Test and Evaluation Support

Abstract

This program element provides resources to operate the Air Force Test Center (AFTC) test activities which are included in the Department of Defense (DoD) Major Range and Test Facility Base (MRTFB). Test facilities/capabilities include wind tunnels, rocket and jet engine test cells, hypersonic and subsonic testing, modeling and simulation, technology, limited space environmental simulation chambers, armament test ranges, hardware-in-the-loop test facilities, climatic test facilities, avionics test facilities, aircraft testbeds, dry lake bed landing sites, instrumented test ranges, and test aircraft maintenance, as well as USAF Test Pilot School. Test and Evaluation (T&E) Support funds institutional test infrastructure activities including: Command and supervisory staffs; supply stocks; maintenance, repair, and replacement of worn or obsolete test equipment and facilities; test infrastructure for data collection, transmission, reduction, and analysis; civilian salaries; temporary duty travel; range operations and material support contract costs for hardware and software engineering and maintenance; and minor improvement and modernization projects. It also funds institutional test aircraft depot level maintenance such as: Programmed Depot Maintenance (PDM), the calendar-based cyclic scheduling of aircraft into depots for update/inspection; modifications and any other depot level repairs required by the aircraft System Program Directors (SPD); engine overhauls; depot-provided area assistance; and assorted ground support equipment overhauls. Within AFTC there are three test wings. The first is Arnold Engineering and Development Complex (AEDC), located at Arnold Air Force Base (AFB), TN. The AEDC institutional test infrastructure supports operations of the largest complex of ground test facilities in the world (including transonic, supersonic, and hypersonic wind tunnels; rocket motor and turbine engine test cells; space environmental test chambers, hyper ballistic ranges; and other specialized facilities). AEDC also supports geographically separated facilities which include the National Full-Scale Aerodynamic Complex (NFAC) located at NASA's AMES Research Center, California, Tunnel 9 located at White Oak, Maryland, and the McKinley Climatic Lab located on Eglin AFB, Florida. The 412 Test Wing (TW) is located at Edwards AFB, CA. Its institutional test infrastructure supports weapons system development and operational test and evaluation for aircraft, aircraft subsystems and aircraft weapon systems, aerospace research vehicles, unmanned miniature vehicles, cruise missiles, parachute delivery/recovery systems, cargo handling systems, communications, information operations, and Electronic Warfare (EW) systems for DoD and allied forces. The 412TW mission also includes the USAF Test Pilot School. Lastly, the 96 TW, located at Eglin AFB, FL, is a joint test and training complex comprised of 724 square miles of land area, and approximately 123,000 square miles of water area. The 96TW provides the institutional test infrastructure required to conduct developmental and operational test and evaluation of non-nuclear air armaments (including aircraft guns, ammunition, and air-to-surface and air-to-air guided munitions); Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence/Surveillance/Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems; target acquisition and weapon delivery systems; and special operations aircraft systems. 96TW provides a scientific test process that supports the development, production, sustainment, and enhancement of munitions systems that support tri-service digital weapons development. T&E support services contracts are awarded on the basis of full and open competition. This program is in Budget Activity 6, RDT&E Management Support because this budget activity includes research, development, test and evaluation efforts and funds to sustain and/or modernize the installations or operations required for general research, development, test and evaluation.

Document Details

• Document Type: R2 Budgetary Justification
• Publication Date: Oct 01, 2021
• Source ID: 0605807F_6_3600_PB_2021
• Change Summary Explanation: FY21: The $43 million increase is a result of $19 million in favorable adjustments to civilian pay to include funding B-21 manpower, alignment of civ pay authorizations with actual funding, reversing previous civ pay assumptions, and the civ pay reprice adjustment. In addition, there was a $9 million civ pay increase for the civ pay raise and FY21 performance awards. Finally, there was an increase of $15 million for natural disaster relief recovery efforts associated with Hurricane Michael.
• Service Agency Name: Air Force

Entities

Organizations

• United States Air Force

Tags

Communities of Interest

• Air Platforms
• Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

• Acquisition
• Air Force
• Aircraft Equipment
• Aircrafts
• Contracts
• Department Of Defense
• Engineering
• Global Positioning Systems
• Simulations
• Simulators
• Software Development
• Test And Evaluation
• Test Equipment
• Test Facilities
• Turbines
• Weapon Delivery
• Wind Tunnels

Readers

• Aerospace Engineering.
• Aerospace Test and Evaluation
• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of Proposed Air Force Base Actions.

Technology Areas

• Autonomy
• Fully Networked C3
• Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control
• Hypersonics
• Hypersonics - Hypersonic Flow
• Microelectronics
• Space