Out of the Hangar: YF-16 & YF-17 proposals demonstrated a prototype acquisition process that remains important today (video)

  • Published
  • By Joe Danielewicz, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFLCMC) – Military acquisition is a complex world, with an ever-present tension on fielding new equipment quickly against the time it takes to test and put it through its paces before committing to a design.
 
In a new “Out of the Hangar” video, AFLCMC Chief Historian Kevin Rusnak explains how the F-16 benefited from an approach that valued giving broad demand signals to private industry – rather than specific blueprints to build – which allowed private industry to create technology and conceptual demonstrators and speed up the acquisition process.
 
Rusnak notes there’s a clear through line between prototyping in the 1970s with today’s desire to accelerate the acquisition process. Currently, “we're concerned about procuring systems in a rapid fashion, fielding new technologies, building up the defense industrial base and those sorts of things”.
 
“If we look back to 50 years ago, we see that the Air Force was very much in the same sort of environment, this post-Vietnam environment where we're having to recapitalize our fleet using new technologies, getting new systems out to counter new threats and doing so in a way that was affordable for them at the time.”
 
In the video, Rusnak also highlights the role of Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard in revisiting the idea of leveraging prototypes built by private industry to get platforms into the field faster.
 
“He wanted to reform acquisitions to accelerate the acquisition process. That should sound familiar, but also make it cheaper and to introduce new technologies in a more affordable and effective manner than we had seen.” The approach enabled faster acquisition decisions while also reducing the military’s risk of ordering a platform that wasn’t fully mature.
 
At the same time, the Air Force was looking to field a new and less expensive fighter to serve alongside the F-15 that was coming online. The coincidental timing created a moment for Packard’s approach to be tested in real-time.
 
What came from that approach were two fighter concepts - Northrop’s YF-17 and General Dynamics’ YF-16 - developed and produced by industry. This “pre-vetting” approach also allowed the Air Force to identify areas for further technology investment, without burdening a program office with the time and expense of figuring that out while executing a program of record. 
 
Learn more about how the F-16’s acquisition process remains relevant to today’s acquisition workforce in the video below. See other “Out of the Hangar” episodes, a video series that connects acquisition professionals to that of their predecessors, on YouTube.