Maj. Charles Seidel, weapons production manager at Eglin AFB, Fla., for the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, says he is now a believer in the Air Force’s new “smart operations” effort. Seidel led a “rapid improvement event” team formed in July to explore refining the AMRAAM acquisition process—and succeeded in cutting a “very sound” acquisition process from 48 weeks to 20 weeks, reports the current Eglin Eagle base newspaper. Seidel says, “Time is money and getting the missiles to the warfighters six months earlier is an immediate plus.”
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…