The Nash & Cibinic Report discusses the Army's acquisition strategies for three new aircraft programs, which use three of the six acquisition pathways prescribed by the Adaptive Acquisition Framework. The report is generally complimentary but criticizes the lack of testing to mitigate technology risks. The Army's response is that they are continuously assessing technology risk as the programs proceed.
37 Nash & Cibinic Rep. NL DATE JUNE
Nash & Cibinic Report | June 2023
The Nash & Cibinic Report
Ralph C. Nash
DATELINE JUNE 2023
We are highly dependent on reports of the Government Accountability Office to find out what strategies are being used by contracting agencies to carry out their programs. A good example is Future Vertical Lift Aircraft: Army Should Implement Leading Practices To Mitigate Acquisition Risk, GAO-23-105554 (Apr. 2023). See 65 GC ¶ 103. In this report, the GAO assessed the Army’s strategy for acquiring three new aircraft: the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), and the Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (FTUAS). The report identifies the fact that the Army has used three of the six “acquisition pathways” prescribed by the Adaptive Acquisition Framework set forth in Department of Defense Instruction 5000.02 (Jan. 23, 2020):
- Major capability acquisition—full technology and systems development
- Middle tier of acquisition (MTA) —prototyping and rapid fielding in five-year segments
- Urgent capability acquisition—fielding a system in two years
The report also describes how the Army is implementing these aircraft programs by starting the efforts using other transaction agreements and moving to Federal Acquisition Regulation-based contracts in most cases. In all of the programs they are funding prototypes in the initial stages.
The report is generally complimentary of the Army’s strategies but it contains one significant criticism—that the three programs are not set up to mitigate technology risks by proving out critical technologies through testing them in an operational environment before proceeding to development. The criticism raises an interesting question with regard to the FLRAA and FTUAS programs, which are proceeding on the middle tier pathway and the urgent capability pathway, intended to speed up the development process. There, the Army is intending to use virtual testing rather than operational testing for the FLRAA and very little testing for the FTUAS, presumably to speed up the process. This raises the unanswered question of whether these pathways actually can yield their intended results if the GAO guidance on mitigating technology risk is followed. The Army response to this criticism seems to be that they are continuously assessing technology risk as these programs proceed.
In any event, this report is very informative for those interested in acquisition strategies. For greater detail we also recommend reading Weapon Systems Annual Assessment:Challenges to Fielding Capabilities Faster Persist, GAO-22-105230 (June 8, 2022); 64 GC ¶ 177. RCN
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