The Navy’s trainer is now the biggest test of the Pentagon’s acquisition reform efforts – Breaking Defense

The Navy’s trainer is now the biggest test of the Pentagon’s acquisition reform efforts  Breaking Defense

With the competition effectively reduced to one bidder, the Navy faces a choice between falling back on old acquisition habits and showing that its reforms can work under pressure, writes Robbin Laird. An Oct. 30 proposal deadline was supposed to settle the shape of the Undergraduate Jet Training System (UJTS) competition. It did, though not in the way anyone planned. As Breaking Defense first reported, Sierra Nevada Corporation, the last team offering a clean-sheet design, decided it “could not responsibly bid the UJTS program under the current contract structure,” while saying it stands ready to re-engage if the Navy revisits its approach. What remains, as far as is publicly known, is one bid from an established aircraft manufacturer: the Textron Aviation Defense and Leonardo M-346N.

The Navy now has to decide what to do with a field of, effectively, one. (Stavatti Aerospace, a small company with a history of releasing concept images, says it also proposed an offering.) What the Navy does now, more than the original competition, is the test of whether the acquisition reform it has been advertising has actually changed anything, or whether it is simply hot air. The Navy has to resist the temptation to simply hand over the award to the M-346N, and to make sure its final decision meets the criteria it has set