Two architects of JSF clash on program's history

Durham, the night's keynote speaker, was trying to explain how the early days of the joint advanced strike technology (JAST) programe, which later became JSF, could serve as a model for the new Future Vertical Lift (FVL) project.

He recalled how JAST was originally supposed to transition to a real acquisition program in 1994, but was downgraded to a technology maturation project in the last hours of the 1993 Bottom-Up Review.

"It turns out it was the best thing that ever happened to us," Durham told the dinner crowd. "We had nearly three years of good camaraderie, lots of beer and some analysis to pull the programme together."

Ultimately, Durham said, those three years spent in the wilderness allowed the program to form a cohesive and compelling argument for the unprecedented, tri-service, globalized JSF production program. His message: FVL needs patient analytical work, not funding, right now.

But Hough was having none of it. He rose up in the question and answer period. JAST wasn't saved by the worthiness of the analytical case, he said. Case or no case, the program would have died in 1995 without the direct intervention by Congress, which ordered the Pentagon to label JAST as an "ACAT-1D" program, Hough said. This timely designation legally required the services to start spending money on it.

"So I ask you," Hough said, questioning Durham, "where are you getting the money?"

An anonymous voice in the audience called out: "Tacair!"

Hough, a fighter jock, laughed with the rest of the room: "I'm retired. Great answer!"

The room then looked back to Durham, who replied: "I know whereof you speak. I know how this goes. At some point it will take money."

But Durham said it was more important right now to develop the analysis that could justify the requirement. "Then we can get some funding," he added.

Hough still didn't back down. He said he's talked to Rep Joe Sestak, a retired vice admiral, who desperately wants the Pentagon to propose funding to for a new vertical lift aircraft so he can approve it. It's time now for the vertical lift community to capitalize on the urgent need created by the military's dependence on helicopters to fight the war on terrorism, Hough said.