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I was involved in flight test for 12 years, in 2000 I was selected by AF TE as the AF Contractor working Test and Evaluation for 1999.

Yes, the AF acquisition system is broken, but not all parts. Those “black” programs and those high speed programs that are out there work fairly well. Why? because each successive program manager is NOT allowed to make minor, mainly cosmetic, changes to put his personal stamp on the effort. IMHO, the second reason the system is broke there is no penalty for failure.

If you want to see what can be done go look into a program called Creditable Sport also known as YMC-130. In 1980 it took us less than six months to modify three C-130 aircraft for a SpecOps mission. The required minimum performance was to land and then take off from an open soccer stadium without any ground based assistance. The time-line was less than six months. Every critical mission requirement was achieved including the time-line. It was successful because there was NO change in the management team, there was no time to spend on conferences and risk avoidance, and it was impossible to spend all the money given the program.

But, every acquisition professional out there would never attempt such a program today. I will not comment on why.