January 2020
The AMRAAMprogramwas established at a Defense Systems Acquisition Review Council MS I Review in November 1978. After an extended development period, an acquisition baseline of 24,320 units was set in December 1988. The frst production units were authorized under the FY 1987 budget and felded in 1991. The acquisition target was reduced to 16,427 missiles in a 1992 rebaselining that also doubled the expected per-unit cost. The AIM-120 is still in production. The Air Force now intends to buy a total of 12,851 missiles, and the Navy an additional 4,461 missiles, for a total of 17,312. The fnal unit is projected to be authorized in FY 2025—almost 40 years after the frst unit. The explanation for the continued utility of the AIM-120 is that themissiles being produced today are nothing like the missiles that were produced in the early 1990s. Figure 2 shows the history of average unit cost by annual production lot for AMRAAMmissiles, with flled shapes showing historical data and open shapes, projections. After a typical initial learning curve, the program has undergone major changes over its history. In fact, many upgrades, modifications, and wholesale redesigns of the missile have occurred over time; the Teal Group reports seven (Teal Group Corporation, 2014, p. 133). Some were simply improvements, while others had new functions, such as the Air Intercept Missile AIM-120C3, designed with smaller control surfaces to ft inside the weapons bay of an F-22 Raptor and theAIM120D, which includesmany new features such asGlobal Positioning System (GPS) navigation and a two-way datalink.
37
Defense ARJ, January 2020, Vol. 27No. 1 : 28-59
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog