Drones have a role. So do fighters.
Posted on 09/15/2020 11:13:32 PM PDT by cba123
B2 and F117 were built in secret. I am not sure what the big deal is.
Often times you build a prototype, and then put the mass production out to bid. Also, I am sure somewhere in the AF budget, there was money allocated to design and manufacture of experimental aircraft.
Drones have a role. So do fighters.
The production is rapid
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We could hope, but anything more than what was released is just speculation at this point - what they flew might just be a tech demo plane not the intended production plane. We just do not know.
The deal is that there have been far more failures than successes when you have secret single source programs- starting with the Douglas A2D Skyshark, to name just one idiot program.
The M-16 was another single-source, no competition project and I doubt I need to remind you how it was a gigantic failure early on. (And some would say still.)
These projects went through an acquisition process as well, just not one where the details are out in the public. Its done all the time. Its still usually competitive. On rare occasions its sole sourced, usually when the need is short fused and the tech/skills base may be very limited to a single company.
I don’t disagree with that last, but there have been enough single-sourced turkeys bought by the government that my confidence is not terribly high.
When its done out of nepotism or some other corrupt motive like kick backs to a campaign, I agree.
Sometimes even when none of those factors are present.
Sole source is not the norm. There are some pretty strict rules and thresholds to be met, so either those are met like there is only one source with the tech and skills and the need is urgent, or someone went around the process to give favor where it should not have been given. I suspect most of the examples you could cite are the latter. Occasionally it might be otherwise, but in some of those cases, you have to consider that sometimes the govt 1) asks too much for the current state of the art given what they want to spend or 2) doesnt really know what it wants or 3) changes requirements along the way. Any of these can lead to program failure or over run and none may actually be the fault of the contractor.
Oh, I’m not talking about cost overruns or changing requirements or anything like that. I’m talking about times when the government designed/mandated a design and got exactly what they wanted - and it turned out to be garbage, unusable or completely useless for the intended purpose.
You seem to have a specific example or two in mind. It might help if you share what you are referring to.
Most recently with the Littoral Combat Ship. Government got exactly what it asked for, and it’s useless in the spec the government ordered it in.
Flown from a trailer in Nevada.
I wasnt a surface guy but I can see your point with that program. An example of the govt wanting too many missions covered by a low cost solution. Arguably for some missions it has a limited place, but so did the Pegasus hydrofoil. For the needs of the US and the idea of our defensive posture being one where we take the fight overseas rather than let it come to our shores, LCS was never going to fill much of that role. Its not a great ocean going platform and it doesnt pack much. So you can definitely blame that one on pencil neck budgeteers trying to define how the warfighter does his job. If I recall that wasnt sole source, but I dont know if you are saying it was or if this is a digression.
Well, now you might be nitpicking. Camouflage uniforms have to be designed for the environment you intend to operate in. I think the services do spend too much time redesigning uniforms, but the ACU is at least more functional than most.
They literally found out that UCP on the ACU was *inferior* to the old Woodland pattern in pretty much every setting when they went to re-examine the program. The Marines got it right with MARPAT, the Army dumped a ton of money and got something that actually stood out against pretty much every background and was told this from day one of issue by soldiers.
More likely paid to stay in their basements and fly them.
It wasn’t technically sole source, but it might as well have been. Instead of making the options compete to determine which was best, they simply bought both options without much critical thought.
They forget the droid to control the flight surfaces...
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