Defense Acquisition

The Air Force and the Navy plan to spend $4 billion on a new aircraft, known as the joint primary aircraft training system, to train entry-level pilots how to fly. This report discusses (1) the military's calculations of the quantity of this aircraft needed to meet training requirements, (2) the impact of the Defense Department's procurement schedule on the aircraft's unit price, and (3) the military's effort to design the aircraft's cockpit to accommodate female pilots.

GAO noted that: (1) the Air Force and the Navy used inconsistent data to calculate the number of JPATS aircraft required for primary pilot training; (2) the Air Force used an attrition rate that was twice as high as the historical attrition rate for its existing primary trainer and the Navy used an attrition rate that differs from the rate that DOD now cites as accurate; (3) until inconsistencies in the mission capable rates and attrition rates are resolved, it is unclear how many JPATS aircraft should be procured; (4) DOD's procurement plan for acquiring JPATS aircraft does not take full advantage of the most favorable prices available in the contract; (5) for example, the plan schedules 18 aircraft to be procured during fiscal year (FY) 1998 and 12 aircraft during FY 1999, a total of 30 aircraft; (6) however, GAO found that these 30 aircraft could be procured more economically if 16 rather than 18 aircraft are procured in FY 1998 and 14 rather than 12 aircraft are procured in FY 1999; (7) this approach would save $1.36 million over the 2 fiscal years and permit more operational testing and evaluation to be completed; (8) furthermore, the procurement plan does not schedule a sufficient number of JPATS aircraft for procurement in fiscal year 2000 to achieve lower prices that are available under the terms of the contract; (9) because concerns had been raised about the ability of JPATS aircraft to accommodate female pilots, Congress directed DOD to study and determine the appropriate percentage of the female pilot population that the aircraft should physically accommodate; (10) based on its studies, DOD established the requirement that the JPATS aircraft be able to accommodate 80 percent of the eligible female pilot population; (11) pilot size determines the percentage of pilots that can be accommodated in the JPATS cockpit; (12) planned cockpit dimensions are expected to accommodate about 97 percent of the eligible female pilot population; and (13) to permit safe ejection from the aircraft, the ejection seat minimum pilot weight is 116 pounds, which is expected to accommodate 80 percent of the eligible female pilot population.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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