How to Avoid Acquisition Disasters and Create Affordable Solutions for America's Air Warriors by Applying Lessons from the Past

The US military procurement system in general, and military aviation procurement in particular, is in a financial death spiral. Many acquisition programs in the Department of Defense have taken the approach of trying to field superior military capability in the form of a handful of silver-bullet platforms packed with as much multi-mission capability and risky cutting-edge technology as possible. This has resulted in long program delays, rising costs, and very few platforms ultimately being produced. This paper examines some examples from history including the Tactical Fighter Experimental (TFX) of the 1960's and the current Joint Strike Fighter program to outline some of the major roadblocks to delivering sufficient military capability on time and within budget. The conclusion is that the cost and delays in trying to deliver the best-of-the-best instead of the good-enough prevent enough platforms from being delivered, produces a force structure not optimized for its most common missions, and results in premium assets being used at extremely high rates in sub-optimal modes while incurring huge operating costs.