Air Force ‘Not There Yet’ On Key Hurdle For Digital Revolution

WASHINGTON: As the Air Force continues to press ahead with its wide-ranging initiative to “digitize” its acquisition processes — from weapon system design to engineering to production to testing — using computerized models, called digital twins, to speed up testing remains a challenge, according to Darlene Costello, the service’s acting acquisition head.

Making digital testing a reality is key to the service’s hopes for its e-Program and e-Series effort. Without the ability to test based on simulations, much of the time savings from those efforts will dissipate. And as of now, the service isn’t where it needs to be.

Simply put, “We’re not there yet,” Costello told the Potomac Officers Club today.

She explained that there are both technical and “cultural” hurdles to be overcome. “We need to work closely with our test community in order to create the models that they can consider valid,” she said.

“There will be some testing to validate models, and there they will need to become comfortable with what’s in the digital models for the programs, and where can they [provide] benefit to not having to do physical testing,” she said. “So, we’re at the early stages of that. I know there’s a willingness and an eagerness to leverage digital acquisition in the test arena, but some of it is going to be cultural because, you know, physical testing is key for all of our test programs right now.”

The idea, she elaborated, is that to “burn down risk virtually” where that can be safely done, “and then go to testing to validate or do the final exam.”

Costello added that the Air Force testers are “currently invested in spending time to figure that out, and hopefully we will be finding ways forward in the next year or two.”

Digital Building Codes, e-Programs and e-Series

Costello in May signed a memo that details the components of what might be deemed the Air Force’s basic instruction manual for implementing digital engineering, agile software development and open systems architecture — the three tools that former service acquisition czar Will Roper dubbed as the digital “holy trinity” of innovation.

The memo also puts forth a “e-Program scorecard” for demonstrating that a new program is making full use of those tools, and hence meets the criteria to be designated as an e-Program.

“I’ve actually issued a memo, called our ‘Digital Building Code,’ to our acquisition workforce with the guidance that we believe are the best practices right now,” she said today. “It’s a living document. We will update as we learn, because we’re going to keep learning. This is a journey.”

The memo is a follow-on to Roper’s “Bending the Spoon” guidebook for digital engineering and e-Series initiatives, released on Jan. 19 as one of his last acts in office. That guidebook — which like its predecessor outlining digital acquisition strategy, called “There Is No Spoon,” uses the cyber-punk movie series “The Matrix” as a foundational metaphor — lays out 14 criteria for creating an Air Force e-Series acquisition program. Roper listed four service programs so designated:

• Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program to develop a sixth-generation fighter, drones for teaming with piloted aircraft and potentially a lower-end air-to-air fighter to replace the F-16;
• B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program (CERP);
• A-10 Re-wing Program; and,
• Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) to replace the aging Minuteman III nuclear missile arsenal.

Costello acknowledged that there has been some confusion between what the service taps as an e-Program vice an e-Series program. And this is in part because those definitional boundaries have shifted since Roper’s “Bending the Spoon” publication.

For example, Costello gave GBSD as an example of an e-Program, albeit one that was initiated as such and is fully digitized, from beginning to end. She noted, for example, that the program had run through some 6 billion iterations before coming up with a design — a feat made possible by using digital modeling. But Roper’s memo called it an e-Series effort.

Costello also mentioned the T-7A Red Hawk trainer as an e-Program. But when former Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett in September announced it as the first digitally designed aircraft, she called it the first e-Series aircraft, dubbed the “e-T7-A.”

Further complicating the issue is the fact that some acquisition efforts are only partly e-Programs, using the digital trinity for subsystems or components of a conventional program, Costello added. The key example here is the B-52, which is undergoing a number of upgrades (including to its radar), but only the CERP is using the digital trinity approach. Costello noted that the three competitors are creating virtual prototypes of their engines, which the Air Force will use to down-select one to build a “physical prototype.” And again, while Costello called the CERP an e-Program, Roper dubbed it an e-Series. She also listed the A-10 Re-wing and the F-15EX as examples of these partial e-Programs.

According to Costello’s May memo, the key differentiation between the two seems to be that e-Programs use the digital trinity, while e-Series programs actually use digital design to plan a replacement schedule. The memo states:

e-Programs: Acquisition programs employing the “digital trinity” (i.e., digital engineering, agile
software, and open systems architecture) of Digital Acquisition to replace, automate, or truncate
real-world activities based on authoritative virtualization or automation in the digital world. The
attached tabs provide detailed information for how the SAE will assess and identify activities as ePrograms. The SAE may delegate e-Program designations as required.

e-Series Programs: An e-Program with a strategic pre-planned replacement schedule (i.e., Series) based on a cadence driven by economic Total Cost of Ownership and life span to drive speed and agility to stay ahead of the threat by delivering at the pace of technology maturation.

So, the only currently ongoing example of an e-Series program is NGAD — at least, it is the only one Costello mentioned.

“An e-Series is a variant on an e-Program. It’s a program that has a planned lifecycle, if you will, instead of just building it and being done. We’re planning for a shorter cycle, because in that particular case — and these would have to be decided on a case basis — the business case shows that we’ll need new capability in 12-15 years, whatever it is. So, we’re going to design for a shorter life cycle, and plan for a new design after that,” she said.

“And that could be a component level, that could be at the platform level,” she added. “Right now, our NGAD is an example of an e-Series program.”