Boeing and Rockwell Collins have turned in their proposals for phase 2 of the Air Force’s common range integrated instrumentation system program. Boeing announced its submittal in a release May 19, while Rockwell Collins spokesman Dave Gosch confirmed this to the Daily Report on Monday. The Air Force is expected to choose a winner in September. Under CRIIS, the service seeks to replace the 1980s-era advanced range data system at USAF, Army, and Navy test ranges with new equipment that provides better data-collection capability, safety features, and ability to accurately evaluate complex new weapons that have increasingly greater ranges and broader effects. Both companies have been maturing their respective concepts for the past two years under phase 1 contracts. The Air Force expects to field the first increment of CRIIS in mid decade.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…