Words of Advice for Developing Sixth-Generation Aircraft.

• Author: Harper, Jon

* The Pentagon must avoid the pitfalls of the F-35 joint strike fighter program as it develops sixth-generation aircraft, said retired Air Force Gen. Hawk Carlisle, president and CEO of the National Defense Industrial Association and the former head of Air Combat Command.

The fifth-generation F-35 features cutting edge capabilities, including stealth, information-sharing and sensor fusion technology, he noted. However, the program experienced hiccups and "growing pains" because of a flawed acquisition strategy, he said.

"We thought we had learned enough that we could... [do] engineering and manufacturing development at the same time we were producing the airplane," he explained. "That was concurrency. That's what set us back. That's what caused a lot of the problems in the program, that we didn't do the full EMD before we started producing" aircraft.

"As we go into the future, I think you have to do systems engineering early," he added.

He noted that Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Will Roper is aiming to improve the systems engineering process.

"We've been discussing inside the Air Force the need to make our next fighter based on digital engineering from design all the way through manufacturing and into sustainment," Roper told reporters at the Paris Air Show. That "may be the most game-changing component if it allows us to move into a different paradigm of doing rapid design spirals and updates."

In the past, technology maturation issues have slowed the pace of production, he said.

"In addition to looking at a lot of classified capabilities we want to give future warfighters, we also want to give manufacturers a different way of making that cutting edge technology," Roper added. "Expect both of those to be part and parcel of what we bring to the table for sixth-gen."

Carlisle also sees value in breaking up major defense acquisition programs, or MDAPs.

"The industrial basis is shrinking, and...