E40 – Air Force Weapons Czar

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Mike and Jake host Andrew Hunter, the US Air Force’s chief weapons buyer.

As the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition,
Technology and Logistics (ATL), he oversees Air Force research, development and acquisition activities totaling an annual budget in excess of $60 billion for more than 550 acquisition programs.

He is the principal adviser to the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff for research and
development, test, production and modernization efforts within the Air Force.

We talked about how he’s driving acquisition innovation and shaping the Air Force for great power competition. The discussion ranged from the good and bad on specific weapons programs—the B-21 bomber and Sentinel
ICBM—negotiating the E-7 Wedgetail deal, workforce development, industry incentive alignment on price vs value, and a ton more.

He even shared some new Collaborative Combat Aircraft
insights that have not been made public before.

This is an episode you don’t want to miss!

For those interested in #military #nationaldefense #warfare #nationalsecurity #defense #nationaldefense #tech #technology #defensetech #army #navy #airforce #innovation

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Show Notes

00:34 intro

01:07 why a civilian weapons buyer?

02:07 how to keep track of 500+ programs

02:42 PEOs

03:48 the aquisitions perfect storm

06:02 cost plus vs fixed price contracts

08:01 E-7 Wedgetail negotiations

09:46 phone-a-friend negotiator

12:23 B-21 bomber

14:13 B-21 active management

15:47 B-21's unique hybrid contract

19:41 commercial vs defense markets

20:18 maintaining competition in industry

21:15 competition and investing signals

22:32 structuring the market for industry

25:00 government architectures to lower switching costs

27:13 workforce development

29:58 Sentinel ICBM cost over-run

30:07 Nunn-Mccurdy Breach

31:01 too big for 1 company?

33:44 New 'Quickstart' authority

35:58 watching the CCA engineering

36:16 non-traditionals forced to traditional prime?

37:46 Elon Musk for Pentagon processes?

39:10 CCA landing gear development

40:19 what keeps you up at night?

40:36 the pacing challenge

41:17 outro