A no-brainer way to save money on defense items in lean times is through multiyear procurements, Air Force Materiel Command boss Gen. Donald Hoffman told attendees at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., last week. Those who object to MYPs are usually those who like to “diddle with programs every single . . . budgeting cycle,” Hoffman said. But year-to-year funding plays havoc with costs because industry can’t plan workflow, raw materials, or workforce with any certainty. “I embrace multiyear, . . . assuming [the program] is ready, because it gives me that stability to execute,” Hoffman said. He added, “It’s been proven over and over again that it saves money.” There are threshold percentages of savings required to initiate a MYP, but “even if it saves one percent, we ought to do it,” Hoffman said, asserting that, “It’s not just the money you save, it’s the stability you put in the program.”
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.