Testing Warfighter Systems

Racing the clock, the U.S. Air Force, with SAIC's help, moved quickly to assess whether costly and time-consuming upgrades would be needed for America's arsenal of 2,000-pound "smart bombs" and other precision-guided weapons.

Using standard testing processes, a test of this magnitude could normally take at least six to nine months — much too long for the events unfolding in Iraq. To overcome this challenge, the SAIC team developed new instrumentation for a rangeless testing capability, essentially creating a battlefield environment that allowed faster assessments of potential GPS threats, and — in less than two months — presented the results to the Air Force Chief of Staff. Based in part on those findings, the Air Force decided that existing antijam technology was sufficient and upgrades were not necessary. Events proved this the right decision. Immediately after the war started, the U.S. destroyed one of the enemy GPS-jammers with a GPS weapon.

Fifteen years of innovative support

Quick-response testing is just one example of the wide-ranging innovative support SAIC has provided to the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) in the last 15 years.

"Many of us are former military and we remember what it's like, so we're especially committed to what we're doing for our warfighters," says SAIC's Michael Chase, who manages the Rapid Test Support program at AFOTEC. (In fact, Chase, a former Air Force pilot, made history in 1992 when he flew a B-52 into Russia as part of a ceremonial exchange of combat aircraft.)

Headquartered at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, AFOTEC is an independent agency responsible for testing new weapons systems for the Air Force, the Department of Defense, and other government agencies. SAIC recently won its fourth, five-year contract to provide engineering and technical services to AFOTEC.

"We do everything from testing and evaluating next-generation aircraft like the F/A-22 to assessing chemical and biological protective systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, and directed energy weapons," says Mark E. Smith, SAIC program manager for AFOTEC.

Supporting operational test and evaluation for the F/A-22 Raptor

For example, SAIC has supported the operational test and evaluation of the F/A-22 Raptor — the Air Force's largest program — since 1992.

"We do just about everything but fly the aircraft," says David Garrison, who leads the SAIC team that recently won the Air Force Association's "Test Team of the Year" award for their comprehensive efforts on the F/A-22 project. (Of course, if Smith had his way, SAIC would be flying the aircraft, too. A former Air Force F-15 pilot who graduated in the same Air Force Academy class as Chase, Smith quips that he would "give a body part" to fly the F/A-22.)

Replacing the F-15, the Raptor is scheduled to achieve initial operational capability — the ability to conduct operations worldwide — by the end of 2005.

Overwhelmingly effective capability

To help reach this goal, the SAIC team finished all open-air test missions ahead of schedule, and completed eight weeks of complementary modeling and simulation trials on schedule. This included putting several F/A-22 fighters through four-and-half months of exacting tests, where they were required to prevail in five live combat scenarios, each with a number of variations. For example, in one scenario two F/A-22s had to protect a B-2 bomber against four adversary F-15s, while dodging surface-to-air missiles.

The Raptor demonstrated "overwhelmingly effective" warfighting capability, winning all of its engagements and performing more than two times better than the F-15 in similar tests, according to the initial operational test and evaluation report released by AFOTEC.

Guiding follow-on testing

Based on the performance of the F/A-22s, the SAIC team developed models simulating how an entire squadron would fare in large group flying operations to help guide follow-on testing.

As part of its F/A-22 effort, SAIC developed a sophisticated Modular Analysis and Test Support System (MAnTSS) that serves several roles on the F/A-22 program, such as integrating data collected from open-air testing to compare to constructive models for analysis.

SAIC also tests and evaluates systems to be used by joint forces, such as the Joint Strike Fighter and the Joint Biological Point Detection System — a stand-alone detector that warns of the presence of biological agents such as airborne viruses, bacteria and toxins, and can be configured to meet the operational requirements of the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force.

A long history of AFOTEC support

For more than 15 years, SAIC has been helping AFOTEC make sure that new technologies perform to high Air Force standards. Since 1989, we helped AFOTEC evaluate technologies and systems that helped make a difference in the strategic air campaign for the Gulf War, such as Joint STARS and CBU 105 Sensor Fused Weapon.

Several years later, we evaluated the Joint Standoff Weapon and Joint Direct Attack Munition, new technologies slated for a very different warfighting environment: the skies above Kosovo. Our test engineers evaluated the new Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle technology before it was deployed ahead of schedule for the war in Afghanistan. They also evaluated the Mark 20 Leaflet Delivery System. And before the Iraq war, they evaluated technologies/systems, ranging from agent defeat munitions to counter chemical and biological threats to a missile protection system for the C-17 aircraft, called the Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasure System.