Since July, a special Pentagon panel, led by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, has been gathering data to make recommendations to fix the department’s sagging acquisition oversight practices. According to Pentagon officials, the five-member Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Project plans to deliver a top-to-bottom review to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by November.
Bell Textron has won DARPA's contest for a no-runway, high-speed drone that will prove out technologies useful for special operations forces and possibly the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment concept. Bell's design converts a tiltrotor to a jet-powered aircraft able to fly at up to 450 knots.