The scene: Boeing media tour stop on May 15 in Seattle. Paul Summers, EPX program manager, briefs reporters about EPX, but slips in a bit of unexpected news about a related program -- Aerial Common Sensor.
READ FULL NEWS STORY HERE: US ARMY RETHINKS JETS FOR ACS
SUMMERS: ... The army recently announced on ACS they made a decision to go with a twin turboprop. That's been released in the public domain now.After making follow-up calls with several industry sources, the picture is a bit more complicated than stated above, but the evidence is very strong that the army has dropped jet-powered aircraft from the Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) strategy.
ME: Um, really?
SUMMERS: Yes, It happened last week. By virtue of that evolution, the army seems to be going towards a smaller platform.
READ FULL NEWS STORY HERE: US ARMY RETHINKS JETS FOR ACS
on May 19, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply
This is what they should have done in the first place... but I would have gone one step further with the Army simply buying the aircraft and sensors separately and integrating it themselves. I think they tried this approach before to some extent.
Combining the EPX and ACS requirements was a bad move... the Navy and the Army have different requirements. The other thing is that the Army really doesn't have the infrastructure to support a fleet of jets without going through a lot of expensive "retooling".