"[Air Force] organizations get to manage individual programs, but we don't have someone who is in charge of the overall design of these things that have to tie together and perform functions as a whole,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said. “I think we need to create something that has more of that kind of responsibility."
"The notion is, you have an embarrassment of riches, and you're falling behind on speed and magnitude. This is what is sometimes called Schumpeter's Gale. The notion is, it's not about the competition -- it's about you," said Jeffrey DeGraff, of the University of Michigan.
Knowing when to build on commercial systems and when to develop something new can be the difference between parity and information dominance.
"Our secretary has been very clear that he wants us to move rapidly from experimentation and demonstration to fielding," says Air Force Chief Architect Preston Dunlap.
The expanded experimentation campaign is also building new "business approaches" -- some of which will require Pentagon-level blessing -- to speed software-based capabilities to the field, DAF Chief Architect Preston Dunlap said.
Digital "transformation" is "critical to being able to maintain our advantage over peer competitors," Kristen Baldwin, Air Force deputy assistant secretary for science, technology & engineering, says.
A new pod-based comms system for the KC-46, enabling it to serve as a 'translator' for the incompatible radio systems of the F-22 and F-35, will be fielded in the last quarter of fiscal 2022.
The military space sector is evolving fast. Get the latest from Space Force and industry officials on what’s next for acquisition, policy and training in a new Breaking Defense eBook.
WASHINGTON: Welcome to the sixth of our video stories drawn from our almost hour-long interview with Preston Dunlap, Chief Architect of the Air and Space Forces. From that position, Dunlap helps guide the complex and far-reaching work the Air and Space Forces are doing in All Domain Operations, on JADC2,and, most centrally, on the Advanced Battle […]
"When you can launch an austere airbase in a space capsule, that's frickin' awesome," says AF acquisition head Will Roper about the idea of suborbital transport spacecraft.
In part four of our exclusive video interview, Preston Dunlap discusses one of toughest challenges to All Domain Operations: integrating an effective tactical edge node into the larger network.
"ABMS is about taking the concept of the OODA Loop and transcending it from something that people do to something that machines do," says Will Roper, AF acquisition czar.
Balancing security and access to data are critical to providing users with trustworthy, reliable data for real-time decisions.
“Agile operations require agile technology. Agile technology requires agile acquisition. Agile acquisition requires agile contracting,” says Air Force Chief Architect Preston Dunlap.
"The Air Force has not established a plan or business case for ABMS that identifies its requirements, a plan to attain mature technologies when needed, a cost estimate, and an affordability analysis," GAO chided.
"Most of the challenges we have in weapon systems aren't hardware-based but software-based," says Lt. Gen. Mark Kelly, Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations.
ABMS is essentially the first effort by the Defense Department to "build the Internet of Things for the military," Will Roper, head of Air Force acquisition, says.