The DEW Line

Ike Eisenhower got it wrong when he called it the "military-industrial complex". It's really the military-industrial-and-congressional complex, and each component plays an equal part in the long history of flubs and scandals involving the process of developing and buying weapons.

At least, that's the message of a book I just finished called "The C-5A Scandal", by Berkeley Rice. Don't rush to your bookstore. This book was published in 1971, but used copies are still available for sale.

To sum up, the C-5A scandal of the late-1960s was really a "perfect storm" of acquisition crimes: an overtly suspicious contract award to Lockheed even though Boeing won the evaluation; cost overruns that ballooned by 300% beyond the original estimates; an insider trading investigation; a large defense contractor on the brink of insolvency; a powerful Congressman who fought colleagues seeking accountability; and, finally, a host of technical problems with the aircraft itself, including a wing prone to cracking. In the end, Lockheed was bailed out with extra government cash and loans and the air force got its prized strategic airlifter.

I'll skip to the last page. Berkeley writes: "It's troubles had little to do with the plane itself. Rather, they are the natural result of the military-industrial-congressional system that produced it. Unfortunately, most of what happened to the C-5A happens to all military procurement programs. C-5As will continue to happen unless the public demands a change in the system. Until then, the public will have no choice but to continue paying the bills."

I think you may have a point, Mr. Berkeley.

Anybody remember something called the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS)?

That was the multi-billion dollar project that came just before what we now call UCAS-D, and just after what we used to call UCAV and UCAV-N. I hope that's all clear.

But J-UCAS died an obscenely protracted death in 2006 on the busy gallows of formerly joint weapons programs.

The man in charge of that program, if you remember, was Dr. Michael Francis, of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Well, he's back -- and he's mad.

Or maybe he's just annoyed. But he now works for General Atomics's Photonics Division, and he presented at last week's Shephard's UAS conference.

In his presentation, Francis makes the unusually impolite gesture of bashing the program that replaced his own. On the second slide, he writes: "This is not UCAS". The message appears over pictures showing the vehicles that the Navy and the Air Force have chosen to call exactly that.

His point is that the heart of his former DARPA program was not the vehicles but an interesting feature he called the common operating system (COS). It was a single database that operated, maintained, equipped and connected the unmanned combat systems of both services. When the J-UCAS program died, Francis' idea for the COS was the ultimate casualty. Both J-UCAS vehicles remain potentially viable candidates for operational service, but the COS by all accounts has been discarded.

The E-10A program is supposed to be deader than a door-nail.

The E-10A is so dead Northrop Grumman went to the trouble earlier this year to issue a press release stating that its formerly prized surveillance and command and control aircraft program is, indeed, dead.

So why would Boeing apparently still be building it?

The question is raised because seattle-deliveries.com, a well-trusted Boeing spotter site, is reporting that Boeing has issued a line number (#965) to build a 767-400ER for the "supposedly cancelled" E-10A program. Scroll to the bottom of the list on this page.