2342. Next Generation Transparency Program
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Paper
Abstract
Driven by the end of the Cold War and the emergence of new political and economic forces around the world, widespread change is sweeping through the US Department of Defense (DOD). Budgets are declining, and it has become widely recognized that the future of aeronautical system development and operations hinges on the ability to achieve affordability. The Air Force Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC) at Wright Patterson Air Force Base is playing a key role in the thrust toward affordability, and a research and development arm of ASC, Wright Laboratory (WL) is investing its resources in the development and validation of technologies which will enable significant reductions in production and operating costs. WL has invested consistently in a technology to drastically reduce the cost of aircraft windshield and canopy (transparency) systems since the early 1980’s. now a point in time has been reached at which a confluence of a number of different developments in the world arena have made the time ripe to take the next logical step with this particular technology. The Next Generation Transparency Program, or NGT as it is called, involves fundamentally new methods to design, engineer, and manufacture windshield and canopy systems for aircraft. It has been estimated that the NGT technology has the potential to achieve cost avoidance as great as one billion dollars for a single major future acquisition program such as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
