> But, also, the government has, by and large, shifted its engineering focus away from systems design and more towards systems engineering and integration. Also

> But, also, the government has, by and large, shifted its engineering focus away from systems design and more towards systems engineering and integration. Also, in general, the government cannot pay the same kinds of salaries that contractors do. So, even if the government had wanted to take a more active role in systems design, it would have found itself lacking the right people to do so effectively. This doesn't excuse the lack of requirements, but it does offer an explanation as to why the government didn't take a more active role in design. Unfortunately this is a trend that's happening all over government. There's this pervasive idea that contractors can do it better so over time the government has less and less full-time employees with the technical expertise they need. Glad you brought up this point because this is a prime example of how this philosophy can be very costly. It does seem like the program has been running better under Bogdan but at the same time you still have many staunch defenders who refuse to acknowledge reality (like the USMC). Maybe it'll all work itself out but I feel like realistically we'll probably need to produce more legacy aircraft (Superhornets, F16E's) as a stopgap at the least. At worst they may have to short cycle the F-35 and bring the replacement(s) sooner than anticipated.