As many of you are aware, Mav6 received guidance from the Air Force to disassemble and store the Blue Devil Block II (BD2) / M1400 airship. Various reports in the media have cited “poor contractor performance” as the leading cause of this action. But the facts tell a very different story.
From the beginning, the Air Force acquisition corps was never vested in the M1400 airship and the unique “processing at the point of collection” technologies featured in the BD2 system. In fact, when the Air Force assumed responsibility for BD2 from the Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) back in early 2011, it’s first official act was to try to kill the BD2 effort in favor of a conventional fixed-wing UAV program. The Air Force Chief of Staff personally weighed in and signaled that the Air Force has “no interest in airships.” Had it not been for the intervention of supporters in Congress and OSD, the BD2 program would have died a quiet death 18-months ago. And so began a running gun battle between Mav6 (and BD2 supporters) and the Air Force, which has culminated in this most recent turn of events.
When the initial move to terminate the BD2 program failed, the Air Force proceeded to introduce wholesale changes to the BD2 development plan, which included imposing an unprecedented FAA flight certification requirement on the unmanned M1400 airship. Moreover, Mav6 was told that no new funds would be made available to support this expanded scope of work; we would have to find a way to accommodate the additional costs in the existing program funds.
But it has been the Air Force’s failure to fund Mav6′s BD2 contract in a timely manner that has represented the biggest impact to the program. It took almost a year for the Air Force to definitize Mav6′s contract – almost six months longer than the maximum time limit stipulated by the Federal Acquisition Regulations. During this period and despite that fact that Congress provided the Air Force with full funding for the BD2 program, Mav6′s ‘undefinitized’ contract was incrementally funded in small blocks. This constraint made it impossible for Mav6 to fully staff the BD2 development effort or fund subcontractors and vendors.
In summary, the BD2 development effort to date can best be characterized as follows:
- A highly complex development effort to build the world’s largest UAV and most advanced multi-sensor processing system;
- A hostile government customer;
- Sweeping government-imposed requirements changes; and
- Persistent government-imposed funding constraints.
The linked fact sheet (M1400 Airship Fact Sheet 25 May 12v2) provides additional context on the history and current status of the BD2 effort.
In spite of all of this, we are 90-95% complete with the M1400 development effort, having incurred only 12% cost growth to the overall BD2 program. To date, the U.S. taxpayers have invested $150 million (more if you include funds executed directly by the Air Force) in development of the BD2 capability. And Mav6 is within a couple of months and $3-5 million in additional costs of achieving first flight – as validated by a recent independent government review of the M1400 airship. And I should add that there is over $50 million in remaining FY12 BD2 funds to support completion of the M1400 airship and operational demonstration of the BD2 capability.
Is it in the best interests of the warfighter and the nation’s defense to stop the BD2 program now?
Mav6 is a different kind of defense company, and it’s because we are different that we are bound to rub some people the wrong way. Customers who are vested in old ways of doing business aren’t going to like what we have to sell. While we haven’t preformed flawlessly on the BD2 program, we have done a pretty remarkable job getting this far in the face of all of the unnecessary outside obstacles that have been put in our path (see Recapping the M1400 development effort).
I don’t want anyone to think that we have stopped fighting for BD2. We continue to have broad support in Congress and the Combatant Commands for continuation of the BD2 program, and our allies are mobilizing to ensure a future for the effort. We can’t predict exactly what this future will look like right now, but there are a number of options on the table. Stay tuned…
This is exactly what you needed to say. All the allies of the M1400 development effort need to come together and oppose this absolutely ridiculous Air Force obstructionism. It’s costing the taxpayers money and savings and potentially costing the warfighters their lives.
The amount of money needed to destroy the BF2 versus the amount of money to get it flying is absolutely baffling, ESPECIALLY considering the $50 mil left in the program. No sane person can hear of this and NOT side with you. What you need now more than ever is to get out the word about this horrendous, questionably legal(aquisitions six months late? Really? And they’re criticizing YOU?), downright spiteful abuse of power.
Looking on the bright side, since the BD2 is 95% complete, with money still left in the program, it’s completely possible that you could give/sell it to another branch of the military who will actually USE it! If it could happen to the MZ-3A blimp just a few months ago, it could happen to the BD2.
Jay + the team; your achievements to date are nothing short of superb. I hope that a way forward can be found for the program: deflating and boxing the airship now would be such a waste of money and effort.
The fickle finger of DoD funding deflated your ballonet ?
Time to find a more reliable source of funding. As a taxpayer I can not condone the USAF decision to moth ball the excellent work MAV6 has put into the M1400. We need to find a commercial VC to complete the inevitable innovation the M1400 embodies. T
I’ve been following this blog and project from the start and have rooted for you, but this and the last few BD2 posts are starting to worry me. Mav6 set out on “A highly complex development effort to build the world’s largest UAV and most advanced multi-sensor processing system”. Right away there are two major technical risks- the platform and the sensor suite- that would prevent me from fully funding upfront without concern. Moreover, this approach seems to ignore the “lessons learned” from your March 13, 2011 post when you advise “Less R&D” and “Little Bets”. You talk about the new airship advancements- “largest”, “most powerful”, “most sophisticated”- why not start with proven technology, deliver a capability, and then scale up? Have you ever built an airship before? How do I know you can build this one?, etc.
The “Fact Sheet” you link to comes across as PR-ish. Is it a fact that the airship “has the potential to be more than an order of magnitude more cost-effective than current ISR air and spacecraft”? Could it not also have the potential to be the least cost-effective? As for the PopSci award, it was awarded before first flight so kudos on the idea, not the execution. Your third point about the sunk cost argument for an CONUS demo and waiving the taxpayer flag in the post above seems to miss a larger point. You were on contract to deliver a capability to theater. You are overbudget and late. What will the CONUS demo tell us? At what point are we throwing good money at bad? Point 8 is incorrect that you’re the first to do multi-INT since BD1 is already out there. And Congressional support doesn’t count for much if you haven’t noticed their performance lately.
As for the FAA airworthiness certification, if you planned on flying the airship in the NAS, that was probably always a requirement. (Besides, if this was the “World’s Most Affordable ISR” [your words] wouldn’t you market this to DHS as well?) Aside from the FAA, the USAF is starting to enforce the airworthiness requirement on all its programs based on an AF Instruction from 2010. It’s gunking up everyone’s cost and schedule, not just yours.
I will trust you that Mav6 has been performing well. But at what point will you consider if you got in over your heads and how to do better next time? The expectations you started with in Jan 2011, “We will knock this one out of the park – exceeding cost, schedule, and performance expectations for delivery of the MavShip to the Air Force for the Blue Devil program” is something no sane program manager would ever say. I agree that the USAF probably doesn’t want a fleet of airships. Heck, they didn’t want Predators or the MC-12 Liberty and those are pretty good programs. You say you want to be different from the major defense contractors? How about taking on responsibility, implementing your lessons learned, and doing better next time?
I’m with you that Defense acquisition needs help. I applaud your efforts and the risk you and your employees are taking by trying something new. But it seems some objectivity and pragmatism would be more useful than what comes across as posturing.
Full Disclosure: I work in USAF acquisition, but not Big Safari. I also worked on Angel Fire which has as many lessons learned from our failures as our accomplishments. None of my statements reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Air Force or Department of Defense.
Thanks for your comment. There’s some truth to what you have to say. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that there are a host of lessons learned from our BD2 experience that we are working hard to implement across Mav6.
I think it goes without saying that it would have been best for Mav6 and the Air Force for this most recent development in the BD2 program to not play out in the media. From our perspective, the Air Force’s decision to leak commentary to Aviation Week placing 100% of responsibility for the apparent wind-down of the BD2 program on poor performance by Mav6 demanded a strident response. All we are trying to do is get the unbiased facts on the table so people can draw their own conclusions, but we both know that it’s not possible for Mav6 to be totally unbiased in this situation… I would never maintain that Mav6 is beyond fault on the program. We did underestimate the complexity and scale of the effort; however, I also believe that if we had a customer who was committed to making BD2 a reality, the circumstances visited on the program would have been very different.
Lesson learned #1: Technology development in a rapid acquisition context is really hard. Technology acquisition in a rapid acquisition context with an antagonistic customer is damn near impossible.
Three things: First, TCOM is building the M1400, and they have plenty of experience building airships,
Second, the “sunk-cost” fallacy does not apply here. We’re talking about something with a real and measurable payoff, in savings over traditional systems. Not to mention the top people in the military have said that this kind of capability is desperately needed. “Sunk-cost” implies that you are arguing for going forward with something based soley on the basis that you have already invested money in it, therefore it needs more money to be invested in it. This is a fallacy, and fortunately, that is not the case here. There is a real end-result here, a 90-95% completed airship, and what the Air Force wants to do- spend 2.6 million destroying it, instead of capitalizing on it’s efficiency in theater- is the REAL waste, particularly in the context that it will only take 3-5 million to complete the airship, when there is still FIFTY million left in the budget for the BD2.
Third, the M1400 can’t be accused of being “late” in any reasonable sense of the word. If you want “late,” you should look at the Air Force, which ILLEGALLY withheld funding for a year(on an 18-month program!) and then restricted said funding.
Sure, Mav6 underestimated the cost and complexity of the program. It happens, particularly when you have a 50-year vacuum of technical knowledge. But they had all of the tools and resources they needed to avoid or fix these mistakes, but they were intentionally PREVENTED from doing so by the Air Force, simply out of sheer malice.
So yes. There’s plenty of blame to go around. But to pretend that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the blame DOESN’T go to the Air Force would be wrong, and most of your quibble with them seems to be over the rhetoric they used, which for all practical purposes, is really neither here nor there.
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