Need an air traffic management component for a particular aircraft, go online with Electronic Systems Center’s new automated Web-based shopping service. ESC’s Global Air Traffic Management Division at Hanscom AFB, Mass., created an online catalog of commercial-off-the-shelf ATM components that enable aircraft acquisition offices to select specific components they need and click a button to place the order. ESC officials say, the catalog approach cuts the acquisition timeline from months to weeks, eliminating the need for some 40 platform acquisition offices to conduct their own source selection efforts.
Top Department of the Air Force leaders told lawmakers on May 7 they need to divest aging aircraft to make room for more advanced systems, setting up a now familiar budget fight on Capitol Hill. “America cannot wait to modernize the Air Force any longer, not one year, one month,…