

TheDefenseDepartmentiscomingtogripswiththechallengesassociatedwithmaintaininganagingaircraftfleet.

BySandraI.ErwIn

SPECIAL REPORT: Military Acquisitions

Army Trucks

22 ultra Light Combat Vehicle Could Buck Trend of Slow Truck Procurement

TheultralightcombatvehiclemayprovetobeanexceptionwhenitcomestotheArmy’snotoriouslyslowacquisitionpro-cesses.

ByValErIEInSInna

Special Ops

24 Special operations Command Bypasses acquisition red Tape

SOCOMhaslearnedhowtoacquirenewtechnologiesinweeksandmonthsratherthanyears.

ByyaSmInTadjdEh

Space

26 air force Space Programs on hold as New architecture Studied

Theservicehopestobreakfreeofwhatisknownasthe“viciouscircleofspaceacquisition.”

BySTEwmagnuSon

Nontraditional Acquisitions

28 More government agencies using Challenge Prizes to Tackle Tough Technology Problems

DefenseDepartmentcomponentsareincreasinglyusingcontestsasanewacquisitiontool.

BySTEwmagnuSon

30 rapid acquisition groups Break Mold of Slow Pentagon Procurement System

AfeworganizationshavemadestridesdoingawaywiththeDefenseDepartment’smoribundprocurementregime.

ByyaSmInTadjdEh

Unmanned Systems

32 Military Joint ground robot Programs face Increased Scrutiny

Withcontinueddelaysandtighteningbud-gets,Congressisquestioningtheservices’groundrobotacquisitionsprograms.

BySarahSIcard

Cover Story

34 In future rotorcraft acquisition, Services Working to avoid Mistakes of Past Joint Programs

Officialshopingtodevelopthenext-gener-ationofmilitaryhelicoptershavelookedtotheF-35asanexampleofwhatnottodo.

ByValErIEInSInna

37 f-35 Industrial Base relies on International Participation

TheF-35LightningIIjointstrikefighterhasbecomeamodelforinternationalcoop-eration,broadeningamarketthatmayoffernew,betterordifferentproducts.

ByEdwardlundquIST

DEParTMENTS3 Chairman’s report

NewLeadershipaBoosttoNationalSecurity

by Arnold L. Punaro

4 Defense Watch Ruminationsoncurrentevents by Sandra I. Erwin

6 Ethics Corner

8 Business + Industry NewsWhat’snewandnextfortheindustrialbase

by Valerie Insinna

10 homeland Security News Monitoringthehomefront by Stew Magnuson

39 NDIa News

40 NDIa Calendar CompleteguidetoNDIAevents

44 Next Month Previewofournextissue

44 Index of advertisers

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 3J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 3

Most recall that Charles Dickens began his masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities, by writing that “it was the best of times;

it was the worst of times.” As we assess the defense outlook for 2015, it looks like that now. Few recall what Dickens wrote next in his famous first sentence: “It was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness.” It looks like that, as well.

On the best of times and wisdom front, we are fortunate. The new leadership of the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees will build on the already strong bipartisan record of supporting a strong national security. Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, is known for his measured, thoughtful and bipartisan approach to legislating. His Ranking Member, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., has a positive working relationship that puts national security first. The Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ranking Member, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., are both veterans. Senators McCain and Reed are known for reaching across the aisle on national security mat-ters and for their very thorough grasp of the details of national security policy.

Among them, these leaders have 98 years of combined experience at the authorizing committees and have dealt with increases and decreases in budgets, previous drawdowns, numerous conflicts and wars, five different administrations, 10 secretaries of defense and 10 chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Acquisition is one area where McCain and Thornberry have common cause — both have expressed a strong desire to reform acquisition policy because, as everyone knows, the cur-rent system does not provide the bang for the buck it should. The National Defense Industrial Association, led by Jon Ether-ton, has been assisting their efforts and has just published a report recommending significant acquisition improvements. Combined with the efforts of Under Secretary Frank Kendall and Better Buying Power 3.0, we have cause for optimism that 2015 will be a year for major improvements.

These new leaders also give us reason to hope that the grave error of budget sequestration (which gives rise to the age of foolishness label and the worst of times) will be reversed in the coming year. While the Murray-Ryan Bipartisan Budget Act gave the Pentagon partial relief from sequestration for fiscal years 2014 and 2015, the Defense Department faces another serious funding shortfall beginning in fiscal year 2016. We can expect another pitched battle over government spending, although leaders of the congressional defense committees have announced their plans to bring sequestration to an end.

While it is difficult in January to see a clear, deficit-neutral path to increasing the defense top-line, the commitment and courage of these leaders will drive the necessary compromise that will flow from the consideration of the administration’s budget request — expected to be $144 billion more than the sequester caps allowed for fiscal years 2016-2020. Even if sequestration is not fully repealed, some reasonable increase and budget stability will go a long way toward improving our

war fighting readiness to deter the threat of violent Islamic extremism, a revanchist Russia and a rising China.

The recent report on defense contracting trends by the Center for Strategic and International Studies confirmed what those of us in industry already knew — that sequestration cuts fell heaviest, and disproportionately, on our modernization accounts. This reality is known to Pentagon leaders, who have announced a new Defense Innovation Initiative to reverse the hollowing out of our industrial base.

To maintain the world’s finest military, we need three things: high-quality personnel, realistic and constant train-ing, and cutting-edge technology. The Pentagon knows what we also know — you cannot have the last without a strong and well-funded defense industry. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Deputy Secretary Bob Work recognize this as well and have initiated a “beyond offset” strategy designed to keep the U.S. technologically ahead of our competitors. Incoming Secretary Ash Carter is a real proponent of a vibrant industrial base as evidenced by our Eisenhower Award. He is a true believer in the two-way street relationship that was so suc-cessful in putting world-class technology in the hands of our troops on the battlefield.

NDIA recognizes the critical role we must play in these deliberations. We have recruited some top leaders to take NDIA into a new era. Craig McKinley starts this month as our new CEO and president and his battle-tested leadership comes at a consequential time. He is well known and respect-ed in our industry, on the Hill and in the halls of government. We congratulate Larry Farrell for his successful tenure and welcome Craig’s forward-looking leadership. He is joined by Terri Swetnam as NDIA’s chief operating officer who brings decades of proven experience in financial management.

In addition to the Etherton report on acquisition reform, NDIA is also in the midst of a major study of the defense industrial base led by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Brett Lambert. This study will enable our association to make a significant contribution to the discussion we must have about the future of our industry. Our new head of policy Will Goodman and his team have revitalized our association’s outreach to Congress and the executive branch — including legislative breakfasts and a distinguished speaker series — so that members have an opportunity to get insights directly from policymakers. We’re also undertaking a comprehensive strategic review. We have one of the most respected outside firms specializing in this area helping us map our future course.

There is a chance that Dickens’ phrase “the age of wisdom” will come to characterize the current era in defense. We are fortunate that today’s defense leaders understand what the nation needs and are ready to work together to achieve it. And as your association, NDIA will continue to show the way for a safe and secure American future that is grounded in the strength of the defense industry, working to secure the best of times, just as we have done since our founding in 1919.

Chairman’s Report by arnold l. punaro

New Leadership a Boost to National Security

4 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

There are many reasons why Wall Street hearts the defense industry. As analysts see it, top defense CEOs

have proven to be exceptionally smart at financial engineering and dealing with investors. Even in these times of steep mili-tary budget cuts, industry stocks have reached new heights.

As companies defy gravity by slashing expenses and return-ing cash to shareholders, they continue to puzzle Wall Street analysts and financiers. Nobody knows if or when investors will begin to retreat, but so far financial experts continue to be favorably surprised by the performance of Pentagon contrac-tors.

“Returns to shareholders are much higher in defense than in other parts of the market,” said David Strauss, aerospace and defense industry analyst at UBS.

Defense investors today are widespread. They include large mutual funds, pension and hedge funds. Investors have shifted their money to Pentagon contractors gradually over the past several years, Strauss said last month at an industry confer-ence. In 2008 and 2009, there was a lot of tentativeness about defense stocks going into a downturn. But companies have managed the military cutbacks very differently than they had done in the past.

Following the post-Cold War downturn, companies rushed to acquire and merge with other companies, but not this time.

Another factor that swayed investors is that the budget has held up better than most analysts had predicted, Strauss said.

“We expected defense budgets to go down 50 percent. Today it has dropped less than 25 percent.” Sequestration is seen as a negative, but the defense top line, even under reduced spending caps, is projected to go up modestly after 2017. “That’s better than what we were thinking before,” said Strauss.

Defense firms, while loved by near-term focused sharehold-ers, have been spurned by private equity. One firm that built its cachet on its ownership of defense contractors, The Carlyle Group, has slowly left the sector. Carlyle, with more than $200 billion in assets, has done about 80 deals over the last 20 years in defense and aerospace, but none in the defense sector since 2008, said Managing Director Frank Finelli. “That’s because we’re finding better risk-adjusted returns in other sectors in the U.S. and globally,” he said.

Some areas of the defense sector are appealing, but private equity investors worry about the long term. When they buy companies, their intent is to own them for five to 10 years.

“We bring a different perspective,” Finelli said. The dilemma is how to ensure the value of these companies goes up. “It’s a complex situation,” he added. The most worrisome red flags out there are interest rates and the rising national debt. Interest of the U.S. debt alone is on a path to reach a trillion dollars in 10 years. “That has big implications for defense,” Finelli said. “Right now, I’m looking for commercial diversification.”

A caveat for U.S. weapon makers is that they might be overestimating their opportunities for non-U.S. business. “The risk is that management will divert attention to these foreign markets and not achieve the traction,” said Finelli. “I applaud

companies for pursuing international markets. But a lot of companies are not going to gain the traction.” A stronger U.S. dollar will make American equipment more expensive over-seas, and many countries already shun U.S. suppliers because of burdensome export controls.

“Defense industry management across defense has done a great job with financial performance,” he said. The sector is attractive to income-oriented investors that are buying stocks today, “but as private equity investors, we are looking at what the sum of the value of the programs is from the bottom up,” said Finelli. The issue is that the future of many programs is unclear.

Another looming headache for the industry is its access to talent. Defense firms are competing for engineers against behe-moths like Apple and Google, and they are likely to lose that battle, said Denis A. Bovin, senior adviser at the investment banking firm Evercore Partners. The industry is doling out its cash to shareholders rather than investing in people and tech-nology, which is not a recipe to attract the best and the bright-est, Bovin said.

Defense firms also are falling behind the technology curve.“When Amazon.com decided it wanted to get into drones,

it wrote a $500 million check,” he noted. In the defense industry, companies work on 15-year programs under dozens of layers of oversight and tens of thousands of pages of regu-lations. “That’s certainly not the way Amazon or Google X work,” said Bovin. “That time scale difference is a fundamental barrier.”

It is also problematic for investors that the industry’s main customer, the Defense Department, is making it standard pol-icy to squeeze contractor profits. “There’s a major disconnect in the Pentagon,” said Bovin. “They think profit is a bad thing. They align their policies and desires very differently from the industrial base. … If industry can’t get appropriate returns, investors will look elsewhere,” he added. “The implications are rather profound.”

Defense firms are selling “declining volumes of products to a unique and sometimes problematic customer, and it’s chasing a falling market share in a declining market,” Bovin said. “Stocks are at an all-time high because the investors are getting a better return from these companies than they can from others. When interest rates go up, and they will, that will cause a major seismic shift. We will see what happens when that occurs.”

A perfect storm indeed is brewing for the defense sector. If investors do one day flee, Bovin speculated, it might make sense for the Pentagon to take ownership of its major contractors. “It is not clear to me why an arsenal company has to be public.”

The next five to 10 years, he posited, could be the test of whether a very large defense company is better off going pri-vate, getting rid of public company costs and operating in a fundamentally different way.

Defense Watch by sandra i. erwin

Email your comments to serwin@ndia.org

Wall Street Keeps Wary Eye on Defense Biz

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6 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5 6 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

The financial services industry has long embraced data ana-lytics as a powerful crime prevention and policy enforce-

ment tool. Many defense contractors, by contrast, have resisted incorporating advanced technology products into their compli-ance programs.

Without these tools, companies remain dependent on human identification of risks and violations, whether flagged by employ-ees, hotline tips, whistleblowers or government auditors. Their compliance efforts often consist only of training employees to spot misconduct, and in setting aside financial reserves to fund expensive, after-the-fact investigations by outside counsel.

This approach to compliance harms contractors’ ability to proactively identify risk, and may even expose them to potential litigation. Those contractors that fail to use state-of-the-art tech-nical tools in compliance will inevitably expose their company to avoidable claims and even criminal prosecution and will decrease the odds of securing cooperation credit.

In deciding whether to charge a corporation following sus-pected criminal misconduct by employees, Department of Jus-tice prosecutors rely on the Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations, also known as the Filip factors. One Filip factor directs the department to consider the existence and effec-tiveness of the corporation’s pre-existing compliance program.

What determines the effectiveness of a compliance program? According to the U.S. Attorney Handbook, critical factors in eval-uating any program include whether the program is designed for maximum effectiveness in preventing and detecting wrongdoing by employees and whether the contractor periodically revises the program in light of lessons learned. It directs prosecutors to consider the timeliness of any disclosure of wrongdoing to the government and whether the corporation’s compliance staff is sufficient to audit, document, analyze and utilize the results of the corporation’s compliance efforts.

In public remarks this October, Marshall Miller, principal dep-uty assistant attorney general for the criminal division, declared that “in many ways the heart of effective corporate cooperation [is] whether that cooperation exposed and provided evidence against the culpable individuals who engaged in criminal activ-ity. Even the identification of culpable individuals is not true cooperation, if the company fails to locate and provide facts and evidence at their disposal that implicate those individuals.”

He further stated that Justice “will use our own parallel inves-tigation to pressure test a company’s internal investigation: to determine whether the company actually sought to root out the wrongdoing and identify those responsible, as far up the corpo-rate ladder as the misconduct goes, or instead merely checked a box on a cooperation punch list. Companies that have not con-ducted comprehensive investigations will not secure significant cooperation benefits.”

Miller’s comments echo those of Leslie Caldwell, assistant attorney general of the criminal division: “We want companies to know that they will not get credit for cooperation when they fail to provide full, factual information that’s at their disposal about culpable individuals.”

With the Filip factors and Justice comments as background, conscientious contractors need to ask themselves some uncom-fortable questions. For example, is a compliance program effec-tive if it omits widely available technologies to detect misconduct unlikely to be detected by the human eye? Are such compliance programs designed for maximum effectiveness in preventing and detecting wrongdoing by employees?

In light of data analytics products on the market, can defense contractors, however geographically dispersed, seriously contend that data within their organization is not readily at their disposal?

How prompt is a disclosure of wrongdoing to the government if detection of the wrongdoing through human means signifi-cantly trails the offense, while data analytics could alert compli-ance personnel to the misconduct in near real time?

How prompt is a disclosure when it takes months for an army of outside counsel to collect and assemble a puzzle of facts? Doesn’t the availability of technology that collects, filters, sorts and displays enterprise-wide data on demand raise the bar in assessing the promptness of a disclosure?

Data analytics products do not play politics or curry favor. Wouldn’t their adoption instill greater government confidence that a contractor is timely rooting out wrongdoing and identify-ing those responsible, however far up the corporate ladder the misconduct goes?

Isn’t it sensible from a business perspective to deploy avail-able technologies to a modest number of compliance personnel trained in how to leverage those systems effectively? Wouldn’t that approach promise better return on capital and better ensure a “compliance staff sufficient to audit, document, analyze and utilize the results of the corporation’s compliance efforts” than relying on a large litigation reserve and gaggle of outside attor-neys after the fact?

If answers to the questions above confirm that an existing compliance program is not currently designed for maximum effectiveness in preventing and detecting wrongdoing by employ-ees, then now is the time to modify it while 2015 budgets are fresh and a company can make a worthwhile short-term com-pliance investment before a major infraction goes undetected, and thereby avoid a much larger long-term expense. Recall that periodic program modifications based on lessons learned are an important factor that Justice considers.

And in order to preserve attorney-client privilege in counsel’s legal assessment of the current compliance program’s shortcom-ings and recommendations for enhancing the program’s effec-tiveness going forward, retain outside compliance counsel who know the industry, supported by technology consultants who understand the technology that will streamline compliance pro-cesses and make existing resources more efficient.

Ethics Corner By Ryan BeRRy and Guy Filippelli

Compliance Programs Need Data Analytics

Ryan Berry, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig LLP, repre-sents defense contractors and technology companies in compli-ance, investigations and litigation. Guy Filippelli, president of RedOwl Analytics, is the founder of several defense contractors. The views expressed are solely those of the authors.

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8 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

Because the Marine Corps’ initial amphibious combat vehicle will

not have a sea skimming, high water-speed capability, it has become more important than ever for the service to find low-cost, innovative ways to bring troops and equipment ashore.

The sea services are mulling over technologies presented at a connector summit held last March, where industry, government and academia discussed possibilities, said Jim Strock, director of the Marine Corps’ seabasing integration division.

“These are capabilities potentially hiding in plain sight. A lot of this is ‘Back to the Future,’” he told the audience in November at NDIA’s expeditionary warfare conference.

One option is the high-speed assault and interdiction craft, or HAVIC, which was developed in the mid-1980s and tested in 1988, Strock said. HAVIC is a water jet powered sled prototype with a 20-knot speed and 80-mile range.

“It was designed where you could put a fighting vehicle, in this case a [light armored vehicle] inside. The operator of the LAV hooks up the controls and drives himself to shore,” he said. Origi-nally, the shore crew would have had to send HAVIC back to the ship, but au-tomation technologies have matured so that the craft may be able to direct itself.

The original HAVIC prototype was destroyed when the Navy decided not to move forward with procuring it, Strock said.

“We have been drinking beer out of this thing since about 1993 when it was scrapped,” he said. Fortunately, the pat-ent holder attended the connector sum-mit and has all of the necessary design information to make more of the craft if needed.

Another possible option is the ultra heavy amphibious connector under development by the Office of Naval

Research, he said. ONR has built and tested a quarter-scale prototype that can carry a Humvee.

“If it is decided to develop a full-scale model, the theory is it can carry three tanks at 20 knots,” he said.

Revitalizing old connectors is also vital to future missions, Strock added.

Textron in November began fabricat-ing the Navy’s ship-to-shore connector, a replacement for the landing craft air cushions currently used to ferry troops

and equipment from sea to land, accord-ing to Naval Sea Systems Command. The hovercraft will be able to carry a 74-ton payload at speeds of more than 35 knots.

The Navy has a program of record for 72 SSCs. Launching a wheeled or amphibious assault vehicle off the con-nector was not a requirement, but the service will likely explore whether the equipment is capable of doing so, Strock said.

By Valerie insinnaBusiness + Industry News

ExpEditionary WarfarE

■ A new smart fabric used in one of jazz musician Herbie Hancock’s electric keyboards could find its way into mili-tary gear.

Keith McMillen Instruments has recently spun off a smart fabric com-pany, Bebop Sensors, with the hope of partnering with original equipment manufacturers in the defense, aerospace and other industries, said the founder of both companies, Keith McMillen.

Unlike most other wearable sensors, which typically measure physiological data such as heart rate and respiration,

the sensors in Bebop’s fabric can also measure other kinds of contact between a person and his or her environment, McMillen said. “We can measure pres-sure, location, bend, twist, stretch.”

That same fabric is used in the QuNeo electric keyboard designed by McMillen and played by professional musicians like Hancock. The instru-ment is as small as a tablet computer, but the user can modify the sound of a musical note by swiping or putting more pressure on a button, for instance.

To make its smart fabric, Bebop attaches microscopic polymerized conductors into a material. The attach-ments are flexible and invisible to the naked eye, but “when you squeeze the fabric or stretch the fabric, the rela-tionship of these particles changes and we’re able to detect that,” he said. The company can treat a variety of fabrics with this technology, including spandex,

sEnsor tEchnology

Marine corps looks to the past for future connectors

new smart fabric Manufacturer looking to Break into defense Market

Ultra heavy amphibious connector defense dept.

■ The rotorcraft industry is engulfed in what could be de-scribed as “A Tale of Two Mar-kets,” said Raymond Jaworows-ki, senior aerospace analyst for Forecast International. While opportunities for sales to the civil sector are finally growing after taking a hit post 9/11, the military market will probably shrink over the next decade, he said.

Production of light military helicop-ters that weigh under 8,000 pounds will likely reduce by half from now until 2023, he said. Production will peak in 2016 with 208 rotorcraft, but will fall to only 55 by 2028.

Over the past year, the two biggest potential competitions for light military helicopters have been cancelled, he said. The Army announced early this year that it would not pursue an armed aerial scout helicopter program to replace the aging Kiowa Warrior. Then, in October, India canceled its light utility helicopter competition.

This changing market landscape

means that manufacturers are going to have to rethink their business strategy, he said. “They’ll really look to that civil market to compensate for the loss of military sales.”

With few big sales opportunities in North America and Europe, companies will have to hone in on smaller com-petitions in the Middle East and Asia, Jaworowski said. They will also have to focus on the aftermarket, including customer support and sustainment.

“Those military rotorcraft that they have produced in recent years are still going to be out there flying, even if they’re not selling new ones,” he said.

Coming out on top of production is

Airbus Helicopters, which is expected to manufacture 431 helicopters from 2014 to 2028, Jaworowski said. How-ever, most of those are near-term sales of the Tiger attack helicopter — in use by France, Germany, Australia and Spain — and the UH-72 Lakota, which the Army plans to buy to replace TH-67 training helicopters.

“With both of those programs, they’re not going to last that much longer,” he said. “You’ve got the specter of seques-tration, which would chop a year or two off of Lakota. But even without sequestration, it would probably only be in production maybe another four or five years.”

“By 2020, Tiger might not be in pro-duction unless they pick up some export customers beyond what they have now,” he added.

One glimmer of hope in the U.S. market is an emerging requirement to re-place the Navy’s TH-57 training helicop-ters, which number about 100 units, he said. “There’s really no firm program in place yet, but it seems to be something that might come about over the next couple of years.”

Business + Industry News

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rotorcraft

Light Military Helicopter Market to Halve by 2028

felt or mesh.A single sensor about 15 millimeters

in diameter could cost less than a quar-ter, depending on how it was attached to the fabric, McMillen said. The sensors are waterproof and can function in both below-freezing and boiling tempera-tures.

“We’ve had some discussions with organizations that work with the mili-tary and other government agencies, and there’s a lot of interest,” he said. “There are applications galore.”

The material could be used on the wearable water reservoirs carried by troops, allowing commanding officers to detect when soldiers are in danger of be-coming dehydrated, he said. If a soldier was wearing a suit made of the smart fabric, “you could also measure the ac-tivity of the person in a very subtle way that could indicate if a man is down or if he’s just laying low.”

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Email your comments to VInsinna@ndia.org

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The First Responder Network Au-thority (FirstNet) — the indepen-

dent agency charged with constructing a nationwide, seamless emergency commu-nications network — continues to take steps toward that ultimate goal, its acting general manager told Congress recently.

It has established a permanent head-quarters in Reston, Virginia, a test-and evaluation center in Boulder, Colorado, and is working its way through a series of consultations with the states, TJ Kennedy told the House Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on emergency preparedness, response and communications.

Kennedy also revealed that FirstNet will allow commercial providers to use excess spectrum — when not needed for emergency communications — and to charge them fees for the privilege.

Priority switching will be built into the systems from the ground up, so the airwaves will always be open for first re-sponders when needed. Wireless commu-nications vendors can lease the unused spectrum from the authority, which will take the money and put it toward operat-ing the network, Kennedy said.

Testing at the Boulder facility has already shown that this is feasible, he added.

“We’re encouraged that we will have additional funding to help support the network going forward,” Kennedy said.

Prior to Congress establishing the First Responder Network, commercial wireless providers wanted control of the D-block of spectrum, which became available after the demise of analog tele-vision. Industry lobbyists argued that the commercial providers were best suited to set up and operate the network, and that they would ensure that police, fire and other emergency response users had priority access when needed.

First responder organizations and the Department of Homeland Security vehemently opposed the idea, which was quashed when the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 established FirstNet and handed control of the D-Block over to the independent agency, which is under the Department of Commerce.

The vision is to have a network of in-teroperable radios that local, state federal and tribal first responders can use any-where in 56 states and territories — from the urban canyons of New York City to the remote wilds of Alaska. Early drafts of how it would work would use existing cell phone towers and perhaps satellites to reach sparsely populated areas.

States have the right to opt out of the system and go their own way. FirstNet officials have said in the past that keeping the states and territories’ fees low is key. If they are too high, they may choose to create their own system.

How much states should pay is one of the topics the authority is speaking to local authorities about as it makes its way through the state-by-state consultations.

Kennedy said FirstNet officials com-pleted eight of the consultations in 2014. It has another 24 sessions slated for 2015. The remaining states and territories are not yet prepared to have the discussions, he said.

Draft requests for proposals for certain network and equipment services were released for comment this year, Ken-nedy said. It received 122 responses from potential vendors. In all those requests, the ability to switch from commercial to emergency communications was included.

Requests for proposals are expected to be released in early 2015, he added.

“FirstNet also is actively conducting extensive market research to gain as much insight as possible into the capa-bilities, opportunities, risks and innova-tive business partnerships in the market today,” he said.

Kennedy indicated that technology acquisition will not be what vendors who work with the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security are accustomed to, with only one vendor walking away with a large contract.

“FirstNet is taking an objectives-based approach to our procurement, rather than a requirements-driven approach in order to promote flexibility in achieving FirstNet’s goals while helping First-Net reduce the complexity we face in managing and integrating the diverse set of components needed to meet our mis-sion,” he said.

The will mean “multiple ways to meet an objective,” he added.

So far, no FirstNet official has offered up a timeline as to when the nation-wide network might be completed. The legislation that created it did not include a deadline.

Mark Grubb, the FirstNet single point-of-contact for Delaware, said at the hearing that those waiting for the system to come online will have to be patient.

The process “has been a little bit slow, to be honest. But it is a little bit under-standable due to the size of the project they’re undertaking. It is astronomical.”

Wireless Providers to Have Access to FirstNet Radio Spectrum

by Stew MagnuSonHomeland Security News

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■ Travelers arriving at a port of entry in the United States are greeted by a Customs and Border Protection official, who checks passports and stamps them if required.

That is the not the case when departing.The United States has never required foreigners to present

their travel documents before leaving so authorities can’t be certain who is or isn’t overstaying a visa, a flaw that Congress has mandated that the executive branch remedy as far back as 1996. Three other post-9/11 acts demanded that DHS develop an exit system.

Two industry trade associations are now calling on DHS to make a stronger effort to fulfill the congressional mandate to collect exit data.

Improvements to biometric technology over the past few years will make collecting exit data easier, said a joint statement from the Security Industry Association and Secure Identity and Biometric Association.

DHS tried some pilot programs in the middle of the previ-ous decade. Kiosks at airports where travelers could voluntarily scan their passport did not work. They were hard to find, and airports were loath to give up space in their concourses, which are devoted to profit-making stores and restaurants.

A plan to force airlines to collect the data on CBP’s behalf was met with widespread resistance from airlines, which said it would make check-in lines longer.

At land border crossings, there was a pilot program that

implanted radio-frequency identification chips in travel docu-ments, which could be scanned as travelers departed in vehicle or on foot. That didn’t work out, either.

The two associations have formed a working group to advise DHS and released an “Identity and Biometric Entry and Exit Solutions Framework for Airports.”

“The framework makes clear that the implementation of [an] airport biometric exit program and improvements to biometric entry processes are not only doable and capable of meeting essential border control criteria, but are long overdue,” the state-ment said.

After years of apparent inactivity tackling the issue, DHS in April kicked off a new effort to solve the problem, at least at air-ports. The Air/Exit Re-engineering Project is being administered by CBP and the Science and Technology Directorate.

“The initial objective of this project is to test, evaluate and develop options to implement biometric entry and exit options that will improve screening and verifying the identities of for-eign nationals entering or exiting the United States through U.S. airports,” a DHS document describing the program said.

One proposal is to have passengers as they walk down a jet bridge look up at a camera that can do facial recognition. The two agencies are currently studying this and other ideas, the document said.

Email your comments to SMagnuson@ndia.org

Renewed Push to Collect Exit Data at Airports, Land Crossings

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 11

■ A panel of experts gathered on Capitol Hill recently in an effort to tone down some of the doomsday scenarios being associated with solar storms.

The notion that highly charged particles ejected from the sun will send civilization back to the Dark Ages when it destroys electrical grids has been prop-agated by the media and the producers of television shows.

“This is a very complicated field that you cannot condense into a few sound bites,” said Madhulika Guhathakurta, lead scientist with the Living With a Star Program at NASA. But when a major so-lar storm is approaching, the media takes a few quotes and sensationalizes them.

“It gets condensed into: ‘The power grid is going to collapse and all hell is breaking loose,’” she added.

Frank Koza, executive director of in-frastructure planning support at electric-ity distributer PJM Interconnection, said utilities generally have a four- to six-hour

warning of when a large solar storm is approaching Earth. They can take measures to mitigate the effects, he added. Like the study of the sun, heliophysics, the procedures utilities take to gird themselves against solar storms are complicated and difficult to reduce to a sound bite, he said.

“We can as simply as possible explain some of these phenomenon and what we do to counter-act them and trust people will understand,” he said.

“We would like people to know that mitigation is there, and it is working,” he added.

The sun and its relationship to planets such as Earth is not well understood, and the field of heliophysics is relatively new, panelists said. Space weather predic-tions are about where terrestrial weather forecasts were 40 years ago, said Thomas Berger, director of the National Weather Service’s space weather prediction fore-cast office in Boulder, Colorado.

Today there are only a handful of satellites tasked with observing the sun. They are like buoys in a vast sea of space that goes on for millions of miles. They provide critical data that helps forecasts, but these are mostly research space-

craft or payloads piggybacking on other satellites and not specifically designed to forecast space weather, Berger said.

Col. Rob Swanson, Air Force chief of weather strategic plans and interagency integration division at the Air Force’s directorate of weather, listed 10 critical military missions that can be affected by solar storms. Chief among them was the disruption of GPS signals and high frequency radio communications.

One or two satellites are “killed off” by solar storms every solar maximum — a period of intense activity on the sun which occurs every 11 years, Berger said.

The challenge for the space commu-nity is making lawmakers who hold the purse strings understand the impor-tance of space weather forecast, and the impact that events can have on modern technology, he added.

Earth Needs More Robust Early Warning Space Weather Systems

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COMMENTARYBY J. MiChAEl GilMORE

The purpose of operational testing is to assure the military services field weapons that work in combat. This purpose has been codified in both Title X of the U.S. Code and in the Defense Department 5000-series regulations.

Operational testing is intended to oc-cur under “realistic combat conditions” that include operational scenarios typical of a system’s employment in combat, realistic threat forces and employment of the systems under test by soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, rather than by hand-picked or contractor crews.

The need for realistic operational testing prior to committing funds for full-scale production and fielding has been recognized for many years. As far back as mid-1969, a blue ribbon defense panel was formed, headed by Gilbert W. Fitzhugh, to make a comprehensive ex-amination of the organization and func-tions of the Defense Department. One of its major subordinate study groups was on the topic of operational testing.

Prior to 1969, the services had experienced several notable and expen-sive failures in weapons fielding before conducting sound operational tests. Two examples are the fielding of the M-16 rifle to infantry combat units in Vietnam and the fielding of the F-5 aircraft to op-erational Air Force units in combat. The M-16 failures in combat were egregious, resulting directly in American casual-ties and pressure being brought to bear on Congress to investigate. Congress then required the Defense Department to conduct an operational test in 1967 and 1968 in the jungles of Panama. That test revealed serious deficiencies in the weapon that required modifications to the rifle, resulting in the M-16A1.

In the case of the F-5, a 12-aircraft squadron was deployed to Southeast Asia in 1965, where it was intended to be compared to the F-100 and F-4 air-craft that were already deployed. Many issues were found with the F-5 under these operational combat conditions, and were best summarized by an Air Force colonel who reported that, while the air-craft was a pleasure to fly, it could not go

very far or carry enough ordnance to do much after it got there. One F-5 was lost to enemy fire during this deployment.

The group that investigated operation-al testing as a part of the Fitzhugh panel concluded that: operational testing can, and should, contribute significantly to decision-making within the department; its quality as it was conducted then was very uneven across the services; and results of the operational testing that had been done had not been made available to the senior decision makers within the office of the secretary of defense.

It also concluded that: operational testing within the services was best per-formed by an independent organization that reported directly to the chief of the service; that it was not adequately man-aged or supervised at the OSD level; and that there was a shortage of experienced and capable personnel directly involved with operational testing.

The Fitzhugh Panel in the summer of 1970 made several related recommenda-tions: that there should be an assistant secretary of defense for test and evalua-tion to create and implement policy; that separate program elements for opera-tional testing should be created within the services, with OSD responsible to ensure that service testing budgets are adequate; that a separate program cat-egory should be created in the defense budget for operational testing; and that a defense test agency should be established to design tests or review test designs, perform or monitor test performance, and evaluate the entire T&E program.

This last recommendation was not implemented. The position of director of defense test and evaluation was created but placed within the directorate of defense research and engineering rather than being an assistant secretary.

Eighteen years after the Fitzhugh panel recommendations, Congress again became involved with operational test-ing. Motivated in part by the well-pub-licized issues surrounding the live-fire testing of the Bradley fighting vehicle, Sen. William Roth, R-Del., chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmen-tal Affairs, held hearings in 1983. Many witnesses testified that the conduct of

operational testing within the depart-ment continued to be unsatisfactory, and the earlier Fitzhugh panel findings were reinforced. Particular criticisms were that systems were being procured in full-rate production before they were adequately tested, that existing testing was merely to confirm engineering requirements and was not conducted under realistic com-bat conditions or against realistic threats; and that it was still being supervised and conducted unsatisfactorily.

Examples in the Government Ac-counting Office testimony to the Roth hearings included the lack of realistic testing on the Army’s AN/TPQ-37 counter fire radar, performance limita-tions in the Navy’s land attack Toma-hawk cruise missile, unsatisfactory range of the F/A-18 Hornet and operational suitability problems that plagued the Sergeant York air defense gun, which was ultimately terminated.

The hearings resulted in legislative language being drafted that led directly to the creation of DOT&E as it exists today. The director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&E) organization was established by Public Law 98-94 in 1983. The statutory language establishes a senior-level presidential appointee and spells out in clear terms the scope and extent of the director’s responsibilities in Title X, Section 2399 and Section 139.

In 1986, the Packard Commission reinforced the earlier panel recommen-dations by calling for prototype develop-ment and operational testing prior to full scale production, and recommending “in-tensive” operational testing be conducted and evaluated before full-scale produc-tion decisions are made. In 1994, the statute was modified to give the director oversight of live fire test and evaluation, which had been embedded in the office of the undersecretary of defense, acquisi-tion, technology and logistics.

More than 30 years later, the value of operational testing remains apparent. Many significant and substantial short-falls in weapon system effectiveness and suitability continue to be found for the first time during testing conducted un-der realistic combat conditions, notwith-standing positive results derived from

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History of U.S. Weapons Proves Value of Realistic Operational Testing

developmental testing generally conducted under limited and controlled conditions.

Once made aware of shortfalls, senior decision makers in the Defense Department and Con-gress frequently choose to provide the resources and time needed to assure the problems revealed are fixed. DOT&E’s annual reports to Congress, as well as the office’s detailed assessments of individual systems, provide factual evidence of the adequacy of the testing conducted, as well as de-tailed explanations of the evaluations of weapon effectiveness, suitability and sur-vivability. These evaluations are provided to the secretary of defense, Congress, and the operational and acquisition com-munities of the military services. Those reports and evaluations, as well as other material posted on the DOT&E website, provide many specific cases in which sig-nificant problems with weapon perfor-mance were discovered only as a result of the testing under realistic combat conditions as mandated by law.

Notwithstanding the clear histori-cal record, the need for and value of operational testing has periodically been questioned. Recently, there has been criticism that operational testing drives substantial cost increases and schedule slippage in programs and that its scope should be limited. The facts do not sup-port these beliefs.

Six themes illustrate the value of con-ducting realistic operational testing:

• Testing limited to determining only whether technically focused key per-formance parameters (KPPs) have been satisfied does not capture improvements in mission accomplishment or achieve-ment of intended combat capabilities in an operational environment.

• Operational testing should be performed against realistic operational threats expected to be encountered by the units employing the system.

• There are many examples in which operational testing has identified critical system performance problems, some only discovered when employed in an operationally realistic environment; such testing thereby provided opportunities for correction before a system entered

full-rate production or was fielded.• Operational testing can identify

problems with systems’ combat ef-fectiveness. This information is then provided to acquisition authorities for decision-making. Decisions by those authorities can affect program schedules if they judge the associated fix as worth any delay.

• Operational testing has been respon-sive and supportive of the fielding of systems during wartime.

• Rigorous scientific and statistical methods can and should be used to determine the adequacy of operational testing. Sound statistical analysis of op-erational test results is key to providing credible evaluations of performance to decision-makers.

Specifications Alone Not SufficientSome officials have suggested that operational testing of weapons programs should be limited to a strict measure-ment of technical requirements only, specifically the key performance parame-ters approved by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council. To do so would be to repeat the mistakes of the past. KPPs are often cast as technical specifications such as the range of an aircraft measured under limited specific conditions that are necessary, but not nearly sufficient for defining an effective combat capability in a mission context.

For example, a combat aircraft that cannot fly or carry a weapons payload is clearly unacceptable. But an aircraft satisfying only those requirements will not be assured of penetrating enemy air defenses and destroying targets. So key performance parameters do not specify everything that we need a system to do.

In particular, a system that does meet all of its KPPs is not assured to provide an operationally effective or suitable combat capability when all of the operational conditions and concept of operations are considered.

Conversely, there are instances in which systems fail to meet all their KPPs but are nonetheless evalu-ated by DOT&E to be operationally effective.

While a test under realistic combat conditions will often evaluate more than the key performance

parameters, such a test does not “test beyond the requirements.” The system’s full set of required combat capabilities comprises everything in the approved requirements documents — not only the KPPs — the services’ concepts of opera-tions, threat assessment reports, and mis-sion summary and operational profiles, as well as the combatant commanders’ war plans. Those sources in concert with the key performance parameters inform the design of an adequate operational test that enables meaningful determina-tions of effectiveness, suitability and survivability.

There are many examples in which tests limited to verifying only the key performance parameters would have been inadequate to draw conclusions about the performance of a system when deployed in combat against a realistic threat. An example is the Navy P-8A Poseidon, a maritime patrol aircraft used primarily to conduct anti-submarine warfare as well as reconnaissance mis-sions. The key performance parameters alone did not provide any measure of the effectiveness of P-8A’s primary missions. Instead, the KPPs stipulated the ability to communicate with specific radios, and a range and endurance requirement while carrying a specified number of so-nobuoys and torpedoes, but no require-ment to actually employ them.

Key performance parameters should be evaluated as part of operational testing, and DOT&E always reports on whether or not they are achieved. Nonetheless, while those requirements are necessary, a test designed to evaluate only those KPPs would clearly have been inadequate to provide information to acquisition decision-makers and opera-

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U.S. soldiers with M-16 rifles in Vietnam. defense dept.

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tors about the ability of a crew flying the P-8A to find and kill enemy submarines or conduct reconnaissance.

Other examples include the early infantry brigade combat team sensors, which satisfied all their key performance parameters but were evaluated by both the Army and DOT&E as providing no useful combat capability, and the Virginia-class submarine, which did not meet some of its requirements but was evaluated by DOT&E as an operation-ally effective replacement for the Los Angeles-class submarines. The MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle did not meet its original reliability require-ments, but was evaluated by DOT&E to be operationally effective and suitable.

Realistic Threats NecessaryAn essential part of any system evalu-ation is the definition of the threat environment in which the system is expected to perform. A limited assess-ment against a benign or outdated threat does a disservice to the men and women who will employ these systems in a time of war, who must clearly understand the performance limitations that exist against the threats they would actually encounter in combat. This knowledge can mean the difference between life and death, as well as victory and defeat. Therefore, the threats employed during operational testing must be realistic and replicate the threats the units employing the system can be expected to meet in actual combat.

The Paladin integrated management family of vehicles program is a case in point. The requirements document for the PIM specified that the howitzer had to be capable of operating outside secured forward operating bases, and would be susceptible to mines and other underbelly improvised explosive devices. However, the technical specifications put forth in the PIM documentation were clearly inconsistent with the Army concept of operations and its associated requirements for protection and surviv-ability.

DOT&E advised the Army and Joint Staff to consider the requirements disconnect among the expected threats, the PIM concept of operations, and its system specifications. In response, the Army began to consider the develop-ment of an underbelly armor kit to pro-vide increased protection against mines and IEDs. After considering DOT&E’s

analysis and concerns, the Defense Department directed the Army to design and develop an add-on underbelly kit, and to test against these threats, in order to properly characterize vehicle perfor-mance under realistic conditions. And, contrary to claims that have been made repeatedly, this decision did not delay the previously planned schedule for a PIM full-rate production decision.

Identifying Problems EarlyOne of the primary purposes of opera-tional testing is to identify critical prob-lems that surface only when examined under the stresses of operational condi-tions, prior to the full-rate production decision. This early identification permits corrective action to be taken before large quantities of a system are procured and avoids expensive retrofit of system modi-fications.

Operational testing of the Navy’s cooperative engagement capability on the E2-D Hawkeye aircraft revealed several deficiencies. The CEC created many more dual tracks compared to the baseline system, exhibited interoper-ability problems with the E-2D mission computer, and CEC’s ability to maintain consistent air tracks was degraded com-pared to the baseline E-2C version. As a result of these discoveries, the Navy’s acquisition executive decided to delay the full-rate production decision until the root causes for the failures could be found and fixed. The Navy is now implementing fixes to address these problems and operational testing will be conducted to verify that those fixes corrected problems. While an OT is later in the process than otherwise desired to discover these system shortfalls, the value of such testing is abundantly clear.

Fixing, Not Testing, Delays ProgramsOperational testing frequently reveals deficiencies with a system that require time and/or training to correct. The ac-quisition executives who are responsible for programmatic decisions then have to weigh whether the problems discovered are of sufficient magnitude to warrant delays to the program while they are fixed. The assertion that testing causes programmatic delays misses the essential point that fixing the deficiencies causes delays, not the testing. Furthermore, delaying a program to correct serious problems is exactly what we desire in a properly functioning acquisition system.

An example here is the Army’s war fighter information networking- tactical (WIN-T) increment 2 system. The Army planned to have a full-rate production decision in September 2012, after an operational test the previous May. The OT revealed several flaws in the system, including limited range, poor network stability, and poor reliability on several major components. Finding a solution for these problems caused the Defense Department’s acquisition executive and the Army to delay the program’s full-rate production decision by three years.

During this time, the program man-ager made multiple corrections to the system, then re-tested it in May 2013, when more problems were revealed, and another in October 2014. The full-rate production decision is now scheduled for May 2015.

Support to WarsDuring the last 11 years of war, DOT&E has demonstrated an ability to rapidly conduct rigorous operational testing and evaluations. The best example of this is the mine resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle program. Multiple MRAP configurations had to be pro-cured, tested and fielded very quickly. None of these vehicles were in military inventories at the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When the ur-gent operational need was identified, the secretary of defense pushed this as his highest priority program.

DOT&E, working with the Army and Marine Corps, was able to swiftly ap-prove and evaluate 10 separate opera-tional tests of these vehicles. DOT&E was able to report that 10 of 18 MRAP configurations were effective and suit-able for combat use. In the remaining cases, findings were reported that per-mitted improvements to be made to the vehicle’s mobility and protection.

Rigorous Statistical MethodsDOT&E employs rigorous statistical methodologies in its assessments of test adequacy and in its operational evalua-tions in order to provide sound analysis of test results to decision makers. Those methods are well established in both industry and government. The pharma-ceutical, automotive, agriculture, and chemical and process industries, where many of these techniques were originally developed, all use the same statistical methods for test design and analysis that

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VIEWPOINTBy BEN FrEEmaN

The U.S. Navy’s DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers are extraordinarily ex-pensive. Since 2009, the cost of the ships has increased 34.4 percent, according to the Congressional Research Service. Each of the three Zumwalt’s being built will cost taxpayers around $3.4 billion. And, that’s on top of the more than $9 billion in research and design funding that has gone into this program.

Are they worth the price? The Navy didn’t think so in 2009 when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced the program would end with the procurement of just three ships, down from the 32 ships the Navy had initially planned to buy.

But, now that the first Zumwalt is actually in the water, there’s growing concern that this decision may have been penny wise and pound foolish, as it leaves signifi-

cant voids in the Navy’s ability to adapt to future threats. Most notably, ending the Zumwalt program in favor of buying upgraded versions of the decades-old Arleigh-Burke DDG-51 destroyers limits the Navy’s capabilities without signifi-cantly reducing costs.

While the DDG-51 is designed to be a tradi-tional destroyer that serves a largely defensive role, the DDG-1000 is an immensely powerful battleship. The

epitome of this power is the ship’s two 155 mm guns, which are the largest guns fitted on any post-World War II ship. The blandly named advanced gun system can devastate targets up to 63 nauti-cal miles away, three times as far as the DDG-51’s guns. There are 600 rounds

Canceling the DDG-1000 Destroyer Program Was a Mistake

DDG-1000 navy

DOT&E advocates. Other government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration, Census Bureau, the Na-tional Laboratories and NASA, all rely on the use of methods similar to those DOT&E advocates.

Several studies, most recently by the National Research Council and the Defense Science Board, have recom-mended such methodologies be used in operational testing.

These methods encapsulate the need to “do more without more,” especially in light of a constrained fiscal environment. Indeed, the final result of this policy is to ensure we make the absolute best use of scarce resources by neither over-testing nor under-testing weapon systems. One must provide sound rationales for the level of testing prescribed, and gather the data needed to provide war fighters with a basis for confidence in the perfor-mance of those weapon systems.

The benefits of these methodologies are seen in a Navy helicopter program, the multi-spectral targeting system. MTS enables helicopters to target fast small-

boat threats and employ Hellfire missiles at distances that ensure safe-standoff. The testing thoroughly examined perfor-mance under the variety of operational and tactical conditions that a crew might expect to encounter. A simple analysis of the results combining all of the data together into a single average (a limit-ing, but unfortunately common analysis technique), suggested that the system was meeting requirements.

Only when the more complex and rigorous statistical analysis was employed did the testers discover that the system was significantly failing requirements in a subset of the operational conditions. The unique conditions where perfor-mance was poor revealed a weakness in the system, which can now be addressed by system developers. In other words, the global average analysis hid the problems in operational performance, and only with a more robust statistical analysis was DOT&E able to find and pinpoint where system improvement was needed.

History demonstrates that compre-

hensive and objective information on the expected performance of weapons in actual combat is critical to informed decision-making anytime, but particu-larly under constrained budgets. None-theless, there are some who argue that in the constrained fiscal environment created by sequestration, all testing should be cut.

We are fielding the weapons we con-tinue developing to satisfy 100 percent of their concepts of operation against 100 percent of the actual threat. In particular, what constitutes adequate op-erational testing under realistic combat conditions is determined not by fiscal constraints, but by our war plans and the threats we face. The enemy always gets a vote. It would be a false economy and a disservice to the men and women we send into combat to make arbitrary budget-driven reductions to either de-velopmental or operational testing. ND

J. michael Gilmore has served as director of operational test and evaluation since September 2009.

16 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

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of ammo on the ship, and the guns can keep firing while more ammunition is brought onboard, resulting in what the Navy calls an “infinite magazine.”

According to the Zumwalt’s com-manding officer Capt. James Kirk, “She has got a flight deck almost two times the size of a Burke’s,” that can accom-modate significantly more, and bigger, aircraft.

While its traditional weapons are extraordinary, the Zumwalt’s true power lies in its ability to generate, well, power. When the first-of-class Zumwalt lit-off its power generators late last month it became literally the most powerful destroyer in U.S. navy history, producing 78 megawatts, enough energy to power about 10,000 homes. Conversely, DDG-51s produce just 9 megawatts of power, with only 1.7 megawatts remaining when the ship is at speed, compared to the 58 megawatts a Zumwalt still has available when traveling at 20 knots.

This extra power gives DDG-1000s the ability to operate electrically pow-ered weapons like the electromagnetic railgun, which uses nothing but energy to launch projectiles at speeds up to Mach 7.5, and has been described by the Office of Naval Research as, “a true warfighter game changer.” The DDG-1000s will also be able to use the Navy’s laser weapon system, which has a dem-onstrated ability to shoot down aircraft and swarm boats. With it the Navy will be “spending about $1 per shot on a di-rected-energy source that never runs out and gives us an alternative to firing costly munitions at inexpensive threats,” ac-cording to Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder. In contrast, the DDG-51’s surface-to-air missiles cost $165,400 per shot.

In addition to its power, the Zumwalt can accommodate these next-generation weapons because it has the space for them. Zumwalts are significantly larger than DDG-51s — approximately 100 feet longer, 13 feet wider, and displace over 50 percent more water. They also have plenty of what the Navy refers to as “growth margin,” which allows weight to be added to ships without excessively inhibiting performance. “The 15,000-ton ship has a 10 percent growth margin, equating to some 1,500 tons of poten-tial increase that would enable the ship to host new sensors and weapons as technologies evolve,” according to an ar-ticle in Naval War College Review.

Despite this added weight and space, DDG-1000s can operate in shallower, close-to-shore littoral waters compared to the DDG-51s, and their stealthy hull design makes them look like fishing boats to enemy radar. This allows them to travel into areas where the DDG-51s can’t safely go, like the Persian Gulf near Iran or the Yellow Sea near North Korea. They can also “provide the defensive support needed in littoral environments by a lower-cost littoral combat ship (LCS) with no defensive capability,” ac-cording to John Young, formerly the Navy’s assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition.

The problem with using DDG-51s in lieu of DDG-1000s is that they are “ill-suited to providing defensive cover for LCS or helping the Navy conduct operations in a coastal environment,” says Young.

Thus, it’s not at all clear how LCS will be able to safely operate in littoral waters given that, alone, it’s “not expected to be survivable in high-intensity combat,” ac-cording to J. Michael Gilmore, Defense Department director of operational test and evaluation.

The ability to use extremely inexpen-sive electric weapons is only the begin-ning of the DDG-1000s cost-saving advantages over the DDG-51. Unlike DDG-51s, DDG-1000s are equipped with a variety of new technologies that allow the ship to operate with a much smaller crew — roughly half that of the DDG-51s. Over the course of a 35-year service life this personnel difference could save taxpayers $280 million per ship, given that Defense Department estimates DDG-51 personnel cost at approximately $20 million per year/ship, compared to just $12 million for the DDG-1000’s crew, adjusting for infla-tion.

While we know that DDG-51s will cost more to operate, there’s less certain-ty about the purchase price of upgraded DDG-51s. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the upgraded “Flight III” DDG-51 destroyers will cost about $1.9 billion each, but there’s ample evidence from the Government Ac-countability Office that the price could be significantly higher.

Young warned more than six years ago that “the cost of a redesigned DDG-51 very likely will be equal to or greater than that of a DDG-1000.” Compound this with the higher operating costs

of the DDG-51s, and the decision to procure them at the expense of DDG-1000s isn’t penny wise and pound fool-ish, it’s just foolish.

Given all of this, how could the Navy have possibly chosen the DDG-51 Flight III over the DDG-1000? In short: a flawed study.

The basis for the choice was the Navy’s 2009 Radar/Hull study, which the Government Accountability Office in 2012 explained “may not provide a sufficient analytical basis for a decision of this magnitude,” because it, “does not fully evaluate the capabilities of differ-ent shipboard combat systems and ship options under consideration, does not include a thorough trade-off analysis that would compare the relative costs and benefits of different solutions under consideration or provide robust insight into all cost alternatives, and assumes a significantly reduced threat environment from other Navy analyses.”

A Navy officer intimately familiar with the study told Aviation Week that parts of the study were “hijacked” and that “People who had an agenda kind of drove the study for a solution.”

Researchers at the University of Ten-nessee conducted an analysis of Navy destroyers that didn’t succumb to these errors and they found that, “when the DDG-51 and DDG-1000 are compared with respect to threat environment, the DDG-1000 … would be significantly more survivable. Even in smaller num-bers, the more survivable vessel presents a more substantial capability throughout the threat envelope.” Similarly, CRS also argues that the DDG-1000, with upgraded radar and ballistic missile de-fense capability, is an acquisition option Congress may wish to consider.

All of these comparisons between DDG-51s and DDG-1000s belie the fact that the ships should not be competitors; they serve different, but complementary roles that are both es-sential for the future of the U.S. Navy. Fortunately, it’s not too late for Congress to act — the DDG-1000 production line is still hot. If we’re serious about having a Navy that can adapt to the threats of tomorrow, then we need to get serious about DDG-1000’s today. ND

Ben Freeman, Ph.D., is senior policy adviser in the national security program at Third Way, a centrist think tank. Fol-low him on Twitter @BenFreemanDC

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ANALYSISBY ALekSANdAr JovovIc ANd MAtthew BreeN

In recent weeks, earnings calls from the major U.S. aerospace and defense firms showcased the desire for international expansion, much of it outside traditional NATO markets.

The pressure is on senior executives to increase international sales, with the Middle East and Asia providing the most attractive opportunities. But beyond the financial headlines, how do A&D executives really feel about the global marketplace and their firms’ prospects abroad? Furthermore, what can they and governments do to improve industry competitiveness?

Avascent and stra-tegic communications firm FleishmanHillard surveyed more than 350 A&D executives, many of them represent-ing U.S. firms. More than 80 percent suggested the global competitive land-scape will be more intense in the coming three years. More-over, a clear majority expressed considerable doubt that their respec-tive firms were up to the challenge.

To address these issues, firms have been re-organizing their corporate structures, re-calibrating their offerings, and bulking up international business development and sales support. The survey suggests these efforts have a way to go.

Government could provide a vital leg up for A&D firms, but a majority of survey participants expressed skepticism of their government’s commitment to global defense exports. And when such support is applied, many industry lead-ers express concern about its effective-ness.

In response, officials in Washington have sped up procedures, simplified ad-ministrative and export control burdens,

and more aggressively marketed the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process. While these steps are positive, U.S. industry still faces significant headwinds from an assertive and at times less-than-scrupulous competitive landscape. Industry and government must do

more to counter this evolving competi-tive threat.

In terms of the most competitive markets, our respondents highlighted traditional markets such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Middle Eastern stalwarts such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as emerging markets in India, Brazil, South Korea and Poland. Converting a defense requirement into a sale in such a disparate set of countries —from a funding, customer, exportabil-ity and requirements perspective — de-mands a degree of nimbleness that only a limited number of firms can boast of

consistently. But it is not only a diversification of

demand, but a proliferation of supply that is creating challenges for established players. Respondents noted a series of emerging, non-traditional competitors including China, Israel, South Korea, Brazil, Turkey, Russia and others. While perhaps easily dismissed individually, this expanding number of firms, often “national champions” backed by enthusi-astic home-government support, present a growing competitive challenge.

In both established and emerging markets, Western firms increasingly encounter state-subsidized Russian com-panies playing the low-cost card and Israeli competitors capable of provid-

ing sophisticated defense electronics and systems that U.S. firms cannot

easily export. This disadvantage is compounded by aggressive

emerging challengers that are capable of offering reason-able near-substitutes at a lower price than gold-plated U.S. and NATO solutions, often laced with attractive ancillar-ies such as tech transfer and minimal regulatory oversight. Examples abound: South Korea’s naval shipbuilding,

Brazil’s growing airborne capabilities, Turkey’s land

sector products, and Chi-na’s growing missile defense

and tactical air offerings. The growth of domestic play-

ers in these markets, for instance Embraer, Roketsan, and KAI, present

a formidable driver of import substitu-tion in their home markets and a devel-oping threat abroad. And while Russian and Chinese domestic defense markets are largely non-factors for Western A&D firms, this evolving competitive threat must be addressed in other emerging markets that are important to U.S. and European firms.

Faced with the daunting reality of a “new competitive normal,” established players require additional support from their home governments. Reducing the A&D industry’s regulatory and admin-istrative burden is essential to success-fully overcoming today’s competition in defense exports.

Indeed, the recent modest decrease in contracting fees for FMS transactions

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 17

Concern Grows About International Aerospace, Defense Competitiveness

18 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

is a move in the right direction. Two key actions the government could take include lessening ex-port controls on trailing logistics support and increasing transpar-ency into how and why export approval decisions are made.

First, by lessening the required administrative burden and approval process on items within the logistics tail of previ-ously approved systems, such as additional spares for aircraft or training services, the govern-ment would position contractors to offer full service support in a timely and sustained manner, something that distinguishes established providers from emerging market players.

By providing contractors with an enterprise-type export license allowing these follow-on sales, industry would be positioned to support equipment sold internationally with fewer resources and time expended on export approval.

Additionally, by more clearly commu-nicating how and why export decisions are approved, U.S. firms and their cus-tomers can more accurately design deals that are likely to be approved, rather than negotiating and then renegotiate after export licenses are denied.

By adding transparency and further streamlining the FMS and exportability processes, government can help industry increase its responsiveness and flexibil-ity. This will enable industry to achieve the nimbleness required to address new competitive threats.

Vision 2020, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s recent policy document, lays some of the ground-work, but as is often the case, the proof will be in consistent and evolving implementation of reforms.

However, responsibility does not fall on government alone. In our survey, when presented with an international business development lifecycle meth-odology, only a quarter of respondents confirmed they consistently evaluated international markets with established criteria. Just 16 percent professed to regularly conducting stakeholder analy-sis. Some 28 percent of respondents were certain they effectively managed international customer relationships, and only 16 percent were convinced that they successfully shaped inter-

national markets and managed their brand.

While an awareness of these short-comings is a vital first step, firms need to develop substantially more robust processes.

At the corporate level, industry must continue to redirect resources to align with the growing importance of inter-national sales. Additionally, companies must reorganize their corporate struc-tures to present a comprehensive and united front to international customers — not just in an organizational sense but in practice.

At a tactical level, industry should be engaging with U.S. government stake-holders early and often. By involving government stakeholders early in the sales process, firms can avoid many of the pitfalls and export challenges that occur at the twelfth-hour of a deal, damaging ever important customer rela-tionships.

Additionally, industry must ensure that they approach international sales with a holistic and rigorous business development and capture process.

Competitions must be viewed across the entire value chain of a program and industry must ensure that they have a structured process for engaging the customer, conducting requirements and stakeholder analysis, completing com-petitive assessments and price-to-win analysis.

Far too often, U.S. firms miss vital opportunities to understand and truly engage in the mission needs of inter-

national customers and shape the competition to their solu-tion. This shaping should be aimed at educating customers about a firm’s solutions and help-ing devise their optimal deploy-ment in the customer’s defense environment — a straightforward process, if done early and armed with a strong understanding of the local funding, technological and competitive context.

The arsenal of business devel-opment improvements for leading A&D firms extends fur-ther. Ideally, domestic defense programs need to be developed with export markets in mind: from major partnership-based programs like Lockheed Martin’s F-35 joint strike fighter to smaller projects that bake in exportability requirements at the R&D stage.

Admittedly, these efforts add com-plexity to a program’s delicate early stages, but the long-term financial and policy payoffs are substantial.

As an example, Raytheon and its partner Saab have just landed — pend-ing two protests — the 3DELRR long-range airborne radar program, a project conceptualized by the Air Force as export-ready and supported by the pilot “defense exportability” features program.

Indeed, Air Force stakeholders explic-itly noted that they viewed exports as a cost-saving driver for the U.S. taxpayer, and designed anti-tamper and other safeguards into system architecture at the onset. Modularity, scalability and cost considerations, vital elements of improved exportability, are all addi-tional advantages best developed at the program onset.

These examples demonstrate that when both industry and government proactively engage in planning for inter-national export, success is likely. U.S. firms remain the technological standard in the A&D market. However, contin-ued vigilance, business and regulatory process improvements, and market situ-ational awareness are required to retain that competitive edge. ND

Alek Jovovic is a principal and Matt Breen is an associate at Avascent, a management consulting firm. They can be reached at ajovovic@avascent.com and mbreen@avascent.com

source: avasceNt

InternatIonal tradeBy Jeffrey rIchardson

The International Traffic in Arms Regu-lations, or ITAR, control the export of software classified as a “defense article.”

The United States munitions list [USMR] contains items regulated by the ITAR, including a range of products from tanks to fighter aircraft.

However, defense articles also include items like complex military crypto-graphic software and rudimentary diag-nostic software designed to assist in the repair of other defense articles.

In collaboratively developing or licensing software, a company may violate the ITAR by improperly dis-closing or transferring software as an unauthorized export. The risks of infringing ITAR include civil fines of up to $500,000 per violation, as well as suspension or debarment from govern-ment contracts, seizure and forfeiture of the defense article, and revocation of export privileges, while potential criminal liability may include fines up to $1 million per violation and 10 years imprisonment.

An ITAR violation for improperly exporting controlled software may occur by disclosing or otherwise trans-ferring controlled software to a foreign person, whether in the United States or abroad, or a foreign government.

Software exports may include the disclosure of source code to a foreign person through both oral and written means. Moreover, an ITAR violation may occur by using the software to per-form a defense service for a foreign per-son. A defense service is defined broadly enough to include everything from the design and development at the begin-ning of a defense article’s life cycle, to normal repair and maintenance during an item’s life cycle, from managing the end of the article’s life cycle through the actual demilitarization or destruc-tion of the item.

The first step to determining whether software is a defense article is to under-stand how ITAR applies to software. The regulations apply to both software specifically listed on the USML, such as military cryptographic software, and

software not specifically listed on the munitions list, but otherwise classified as ITAR technical data.

The ITAR definition of a defense article includes any item or techni-cal data designated on the munitions list, defined to include “information required for the design, development, production, manufacture, assembly, operation, repair, testing, maintenance or modification of defense articles, as well as software directly related to defense articles.”

Software, as defined by ITAR includes, “system functional design, logic flow, algorithms, application pro-grams, operating systems and support software for design, implementation, test, operation, diagnosis and repair.”

Software used for security, assurance systems or cryptographic devices with the following capabilities is controlled under the ITAR because it is listed as a defense article under USML category XIII (materials and miscellaneous articles):

• Software capable of maintaining secrecy or confidentiality of informa-tion or information systems, including equipment or software for tracking, telemetry and control encryption and decryption;

• Software capable of generating spreading or hopping codes for spread spectrum systems or equipment;

• Software authorized to control access to or transfer data between dif-ferent security domains as listed on the Unified Cross Domain Management Office Control List;

• Software comprising cryptanalytic systems.

Software with cryptographic func-tionality described in munitions list category XIII but used in ground control stations for telemetry, tracking and control of spacecraft or satellites is also controlled as a defense article in category XV (spacecraft systems and associated equipment).

Additionally, software and associated databases used to model or simulate military items tend to be controlled by ITAR because they are listed as defense articles. This type of software would be

listed on category IX for military training equipment and includes: military device training software for ground, surface, submersible, space or towed airborne targets; battle management simulation software;

military test scenarios and modeling software; and software that simulates the effects of weapons listed as a defense article in any munitions list category.

The inclusion of software within the definition of technical data as software directly related to defense articles broadens the potential for ITAR to con-trol software beyond software specifi-cally listed on the munitions list.

This broad definition of software controlled as technical data includes everything from system functional design ensuring the independence of each software module to application programs directly related to defense articles. Applying this definition of technical data to software may effec-tively extend ITAR controls over software by reason of merely being a support item for any defense article listed on the munitions list.

This may include everything from testing software for infantry fighting vehicles in USML category VII (ground vehicles) to operational software for controlled bombers in category VIII (aircraft), from application programs used for submarines in category XX (submersible vessels) to diagnosis and repair software for turbofan and turbo-jet engines in category XIX (gas turbine engines).

Regardless of whether ITAR controls the software export because such soft-ware is specifically listed on the USML or otherwise classified as technical data, an export license must be obtained, or an ITAR exemption must be applicable, if a company wishes to export ITAR controlled software. Exports of ITAR controlled software as technical data are generally eligible for a technical data license pursuant to ITAR §125. Howev-er, the type of license required to export the software may vary depending on the scope, permanence or security level associated with the export. ND

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 19

Know When Software Falls Under Export Control Regime

Jeffrey richardson is a senior attorney in Miller Canfield Paddock and Stone PLC’s export controls group, based in Troy, Michigan. He can be reached at richardson@millercanfield.com.

BY SANDRA I. ERWINThe U.S. military operates fleets

of Cold War-era aircraft that will not be replaced any time soon. For the Pen-tagon, this creates daunting challenges, experts warn. Airplanes will have to fly much longer than planned and, at a time of tight budgets, the cost of main-taining aging equipment is projected to soar.

The Defense Department is slowly coming to grips with the situation, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Donald J. Wetekam. “We are in unknown territo-ry” on how to keep aircraft flying indefi-nitely, he said. The Air Force, the branch of the military most affected by aging planes, expects to operate many of its

aircraft well beyond their original design service lives. But it does not necessarily know how long components will last, if replacements will be available or if they can be remanufactured, said Wetekam, a senior vice president of AAR Corp., a logistics company that does business in military and commercial aviation.

“We’re in areas where we have not gone before,” he said in a recent inter-view. When Wetekam first became an officer in the Air Force, the average age of the fleet was nine years. When he retired as deputy chief of staff for installations and logistics, that number had reached 24. Since then, the average age has inched up to 27. “That is three times what it was when I was commis-

sioned. And at the time we didn’t think we had a particularly modern fleet.”

The Defense Department has a fleet of 14,800 aircraft, according to new data by Bloomberg Govern-

ment. The Air Force has the largest number of fixed-wing aircraft, followed by the Navy. The Army has the largest number of helicopters and surveillance drones.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh sounded alarms in September. “Airplanes are falling apart,” he said. “There are too many things happening because our fleets are too old.”

In a 30-year aircraft procurement plan the Defense Department submit-ted to Congress three years ago, the Pentagon projected it would be at least 10 years before new strategic airlifters and long-range bombers are produced and delivered. The KC-46A would be the only new airplane procurement

though 2025, and the next-genera-tion tactical fighter, the F-35, will not meet required force levels until 2035 at best.

A panel of experts in 2011 warned the Air Force that, in order to cope with its rapidly aging fleet, it needed to revamp aircraft maintenance to make it more efficient and less costly.

“The sustainment of aging aircraft like those in the U.S. Air Force fleet is likely to become a more expensive activity in the next few decades,” said the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. “It will be important for the Air Force to become as efficient as possible in maintaining and upgrad-ing these aircraft.”

The AFSAB suggested one approach might be to emulate com-mercial airline practices. “Commer-cial airlines maintain aircraft much differently than the Air Force,” the panel noted. “They maintain aircraft at flight-capable rates exceeding 90 percent, they do as much repair and maintenance in the field as pos-sible and attempt to minimize depot maintenance.” Unlike the military, commercial airlines have as few aircraft on the ground at the depot as possible because aircraft on the ground do not earn money. “It is a different paradigm than the Air Force where every aircraft costs the service money, whether it flies or not.”

Wetekam agreed that a more com-

20 N AT I O N A L D E F E N S E • J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5

Military Challenged to Maintain Decades-Old Aircraft

A-10 347 2040 59.3

B-1 66 2040 52.1

B-2 20 2058 64.2

B-52 76 2040 ~79

C/KC-135 417 2045 84

C-130E 46 2012 49

C-130H 268 - -

C-130J 68 - -

C-5A/C 59 2011, 2012, 2040 39.5, 40.5, 68.5

C-5B/M 44/6 2040 54

C-17 206 2028 26.1

E-3 23/9 - -

F-15 250 2025 41.8

F-15E 222 2035 43.8

F-16 1023 2026 36.3

F-16 Blk 30/32 317 2014-2025/2025 38/43

F-16 Blk 40/42 395 2016-2025/2020 35/40

F-16 Blk 50/52 245 2020-2030/2026 36/37

F-22 166 2033-2049 27-34

KC-10 59 2042 57.7

EC-130H 14 2035 62

AC-130H 8 2018 48

T-38 494 2026 ~60

Number of Aircraft

ProjectedRetirement

Age at Retirement

AircraftType

AVERAGE AIRCRAFT AGE AT RETIREMENT

SOURCE: AIR FORCE SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD (2011) / PHOTOS: DEFENSE DEPT.

mercial approach to aircraft mainte-nance could save the Pentagon billions of dollars over time, even though there are obvious, fundamental differences between operating military and com-mercial fleets.

“It would benefit the Defense Department to learn how airline supply chains work,” he said. Airlines have very stringent requirements and, in many cases, they use the exact same equip-ment that the military employs. Engines are one example. “There are inventive approaches in supporting aircraft and engines that DoD could take better advantage of.” The Air Force has similar engines as commercial airlines but man-ages its supply chain very differently, Wetekam said. Airlines have a more competitive supply chain for the same type of engine, he added. “Cost is lower based on the fact that they have more competition.”

The Air Force has anywhere from 1,600 to 2,000 CFM56 engines that are widely used around the world, but it maintains a separate supply chain. “There’s an opportunity to adapt a com-mercial supply chain approach,” he said. The military is beginning to move in that direction, but at a slow pace. “We should leverage the global competitive supply chain marketplace that already exists based on numerous airlines that fly that engine.”

More Boeing 737 derivatives are being used in the military, he said. “Thousands of components in many combat systems are commercial. There should be greater awareness of what systems and components are commer-cial derivatives,” Wetekam said. “Yes, there are mission differences, but they don’t drive differences in how fleets are sustained.” Too often the mission becomes a scapegoat for adding cost and requirements. An opportunity for savings is when government mechanics are employed to maintain commercial equipment. “Could that be commercial-ized? Yes, and it could free up more people to work on military-unique equipment.”

The military, nonetheless, will never be as efficient at maintaining airplanes as commercial airlines, for valid reasons, Wetekam said. The Defense Depart-ment tends to “over-inspect” aircraft at military bases, and that costs more money and time. “I don’t see that changing.”

Aerospace and defense executives for years have prodded the Pentagon to outsource the maintenance of weapon systems, with promises of huge cost savings. They contend that, if the gov-ernment provides the right incentives, contractors are able to maintain and upgrade equipment at a much lower cost. One example is the use of “per-formance based logistics” where the government pays to have “ready to fly” aircraft and it is up to the contractor to make it happen.

Under traditional maintenance con-tracts, “We get paid to manage the sup-ply chain and to provide parts. But in a performance-based logistics model, we get paid to provide readiness. So the government customer tells us what lev-el of readiness they want and we pro-vide that, and we assume all the risks and all the costs associated with that,” explained Jay DeFrank, vice president of communications and government relations at engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney.

A study by the consulting firm Deloitte estimated the Pentagon could reduce costs by up to 20 percent by shifting to this model.

In aircraft maintenance alone, the

savings could exceed a billion dollars. According to Bloomberg Government, the Defense Department awarded $6.2 billion worth of contracts for aircraft maintenance in fiscal 2013 — $3.7 bil-lion for the Air Force, $1.4 billion for the Army, $1.1 billion for Navy and $31 million for other defense agencies.

Wetekam agrees with proponents of performance-based logistics that it could save money, but the data is fuzzy. “With confusion comes reluctance to come forward with potential savings. These contracts become very difficult to price,” he said. “The value is there. But there’s confusion.

Todd Harrison, senior defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and Bud-getary Assessments, said the Pentagon has yet to figure out how to get more efficiency from its contractors. “Under traditional contracts, we pay contrac-tors every time something breaks. Is the incentive for things to break more?” Under a performance-based contract, suppliers would be motivated to invest in components that break less, said Har-rison. “It’s a matter of setting up the incentives right.” ND

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5 • N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E 21

Email your comments to SErwin@ndia.org

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By VALERIE INSINNAThe Army is not known for its

ability to rapidly acquire new technolo-gies, and expensive, sophisticated plat-forms such as tanks, aircraft and trucks often end up on the chopping block when drastic cost savings need to be made.

The ultra light combat vehicle could be the exception to that rule. Although not yet a program of record, or even a stated requirement, Army officials believe they can move procurement efforts from first solicitation to initial operating capability in just three years.

If everything goes to plan, the Army could field about 300 ultra light combat vehicles by the end of fiscal year 2016, said Lt. Col. Kevin Parker, light branch chief of the mounted requirements divi-sion at the Maneuver Center of Excel-lence in Fort Benning, Georgia. The new trucks would give infantry brigade combat teams a brand new capability — the option of driving a vehicle from place to place rather than having to walk there.

But all of that relies on many factors, including when and if Army acquisition offi-cials assign a program execu-tive office to acquire a vehicle and whether the money is available in the fiscal year 2016 budget, said Carl Pig-nato, a light combat vehicle analyst at the mounted requirements division.

“If everything lines up and everybody’s on board as directed, we can move very quickly on this,” he said. “We have demonstrated that.” The Army put out a solicitation for a ULCV on Jan. 22, 2014 and conducted demonstrations six months later at Fort Bragg, North Caro-lina. “That’s lightning speed in today’s acquisition world,” he said.

The Army wants to procure the first 300 vehicles to meet the “critical needs” of the global response force, a mission that is usually performed by the 82nd airborne division, Parker said.

“The way we’re going to deploy these is very similar to [mine resistant ambush protected vehicles],” he said. “The

MRAPs aren’t resident in units. There’s a pool that they’re drawn from. We’re using that same kind of thought process for this. No one in the Army is interested in motorizing the infantry brigade com-bat teams. But we are interested in hav-ing the capability to selectively motorize when it’s required.”

The service is also considering the pur-chase of a second increment of ULCVs that would be stationed at Army instal-lations responsible for training infantry. Whether that happens depends on the availability of funding, Parker said. The Maneuver Center of Excellence is in the process of determining how many vehicles would be needed and where they would be located.

Pignato and Parker said that the fiscal year 2016 IOC date is not set in stone. That was their best guess of how quickly the service could field a ULCV based on the vehicles they saw demonstrated.

“That clearly saved us sev-eral years of work, not only for the government, … but also industry,” Pignato said. “We told industry up front in a public notice, ‘Here are the threshold requirements,’ and we haven’t changed from the threshold requirements.”

In order to participate in the platform performance demonstrations, vendors were required to submit existing

wheeled vehicles capable of transport-ing an infantry squad — nine soldiers and their gear — a range of at least 250 miles. They were not to exceed a 4,500-pound curb weight.

The Army wants a highly mobile vehi-cle capable of operating on paved roads, in urban rubble and off road during both day and night, the solicitation said. It must also be able to be transported internally in a CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter and sling loaded on a UH-60 Black Hawk.

Unlike most of the vehicles fielded during the past decade, the requirements for the ULCV focus on mobility, not on protective armor that restricts a truck’s ability to quickly move through varied terrain, Parker said.

According to the Army’s solicitation, the ultra light combat vehicle’s “base level of protection is provided by high mobility to avoid enemy contact.”

That the vehicle is light enough to be sling loaded by a UH-60 and transported at high altitudes and in hot conditions is another important point, Parker said. Battalion commanders have regular access to Black Hawks but cannot as eas-ily get a hold of the Chinook helicopters necessary to transport heavier vehicles such as up-armored Humvees.

Six companies were chosen to take part in the demonstrations, which proved that multiple vendors had vehicles capable of meeting the Army’s threshold requirements, Parker said.

One vehicle showcased at the demon-strations was Boeing’s Phantom Badger, a 240-horsepower truck with a top speed of 80 miles per hour, said David Leroux, business development lead of the company’s special pursuits cell. The truck was internally funded and has been purchased by Special Operations Com-mand.

“We’re trying to drive down the cost as much as possible, so we’re using as many [commercial off-the-shelf prod-ucts] as we can,” he said. About 60 percent of the vehicle comprises COTS items, such as a 2014 Jeep Grand Chero-kee engine.

The modular base truck can be outfit-ted with equipment packages for assault, crew rescue and special operations mis-sions, for instance. The Phantom Badger on display at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting and exposition in October showcased a new mortar and ammunition module, which contains the service’s 120 mm mortar and fire control system and 22 rounds of ammunition.

“In 15 minutes, you can take out this module, put another module on it and do a completely different mission,” Ler-oux said.

Polaris Defense also demonstrated its new Dagor ultra light combat vehicle, said Mark McCormick, the company’s managing director. It was designed for special forces but meets the ULCV ini-tial requirements.

Dagor’s purpose-built suspension

Ultra Light Combat Vehicle Could Buck Trend of Slow Truck Procurement

Number of ultra light combat vehicles the Army could

field by FY2016

300

system was inspired by designs found in the off-road racing industry. It allows the vehicle to carry payloads of up to 3,250 pounds over extreme, rocky terrain, company information said.

The fundamental difference between the special operations version and the one demonstrated for the Army is that the back end of the vehicle was con-verted from storage space to seating for infantrymen, McCormick said.

Pricing starts at $149,000 per vehicle, but would decrease if higher quantities are purchased, he said.

Officials from BAE Systems and Navistar said the companies did not participate in the demonstrations at Fort Bragg but continue to watch the pro-gram. General Dynamics Land Systems, AM General and Oshkosh Defense did not respond to requests for comment on whether they took part in the demon-strations.

The next step for acquisition officials to assign the ULCV to the program executive office that will be responsible for procuring it, Pignato said.

PEO Combat Support and Combat Service Support — the office respon-sible for procuring light tactical vehicles and other platforms — is waiting to see if it emerges as a program of record, said Scott Davis, its program executive officer.

“Today, there is no defined require-ment, and I’m not even sure that we have the budget available for it, but it’s certainly a priority for us to look at,” he said in October.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about what can industry bring to bear, and then look at affordability,” he added.

There are no guarantees that a pro-gram-of-record will be established and that funding will be available, McCor-mick said. However, he is optimistic that Army leaders will support ULCV acquisition efforts because there are existing, non-developmental vehicles already available to meet the capability gap.

“I think a program like ULCV stands a much better chance of success and making it to production and meeting the Army’s FY ‘16 IOC based on the current priority they’re putting on it and the current approach that they seem to [taking] … which is leveraging an existing platform that has already gone through a number of stages of testing,” he said.

Parker stressed that the ultra light combat vehicle would not be replacing any other truck because legacy plat-forms are not capable of quickly mov-ing troops through areas where soldiers usually must walk on foot. Humvees are too heavily up-armored to be able to penetrate difficult terrain, and infantry brigade combat teams will not likely use the joint light tactical vehicle — slated for IOC in 2018 — to transport squads.

The Army currently airdrops infantry on or near a target, or uses trucks to move troops to a safe location, he said. Then troops dismount and proceed to the target on foot, hauling all of their gear.

The ultra light combat vehicle capa-bility would give commanders another option, Parker said.

“You don’t necessarily have to, for instance, land on the target. You can land away from the target and move to the target” via an off road avenue of approach that the enemy doesn’t expect, he said.

“I might have traveled 18 miles that otherwise I would have had to walk, and

I get there fresh and I’m ready to fight as opposed to slugging through rough terrain at three-and-a-half miles an hour, walking all night to get to my objective and then having to fight,” he added.

The vehicle would also allow infantry forces to expand their area of influ-ence once at a given location, he said. Once troops have accomplished their objective, they can quickly move on to another mission.

The threats on the battlefield are evolving, and tactical mobility is becom-ing more important to the Army as it evolves into a more expeditionary force, McCormick said.

“To drop an infantry squad in by airborne aerial assault and then expect them to walk with anywhere from 100 to 120 pounds worth of gear from a drop zone to a rally point to an objec-tive” is “tough to do,” he said. “A lot of threats are running around in Toyota pickups or have individual ... cell phones that can readily identify our troops try-ing to move through off road terrain.” ND

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 23

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Polaris Defense’s Dagor

Boeing’s Phantom Badger

24 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

By yasmin TadjdehIn December 2013, four special

operators were injured after the CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft they were rid-ing in were hit by small arms fire as they evacuated U.S. citizens from South Sudan.

Soon after, Special Operations Com-mand’s acquisition arm, working along-side the Army and the Navy, began an effort to field lightweight armored panel kits to give its fleet of Ospreys greater ballistic protection. In less than six months, SOCOM had acquired enough kits for the entire fleet.

That is just one example of SOCOM reacting quickly to meet critical warf-ighter needs, Jim Smith, deputy director of the Special Operations Research, Development and Acquisition Center, told National Defense.

While many experts criticize the length of time traditional Defense Department acquisition programs take from start to finish, SOCOM has gained a reputation for speedy procurement.

That continued ability to field equip-ment in weeks or months instead of years will be critical as U.S. military strategy shifts from Afghanistan and focuses on smaller, global missions led by special operations forces, Smith said.

“I believe the urgency [for rapid acquisition] is going to certainly endure and may even increase,” he said. “The relevance of SOF to the current national security strategy, the role they play in support of the geographic combatant commands all over the globe and the expectations for SOF to accomplish a very broad set of missions to include no-fail missions, that’s going to continue … but in a more dispersed, remote, austere environment.”

Smith is one of the top leaders at SORDAC, which is made up of 270 civilian workers and 90 officers. When an urgent need is identified — that is, if something is deemed necessary to the success of a mission or loss of life could occur without it — the acquisition pro-cess is streamlined to meet the require-ment within 180 days, he noted.

SOCOM’s speed is made possible through a series of special acquisition

authorities, including parts of Title 10 in the United States Code and appropria-tion funding from Congress called Major Force Program-11.

In addition, SORDAC is able to expedite the procurement process by overseeing all technology development, acquisition and logistics for SOF opera-tors in one place, said James Geurts, acquisition executive for SOCOM.

“This synergy enables us to reduce the historical stovepipes between those disci-plines and associated gaps as capabilities transition between investment, procure-ment, fielding and support,” he said.

Geurts said the command is commit-ted to executing these activities on a global scale for both SOF operators and its international partners.

Despite the command’s reputation for fast procurement, Smith made it clear that SOCOM works within the rules of the Defense Department, and doesn’t bypass Pentagon acquisition processes.

Much of its speed is because of the smaller scale of its orders, Smith said. For larger programs, SOF acquisition specialists work alongside the services to field equipment such as fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.

“You don’t get a SOF MH-47 with-out the Army’s CH-47. You don’t get a SOF AC-130 gunship without the Air Force’s C-130. And you don’t get a SOF CV-22 without the Navy’s V-22. We are extremely reliant on the services for

those big acquisitions,” he noted.By its very nature, SOCOM has to

be agile and respond to threats quickly, said Andrew Hunter, a senior fellow and director of the defense-industrial initia-tives group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

“They have to be incredibly respon-sive. You can’t project out in five years and say, ‘This is what the crisis of the day in 2019 is going to be, and it’s going to be this kind of hostage scenario, or what have you, and it will be exactly on this spot on the Earth,’” Hunter said.

“It really gets down to being able to identify problems rapidly as they arise, and not kind of take a year to think about whether improvised explosive devices are really kicking our butt or not,” he said.

Before joining CSIS, Hunter worked in the Pentagon and headed up the department’s joint rapid acquisition cell, working to put equipment into the hands of warfighters quickly. He said part of SOCOM’s success in rapidly acquiring technology is because it has more leeway with its budget compared to the services.

“SOCOM, because it has the MPF-11 funds, they have a little more flexibility with their budgets than most of the services do, and that’s a key enabler [to rapid procurement],” he said. “Financial flexibility is absolutely key to being able to respond rapidly.”

“The regular process says, ‘I see I have a need, I put it into my budget, that goes over to the Hill, two years later money shows up, and then I can start to work the problem.’ There’s nothing

Special Operations Command Bypasses Acquisition Red Tape

CV-22 Osprey air force

rapid about that,” he said.Maintaining relationships with indus-

try is another critical element when it comes to faster procurement, Geurts said.

SOF’s “real strength is our ability to create and leverage a broad network of partnerships with the services, industry, academia and international partners to rapidly identify and transition technol-ogy and equipment into capabilities for our SOF warfighters. This network enables us to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage in our acquisition velocity and iteration speed,” he said.

The services have launched initia-tives for conventional forces to learn rapid acquisition techniques from the command. The Ghost program, named after Army Gen. George Patton’s Ghost platoon in World War II, gives junior

officers in the Air Force the opportunity to work alongside SOCOM acquisition personnel for 120 days in its program executive office for fixed wing aircraft, working on programs such as manned and unmanned aircraft, precision strike and emerging technology.

There have been more than 80 partic-ipants so far, Geurts said. He called the initiative a “win-win” for both SOCOM and the Air Force.

Putting new equipment or technology into warfighters’ hands fast can mean life or death for some operators, Smith said.

One piece of technology, freeze-dried plasma, has already saved lives, he noted.

“If you think about the ability to provide plasma to a wounded soldier or sailor on the battlefield, you can’t carry around liquid blood without refrigera-tion, etc. So there is freeze-dried plasma

where you can reconstitute it by adding water,” Smith said.

The French and German armies already use this, he said. In June 2012, SOF received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to begin using the plasma on a limited basis.

“It has been extremely effective. Lives have been saved,” Smith said.

Technology first pioneered by SOCOM is frequently able to trickle down to the services. Now the Army is working on introducing the plasma into the force, he said.

Another example of rapidly fielded technology on the medical front includes truncal and junctional tourni-quets, Smith said.

In the past, tourniquets could only address wounds that were on extremi-ties, leaving the truncal and pelvic region

— where the femoral artery runs — vulner-able, he noted.

“Working with our SOF medics, we developed an aortic junctional tourni-quet and a combat-ready clamp, both of which are now FDA-approved. These provide the ability to stop hemorrhaging at numerous locations of the body and they were approved in 2013. They are now available for use by all conventional forces

through the medical supply system,” he said.

Working with SOCOM can be faster than it is with some of the services, said Bob Mabry, special operations relation-ship manager at Battelle. One reason is because it has less bureaucracy. Some commands can have thousands of acqui-sition workers in the pipeline, he noted.

“These systems commands … in the Army and the Navy and in the Air Force are so big and so stodgy and so bureau-cratic,” Mabry said. They are “inherently very slow.”

SOCOM, on the other hand, needs equipment right away and streamlines its process, Mabry said.

“They have some unique ways of doing things … and it allows them to get things in the field quickly,” he said. “That’s exactly what the operational

forces want. They want something that works, they want it now, and they want you to get out of the way.”

Besides a faster turnaround time, SOCOM also offers industry plentiful feedback, Mabry said.

“We’ve got direct access to the opera-tors, we can get feedback from the oper-ators, and we do all the time,” he noted.

Some of the equipment Battelle is working on with SOCOM includes non-standard commercial vehicles, the tactical air initiated launch system and engineering support for the command’s dry combat submersible program.

Polaris Defense, a Medina, Minnesota-based vehicle manufacturer, has sold a number of commercial vehicles to SOCOM.

The company’s MRZR 2, a light-weight ATV transportable by V-22, and the MV850, a one-passenger ATV, are under contract by the command, said Jed Leonard, manager of advanced mobility platforms at the company. Both contracts were awarded in 2013.

One of the ways that SOF is able to speed up acquisition is by purchasing off-the-shelf items, Leonard said.

“They’ve certainly had an appetite for leveraging the commercial industry, and they’ve been able to do that and rapidly respond to … rapidly evolving require-ments that they have,” he said.

In the case of the MRZR 2, Polaris was able to meet a militarized commer-cial off-the-shelf requirement with com-mercial pricing in less than 18 months, he noted. With the MV850 it was less than 15 months.

“That’s with little or no R&D money to the government and none of the requirements that come with a typical program of record, so no engineering, manufacturing and development phase and no associated costs with those typi-cal phases of an acquisition process,” he said.

Leonard said SOF has a good track record of communicating with industry “early and often” so companies can react.

By fielding rapidly, SOCOM is able to address certain threats faster, he said. Some equipment procured through traditional processes can take so long to field that the threat they were originally meant to quell has diminished by the time it gets to the battlefield, he noted. ND

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 25

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MV850 polaris defense

26 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

By STEW MAGNUSONIt’s called “the vicious circle of

space acquisition.”Large satellite systems take a long time

to develop.As the years stretch on, the tempta-

tion to change requirements and add new capabilities is too hard to resist. For once the spacecraft is launched, it’s impossible to swap out the hardware.

Schedules slip. Production lines go cold, increasing the contractors’ costs.

By the time the satellite is sent to orbit, the technology aboard is already generations behind what is available in the commercial marketplace.

This was all described in a 2012 paper co-authored by Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, then Air Force Space and Missile Center com-mander.

“Since the mid-1990s, we have seen some of the longest delivery times for major space systems since the begin-ning of the space age,” she wrote in “Space: Disruptive Challenges, New Opportunities, and New Strategies” published in Strategic Studies Quarterly.

However, deliveries of new space systems of late have all but come to a halt. The communication satellites being launched now are based on designs dat-ing back to the early 2000s. The last major contract award was in 2008 for the third-generation GPS satellites.

That was also the year the Defense Department canceled the Transforma-tional Satellite Communication System, or T-Sat, a six-year effort to create a next-generation spacecraft that came to naught.

Six years later, there are no new Air Force satellites on the horizon.

The Air Force is in the throes of conducting several studies that service officials say may lead to a radically new space architecture. Meanwhile, as the paper noted, getting space system acqui-sition right is more important than ever.

The nature of how it is employed by the military has changed over the past

dozen years. The Cold War era was marked by stra-

tegic applications such as nuclear com-mand and control, and remote sensing satellites searching for rocket launches and large-scale troop movements.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq brought space down to the troop level with GPS, tactical communications and command and control of drones bringing immediate benefits to those who were fighting insurgents.

“Without exaggeration, the combat effects we have come to expect from our smaller, more mobile force structure would not be possible without space capabilities,” wrote Pawlikowski, who has

since moved on to become the military deputy at the office of the assistant secretary for Air Force acquisition.

The buzzword in policy cir-cles has been “disaggregation.”

Instead of large satellites and small constellations, the Air Force could deploy smaller spacecraft in larger numbers. It could also save funding by piggybacking payloads on other commercial or government

satellites, a concept known as “hosted payloads.”

Placing an instrument on a large sat-ellite that has extra space can reduce deployment time from seven to eight years to two to three years, she wrote.

“Disaggregation will allow us to realize more affordable and resilient capabili-ties for the theater war fighter while at the same time allowing smaller, nuclear hardened cores to be retained,” the paper said.

In the aftermath of a 2007 Chinese anti-satellite weapons test and incidents where GPS signals have been jammed, “resiliency” has been part of the equation along with affordability. Space systems have increasingly been seen as vulner-able.

Paul Hamill, director of strategy com-munications at the American Security Project think tank, said, “We have a system right now where we have big, one-off, specialized satellites that need huge rockets and engines to get them up

there. … We need to move away from that model.”

He agreed with the notion of making space more “responsive,” with the deployment of smaller sat-

ellites that can be launched more rapidly.“Let’s get smaller stuff up that can do

bits of everything because let’s face it, if we have a state actor or non-state actor shoot one of these down, it’s not easily replaceable. If you shoot three down, we’re in serious trouble.”

Pawlikowski said the Air Force should adopt a “payload-focused” strategy where requirements for communica-tions, sensors or other capabilities are more frequently produced and sent to orbit on smaller satellites. That will keep manufacturers’ production lines hot, stabilize requirements, reduce the eco-nomic consequences of losing vehicles and deny adversaries the opportunity to do widespread damage by destroying one spacecraft, she wrote.

If that is accomplished, “We can see a path to unwinding the vicious circle fac-ing today’s space acquisition,” she added.

Todd Harrison, senior fellow of defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, was skeptical that the Air Force had put its space acquisition woes behind it.

“To go in a new direction, you have to start a new program of some kind, whether it is more of an existing system, leveraging current research or hosted payloads … and in this budget environ-ment, that is incredibly difficult,” he said.

If the Air Force were to start a new, clean-slate design of a large communica-tions satellite, it would likely repeat the mistakes of the past such as T-Sat, he said.

“I don’t think we have fixed the root causes. The primary problem with T-Sat was the temptation to place every pos-sible feature on one satellite,” he said.

“We were trying to build the next big thing for protected communications and place all the requirements for wideband onto it. It proved to be too technically far reaching and expensive.”

He noted that after six years of work on T-Sat, the expected launch date had slipped by six years.

“We were no closer to launching it when the program was canceled than when we began,” Harrison said. “That’s the problem of building these big, “Bat-tlestar Galactica type satellites.”

Air Force Space Programs on Hold as New Architecture Studied

GPS II-R lockheed martin

As the Air Force continues in a state of limbo when it comes to new start pro-grams, Harrison sees a lack of interest on the part of Pentagon leaders. The series of studies the Air Force is conducting on new space architectures is just a way to buy time, he added.

“While everyone recognizes space as a critical enabler for the war fighter at all levels of conflict, from low to high end, it is not the sexy weapon system that puts hot metal on a target. So it doesn’t attract much interest from senior lead-ers,” he said.

The pause in acquisition programs could probably continue for three to five years, but after that, if the Air Force doesn’t kick off some kind of new pro-gram, it could begin to see capability gaps, Harrison predicted.

Said Hamill: The acquisition pause will continue “for as long as Congress is willing to let it go on.”

Hamill has seen renewed interest in space topics on Capitol Hill in the wake of the RD-180 rocket engine contro-versy. The Russian-supplied engines are critical for launching large satellites. Talk of cutting the United States off from acquiring the engines as tensions with Russia grew in 2014 prompted lawmak-ers to take a new look at the program.

Current National Defense Authoriza-tion Act language demands that the Air Force begins an effort to build its own heavy lift engines.

Incoming House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thorn-berry, R-Texas, and ranking member, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., will push for acquisition reform, and space will be a part of that, Hamill noted.

“I think the issue of us funding Rus-sia has livened this issue up in Congress especially with … Mac and Adam. It has reawakened some interest in this,” Hamill said.

And presumptive Secretary of Defense “Ash Carter knows this issue back to front. It also helps that he a physicist,” he added. “I believe that he is going to take this issue on.”

Launch is important because the idea of disaggregated space architecture, which is more responsive to require-ments, demands less expensive and dependable access to space.

Pawlikowski wrote that increased frequency of the launches will result in economies of scale and bring down prices.

Hamill said the private sector is ready and willing to step in and provide lower cost launches, and even build an RD-180 replacement if necessary, at no cost to U.S taxpayers.

“The military side of space issues and launch capabilities are stuck in the early 1990s. We’ve actually got private com-panies out there who can do this. Indus-try and the private sector have moved on. It’s the public sector who haven’t,” Hamill said.

On the terrestrial side, the Air Force recently embarked on a study to deter-mine whether commercial satellite communications providers can take over the day-to-day command and control of military satellites using their networks of ground stations.

Four commercial satellite providers

received contracts in October to study the idea.

A statement from one of the com-panies, Intelsat, noted that it alone had some 400 antennas scattered throughout the world with 99.9 percent availability. It costs a com-sat provider one-fifth of what it costs the Air Force to operate the same system, it said.

Harrison said the idea is certainly worth looking into, especially since sys-tems such as the Air Force’s Wideband Global Satcom technology are based on commercial communications satellites.

As for military protected communica-tions, which have unique command-and-control requirements, “probably not,” he said. ND

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 27

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28 N AT I O N A L D E F E N S E • J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5

BY STEW MAGNUSONMost know that aviator Charles

Lindbergh was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic in his aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, in May 1927.

Fewer remember that he earned $25,000 in prize money accomplishing the feat.

Lindbergh and his team were compet-ing for the Orteig Prize, one of several offered to pilots and engineers in order to spur innovation and public interest in the then-nascent aviation industry.

The idea of using challenge prizes to tackle tough technological problems lay dormant for decades but has come back into vogue with government agencies, including those in the Defense Depart-ment, using them as an acquisition tool.

The Obama administration, with bipartisan support from Congress, has accelerated prize offerings, setting up the website Challenge.gov as a one-stop clearinghouse for all the prizes being offered by the federal gov-ernment. Administered by the General Services Admin-istration, it also offers technical advice to agencies wanting to set up their own competi-tions.

From its inception in 2010 to the end of fiscal year 2014, the website listed 370 competitions being sponsored by 69 different federal agencies. Togeth-er, they have offered some $72 million in prize money, said Tammi Marcoullier, program manager of Challenge.gov.

“When you have a prize competition, you are capturing the imagination of the public and you are tapping into the wisdom of the crowd,” she said in an interview.

The 370 competitions have attracted about 44,000 teams from around the world, she added.

Challenge prizes are not substitutes for traditional acquisition or procure-ment programs, but can be a tool for agencies seeking to bridge a technology gap, she said.

“If you can buy it, if it exists, if you can procure it, you should do that. It’s not meant to get something cheaper

that already exists out in the market-place,” she said.

Prizes must be well designed and look for a “sweet spot” between the “achiev-able” and “audacious.” The prize must drive innovation, she said.

Chris Frangione, vice president of prize development at the XPrize Foun-dation, noted that the idea to spark innovation goes back further than the 1920s. It was the British government, not private individuals, that awarded the Longitude Prize to John Harrison in 1765 for discovering a simple and prac-tical way to measure a ship’s longitude. He earned 15,000 British pounds for inventing the chronometer.

“They are really only one tool in your innovation toolbox, but they comple-ment traditional research and develop-ment resources very well,” he said.

The Ansari XPrize rekindled the challenge prize idea in 1996 when

it offered $10 million to any nongovernmental agency that could launch a reusable manned spacecraft twice in the span of

two weeks. The foundation has five active prizes now, including $35 mil-lion for anyone who can land a robot

on the moon.The Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency took up the idea in 2004-2005 when it held two competi-tions for self-driving vehicles.

The advantage of such prizes for the government is a wealth of brainpower being invested in solving a problem, Marcoullier said. If a prize attracts 100 participants, who each spend about four hours a week working on it, that comes to about 4,000 hours devoted to solving a problem over the course of a typical 10-week competition.

“You have to think about how much that would cost you to contract that out,” Marcoullier said. “And the benefit is that you’re making it interesting. You’re making it fun for them. You’re developing a community around this area of interest.”

An agency may end up with three teams each with its own piece of the puzzle, and their results can be put together for a product.

“I say that is still a huge win because you have accelerated the timeline to development exponentially,” she added.

Frangione said the advantage for gov-ernment agencies such as those in the national security realm is the ability to tap into a pool of problem solvers they may not know exists.

“If you use a traditional grant or con-tract, you’re going to go to your known solver community,” he said. “Why find a needle in a haystack if the needle can find you?”

Small groups of individuals or even large companies, which would otherwise be seen as too risky to award a contract to, will come forward and start working to solve the problem, he said.

The value for the solvers often goes beyond the cash prize. The $72 million in prize money posted so far is mislead-ing, Marcoullier said. Three of the chal-lenges were more than $10 million each. Most are more modest. Some have no cash prize at all.

The prize should be enough of an incentive for a team or solver to want to invest their time. In the case of one Environmental Protection Agency prize, there was no cash reward. The winner was given the opportunity to present its idea at a major conference and have an in-person meeting with the head of the agency. That was enough motivation to spark interest.

Other teams see a much larger payoff with a potential business spinning off afterwards. Some are motivated to join a competition when the judges are noted experts in their field or venture capital-ists.

NASA, which has conducted several prizes, tends to buy intellectual property and bring it in house, which can also add up to a much larger payoff than the ini-tial prize money. Marcoullier knows of a military robotics competition where the ultimate winner was the one who came in third place. Even though the team didn’t win, the participants decided that they had invested enough time and energy to start a company. It was the one that eventually garnered the govern-ment contract.

“If someone meets all the criteria, we

More Government Agencies Using Challenge Prizes to Tackle Tough Technology Problems

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want to pick a winner. But overall the goal is to … stimulate the economy, and stimulate the marketplace,” Marcoullier said.

With college, and even high school teams competing, it is also a great way to promote science, technology, engi-neering and math education, she added.

“We’re not out there asking people to do work for free, for cheap,” she added. “We are asking them to solve an auda-cious problem that is mission-centric so they can wrap their imagination around it and say, ‘I can do that.’”

“This isn’t a trick. We really want to give everybody all the tools, all the information we know, so they can all be successful,” she said.

DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory have been at the forefront in the military for using prize challenges. There were about five pages of prizes listed for Defense Department agen-cies on the website at the beginning of December. The Department of Home-land Security is beginning to take an interest, and Challenge.gov is working with the Transportation Security Admin-istration to design a prize for 2015, she said.

Gill Pratt, program manager for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, is leading a competition that is putting human-oid-shaped search-and-rescue robots through an obstacle course. The first live round of competitions took place in Miami in December 2013 and attracted 16 teams from all over the world. The final round with a similar number of teams will take place June 2015 in Pomona, California.

DARPA could have gone the tradi-tional route and awarded a contract after seeking requests for information and then requests for proposals, but in this case a challenge prize was seen as garnering better results.

“DARPA determined that the prize-challenge model of driving innovation would be beneficial in this case because pockets of robotics research were tak-ing place around the world, and a lot of interesting ideas were being pursued, but the field lacked a cohesive organiz-ing focus,” Pratt said in an email.

The challenge spelled out a mission and a set of objectives but did so with-out restricting the approaches teams could take, he said. It “led to greater non-traditional domestic and interna-tional participation than we usually get

from a broad agency announcement,” he added.

A typical contract will list the mile-stones and the expected results. Prizes leave the milestones and how to achieve the end result up to the competitors, Pratt said.

“DARPA may choose to create a chal-lenge when a need is clear, but not nec-essarily the path to arrive at a solution,” he said.

Pratt and Marcoullier said another major advantage of a prize for a govern-ment agency is that they only have to pay if there is a winner.

Frangione said if an agency awards a $5 million contract, it will receive $5 million worth of work. “If you put out a

$5 million prize, you could see … $75 million in aggregate R&D.”

The government can in turn offer teams the ability to test at its labs as part of the incentive to win, he added. Awards also don’t have to be “winner takes all.” A new DARPA challenge to track diseases will give out a total of $410,000 in prize money to first- and second-place winners as well as four runners-up.

Pratt said because of their high vis-ibility and public relations value to competing teams, challenges tend to attract external investment that meets or exceeds the government resources that go into them.

“Challenges can attract participation from a much broader pool of innova-tors than the government traditionally reaches,” he added.

Frangione said: “We like to say we democratize innovation.”

But prizes must be well thought out and planned, he said. The XPrize Foundation takes up to nine months to design a competition. Many ideas are rejected. Some are a bridge too far. They can’t ask that teams “break the laws of physics,” he noted.

The best prizes will define a problem but not a solution, he added.

“If you define a solution, you really hinder innovation,” he added. “Where we see most prizes fail is they pre-sup-pose a solution. The end goal really has to be on the right place on the spectrum from audacious to achievable.”

Some prizes make the mistake of going for a silver bullet or “whole shebang” solution, Frangione said. For example, the Ansari XPrize’s ultimate goal was to spark space tourism. Initially, the objective was to launch a vehicle 100 miles into space.

At that distance, either no one would have competed, or it would have taken a long time for a winner, he said. Chang-ing it to 100 kilometers was more achievable and a step toward commer-cial spaceflight.

A prize also can’t be subjective. It must have clear objectives: “I need to know, if I do A, B and C, I win,” Fran-gione said.

The real payoff should come after the prize is awarded. In the case of the Ansari XPrize, a nascent space tourism industry was left in its wake. ND

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 29

Email your comments to SMagnuson@ndia.org

Current Challenge Prizes

GooGle lunar XPrizeobjective: land a robot safely on the moonamount: $30 millionSponsor: XPrize Foundation

QualComm TriCorder Prizeobjective: a palm-sized device that monitors key health condi-tions and diagnoses 15 diseases amount: $10 millionSponsor: XPrize Foundation

H2 reFuel H-Prizeobjective: Create affordable systems for small-scale hydrogen refuelingamount: $1 millionSponsor: department of energy

lonGiTude Prize 2014objective: a cost-effective, accu-rate, rapid and easy-to-use test for bacterial infections amount: 10 million British pounds Sponsor: nesta

darPa ForeCaSTinG CHikunGunya CHallenGeobjective: accurately forecast the spread of chikungunya virus in the Caribbean, and the americasamount: $410,000Sponsor: darPa

BY YASMIN TADJDEHOne of the biggest complaints

the Pentagon faces is the length of time it takes to field a piece of technology. Over time, numerous studies, papers and speeches have been devoted to solving the problem, but some say programs still remain stifled by bureaucratic red tape.

However, some Defense Depart-ment organizations have made notable advancements over the years. The Army’s Rapid Equipping Force and the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, both established during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, were created in order to meet urgent operational needs rapidly.

At the REF, which is based in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, the command has been able to quickly equip soldiers with critical technologies, said director Col. Steven Sliwa.

The organization was given spe-cial acquisition authorities that allow its director to generate and approve requirements for forward-deployed forc-es facing unique challenges, Sliwa said.

“To make sure we do it quickly, we already have a funding stream that is fairly flexible,” he said.

Commercial, off-the-shelf items are critical for the group, he said.

“We’re going to go after the small, immediate, quick wins, focusing on what’s commercially off the shelf or a GOTS [government off-the-shelf product],” he said. “It’s really about the current battlefield as opposed to the future.”

Since its inception, thousands of items have been put on the battlefield, Sliwa said. One example is the tacti-cal aerostat system, a tethered balloon and sensor that can provide soldiers with elevated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information. ISR platforms comprised 12 percent of the REF’s 2014 requirements.

It’s tempting to compare the way the REF acquires technology to traditional Pentagon programs. However, the Rapid Equipping Force plans for immediate needs rather than ones decades into the future, Sliwa said.

“When you compare them [traditional

programs] against the REF, it’s not really a fair fight because I’ll never work on an M1 tank here,” he said.

As the war in Afghanistan winds down, the REF has reduced its size. It recently took a one-third cut to its civil-ian workforce but can build it up again, if necessary, Sliwa said.

“While the Army was getting smaller, the REF got smaller as well. But I have a plan to get larger when we have to and to be able to put items into the hands of warfighters quickly,” Sliwa said. “You can’t do that … from a cold start.”

As part of its restructuring, the group is currently transitioning to the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. None of its authorities will change with the move, he noted.

Sliwa is clear that the REF equips warfighters with products, noting that it doesn’t apply the word “field” to its acquisition strategy. That distinction is important, he said.

A traditionally fielded weapon acquired by the Army will have to go through numerous steps before making its way to troops. From formal require-ments, to rigorous testing and mile-stones, to careful planning about how to sustain it, a soldier in the end gets a “highly finished product,” Sliwa said. An item from the REF may get to the battlefield faster, but that depth may not be there.

“I see the goodness that comes out of … [that] very deliberate process. Every-body wants things to go faster, clearly. But there are very specific milestones that are built into that path,” he said.

JIEDDO is another organization that was created to meet urgent needs. It was formally established in 2006 to respond to rampant IED attacks that killed or maimed sol-diers. The organization has so far worked on 395 programs that have

been deployed to warfighters at a cost of $12.8 billion, a spokeswoman told National Defense.

These products perform comparably to items developed under the Defense Department’s own acquisition processes, she noted.

Prior to the formation of JIEDDO, the average time to deploy a counter-IED system was 32 months. Since then, the organization has shaved off 14 months, bringing it to an average of 18 months, the spokeswoman said.

Technology the group fielded includes the Husky Mounted Detection System to find buried explosives and multiple handheld IED detectors.

Before groups such as the REF or JIEDDO existed, one of the biggest inhibitors to rapid acquisition in the Pentagon was simply that it was not thought to be possible, said Andrew Hunter, a senior fellow and director of the defense-industrial initiatives group at the Center for Strategic and Interna-tional Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

“For the larger enterprise, I think we just reached a point where people had said, ‘Well, you know, that’s not the way our process works. We don’t do things on those time scales. It just takes longer in our system,’” said Hunter, who previ-ously served as the director of the Penta-gon’s joint rapid acquisition cell. “There was a lot of inertia in the system that said, ‘It just can’t be done.’”

The last eight to 10 years of war showed that rapid acquisition was, in fact, possible in the Pentagon.

30 N AT I O N A L D E F E N S E • J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5

Rapid Acquisition Groups Break Mold Of Slow Pentagon Procurement System

that was created to meet urgent needs. It was formally established in 2006 to respond to rampant IED attacks that killed or maimed sol-diers. The organization has so far worked on 395 programs that have

Husky Mounted Detection System DEFENSE DEPT.

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 31

“We’ve really proven that, ‘Yes, this can be done.’ Things can be acquired inside a period of weeks and months, not in terms of years and decades,” Hunter said.

For some time, officials believed that Congress, the Federal Acquisition Regu-lation system or the office of the secre-tary of defense wouldn’t allow the rapid fielding of technology.

Now “we’ve proven that Congress will support it. We’ve proven that the FAR has enough flexibility in it that you can move quickly within the rules, and like-wise we’ve proven that we can get the requirements and the budgeting folks lined up behind it,” he said.

During his time at the joint rapid acquisition cell, Hunter said he worked to formalize the improvements made in rapid acquisition and collect lessons learned. One of his biggest projects was updating the DoD 5000, the Defense Department’s acquisition rulebook.

“A big piece of the effort was insti-tutionalizing all the goodness that had been done over the last eight to 10 years” in a policy known as “enclosure 13,” he said. An interim version is cur-rently published with a final version pending, he noted.

One example of the Pentagon meet-ing an urgent demand revolves around Syrian chemical weapons, Hunter said.

Last year, following international outcry over the alleged use of chemical weapons on rebels by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army, he agreed to hand over the country’s stockpile to international teams.

Before formal requirements were known, the Defense Department and the Army realized that there was likely going to be an upcoming need for destroying the weapons, Hunter said.

The department set out to find a solution and eventually came up with the field deployable hydrolysis system, which had previously been land-based, and put it on the MV Cape Ray, a roll-on/roll-off container ship.

“Everything was done right. The need was truly anticipated before it became a formal requirement. The technology was relatively mature but needed to be adapted, and we adapted it successfully,” he said.

Rapid acquisition works well when time is of the essence and a technology gap is hurting forces, but those tech-niques still may not be the best option

when considering buying a piece of equipment that will be in use 30 or 40 years later, Hunter noted.

“The rapid process isn’t optimized to address those kinds of needs. That’s really the key. If I really am trying to buy something for the here and now, and I’m not necessarily planning to sustain it for 30 years, then the kinds of expediting tactics and methods that the rapid process uses become really helpful and compelling. But there’s always going to be that tension,” he said.

“I wouldn’t argue that the rapid process is going to be the ideal way to acquire that kind of stuff. Not to say we can’t do better in that realm,” he noted.

Hunter, who worked closely with Congress while at the Pentagon, said he sees “a real window of opportunity” to make the acquisition process faster.

“There is a near consensus on doing more to streamline the regular process so it doesn’t kind of die of its own weight,” he said.

Hunter doesn’t believe that the mid-term elections, which saw the Repub-licans take the Senate, will change the momentum. Acquisition reform is one of the few issues where the Obama administration and Congress are likely to agree, he noted.

While Pentagon acquisition can be at times odious, significant work would have to be done to change the pro-cess, said Cynthia Cook, director of the acquisition and technology policy

center at the RAND National Defense Research Institute.

However, there are good reasons for each of the steps, she noted.

“You could say, ‘Well, get rid of the careful requirements analysis.’ But you don’t want to do that because you want to make sure that if an investment is made that it’s the right investment,” she said.

“I think if there was an easy solution it would have been done,” she said.

Larger programs, for equipment such as aircraft, ships and helicopters, will always take longer than something pur-chased commercially off-the-shelf, she noted.

“You can’t say that [using COTS products] … is a solution to acquisition delays because a lot of times the depart-ment needs and relies on hard, innova-tive technologies, and those are naturally the ones that take a long time.”

A top-down approach to this type of rapid acquisition could help, she noted. “I think it is important for the depart-ment’s senior leadership to continue shining a light on this,” she said.

Cook said she does see the Pentagon making a concerted effort at attempting to speed the process up.

“Things do take a long time, and we do want to get technologies more rap-idly to the warfighter,” she said. “It takes a lot of effort.” ND

Email your comments to YTadjdeh@ndia.org

Tactical aerostat system rapid

equipping force

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By Sarah SicardWith tightening budgets and one

high-profile program delayed by several years, ground robot acquisitions are coming under increasing congressional scrutiny, officials who oversee procure-ment of the technology said recently.

“We need to deliver affordable pro-grams,” Tom Dee, deputy assistant secre-tary of the Navy, said at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems Inter-national’s Unmanned Systems Program Review.

The Navy is the executive agent in charge of procuring explosive ordnance disposal robots. After seven years of effort, it has failed to field replacements for its legacy systems and the commer-cial-off-the-shelf machines sped into the field during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Air Force officials announced in the summer of 2014 that they had run out of patience and were partially withdraw-ing from the program.

The Navy at the outset of the advanced explosive ordnance disposal robotic system (AEODRS) program said that rather than awarding a winner-takes-all contract to one manufacturer, it would bring the design and develop-ment in-house. The three classes of robots would be modular and run on a common operating system. Robot makers would compete to manufacture components, but there would be no lead system integrator among the vendors.

Dee recognized that the delays were caused by this new way of doing busi-ness.

“We tried to do things on our own. … We had a little bit of a delay in get-ting our RFP [request for proposals] out there because we discovered it’s a little more difficult,” he added.

The Air Force pulled out of the incre-ment 1 program in favor of off-the-shelf technologies to fill its smaller ground systems needs. The three classes vary by size and weight, with increment 1 being a backpackable version weighing about 35 pounds.

Deborah Aragon, a spokeswoman at the Air Force Civil Engineer Explosive Ordnance Disposal program said the

Air Force “is observing the Navy acquisi-tion of Advanced Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robotic System increment 1, but has decided at this time to withdraw from AEODRS increment 1 based on programming and funding issues.”

A Navy PowerPoint presented at an October 2011 industry day stated that increment 1 RFPs would be released March 2012 and the robot would go into limited production by the first quarter of 2013.

The Air Force said it would still consider rejoining the program as the Navy continues with the larger robots. The increment 2 robot will weigh 130 pounds and increment 3 will weigh 485 pounds.

“The Air Force EOD program is still following and engaged in AEODRS increments 2 and 3. Air Force EOD equipment modernization managers are continually evaluating the viability of commercial off-the-shelf systems to meet near- and long-term mission requirements as fiscal uncertainties jeop-ardize future modernization programs,” she added.

Dee said despite these delays, “the Navy is committed to the joint service EOD program. We’re committed to the technology; we’re committed to the unmanned system.”

The EOD robots will work on an open architecture system in which their components can be replaced or updated separately, which will deliver big cost savings, he said. The first contract awards for increment 1 will come in the third quarter of 2015, he said.

The contract awards will comprise plug-and-play components such as manipulator arms, powerpacks, wheels or tracks for mobility, sensors and other tools that can be attached depending on the mission.

Dee added that while AEODRS is the Defense Department’s only official ground robots program of record, “the Army is doing heroic work pushing their programs forward. They, like us, are struggling … with all the budget prob-lems, and I think we’re going to reach a confluence.”

Maj. Gen. Robert Dyess, director

of force development for the office of the U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8, said ground robots are in three of the Army’s 12 portfolios: soldier, protection and sustainment.

Luckily, budget numbers for Army sci-ence and technology funding will remain at fiscal year 2012 levels, Dyess added.

As it stands, the Army intends to produce a set of multi-purpose ground robots to debut in 2021, he said.

To deal with the prospect of budget cuts, the Army is looking to turn exist-ing programs — like the common robot-ics system-individual (CRS-I), a robot intended to replace its small unmanned ground vehicles and autonomous mobil-ity appliqué systems — into programs of record.

In the near term, it will continue to reset 1,452 of the commercial off-the-shelf ground robots it acquired over the past 12 years in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dyess said.

These existing unmanned ground sys-tems will be used by the Army’s global response forces and other units until programs of record are established, he added.

In a time of fiscal austerity, the argu-ment of “toys versus troops” also comes into play, Dyess said.

Troops and technology cannot be exchanged as equals, Dyess added. How-ever, as the number of troops is being cut, unmanned systems are paramount to maintaining readiness.

“We will have to… do the balancing act between the force structure, the modernization and ‘trained and ready,’” he added.

These systems can be used to extend the troops’ reach in combat situations, Dyess said.

The services need these systems to be “affordable, interoperable, autonomous and semiautonomous systems that can be deployed as force multipliers,” he said.

They are looking beyond the dated notion of using these systems for “dirty, dull and dangerous” work to extend-ing military power in ways that troops won’t be able to with decreased num-bers, Dyess added.

Lawmakers, meanwhile, are increas-ingly looking at the myriad military ground robot programs with skepti-cism, and may consider bringing them all under one program, said Chris O’Donnell, tactical warfare systems spe-

Military Joint Ground Robot Programs Face Increased Scrutiny

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cialist at the joint ground robotics enter-prise in the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

Although members of Congress expressed interest in having only one office to field all unmanned ground robotics systems, O’Donnell said that isn’t the way that his office intends to move forward with robotics acquisition.

He instead stressed the importance of having joint programs between the

services with an emphasis on common-ality and interoperability among ground robotics systems.

“We have a roadmap across the department. We’re trying to make sure that our unmanned systems are well integrated,” O’Donnell said.

Despite this decision, members of Congress remain skeptical of the Defense Department’s plan to support multiple programs in lieu of placing the unmanned ground systems under one program office, he added.

The question of different services working on similar robots programs

came up at a National Defense Indus-trial Association unmanned systems conference last year where Heidi Shyu, assistant secretary for the Army for acquisitions, logistics and technology, said the Army is also looking to field an upgradable, robot with open archi-tecture that would be able to perform multiple tasks. The Army would have to consider purchasing a “stop-gap” robot in the meantime, she said.

A small robot using a common

operating system and plug-and-play components that could be swapped out depending on the mission sounded identical to what the Navy was develop-ing for its AEODRS program. Yet Shyu said the Army version wouldn’t be ready until 2021.

O’Donnell said having joint programs is the best way to integrate technologies and spark innovation.

“We have a very good forum twice a year for executives to get together and think about where are we going to go with unmanned systems and how are we going to get better coop-

eration between development efforts,” O’Donnell said.

He emphasized the necessity of get-ting ground robots into the hands of warfighters in a timely manner.

“We have leaders … who have grown up over the last 10 years [in Afghanistan and Iraq] with integrated operations with these unmanned systems,” he said. There is no longer an argument about whether or not these systems are need-ed, he added.

“The real question is ‘What is the most beneficial way to use these systems across the department?’” O’Donnell asked.

The problem lies in the slow and costly process of development, and how to make these systems interoperable. he said.

Though the joint office has developed this roadmap to interoperability among ground robots, “none of this matters … unless we can tell them [Congress] it will save money,” O’Donnell said. ND

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 33

Email your comments to SSicard@ndia.org

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By VALERIE INSINNAThe history of joint aircraft is littered with failures, and when programs do come to fruition, they oftentimes are marred by schedule delays and cost

overruns. Case in point, critics say, is the uber-expensive F-35 joint strike fighter program.

Even that hasn’t deterred the U.S. military from trying to develop aircraft that can be used by multiple services. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps are all potential cus-tomers of an upcoming acquisition effort called future vertical lift, which aims to develop a family of rotorcraft scheduled to begin fielding in the mid-2030s.

It is yet to be seen if all of the services will buy into FVL, which is spearheaded by the Army. But officials involved in the program are taking steps to not repeat past mistakes, said Dan Bailey, the Army’s program director for future vertical lift and its technology demonstrator effort, joint multi-role.

“We’re doing everything from looking at legacy programs and lessons learned there to current programs like the joint strike fighter ... that have some of the same kinds of aspirations and characteristics that we’re looking at,” he said.

Future vertical lift has not yet been established as a program

of record, but the services already have created multiple joint organizations to help guide the FVL effort, from a flag officer-level steering group to integrated product teams that collabo-rate on science and technology, commonality, requirements and acquisition, he said.

The military uses rotorcraft to carry out one of four missions: attack, utility, cargo and reconnaissance, Bailey said. Instead of each service having its own helicopter for each mission, the thrust of future vertical lift is to create multiple rotorcraft with different lift capabilities — light, medium, heavy and ultra-heavy — that can be adapted by any service for many roles.

Program officials currently envision each FVL variant shar-ing a common airframe and avionics architecture, he said. They may also establish similar infrastructure for supply chains, train-ing and maintenance.

The major difference between a Navy medium-lift FVL aircraft and an Army one will be the subsystems and mission-specific equipment on board. For instance, a pilot in a Navy helicopter today has the ability to listen to public radio fre-quencies, while an Army pilot does not, Bailey said. A future vertical lift aircraft would have the capacity to accommodate the antennas and other equipment needed for the Navy to

34 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

In Future Rotorcraft Acquisition, Services Working to Avoid Mistakes of Past Joint Programs

V-280 Valor artist’s rendering bell helicopter

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5 • N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E 35

retain that capability, even if other services don’t use them.

“When you think about what the Navy does with their [SH-60] Seahawks in terms of anti-submarine warfare, which is one of their primary missions, that’s a very similar mission … to an Army attack/recon mission,” he said. “They might need different subsys-tems to perform the task, which is the difference in terms of requirements.”

Building a multi-service rotorcraft program from the ground up is a fairly new undertaking. Most simi-lar military helicopters were built as a single service platform first, and then developed into a product for another service’s use. The most famous exam-ple is the Army’s UH-60 Black Hawk, which became the Navy’s SH-60 Seahawk, the Coast Guard’s MH-60T Jayhawk and the Air Force’s HH-60G Pave Hawk.

However, the FVL program shares the same basic appeal as other joint aircraft programs, such as those for fighter jets, said Ray Jaworowski, senior aircraft analyst at Forecast International. If multiple services buy the same aircraft, in theory the govern-ment would save money by sharing development resources and by garnering economies of scale once an aircraft was in produc-tion.

“In practice, it has never really panned out as a cost saver,” he said.

“The problem with these joint aircraft designs is that essen-tially they result in design compromises because you’re having to account for the requirements of the different services, and no one service really gets everything it wants,” he added. “There’s a penalty associated with building in these differing requirements and it could be a penalty in terms of weight or in terms of per-

formance or something along those lines.”Most historical joint fighter jet programs eventually

became single service or were canceled altogether. Of the 11 joint fighter programs proposed from 1962 to 1996 — before the joint strike fighter — only four progressed from the proposal stage to development and procurement, said a 2013 report by the RAND Corp. titled, “Do Joint Fighter Programs Save Money?”

“From the tactical fighter experimental (TFX)/F-111 program in the 1960s through the JSF program today, the attempt to accommodate multiple operating envi-ronments, service-specific missions and differing per-formance and technology requirements in joint fighter designs has increased programmatic and technical

complexity and risk, thus prolonging [research, develop-ment, test and evaluation] and driving up joint acquisitions

costs,” it said. TFX originated as an Air Force-led effort to acquire for itself

and the Navy a fighter jet with a high level of commonality. The Navy left the program during the RDT&E phase because of cost growth and developed its own aircraft, the F-14.

The Air Combat Fighter program in the 1970s similarly aimed to develop a joint fighter for the Navy and Air Force. The effort evolved into two separate competitions that eventu-ally procured the Air Force’s F-16 Fighting Falcon and Navy’s F-18 Hornet.

Only two programs resulted in joint production and deploy-ment — the A-7 Corsair II and F-4 Phantom introduced in the 1960s.

Both of those acquisition efforts were never intended to become joint programs, Jaworowski said. “They were designed and developed by the Navy, and it was later on during the

“The F-35 program has even more complexity than other past joint

fighter programs.”

SB-1 Defiant artist’s rendering SIKORSKY-BOEING

36 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

production phase that the Air Force took a look at them and bought their own versions.”

The F-35, then, is the first truly joint fighter jet that has made it to production. It is experiencing many of the same cost growth issues as historical programs and is not on the path to achieving the expected cost savings, the RAND study said.

In order to determine cost growth, RAND looked at F-35 selected acquisition reports from milestone B from 2001 to 2010, the last report available when the analysis was done. It then compared those num-bers to three notional single service platforms.

RAND assumed that RDT&E for three single ser-vice fighters would cost 67 percent more than the F-35, and assigned the F-22’s cost growth to those three faux programs. Even so, the lifecycle costs of those programs show lower growth than that of the F-35 as defined in the 2010 selected acquisition report.

“Our analysis suggests that increased technologi-cal and programmatic complexity and declining commonality are significant drivers of the [F-35’s] RDT&E and procurement cost growth described in this report,” it said, noting that it was not immediately clear why estimated opera-tions and sustainment costs had grown so much.

Furthermore, “analysis indicates that the joint strike fighter may cost the services the same or more in total [life cycle costs] than if they had pursued separate single service pro-grams, which might have produced differing designs better optimized to meet their unique individual service operating environments and requirements,” it said.

The F-35 program has even more complexity than other past joint fighter programs, Jaworowski said.

“You’re asking one basic design, albeit different models of that design, to do a very wide variety of tasks. For the Air Force it’s going to replace F-16s and A-10s. For the Marine Corps it’s going to replace Harriers and early F-18s. For the Navy, it’s also going to replace early F-18s,” he said. “The idea back at the beginning of the program was that you were going to have a relatively high level of commonality among these different models but what has happened over time ... [is] a lower level of commonality than what was originally hoped for.”

At first glance, the future vertical lift program looks very similar to the F-35, Jaworowski said. The medium-lift variant could replace a wide variety of aircraft, including multiple ver-sions of the H-60, AH-64 attack helicopters, UH-1 Hueys and AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters.

FVL director Dan Bailey asserted that program officials are making an effort to learn from past mistakes. They have sought advice from both the F-35 joint program office and the RAND analysts responsible for the joint fighter aircraft study to try to glean lessons learned and opportunities for cost savings.

“We have met with the [F-35] program office to discuss their perspective of commonality, how they measure common-ality, and then how it has either worked or not worked,” he said. They learned that officials working on the FVL program have a different definition of commonality than the F-35 joint program office.

The JPO also offered advice on how to create and integrate a common cockpit, he said. “We learned a lot from that per-spective.”

After meeting with RAND analysts, Bailey determined that the findings of the “Do Joint Fighter Programs Save Money?” study could not be applied to rotorcraft programs, he said. “You can’t look at issues associated with fixed wing” and ascribe them to vertical lift and rotorcraft, he said.

Every joint fighter program “has had cost growth and sched-ule increase over history,” he said. However, RAND did not use any data from joint rotorcraft or non-fighter programs. “There are thousands of other joint product programs, and I would say not all of them have the same result. I don’t think it’s an apples-to-apples [comparison].”

Still, some analysts believe that the services’ requirements and operating environments are too varied to make a common airframe practical.

The two offerings for the joint multi-role technical dem-onstrator program — a science and technology effort to build innovative, high speed prototypes ahead of FVL — seem to be a departure from the Army’s legacy platforms, which prioritize low cost and payload over speed and range, said Richard Abou-lafia, vice president of analysis at the Teal Group. Bell Helicop-ter’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor and Sikorsky-Boeing’s SB-1 Defiant, a compound helicopter with coaxial rotor blades, will make their first flights in 2017.

“What’s baffling to me about JMR/FVL is that ... the cus-tomer that has been the most enthusiastic about creating this new architecture is also the customer that has been the least enamored with new rotorcraft technologies in the past,” Abou-lafia said. The Army in 1988 decided against purchasing the Marine Corps’ V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, which is faster and more expensive than the helicopters in the Army’s fleet.

The result of the FVL effort could be a situation where the Army has invested its money into cutting edge rotorcraft tech-nologies that are more in line with the priorities of the Marine Corps, only to reject those new platforms and upgrade legacy designs instead, he said.

“My feeling is that [industry is] going to develop something, and the Marines will thank them profusely, and the Army will say, ‘My God, what have we done?’” he said. ND

Email your comments to VInsinna@ndia.org

Life Cycle Cost for the Joint Strike Fighter Estimated to Be Higher Than Those of Three Notional Single-Service Programs

sourCe: raND CorP. At milestone B At 9 years past milestone B

By Edward LundquistThe F-35 Lightning II joint strike

fighter has become a model for interna-tional cooperation.

According to Aerospace Industries Association’s Remy Nathan, who runs AIA’s international trade division, aerospace is a global industry and an increasingly competitive international marketplace and is becoming more so all the time.

That international competition is a good thing, broadening the market that may offer new, better or different prod-ucts. “We can tap into the best technol-ogies at the best possible price,” Nathan says. “Our warfighters and customers worldwide benefit.”

There has been an emphasis of securi-ty cooperation and building partnerships, especially in the post-9/11 environment. “There is international content in every single defense platform,” Nathan says.

There is a direct relationship between having foreign customers for your prod-ucts, to include major systems like the F-35, and having foreign content. “It can be a discriminator,” Nathan says.

In an average program, a country buys the airplane and they have either a pol-icy or law that stipulates some percent-age of the purchase price of that airplane has to be offset back in the purchasing coun-try. Countries can spend liter-ally billions of dollars buying the weapons system, and most of them are looking for some economic return for that large an outflow of cash. So many programs require “offsets.”

Offsets come in two forms — direct and indirect — direct meaning equipment that is installed on the airplane weap-ons system, and indirect being anything that stimulates their economy that may not be related to the purchase of that weapon system.

Some offset programs require investment, and some just include foreign content. The more flexibility the bet-ter. “It can be a challenge to

discharge offset obligations and have a value in the foreign buying country. But it behooves both sides of the transaction that they succeed,” according to Nathan.

Despite offset obligations, every sup-plier has to meet a high standard. “A customer may want to provide content, but the prime also has an obligation to that buyer and every other buyer to pro-vide the best aircraft at the best price,” Nathan says.

“A program of the magnitude of the F-35 is all about partnerships,” says Steve Over, Lockheed Martin’s director of F-35 international business develop-ment.

“It starts off first at the government-to-government level, because the F-35 is a tool of U.S. foreign policy and devel-oping stronger relationships with all these international partners around the world,” Over says. “And it’s about build-ing coalition capacity, where the U.S. is providing the absolute best, state-of-the-art, 5th-generation fighter technology to partner nations that someday in the future they anticipate going into com-bat with against the forces of evil. As they look forward 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 or even 30 years from now, these international partners

have the capacity to go to war with the United States.”

There are currently no offsets with any of the partner countries purchasing the F-35, but industries in the countries that are buying the airplane have been given an opportunity to participate in its global supply chain, he adds.

For Denmark’s Terma A/S, participa-tion in the F-35 program is critical to the company today and for the future. Terma is providing composite compo-nents to Northrop Grumman, which is responsible for the center fuselage; Mar-vin Engineering, which is making the missile pylons; and General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, which is building the gun pod. Terma is also providing the horizontal tail leading edge and the data acquisition, recording and telemetry pod directly to Lockheed Martin.

Over says Denmark and Terma are good examples of the F-35 global supply chain. “Terma had to compete against U.S. and other countries’ providers of equipment. In each of these competi-tions, the selection was based on a cost/value basis, meaning that their prices and the equipment that they operate is a best value to the overall F-35 supply chain.”

But in order for industrial partners like Terma to have the opportunity to supply parts for the entire program of record, that that supplier has to con-tinue to maintain best value, Over says.

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 37

F-35 Industrial Base Relies On International Participation

Carbon fiber material is measured and cut to create layers that will become composite material for aircraft. Terma

38 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

“So it’s not a birthright, but as long as they are doing what they need to help us bring the price of the airplane down and maintain competitive pricing, there is no reason those companies won’t be supplying that part for [the] 3,100 air-craft program of record.”

There’s a huge incentive to be competitive. “The program of record is slightly under $400 billion just to acquire the airplanes. And about 20 per-cent of that will be sourced outside the United States from international com-panies that are from these purchasing nations,” says Over.

“So when you do the math, it’s an enormous amount of money that is going to these industry partners around the world that will be supplying parts for the next 30-plus years associated with everyone’s F-35s,” he adds.

The F-35 is the first fully digitally designed aircraft. There are no 2-D drawings. And it’s made largely from composites. There are no sheet metal parts on the F-35. Terma’s expertise in composites make it an attractive partner.

“We are supplying our components to all F-35s, regardless of where they fly on this planet. The pure magnitude is of vital importance,” says Peter Worsøe, vice president of sales and business development at Terma’s precision com-posites manufacturing facility in Grenaa, Denmark.

Terma’s composites are fabricated from carefully cut layers of pre-impreg-nated carbon fibers that are put into a mold and heated under vacuum and pressure in an autoclave. Out of that comes a molded, completed product ready for trimming and surface treat-ment. The quality control process includes ultrasonic scans and X-rays. A horizontal tail fin may include 80 layers, or “plys,” and take two weeks to com-plete.

“The most unique process linked to the F-35 is the trimming process, which has to meet stringent tolerance require-ments,” Worsøe says.

The F-35 has about 300 different composite panels, and Terma makes 55 of them.

Composites offer opportunities for integrating parts. “An aircraft based on composite can typically end up consist-ing of fewer and larger, high-precision parts,” says Worsøe. “If they were done in metal, it would require more individ-ual parts which would require assembly.”

Compared to metal, composites reduce weight without sacrificing strength. The heavier the plane, the more power and fuel that is required. Low weight means more payload, or more fuel for longer range or mission endurance.

Although typically more costly, one advantage to the high-precision com-posite parts is that they are easier to exchange. It also improves aerodynamics because it reduces gaps between parts.

Worsøe acknowledges there’s risk associated with the project. “This F-35 program is like any commercial pro-gram. We are not guaranteed today a workload for the future. It’s an invest-ment from our side based on our own risk assessment.”

“What is vital in order to help develop us into a very competitive aerospace company in the future is to move beyond low-rate production of military aircraft components and have the opportunity to participate in mod-ern high-rate production programs — military and commercial — that brings down our learning curve, and can justify implementation of automatic manufac-turing procedures,” says Worsøe. “This will make us more competitive in the future, for the program that comes after the F-35 or a commercial program we can run in parallel to the F-35 program.”

Over says the industrial partners rec-ognize the opportunity that has been afforded them. “We’re seeing every one of these partner companies doing what’s necessary to bring their associ-ated prices down. From an industrial standpoint, we’re all focusing on a price learning curve, getting smarter and finding better ways to build parts more efficiently.”

That’s something that’s incredibly important for Lockheed Martin, Over says. “As the prime contractor, we hear it almost every day from our customer — focus on bringing the price of the airplane down. So we rely tremendously on our supply base to do their part. All of our international industrial partners are cooperating with us to help us bring the price of the airplane down where it needs to be.”

Lockheed Martin and the joint program office have initiated a cost-reduction program called “Blueprint for Affordability.”

“Working with our two principle industrial partners — Northrop Grum-

man and BAE Systems —we’re invest-ing $170 million of our own money over the next two years, focused on purely bringing the price of the airplane down. That’s to be followed with three years of investment from DoD to the tune of $100 million each year for the following three years,” says Over. “So roughly, over a five-year period, $470 million invested in bringing the price of the airplane down.”

“We’re working with our interna-tional industrial participants like Terma … to make their processes leaner, more efficient and to challenge the design of equipment, the products and parts that they’re building,” Over adds.

Terma produces parts of the airplane that go in the center fuselage sup-plied to Lockheed Martin by Northrop Grumman, using the later company’s design. Over says. But suppliers such as Terma have their own design authorities and their own intellectual capacity.

“So they’re looking at the parts, figur-ing out how to manufacture them and putting their designing teams to work on how to build them more efficiently and affordably. That’s the cycle that’s happening right now, funded by the Blueprint for Affordability,” Over says.

The Blueprint for Affordability will fund the recertification process of alter-nate manufacturing methods so that the final end product will still meet the same requirements imposed upon the total aircraft, he adds. “It’s a catalyst that’s added to the affordability formula of learning curves and economies of scale that really speeds up cost reduc-tion.”

Over says roughly half of the total annual buys of airplanes in the foresee-able future will be for international customers.

“The international component is a huge element of what we do. It’s build-ing this coalition capacity that the U.S. is going to need in a future day and age, but it’s also bringing the price of the U.S. airplanes down. The economies of scale of the international airplanes that are already projected will reduce the cost of every F-35 that the U.S. buys by approximately $10 million. And it’s a true win-win situation for everyone involved,” Over says. ND

Edward Lundquist is a retired Navy captain and principal science writer for MCR Federal.

The National Defense Industrial Association announced that retired

Air Force Gen. Craig R. McKinley will be the association’s next president and CEO, effective Jan. 1.

McKinley is currently president of the Air Force Association, a role he assumed Oct. 1, 2012. McKinley succeeds current NDIA President and CEO Larry Farrell, who announced his retirement after serv-ing in that capacity since 2001.

McKinley, a 38-year-veteran of the Air Force, retired as the first four-star chief of the National Guard Bureau, where he also served as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“The board conducted an extensive search for the most qualified individual to serve as our next president and CEO,” said NDIA Chairman Arnold Punaro.

“With Gen. McKinley, we will have the leadership in place to help introduce a new era at NDIA. In addition to his outstanding military career — which included leading the National Guard during a period when they were exten-

sively committed to combat operations overseas as well as major disaster relief opera-tions at home — he brings a successful track record lead-ing a large defense and aero-space association. Craig is well-known and highly respected by Congress, the executive branch and industry.”

McKinley received his commission in 1974 as a distinguished graduate of the ROTC program at Southern Methodist University. He served in numerous assign-ments in flying and operations, as well as command positions at group, wing, sector and field operating agency levels. He was a command pilot with more than 4,000 hours, primarily in the T-38, F-106, F-16 and F-15. Additionally, he has been pilot-in-command in the C-131 and C-130 operational support airlift aircraft.

His assignments included commander of the 1st Air Force, Air Combat Com-mand and commander of the Conti-nental U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command Region, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.

He served as the assistant deputy chief of staff for plans and programs at the Air Force headquarters, in Washington, D.C., and director of the mobilization and reserve affairs directorate at U.S. Euro-

pean Command, Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany. As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he was a mili-tary adviser to the president, the secretary of defense,

the National Security Council and the Defense Department’s official channel of communication to the governors and to state adjutants general on all matters pertaining to the National Guard.

Among his military decorations are the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal with bronze oak leaf cluster; Defense Superior Service Medal; Legion of Merit; Meritorious Service Medal with two bronze oak leaf clusters; Air Force Com-mendation Medal with two bronze oak leaf clusters; Air Force Achievement Medal with two bronze oak leaf clusters; Combat Readiness Medal with four bronze oak leaf clusters; and National Defense Service Medal with bronze ser-vice star.

McKinley graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in business administration at Southern Methodist University, Dal-las, Texas in 1974, received his master’s degree in management and economics at Webster College, St. Louis, Missouri, in 1979 and at the National War College, National Defense University, in 1995.

■ The National Defense Industrial Association announced that Terri M. Swetnam has been named to the new position of chief operating officer, effective Jan. 1.

She will be responsible for day-to-day management of finan-cial and business operations for an organization that supports 1,600 member companies and 90,000 individual members.

Swetnam will report to Craig McKinley, who becomes NDIA’s new president and CEO on Jan. 1.

Swetnam has spent more than 25 years in finance and oper-ations management positions across non-profit, government and private sector for-profit organizations. She is currently chief financial officer at the American Psychiatric Association, a medical specialty society representing 35,000 psychiatrists worldwide.

In her 14 years as the senior business officer at APA, Swet-nam developed the strategy and led the execution of key initiatives to implement transformative changes to the organi-zation’s operations, while increasing annual revenues.

Her efforts included defining and enforcing financial and management policies to improve the operation of finance, con-tracts, information technology, real estate and human resources

functions.Prior to APA, Swetnam served in finance, pricing and audit-

ing positions at The National Academies, CACI International and the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

“Terri is a dynamic, goal-oriented and decisive leader with a history of innovation and achievement in financial manage-ment and a broad range of business operations,” said NDIA Chairman Arnold Punaro. “Working closely with Craig and the rest of the senior management team, Terri will lead our efforts to put the systems and processes in place to ensure financial and operational excellence across the organization.”

Swetnam said: “The ability to work alongside Craig to help take NDIA to the next level is an incredible opportunity. I’m excited to join this outstanding organization and look forward working with the entire team to enhance overall operational efficiency.”

Swetnam graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in account-ing at the University of Baltimore and received her master’s degree in accounting from George Mason University. She is a CPA and also holds a Ph.D. in organizational leadership from Regent University.

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 39

NDIA NewsNDIA Names Retired Gen. Craig R. McKinley President and CEO

Swetnam Chosen as Association’s First Chief Operating Officer

40 N AT I O N A L D E F E N S E • J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5

NDIA Calendar

40 N AT I O N A L D E F E N S E • D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4

January12-13 Procurement Division Meeting Washington, DCwww.ndia.org/meetings/5PC2

15 NDIA Mergers and Acquisitions Seminar

Washington, DCwww.ndia.org/meetings/5050

20Bending the Cost Curve: Plug Fest PLUSFairfax, VAwww.afei.org/events/5A09

21-22Strike, Land Attack & Air Defense Division Quarterly MeetingTucson, AZwww.ndia.org/meetings/510B

22NDIA Missile Defense LuncheonArlington, VAwww.ndia.org/meetings/516A

26-2826th Annual SO/LIC Symposium & ExhibitionWashington, DCwww.ndia.org/meetings/5880See our ad on p. 42

26-29IPM Division Meeting Tucson, AZwww.ndia.org/meetings/5PM1

26-30Defense Systems Acquisition Management Course (DSAM)Virginia Beach, VAwww.ndia.org/meetings/502A

28-29How Washington WorksReston, VAwww.ndia.org/meetings/543

February5TRIADOrlando, FLwww.ndia.org/meetings/514T

5C4ISR BreakfastArlington, VA

• Bi-monthly series focusing on de-fense intelligence capabilities at the operational and tactical levels.www.ndia.org/meetings/592C

5Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO) APBIWashington, DCwww.ndia.org/meetings/5090See our ad on p. 42

10-112015 Human Systems ConferenceAlexandria, VA www.ndia.org/meetings/5350See our ad on p. 42

10-11Mastering Business Development WorkshopTampa, FL

www.ndia.org/meetings/507B

18-19NDIA Manufacturing Division MeetingWashington, DCwww.ndia.org/meetings/519B

25Readiness SummitCrystal City, VAwww.trainingsystems.org

25-26Agile in Government: “Agile: Mutual Adaptation in Government”Springfield, VAwww.afei.org/events/5A01

26NMSC Annual MeetingCrystal City, VAwww.trainingsystems.org

March2-430th Annual National Test & Evaluation ConferenceSpringfield, VAwww.ndia.org/meetings/5910See our ad on p. 42

10Women in Defense Annual DinnerArlington, VA

11Women in Defense National ConferenceArlington, VA www.ndia.org/meetings/5WID

12SO/LIC Division SocialArlington, VA

www.ndia.org/meetings/588F

16-1831st Annual National Logistics ForumWashington, DCwww.ndia.org/meetings/5730See our ad on p. 43

For more information and online registration, visit our website: www.ndia.org. Or contact our Operations Department at (703) 247-9464.

J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 41D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 • n a t i o n a l D e f e n s e 41

For more information and online registration, visit our website: www.ndia.org. Or contact our Operations Department at (703) 247-9464.

17-182015 Precision Strike Annual ReviewSpringfield, VAhttp://www.precisionstrike.org/events/5PPRSee our ad on p. 43

23-27Defense Systems AcquisitionManagement Course (DSAM)St. Louis, MOwww.ndia.org/meetings/502B

23-25Medical Research, Development and Acquisition in Support of the WarfighterHyattsville, MDwww.ndia.org/meetings/5310See our ad on p. 42

24-2616th Annual Science & Engineering Technology ConferenceSpringfield, VAwww.ndia.org/meetings/5720

25-26CYBERWESTPhoenix, AZwww.afei.org/events/5A06

27 Greater Los Angeles Chapter 65th Annual West Coast Dinner & Acquisition ForumMarina del Rey, CAwww.ndia-lachapter.org/

30-1Joint Undersea Warfare Technology Spring ConferenceSan Diego, CA www.ndia.org/meetings/5260

31-2MODSIM World 2015Virginia Beach, VA www.trainingsystems.org

AprilTBDBattleSpace AwarenessMcLean, VAwww.afei.org/events

2C4ISR BreakfastArlington, VA

• Bi-monthly series focusing on de-fense intelligence capabilities at the operational and tactical levels.www.ndia.org/meetings/592D

6-8Munitions Executive SummitParsippany, NJwww.ndia.org/meetings/5650

6-8Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference & ExhibitionCrystal City, VAwww.ndia.org/meetings/5380

21-22 Michigan Chapter Michigan Defense Exposition (MDEX)Warren, MIwww.ndia-mich.org/

21-22NDIA Armament Systems Forum Baltimore, MD www.ndia.org/meetings/5590

22-23Mastering Business Development WorkshopSilver Spring, MDwww.ndia.org/meetings/507C

29-30How Washington WorksReston, VAwww.ndia.org/meetings/543C

May18Washington, DC Chapter Golf Outing Benefitting USO-MetroSuitland, MDwww.ndia.org/washdc

18-20Joint Annual NDIA/AIA Industrial Security Committee ConferenceScottsdale, AZwww.ndia.org/meetings/5SEC

18-20Insensitive Munitions and Energetic Materials SymposiumRome, Italywww.ndia.org/meetings/5550

19-20Greater Hampton Roads Chapter Joint Warfighter SymposiumChesapeake, VAhttp://ndiaghrc.org

19DI2E Plugfest 2015 Fairfax, VAwww.afei.org/events/5A07

19-212015 SOFICTampa, FLwww.sofic.org

JOIN NDIA’S MANUFACTURING DIVISION!

Forum for corporate members

• Network with your professional peers• Participate in a variety of programs planned for 2015• Share your expertise and insights• Help direct NDIA’s manufacturing-related advocacy

For more information contact Kelsey Fonnett at (703)247-9467

42 N AT I O N A L D E F E N S E • J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5

N D I A F E A T U R E D E V E N T S

Washington, DC • January 26-28, 2015 • www.ndia.org/meetings/5880 Alexandria, VA • February 10-11, 2015 • www.ndia.org/meetings/5350

Washington, DC • February 5, 2015 • www.ndia.org/meetings/5090

26th Annual SO/LIC Symposium & ExhibitionPersistent SOF Operations in Support of Global National Objectives

• Engage with senior-level speakers, decision-makers, and subject-matter experts from throughout the SO/LIC community

• Visit the Exhibition Hall to see the latest in SO/LIC-related technologies and products

• Explore requirements, policies and technology solutions to support per-sistent SOF operations across the globe

Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO) APBICTTSO identifies and develops capabilities to combat terrorism and irregular warfare, and to deliver these capabilities to DoD components and interagency partners through rapid research and development, advanced studies and technical innovation, and provision of support to U.S. military operations.

This Advance Planning Briefing for Industry (APBI) forecasts the requirements anticipated for funding in Fiscal Year 2016 in support of:• More than 100 government agencies• State and local governments• Law enforcement organizations• National first responders

2015 Human Systems ConferenceHuman Systems: Maintaining Our Physical Edge, Enabling Our Cognitive Edge

The 2015 Human Systems Conference is back in the DC area!

This forum is designed to increase dialogue between the Human Systems S&T community, Weapon System Developers and System Engineers, and featuresRoundtable Discussions, a State of the Union Session, andPoster Presentations.

Sessions aligned with COI Roadmaps, to include:

• SI&CP • PS&PP • PTLD • SCBU • NEW HSI Metrics

30th Annual National Test & Evaluation Conference

“The Future of T&E: Maintaining the Defense Technology Edge”

Sessions will focus on:• Proper roles of T&E in the defense acquisition system• New & Emerging Technologies• Big Data and Knowledge Management • Other key T&E issues such as Reliability, Early Involvement, Sustainability & Cyber Security

Springfield, VA • March 2-4, 2015 • www.ndia.org/meetings/5910

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 5 • N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E 43

N D I A F E A T U R E D E V E N T S

Washington, DC • March 16-18, 2015 • www.ndia.org/meetings/5730

Springfield, VA • March 17-18, 2015 • www.precisionstrike.org

31st Annual National Logistics ForumTeaming to Deliver Better Outcomes – Readiness at the Right Cost

The National Logistics Forum will assemble…• Senior Pentagon-based logistics policy officials • Senior government logistics practitioners • Industry leaders and logistics providers

A technology exhibition will spotlight cutting-edge logistics capabilities being developed to support Warfighters in an ef-ficient and effective manner.

Precision Strike Annual ReviewAchieving Dominance through Technological InnovationLocation: Waterford at Springfield – Springfield, VA

Showcasing:• USD(AT&L)• THE JOINT STAFF (J-5/J-8)• MILITARY DEPARTMENTS• COMBATANT COMMANDS• DEFENSE SCIENCE BOARD• THE CONGRESS

Already Confirmed: Two Popular U.S. Strategic ThinkersSpecial Highlight: Presentation of 19th Annual William J. Perry Award

Hyattsville, MD • March 23-25, 2015 • www.ndia.org/meetings/5310

Medical Research,Development andAcquisition in Support of the WarfigherUSAMRMC Military Medical Missions, Goals, and Objectives

The Medical Research, Development and Acquisition in Support of the Warfighter Conference co-hosted by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) is an opportunity for science and industry representatives to learn more about USAMRMC’s missions, programs and gap areas and to better understand the process within which USAMRMC operates. USAMRMC provides world-class medical knowledge, counter-measures, and technologies to protect and sustain our service men and women throughout their military careers.

Concurrent Technologies Corp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www .ctc .com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Cover 3

iDirect Government Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www .iDirectGT .com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Omnetics Connector Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www .omnetics .com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

FNH USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www .fnhusa .com/scar-family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Fuelsafe ARM USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www .arm-usa .com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Glenair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www .glenair .com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Transcontinental Airways Corporaton c/o Airscan . . info@TranscontinentalAirways .com & info@TranServCorp .com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4

RUAG Ammotec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www .ruagswissp .com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover2

44 N at i o N a l D e f e N s e • J a N u a r y 2 0 1 5

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Joint strike fighter■ While the successful F-35C sea tri-als eased the minds of many in the Navy, the program faces a whirlwind of activity next year, including the initial operating capability of the Marine Corps variant, the F-35B. Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, head of the joint program office, has said that delays to the testing program caused by engine problems may push back that IOC date. National Defense dissects the year ahead for the Navy and Marine Corps’ variants.

Amphibious combat Vehicle■ The Marine Corps spent decades of time and billions of dollars trying to develop an amphibious vehicle with high water-speed capability. Last year, the service reversed course, deciding to acquire a modified off-the-shelf product to replace the aging amphibious assault vehicle. The competition is due to heat up this year, with a final request for pro-posals released as early as February. Only two vendors will be selected to compete for the program, officials have said.

Marine corps drones■ The Marine Corps over the past 12 years of conflict have flown the RQ-7B Shadow and the RQ-21 Blackjack unmanned aerial systems. National Defense Magazine looks at the service’s UAV roadmap, future concepts of opera-tions and plans for near-term upgrades.

navy nuclear Power■ The National Nuclear Security Administration’s naval nuclear power propulsion program is responsible for

developing reactors for Navy subma-rines. The program wants to do away with mid service life refueling, by creat-ing a reactor that lasts as long as the sub. If successful, the program has the potential to save the Navy an enormous amount of money as well as time.

Joint light tactical Vehicle■ The Army and Marine Corps have said they intend to purchase more than 50,000 joint light tactical vehicles col-lectively. However, with sequestration slated to begin in 2016, budget reduc-tions could affect the program. What are the repercussions mandatory budget cuts could have on the JLTV?

training and simulation Market■ As defense budgets decline, the mili-tary has said that more training options are needed to maintain troop readiness. The defense industry sees this as a posi-tive sign that the simulation, modeling and training market will be able to weather the budgetary downturn as sim-ulators are used to replace live exercises.

Unmanned Aviation■ As interest in unmanned aerial sys-tems continues to grow, so too does the need for experienced operators. Several universities across the country have gained prominence recently for their burgeoning UAS pilot and research degree programs. These students, upon completion, are able to leverage their degrees into successful military and commercial careers.

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