After a US Air Force study concluded a green aircraft to recapitalise the EC-130 Compass Call, E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, and E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System would not yield enough savings, the head of USAF Combat Command says the service is still considering a common platform for several battle management command and control projects.
The USAF office of Transformational Innovation, which commissioned the study, concluded that additional orders of commercially available aircraft would not create the savings of a bulk order. The study also noted the timelines for the three aircraft recapitalisations would not line up, with the JSTARS and Compass Call recapitalisations already ongoing.
But Gen Herbert Carlisle is still mulling over a possible common platform for RC-135 Rivet Joint, JSTARS and AWACS. JSTARS and Rivet Joint will fall in line as the next two command and control recapitalisations, followed by AWACS, according to Carlisle. While the service recently released a draft document that allows Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to comment on the USAF’s terms for the JSTARS competition, the USAF has not determined if it will hold separate competitions for AWACS and Rivet Joint, Carlisle says.
“We’ve thought about it,” Carlisle says of using a common platform for the three missions. “There’s some synergy in being able to do that, but there’s also some flexibility, so that’s something I think is in the discussion.”
The air force must also wait on language from the finalised National Defense Authorization Act. Congress has fought over whether to sole source or hold an open competition for the Compass Call recapitalisation. The air force believes the language will allow the service to cross deck the mission systems from the EC-130H to a new platform quickly, then move onto a follow-on replacement later, Carlisle says.
As the air force heads into a bow wave of new and recapitalisation programmes in the 2020s, the service may not be able to fit all the recapitalised command and control platforms into the budget, he notes.
“A common platform in those competitions may not be a factor because we can’t get to the rest of them,” Carlisle says. “But there’s potential that there will still be some synergy from what we learn in the first recap to the next recap to the next recap, so you’re right the value gained may not be there but there may be a long term economic benefit in sustainment, but we just don’t know yet.”
The potential sole source competition for Compass Call has also given industry pause, particularly to those who are participating in both the Compass Call and JSTARS competition. Last week, Boeing military aircraft’s director of global sales Fred Smith said he believed the sole source could impact the JSTARS competition. Bombardier, which is also vying for both replacement contracts, sent an agency-level bid protest with the USAF’s acquisition chief in April.
Carlisle maintained the two acquisition strategies will not affect each other, noting the Compass Call mission set, sensor suite and crew configuration vary from JSTARS.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
