Krieg wants the Pentagon’s acquisition corps to “adopt a more agile strategy” that will let the Global Hawk UAV program advance more quickly. He cautions, though, that program officials must make certain that the enhancements to Global Hawk show “demonstrated system performance” before any new UAV is turned over to warfighters. Krieg’s recent decision memo on Global Hawk offers important guidance for DOD’s top acquisition managers, who want to know what is going to happen to the program in the currently tight DOD budget climate. Congress may not have the same enthusiasm; lawmakers shifted some Global Hawk funding in the Fiscal 2006 defense spending bill to other programs.
The Air Force on March 12 awarded contract modifications worth a combined $2.4 billion to Boeing to procure an undisclosed number of E-7 Wedgetail as part of the program's engineering and manufacturing development phase and continue work on the airborne battle management aircraft’s radar.