The Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass., is meeting the Air Force acquisition initiative “Going Green” with what it terms “Blue Teams.” The term “Going Green” refers to the color-coding usually associated with a program that is in good shape. The Air Force wants to have at least nine out of 10 of its acquisition programs in the green by 2010. At ESC, officials decided they needed to replace the Red Team approach, where a team will “swoop in” to fix a troubled program, with a preventative one in which Blue Teams identify and solve problems that may happen. They try to anticipate complaints “two years down the road” and attempt to engineer the system to address them before they can materialize, said Rich Byrne, technical director for ESC’s Engineering Directorate.
House lawmakers are encouraging the Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command to work together as each pursues long-range, long-endurance reconnaissance drones. Both entities are investing in unmanned assets that can slip into highly defended areas, loiter over a particularly valuable target for days at a time, and traverse multiple…