I was surfing YouTube for airplane videos and stumbled across Rachel Maddow editorializing about the death of the F-22A.
I didn't disagree with the content, but I can't help but be worried about the undisguised glee in her tone that the program had failed.
She was utterly cheerful about how the program had been underbid and how Lockmart had spread the manufacturing around 88 senator's districts.
Why the fuck is she so gorram'd happy?
Honey, the F-22A was supposed to replace the F-15A and F-15C in the USAF inventory. The last F-15C ran off the line in St Louis in 1990, and that was a contract for Saudi Arabia. The youngest USAF F-15C is 27 years old.
She's right, our procurement system is broken. It's been broken for a very long time too.
Where was the press on reporting abut the multiple failures of the F-22 acquisition? Oh, they were there, reporting the whole time. Why were they ignored? Because nobody trusts them anymore!
If they report the sun comes up in the east most people will buy a compass and check it themselves before believing it.
Why? Think of how many times you've been watching the news on a topic you're well versed in. How often is the media just flat wrong or misleading by omission?
On military purchase issues they've cried wolf about every single thing ever bought since the Spanish American War (look it up!). Now there's actually a wolf and nobody listens.
I've got a partial solution to the issue.
Go back to how we did it in WW2 on procurement. We buy two designs for every need. Yes, that generates waste, but it also keeps the makers honest. The reason for buying two designs was that if one turned out to be a pig, we stopped ordering them and changed our order to the better of the two.
We resurrect the one good part of MacNamara's meddling. If the Navy plane does the job, then the Air Force buys them too. If they complain that the Navy plane costs more because of the carrier equipment, be sure to have them catalog all the money we saved by their exclusive cannot be exported buy of the F-22.
Of course, I'd also have AF Generals shot for showing even the slightest reluctance to buying planes that are good at close-air.
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"We resurrect the one good part of MacNamara's meddling. If the Navy plane does the job, then the Air Force buys them too."
ReplyDeleteI think I see what you're getting at with this, but we have to watch out for the "one size fits all" trap - like the attitude behind the F-35 idiocy. It would be better to say "If the Navy plane can do the job that the Air Force needs to do, then the Air Force buys them too."
Of course, the F-35 also suffers from the fact that it wasn't dropped a long time ago - or at least split into totally separate projects for each intended role. But at this point, too many people have effectively staked their careers on it and it's promise of "one platform for everybody and every role" for it to ever die like it should.
Glad you saw what I meant about MacNamara.
ReplyDeleteThe competing purchase is what prevents an F-35 fiasco. If there was an F-32A line in Topeka at the same time as the F-35A line Lockmart would have had to have been more honest during the fly-off and that would have made the prototype a lot closer to the production item.
My only concern about a competing purchase method is the supply/maintenance issues. With, say, both an F-22 and F-23 line in service, the AF has to maintain separate training and maintenance programs for both. Even if you're keeping the total numbers the same (e.g., 50 F-22's + 50 F-23's, instead of 100 F-22's), that second set of programs is going to make the total cost significantly higher. You also add the issue of parts incompatibility for equipment that's doing the same job, and all the logistical complications from that.
ReplyDeleteIOW, while it might help keep the manufacturers a little more honest, it adds a lot of operational complications. Whether the added honesty would be worth more than the cost of the complications is something to consider.
We "replaced" 408 F-15C's with 187 F-22A's. If Lockmart had been forced to be honest with prices and performance perhaps we would have gotten the 500 planes planned even if it was 250 F-22A and 250 F-23A. However, I doubt we'd have many cases where both planes were in front line service. The old system invariably caught one company lying and their orders were cut. What plane was the second for the B-29? B-47?
ReplyDeleteGetting the logistically simpler single plane has caused us to get planes which are more expensive and fewer of them. Plus we've just abandoned several roles from carrier decks, like ASW. What replaced the EF-111 and F-4G?
We've got a procurement system that rewards a company that's routinely over budget and over time over one that's nearly consistently on time and on budget.