The peacetime operations of Air Force civil engineering are both diversified and world-wide in scope. Included is responsibility for the maintenance, repair, and alteration of 157,277 units of Air Force family housing similar to those recently constructed (1) at Myrtle Beach AFB, South Carolina, and (2) at Lincoln AFB, Nebraska. This program now has an inventory valued in excess of one billion dollars. Electrical power requirements for operational facilities, such as these 2500-kilowatt units (3) at Loring AFB, Maine, place a heavy demand on the civil engineer for maintenance and operation. At operating locations throughout the world the Air Force has 1767 fixed diesel generators supplying a total of 592,623 kilowatts.

problems of aerospace facilities

force.

Budgeting. Perhaps the most important problem is our budgetary procedure. At present we are geared to a system developed in the era of the 300-mile-per-hour bomber and the one- or two-thousand-pound conventional bomb. This procedure envisioned a period of approximately 36 months from the time the requirement for a facility is established to the date it can support the weapon system. There is compelling need to revamp this system to provide unified budgetary support for the weapon system. Perhaps budgets should carry a single line item for a weapon system, to include all

the costs of providing the system. At present we have different line items for procurement of the missile, direct-support equipment, construction, development, training, and operation. These line items are separated in the "functional" budget. Thus construction, for example, is part of the overall construction budget, and procurement is part of the over-all procurement budget. Different staff sections justify and defend the various parts of the functional budget before Department of Defense, Bureau of the Budget, and Congressional committees.

We should have a procedure whereby all the costs of an aerospace weapon system are combined in one budget program and presented as a package through all levels of review. With a reasonable degree of flexibility to offset unexpected higher costs, for example in the communications area, and to reprogram savings achieved, as in the construction area, such a

procedure appears essential if we are to proceed with timely and effective development of the sophisticated aerospace weapon systems of the future.

Programing. A second problem area is that of better long-range programing. We have an increasing number of monuments built throughout the United States and in overseas areas that attest to the twin problems of inadequate funds and incomplete programing. Possibly we may stop in the middle of construction of an airfield, at a cost of a few million dollars. But if we attempt to change programs halfway through the development of weapon systems such as Navaho, Goose, and others, the cost enters another order of magnitude. We have increasing evidence of "foot in the door" technique-the selling of a program with inadequate evaluation of the manpower and dollars that will be required, and, more important, of ability to deliver an operational item on the schedule proposed.

As our aerospace systems become infinitely more complex, it is certain that their cost will increase proportionately. The necessity to ensure sound programing, based on the best possible accumulation and consideration of facts, becomes paramount. We may consider our monuments to the chang ing program as evidence of the dynamic nature of the aerospace age; but those who are inclined to be critical of us may see them as patent evidence of our inadequate programing and of the need for closer scrutiny of our proposals.

Impact of weapon sophistication. A third problem is the degree of sophistication we are inclined to gear into our weapon systems development, and how this reflects upon the facilities requirement. Too often we are tempted to try the 100-yard dash when we have not yet learned to crawl. Although the general criteria given the civil engineer for environmental controls, fuel systems, and power are within his technical capability to satisfy, the costs of their fulfillment are sometimes far out of proportion to the results that are obtained. This is particularly important for consideration in view of the fact that our construction requirements in the civil engineering area are several times larger than the funds made available.

Design and construction methods. A fourth problem area is the adequacy in the aerospace age of our present design and construction methods. Facilities to support the weapon systems are programed, budgeted, designed, and constructed by agencies that have comparatively little connection with the contractor who is responsible for producing all other elements of the weapon system. This separation was not productive of especial difficulty when we were building pavements for aircraft. The difficulty increases as the supporting facilities become more and more an integral part of the weapon system itself. A step in the right direction has been taken in that the far greater part of civil-engineering design on new weapon systems and research facilities is now done by the Air Force. However, in every case the subsequent construction passes to an agency which is not a part of the team of the prime contractor. Although this separate approach to support facilities during the design and construction period is a matter that has been discussed throughout the history of the Air Force, it takes on renewed empha