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Cost Curve initiative central to civ-mil industrial forum

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Andy Stephens
  • Air Education and Training Command Public Affairs
JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas --  Air Force and industrial aerospace leaders gathered here Oct. 26 - 28 to discuss progress within the U.S. and joint flight training sphere, including cost-cutting initiatives and assimilation of complex new technologies.

Central to many presentations and discussions during the Military Flight Training USA event were the Bending the Cost Curve (BTCC) initiative and how leaner, more innovative spending practices are being put into practice across the Air Force flying community. First announced last December, the initiative’s intent is to contain cost growth and escalation within the Air Force.

“We’re having sustainment discussions earlier in the [Acquisition] process to drive down the cost,” said Richard Lombardi, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition and lead keynote speaker for the event. “Is a program affordable throughout its lifecycle? If it is, then we institute caps to keep costs in line.

“If we bust a cap, we have to ask where does the money come from since offsets have to come from elsewhere. [Under BTCC,] we will ask the question, ‘Where do we find the money to keep the program going?’”

Lombardi said one practice that is predicted to help drive costs down is where the Air Force will “own the technical baseline” – meaning that acquisition decision-makers will be more involved in system engineering and assessing the benefits of the technology. This will foster competencies within the acquisition workforce that will facilitate better dialogue with industry.

Lombardi added that the BTCC concept is yielding improvements in many areas of aircraft development by capitalizing on available and forthcoming technology. Subsequent speakers described how these improvements have increased the fidelity of training offered by the newest flight simulators to drive down costs and expedite training times.

“Live, Constructive, Virtual training is an example of increases in technology forcing changes in training,” said Drew Hildebrand, director of the Military Flight Training USA conference. “This forum gives attendees an opportunity to share and dialogue across many areas based on the information we get from the flying community and their industrial counterparts.”

Open architecture, modularity and upgradability of training systems is often the end result – areas where BTCC initiatives have been showing significant innovation, said Skip Hinman, Air Education and Training Command’s T-X Requirements Branch chief and event speaker. Owing to the 400-plus size of the fast-jet trainer fleet, the T-X was identified as the first of the Air Force’s BTCC initiatives back on March 20, 2015. And, like all BTCC initiatives, a cost cap is being enforced for the T-X program.

“The T-X will be the new two-seat jet trainer expected to succeed the T-38 currently in use for Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals as well as the advanced phase of pilot training," said Hinman. “The T-38 became operational in 1961 and was designed to train pilots for the F-105 and F-4. As the Air Force moved on to later generations of aircraft, gaps in the T-38’s training capacity grew until 12 of 18 training tasks are now moved to higher-cost formal training units.  
 

The T-X will provide better training at a lower cost for student pilots preparing to fly fifth-generation and advanced fourth-generation aircraft. The T-X will enable advanced sensor management training as well as the capacity to emulate delivery of a wide array of sophisticated air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons--something the T-38 cannot do.”  

Under BTCC, T-X representatives across the Air Force have routinely engaged industry over the past several years.

Hildebrand said the audiences for all speakers were receptive to their viewpoints and the anecdotes of BTCC initiatives as they’ve been imagined, drafted and implemented, illuminate the path of future collaborations in the BTCC concept. He expects the recent gathering at Randolph to become as regular an annual event as the bigger gatherings in London, which Hildebrand described as “the biggest military flight training industry event in the world for the last 14 years.”

“Randolph is the heart of tomorrow’s military fighter training community,” Hildebrand said. “Today, we had Brazil, Canada and Czech representatives alongside Air Force and industry. Other nations want to see how [the U.S. Air Force] is doing it because you’re leading the way. Next year, more countries will likely be here, looking for synergies they too can apply across their own services where training capitalizes on cutting-edge technology. For a long time to come, Randolph is going to be where the future of military flight training will be decided.”