Document created: 29 December 03
Air University Review, May-June
1973
Major General Kenneth R. Chapman
Lieutenant Colonel John F. Gander
Air Force Systems Command is unique among major USAF commands in that it assigns a principal staff element to the specialty of development planning. AFSC’s success in providing technology support for future force structure options depends to a great extent upon a strong, technically oriented planning staff. For this reason, the Development Plans deputate at AFSC headquarters was decoupled from the traditional planning activities in order to concentrate its total effort on plans to fulfill the dominant function of the command: to provide weapon systems for the operational elements of the Air Force, present and future.
The same planning structure exists in the AFSC product divisions as at the headquarters. Within each division, a development planning staff element carries out the responsibility for the form and content of major system acquisitions as well as guidance of the research programs that will be needed to provide hardware for the next generation of force structure.
At whatever level, development planning is not by any means a peripheral activity. The formative stages of new development/acquisition programs involve a great many years of concentrated effort over a wide range of activities. Every major system the Air Force is sponsoring—the F-15, the B-1, the AWACS, and so on down the list—has followed this lengthy journey through the development planning pipeline. Little wonder, then, that Systems Command allocates a considerable share of its resources, manpower in particular, to these activities.
Three basic motifs underlie the development planning mission of providing options in the future:
(1) Assuring that emerging
technology remains relevant to the future needs of the operating forces;
(2) Structuring new programs for development and acquisition; and
(3) Seeking more effective ways to accomplish the acquisition job.
The projection of future force needs involves a great deal more than a brilliant leap of the imagination or consultation with the Delphic oracle or lengthy contemplation of a crystal ball. It depends upon developing perspective from numerous and diverse factors. All planning projections wed by the Air Force must be brought into focus, including the Joint Strategic Objectives Plan (JSOP), the Joint Research and Development Objectives Document (JRDOD), the U.S. Air Force Planning Concepts Document, and so on. Development planners, in order to accomplish this task, make use of two principal investigative techniques—mission analyses and mission area studies—in addition to an array of preliminary system design efforts.
A mission analysis is a major undertaking that draws heavily upon threat assessment and operational concepts as well as available and projected technology. On the average, such a study will last about six months and involve well over 150 man-months of intensive effort. The composition of the study team is clearly vital: personnel from the AFSC divisions, centers, and laboratories are teamed with experienced officers and civilians from the using commands and appropriate representatives from industry. A steering group of senior officers and civilians, representing both the R&D community and the interests of the operating commands, gives direction to the study team.
At present Air Force Systems Command possesses a mission analysis capability in four of its components: the Space and Missile Systems Organization (SAMSO) in Los Angeles, California; the Aeronautical Systems Division (ASD) at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; the Electronic Systems Division (ESD) at Laurence G. Hanscom Field, Massachusetts; and the Armament Development and Test Center (ADTC) at Eglin AFB, Florida. These are, in effect, the “product divisions” of the Systems Command, and each is capable of turning out one or two mission analyses per year.
These major study efforts identify new and promising concepts to correct existing or potential operational deficiencies. They explore alternative options in terms of current and projected technology, propose realistic program alternatives, and identify the high-payoff areas of technology as well as critical technological limitations.
An analysis of CONUS Air Defense completed in 1971, for example, provided a roadmap for developing a research base in advanced turbine engine propulsion, ramjet technology, hypersonic aircraft design, surveillance techniques, look down/shoot down airborne radar technology, and related areas. This research base is currently keeping pace with the potential Soviet threat in preparation for the eventuality that major force improvements in air defense will be required in future years.
Current CONUS air defenses were based on technologies of the 1950s and designed to counter high-altitude subsonic and transonic bombers. Although the Soviet Strategic Offensive Forces today consist primarily of ICBM’s and SLBM’s, a significant bomber force remains. For example, the present Soviet bomber force is capable of attacking the United States by penetrating at low level and launching standoff air-to-surface missiles. The CONUS air defense mission analysis quantified the capabilities of our present air defenses against these tactics and assessed the vulnerability of the present air defense ground support elements to an ICBM/SLBM attack.
The study then definitized a number of time-phased elements, based upon realistic threat assessments and plausible technology projections, to modernize the air defense forces. The Aerospace Defense Command (ADC) and Air Force Systems Command, using the results of this mission analysis as a foundation, have jointly prepared a master plan on CONUS air defense. This plan addresses system concepts and their requisite supporting technologies for the next fifteen years.
Another example showing how mission analyses relate technology to future force structure needs derives from the recently completed study entitled Information Processing/Data Automation Implications of Air Force Command and Control Requirements in the 1980s—called CCIP-85 for short. The purpose of the study was to construct an integrated Air Force R&D program for the 1970s that will develop the information-processing technology needed to meet the likely Air Force command and control (C&C) information-processing requirements of the 1980s. The central concern was with C&C for Air Force combatant units.
Information-processing technology is barely adequate to support Air Force C&C functions today. The major technological strains are not in the computer hardware area but in software technology: the technology of transforming broad functional C&C requirements into specific, detailed, and unambiguous sequences of commands for the computer hardware to execute.
To correct this mismatch between C&C requirements and R&D support, the study provides a series of integrated R&D “roadmaps” for improving information processing. Roadmaps are included for preparation for the next-generation World Wide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS) computer procurement, for interservice coordination activities, and for a USAF computer hardware laboratory.
These roadmaps or integrated program plans provide R&D project guidelines that lead information-processing technology in directions that could; (1) provide more versatile, yet more economical and less manpower-intensive C&C operations for the 1980s; (2) reduce the typical C&C information-processing system development time from six to four years, and the resulting computer hardware age at initial operational capability (IOC) from three or four years to one or two years; (3) reduce significantly the danger that software errors could escalate crisis situations or degrade defenses at critical times; and (4) provide combat-ready C&C information-processing systems that are far more reliable and responsive in their support of dynamic force management requirements.
The second major investigative tool of development planning for reconciling technology and force needs is the mission area study. By use of this technique, air power missions are arbitrarily separated into groupings (areas) that can be treated analytically to relate technology programs to specific tasks underlying the applications of air power. Mission areas “bound” the problem to facilitate analysis; they also make it simpler to estimate the potential payoffs of competing technologies. This technique for “viewing” the problem forms a communication link from the laboratories, through the development planners, to the system operators in the using commands, and to the Air Staff.
Within each mission area, the development planners maintain an overview and projection of the technical programs; from this an assessment can be made as to how adequately the technology base is providing future force structure options, so that appropriate adjustments can be made, if necessary. Where technology is thin, efforts are fortified. Where duplication is found to exist, technology programs are combined or eliminated. To insure that the technologies in question offer the highest payoffs in relation to projected needs and requirements, measures of effectiveness are generated for comparing the alternative system options developed from competing technologies. Finally, in order that the results may he put to work where they count, they are sequenced to coincide with the annual formulation of the RDT&E budget.
Let us consider, as an example, the search and rescue mission area. The mission-essential elements in combat search and rescue are (1) notification (alerting and dispatching rescue forces based on emergency data from wingman reports, distress/bailout calls, or voice/beacon signals); (2) localization (accurate identification and location of downed personnel); (3) recovery (getting the downed crew member(s) from the hostile ground environment into the rescue vehicle); (4) the rescue vehicles themselves.
Primary equipment available at this time includes beacons, radios, flares, markers, crash position indicators, hoists, harnesses, and the Fulton recovery system. Rescue vehicles include the HC-130 airplane and the HH-3, HH-43F, and HH-53 helicopters.
Near-term options for enhancing recovery encompass distress incident locators and accurate localization devices; recovery equipment to minimize loiter and hovering time for the rescuing vehicle; and improved recovery vehicles (e.g., a replacement for the HH-53).
Longer-range requirements look toward an advanced rescue system that would include a self-contained rescue device, combat rescue aircraft, and possibly a replacement for the HC-130. In addition, the imminence of the space shuttle under development by NASA and the opportunity it will provide for extended space operations necessitate Air Force reaction to the problems of space rendezvous and rescue.
In general, the mission area studies are a continuous process, constantly making trade-offs among stated requirements, concepts of operations, and available or projected technology. They draw upon many other more specialized studies of critical subsets of the broader mission task. In all, these analytical and study techniques establish the bases—which are primarily technological in nature—for more detailed definition of optional capabilities for the force structure.
From the foregoing it is obvious that the studies and mission area work form the nucleus for additional development on a more detailed basis—specialized and specific major design study efforts and actual hardware development. This planning process is a rather extensive and often time-consuming part of the acquisition cycle.1 The B-1 program was approximately eight years in the planning process. The Subsonic Cruise Armed Decoy (SCAD) program was worked and reworked over a period of four years, through innumerable variants in the system design, the most demanding of which concerned protecting the armed option. Additionally the Air Force could not afford a large investment in the system, so a low-cost acquisition plan had to be structured. This was done by placing responsibility for system integration with the Program Director and the Aeronautical Systems Division.
Long before the using commands formally state their requirements in terms of new weapon systems, development planners are on the scene, assessing the potential threat, directing technology, and anticipating user-level needs. The mission area work and related studies have set the stage for the “requirements process” —on the one hand, by examining current systems for their effectiveness against anticipated threats, seeking new ideas, and studying ways of improving their capabilities (the problem-oriented approach); on the other hand, by seeking to formulate new uses for areas of technology for which there is no current application (the solution-oriented approach).
The requirements process is the pipeline through which the operating elements of the Air Force obtain new or improved operational capabilities. It starts with the submission of a Required Operational Capability (ROC) document, establishing a need, outlining existing deficiencies, describing the operational concept, and setting performance parameters. By keeping in close contact with the user organizations, through mission analyses, staff visits, and exchange of planning documents, development planners have an appreciation for their needs and can better provide appropriate technical information and solution alternatives.
If Headquarters USAF decides affirmatively on an ROC submission, a Program Management Directive (PMD) is issued. The PMD furnishes guidance for initiating the program. Usually the AFSC planners are directed to provide analyses of the preliminary system/key subsystem performance specifications and to verify the demonstrated state of the art for key subsystems, components, and fabrication/production techniques. At the same time, the credibility of cost and schedule estimates is established, and the procurement strategy and management plan are outlined.
The completed analyses—trade-off studies and preliminary design and development studies—of the program concept as well as the preferred management approach are utilized to structure the development program package. A key aspect of this work is constant iteration between system capabilities requested in the ROC and the cost, schedule, and technology constraints under which the system must be acquired.
This work also supports Air Force inputs to the draft Development Concept Paper (DCP). The DCP is a decision paper for the Secretary of Defense and contains the record of primary program information, the decision rationale, and the decision-review thresholds. The latter are program boundaries which, if breached or expected to be exceeded, cause a review of the program by the Secretary of Defense.
This work of scoping requirements can span many years. The route by which the fighter-experimental (F-X) concept of 1961 evolved into today’s F-15 and A-X demonstrates how a program is fashioned to meet requirements.
The F-X started out as an aircraft with good air-to-air capability and excellent air-to-ground capability—a multimission aircraft. After several iterations, additional evaluations, and an interim buy (the A-7), the original requirements were transformed into requirements for a CAS aircraft tailored to survive in the European environment (the A-X) and an air superiority fighter capable of successfully countering the potential Soviet threat aircraft projected for the 1975-1985 time period (the F-15).
The acquisition cycle consists of five major phases: (1) conceptual phase; (2) validation phase; (3) full-scale development phase; (4) production phase; and (5) deployment phase. Approval by the Secretary of Defense is required before proceeding with the second, third, and fourth phases. Development planning activities occur primarily in the conceptual and validation phases of the acquisition cycle. The conceptual phase is a highly iterative process, with continuous dialogue among planners, designers, technologists, developers, and users. The objective of this phase is to define and select the system concepts that best meet user requirements, under the constraints imposed by technological feasibility and resources. The final output is a preferred program approach in the event a decision is made to proceed into the next (validation) phase of the acquisition cycle.
In the validation phase, the characteristics of the system concept are refined and validated through study and analyses, hardware development, or prototype testing. The overall objective here is to establish firm and realistic performance specifications that will meet operational requirements and to determine whether to proceed with full-scale development.
The development planners transfer the program to the system engineers at a time in the validation phase when they have determined that it is in good financial shape, the schedule is established, the program is technically sound, and an organization, the System Program Office (SPO), has been formed to run it.
The “fly-before-buy” philosophy rejuvenated by former Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard ushered in a whole new set of flexible procurement techniques—prototype development, competitive flyoffs, advanced prototyping—for structuring new development and acquisition approaches. Much of the restructuring evolved out of what had been learned (the hard way) in earlier management experiences with such programs as the C-5, the F-111, and the short-range attack missile (SRAM).
Thus it is natural that the management approaches to major new weapon system programs like the F-15, B-1, and A-X emphasize flexibility and allow the latitude for program goal adjustments when they are justified. The F-15 program, for example, involved competitive development of some critical components (like the attack radar) and extensive hardware testing to verify that design specifications were being met within cost goals.
The B-1 program is a classic fly-before-buy example. The A-X development concept went one step further: it was keyed to a competitive prototype selection of a development contractor. In addition, firm price proposals were required from each of the contractors before the end of the competition, thereby giving assurance that the Air Force objective of low cost can be met.
A further step beyond the A-X program is the structuring of the advanced prototyping program. Here the objective is to provide prototype hardware with which the Air Force can test and evaluate new design concepts, relevant technology, and military usefulness as they apply to anticipated requirements. This, in turn, will reduce the uncertainties of possible future developments in terms of technology, operations, performance, cost, and scheduling.
Basically, however, the major motivation for the advanced prototyping program was the possibility of making further significant improvements in the acquisition process itself. In the management approach fashioned for these projects the Air Force retains responsibility for establishing technology objectives, for maintaining the proper balance between the objectives and program progress, and for evaluating the final results of the project. The contractor is assigned responsibility for establishing the technical approach, for study design and fabrication standards, and for exercising adequate management control of the project.
Each project office is manned by a small team of from three to five men, supported by AFSC’s laboratories, centers, and product divisions. This is in contrast to the 50- to 400-man system program offices that are found in full-scale development and production efforts for major programs. The industry teams should experience the same order of manpower benefits because of the close working relationship and reduced manpower complexity.
The advanced prototyping program has moved closer to realization with the awarding of contracts to General Dynamics and Northrop to build two lightweight fighter (LWF) prototype aircraft. Technically, the LWF project was fashioned to achieve extremely high maneuverability while still maintaining precise control. There is no Air Force commitment to production of these vehicles.
The Advanced Medium STOL Transport (AMST) is another project in this category. It is to be a medium-weight, high-performance aircraft that can operate in and out of austere short landing strips. The project is scoped to provide data on the cost and design features associated with short-field performance in an aircraft of the C-130 class. McDonnell Douglas and Boeing have been awarded contracts to develop AMST prototypes.
The concept of modularity is another interesting example of a way to structure development programs. The aim is to design a system to some minimum performance level but provide flexibility in the design so that performance growth can be achieved through modular (or “building block”) modifications. This is not a simple thing to do, but neither is it simple to restructure our defense posture every few years as machines are made obsolete by new technology or changes in the potential threat.
One form of modularity being advocated today is in avionics. A series of programs is being launched to prove the feasibility and desirability of a digital avionics concept. Digital avionics uses the same principles employed in the modern computer: physical characteristics are convened to numbers represented by a series of discrete ones and zeros or on and off switches. (The older analog systems use continuously varying electric characteristics to represent physical characteristics; for example, a varying voltage to represent temperature change or fuel level, as in a car.) The essence of the digital avionics concept is that airborne electronic subsystems—software, computers, sensors, displays, controls, and the like—are integrated via this discrete (digital) process for managing the resources of the aircraft. The beauty is that no major technological advances are required; the concept requires only the bringing together of existing and proven technologies in a total system of on-board equipment and two-way data and control linkages between large numbers of aircraft and ground (or airborne) terminals.
The end product will be a highly automated system that is far more responsive to command and control and makes better use of the pilot’s decision-making capabilities than today’s analog systems. Beyond that, digital avionics appears capable of slowing the accelerating cost-growth characteristics of the way we now design, produce, operate, and maintain electronic subsystems. As an example, we can expect a 32 percent weight and 17 percent volume savings in power-distribution systems alone.
Lower costs will also accrue from commonality of components among different types of aircraft, as well as from the basic modularity whereby added capability, as required, can be “plugged in” to the core system. These same characteristics, of course, should substantially improve reliability and maintainability, helping to bring the operations and maintenance (O&M) costs of new weapon systems down to a tolerable level. After all, the investment cost of avionics on today’s typical attack aircraft represents 30 percent to 40 percent of the total system cost, and in too many cases a few years of maintenance cost more than equals the original investment.
All in all, the digital avionics approach is doubly attractive, from the standpoint of reduced initial and total life-cycle costs and from the standpoint of the marked improvements in performance that it promises.
Accelerating competition for public funds, coupled with increasing cost of individual weapon systems, decreasing purchasing power of the dollar, and increasing personnel cost, is reducing the number of new weapon system program starts. (Figure 1) In addition, defense hardware acquisition costs have been rising over the past 20 years at roughly five times the rate of inflation. There are simply not enough funds available to replace the existing force structure at parity within foreseeable budget limitations and at the same time to match currently planned forces with currently projected equipment costs.
Control of system costs therefore becomes a categorical imperative. To that end, a number of promising steps are being taken. One is to curtail the management bureaucracy in order to alleviate the overlapping paper work and ease the compounding “people costs” problems. Another is to simplify procurement techniques, for the benefit of both the Air Force and the contractor. And we are also pursuing a variety of cost-reduction techniques.
Systems Command recognizes the importance of people and the role they play in acquisition management. Accordingly, the best personnel are being assigned to these jobs and given a clear mandate, flexibility to bring their own style of management into play, and longevity. Further, a “Blue Line” direct reporting channel exists from the System Program Director to the Commander of AFSC, to the USAF Chief of Staff, and to the Secretary of the Air Force in all matters that have a direct impact on his program.
Similarly, by shifting more responsibility to the contractor and backing it up by tight disciplinary measures, it should be possible to re duce the size of major SPO’s significantly. The way has been shown by the advanced prototyping program, and, while by their very nature major SPO’s cannot be that lean, there is unquestionably a middle ground that can reasonably be achieved.
Improvements in the procedures for controlling management systems are also under way. Emphasis is being placed on reducing the large number of documents and eliminating overlapping requirements used to specify conceptual needs. The approach has been to establish first the requirements for management systems and then identify documents pertaining to them.
At the heart of every weapon system acquisition program lurks a requirement for a Request for Proposal (RFP) and a Statement of Work (SOW). The mere simplification of RFP’s and SOW’s can substantially lower the cost of doing business, without sacrificing the program. Substantial progress has already been made in streamlining this mountain of paper.
Under older system-management concepts, a considerable amount of Air Force management and documentation was called for. The A-X was the first major program to depart from such practices by minimizing documentation. The A-X RFP totaled only 102 pages, as compared to the several hundred pages normally sent to the contractors. In the advanced prototyping program we have done even better; the RFP for the lightweight fighter was only 38 pages, including model contract. And while this is primarily a technology-oriented program, the intent is clear, and slimmed-down documentation will be the order of the day.
New approaches in the source selection process can also bring substantial gains. Here the idea is to narrow the base to those contractors who have been screened and found fully qualified to do the work in question. One of the factors used to determine eligibility is past performance. RFP’s are then sent only to those selected by the screening process.
In the case of the lightweight fighter, RFP’s were issued only to the firms already screened by the Prototype Program Office of Aeronautical Systems Division and known to be capable of performing in the fighter design area.
In another direction, a parts control program has been established to eliminate the proliferation of nonstandard parts during the design process. Here the prime contractor will be called upon to share more of the responsibility for supervising his subcontractors, and the latitude of the subs will have to be reduced. Program architects, development planners, and industry will have to break the habit of redesigning or reinventing every piece of equipment and subsystem that goes into each new weapon system. The system’s development team and industry must be impelled to thinking in terms of designing around proven off-the-shelf equipment. The same applies to the use of government-furnished equipment (GFE).
Redevelopment practices are responsible for many increases in the cost of new weapon systems. Being technology-oriented, our engineers sometimes are too much inclined to use technology to improve performance rather than to reduce costs. An increase in performance, more often than not, means development of a new item. Thus, another item is added to the inventory, training time for maintenance personnel is increased, more data are generated, and so on down the line. Today, as a result of that sort of process, there are almost 1200 different cartridge and propellant-actuated devices, 104 different tires and tubes, and 56 different airborne radio sets in the inventory. So it is very clear that technology must be utilized to cut costs; components and subsystems must be standardized; GFE must be utilized to a greater extent; and the concept of modularity and digital avionics must be exploited to the maximum degree.
The concept of “should cost” reviews holds out great promise—indeed it has already been used in a number of programs with spectacular results. Should cost reviews are a special, coordinated, in-depth procurement cost analysis to determine the amount that the procurement ought to cost, given attainable efficiency and economy of operation. This technique gives negotiating teams an alternative to relying on contractors’ historical cost patterns, which often are already inflated by previous inefficiencies. It develops a better quality of data than that normally made available to the contract negotiator. It provides longer-term recommendations developed to correct—rather than perpetuate—contractor inefficiencies. And it provides a stimulus to motivate sole-source contractors to make improvements through better control and more aggressive management. Should cost review teams in the design and production areas are going to be expanded to force lower cost assembly.
Emphasis on life cycle cost (LCC) is a logical step in reducing operations, maintenance, and support costs. LCC encompasses the total cost to the Air Force of developing and acquiring a system, training crews to operate and maintain it, all the other costs associated with supporting the operations and maintenance structure, and, at least in some cases, the cost of disposal. The real challenge is in how to project what the life cycle cost of a new or proposed development will be; or, more to the point, how to develop and acquire a system that will represent the lowest attainable life cycle cost for a given in-service performance.
Intuitively, one recognizes that any given system will have a “minimum” life cycle cost. It is always possible to spend more and more acquisition dollars to get more effective operation, reliability, and logistic support and thereby come up with a system that is less costly, in the long run, to operate and maintain. The theory is indisputable. In practice, however, it is far from being a nicely calculable mathematical science to know how many additional acquisition dollars to spend, and where, and how many ownership dollars will be required to keep the system operational.
And yet, reality demands that the attempt be made. Both Air Force Systems Command and Air Force Logistics Command have made life cycle costing a fundamental way of doing business. A study has recently been completed to determine the long-term AFSC/AFLC life cycle cost objective, to identify the additional tools needed for LCC estimating relationships and models, to select meaningful data for expanding the data base, and to develop working-level expertise. The study recommendations have been approved and implemented by the Commanders of AFSC and AFLC.
The Air Force is also supporting the concept that price will often be the most important single specification for a new weapon system. “Design to Cost” levels have already been placed on the AMST ($5 million flyaway cost for the 300th production article) and the A-X ($1.4 million average flyaway cost per aircraft in a 600-aircraft buy). The A-X system target price was established on the basis of cost trade-off studies during the conceptual phase. Once the performance and the target unit prices were established, the design to a price ceiling focused the contractor’s attention on cost during the design phase. Thus, through this method, contractors are encouraged to use low-cost design techniques and proven off-the-shelf equipment and components and to minimize manufacturing and tooling costs.
As reaffirmed here, planning for the development of a major weapon system is a complicated, demanding, and often frustrating business. Changes in technology, potential threat, and resources occur almost daily and impact on the process. This article could cover only a few of the ways being pursued by Systems Command to accommodate to these changes and provide options for the future of the Air Force. Necessarily, the emphasis has been on the way business is done, for the simple reason that the acquisition practices of the past have finally intersected with the realistic resource constraints on what the American people are willing and able to expend on military commitments.
If there is to be a future for the Air Force, new ways of doing business must be found and exploited. There will have to be a virtual revolution—of which the beginnings have already been undertaken—in the way we design, develop, acquire, operate, and maintain our weapon and support systems. USAF development planners are at work on an Air Force that will not only be effective against any threat it may face but also be an Air Force that the nation can afford.
Hq Air Force Systems Command
Note
1. Major General Donavon F. Smith, “Development Planning: A Link Between Requirements and Systems,” Air University Review, XXII, 1 (November-December 1970), 11-18.
Major General Kenneth R. Chapman (USMA; M.S., University of California) Deputy Chief of Staff for Development Plans, Hq Air Force Systems Command. After flying training, he flew B-29s stateside and overseas. In 1952 he entered the AFIT program in nuclear chemistry and has since specialized in nuclear research and development—at the AF Special Weapons Center, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories, Atomic Energy Commission, and Hq USAF until his present assignment in 1970. General Chapman is a graduate of Armed Forces Staff College and Industrial College of the Armed Forces.
Lieutenant Colonel John F. Gander (M.S., Florida State University) was a Staff Development Engineer, DCS/Development Plans, Hq Air Force Systems Command, until his recent assignment to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower and Reserve Affairs). He was commissioned from flight training in 1955, and his service experience has included assignments with SAC, TAC, AFSC, and the AFOSR. He attended AFIT, is a graduate of the Air Command and Staff College, and served a Southeast Asia combat tour in F-4s.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
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