By Marina Malenic
The Navy and Air Force have agreed to greater cooperation on maintenance, training, logistics and operations on the MQ-4 Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aircraft Systems (BAMS UAS) and the RQ-4 Global Hawk UAS, representatives of the two services said yesterday.
Although the two platforms are designed to meet service-specific requirements, similarities between them warrant a joint effort to achieve maximum efficiency, service officials told reporters at the Pentagon. A Synergies Working Group (SWG) has been established to identify and make recommendations for achieving these ends. Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance Vice Adm. Jack Dorsett and Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Lt. Gen. David Deptula have been chosen to lead the effort.
“We are seizing the opportunity to create efficiencies,” Dorsett said. “The need for parternship and greater efficiency is a demand signal that has been sent to all of the services.”
Signed by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz on June 12, the memorandum of agreement establishes procedures under which the BAMS and Global Hawk programs will seek commonality, interoperability, and joint efficiencies.
Specifically, the Navy and Air Force will identify synergies in basing, maintenance, aircraft command and control (C2), training, logistics, and data requirements for processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) functions, officials said yesterday.
The two services hope to deliver life-cycle cost savings and establish configuration management and control standards. They also plan to begin sharing sustainment infrastructure for the two platforms to maximize mission effectiveness.
The agreement does not, however, relieve current program requirements to pursue commonality, the officials emphasized. Where commonality will potentially interfere with established program requirements and mission concept of operations, the respective program offices will identify the costs and risks, as well as recommendations on how to proceed.
Last month, a key House subcommittee asked the Pentagon to review Air Force and Navy plans to streamline acquisition for the two drone programs. The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Air and Land Forces subcommittee questioned the services’ resolve in streamlining their unique requirements.
“The committee is concerned that differing, evolving service unique requirements, coupled with Global Hawk UAS vanishing vendor issues, are resulting in a divergence in each service’s basic goal of maximum system commonality and interoperability, particularly with regard to the communications systems,” the panel stated in its version of the fiscal year 2011 Defense Department authorization bill.
In its markup, the subcommittee directs Ashton Carter, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, to certify and provide written notification to the congressional defense committees by March 31, 2011, that he has reviewed the communications requirements and acquisition strategies for both Global Hawk and BAMS. The subcommittee wants assurance that the requirements for each service’s communications systems have been validated and that the acquisition strategy for each system “achieves the greatest possible commonality and represents the most cost effective option” for each program (Defense Daily, May 18).
Earlier this month, the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) evaluated spending authorization for the RQ-4 Global Hawk program, just one week after Air Force officials criticized prime contractor Northrop Grumman [NOC] for the cost and speed of the aircraft deliveries (Defense Daily, June 24).
Air Force acquisition executive David Van Buren told reporters that he is “not happy” with the pace of the program, both on the government and the contractor side (Defense Daily, June 21). Chief Pentagon arms buyer Ashton Carter also criticized the program, saying that it was “on a path to being unaffordable” (Defense Daily, June 29).
The Air Force has said that a Global Hawk “should-cost” review is underway, as directed by an acquisition decision memorandum from the Pentagon’s acquisition, technology and logistics office. The service-led review is intended “to look at air vehicle cost, and to look at each and every one of these sensor packages,” according to Van Buren, and will be completed by September.