In with the old, out with the new: the Army's modernization challenge.

• Author: Smith, Bob
• Position: COMMENTARY

For U.S. Army aviation, uncertainty in federal budgets seems to have elevated the expression of "doing more with less" to a more permanent and enduring status.

After more than a decade of warfare, Army aircraft have been stretched far beyond their original intended life-spans. Secretary John McHugh and Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno have stressed that the Army's ability to field a ready and capable force that meets mission requirements has been placed at risk by fiscal challenges.

As a result of budget constraints, instead of updating its war-fighting capabilities with new platforms, one of the Army's few remaining remedies is to modernize those currently in use. The concept of platform modernization is not new. The Army's UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, which first entered service in 1979, is now an M-model. The Kiowa Warrior scout helicopter, first fielded in the 1960s, is beginning to emerge in its F-model configuration.

Traditionally, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have performed these upgrades and modernization initiatives. As the originating program contractor, an OEM is already familiar with the platform and in most cases, owns the technical data rights for the platform. For these reasons, it has been advantageous for the Army to rely on the OEM for upgrades and parts, although occasionally with less focus on price or total cost of ownership.

Today, cost reduction has become a driving issue, one that could dramatically increase overall program risk unless decisions are made in a careful and comprehensive way. As troops draw down and sequestration begins to seriously affect budgets across the service, critical decisions for aircraft survivability and platform management may require careful balance be maintained between short-term readiness and longer-term modernization and sustainment needs.

The Army is adopting alternative ways to get more bang for its buck in sustaining and modernizing its aircraft, and is working with impartial industry partners to develop a platform modernization roadmap to gain greater control over the service-life extension process.

The military must cost-effectively extend the service life of existing platforms while adding new capabilities for evolving mission requirements. Platform modernization may well be the solution for the military services as they face tight budgets and evolving operational objectives.

For instance, the Army's Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) is focusing...