GMJoe™ Consulting | Strategic Intelligence
How the first training standard can change the cost of buying the next interceptor.
A better interceptor can reach a unit before anyone there is qualified to fly it. The procurement record shows a delivery. The commander may still have to rely on the aircraft it was bought to replace.
In a November 9 account of trials held November 2–6 in Ustka, Poland, the U.S. Army described an air-defense battalion assessing the FD-1 interceptor while developing a way to qualify soldiers new to first-person-view flight. Its battery intends to train instructors who can pass the qualification on to other units. The Army could gain a second asset from the assessment. Its own instructors could teach other units how to use the aircraft.
The value of that asset depends on what survives a change of aircraft. Ukraine’s defense ministry reported that Russian forces systematically changed routes and altitudes in October and used decoys alongside attack drones and missiles. The ministry’s October 30 interceptor guidance ties the extent of factory testing to the manufacturer’s claims, requiring a specific test record if resistance to electronic warfare is among them. The document concerns evidence about the equipment. A unit changing equipment faces a separate decision about which evidence of crew proficiency still holds.
A battery that can teach the next battery removes a constraint on adoption. If the course defines proficiency around one aircraft, each graduating class also increases the number of people a successor may have to retrain. A cheaper aircraft can therefore make the buying office’s numbers better while leaving a commander to cover the gap as crews convert. The Army itself can give the first supplier an advantage by making one product’s course the practical definition of proficiency.
The next competition can then reward a bidder for resembling the incumbent. An entrant that changes the operator’s job has to prove that the change pays after the unit bears the cost of learning it. Bidders may optimize for the syllabus while the adversary changes the problem it was written to solve.
The difficulty is sharpest when a redesign solves a problem the incumbent aircraft can no longer handle. Requiring every crew to repeat the entire course can tie up instructors just when the redesign becomes urgent. Carrying every qualification forward can give old evidence more weight than it deserves. A standard that preserves demonstrated skills and requires new evidence for changed tasks could make the decisive figures visible. How many crews remain qualified during the change? How long do the others take to return?
That distinction gives Grand Forks a narrower proposition to test. UND and the Northern Plains UAS Test Site already help JIATF-401 identify systems for further evaluation, and Project ULTRA has funding for counter-drone testing at GrandSKY. An evaluation could measure how much of an existing crew’s qualification carries to a new aircraft or revision, and how much instructor time the change actually takes. The UND relationship offers a way to ask which evidence the government could use. The authority to accept it would stay with the military.
For a prime considering a regional investment, that evidence is worth producing before anyone has a fleet to replace. It gives a buyer a way to price the transition when the competing bids are still open. By the time the second aircraft is offered, much of its cost may already have been written into the first aircraft’s syllabus.
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