Concurrency is broadly defined as the overlap between development and production of a system. The stated rationale for concurrency is to introduce systems in a more timely manner or to fulfill an urgent need, to avoid technology obsolescence and/or to maintain an efficient industrial development/production work force. For measuring the degree of concurrency in this report we used a statutorily required guide issued by the Department of Defense (DOD) in April 1990 for assessing concurrency and associated risk in major acquisition programs. Its measure of concurrency is the amount of initial operational testing and evaluation (IOT&E) completed before entering production of a system. Initial operational tests are field tests intended to demonstrate a system’s effectiveness and suitability for military use. IOT&E is a key internal control to ensure that decisionmakers have objective information available on a weapon system’s performance and to minimize risks of procuring costly and ineffective systems. In the late 1980s, the Congress found that DOD was acquiring a large portion of total program quantities, using the low-rate initial production (LRIP) concept, without successfully completing IOT&E. As a result, legislation was enacted in 1989 to limit LRIP quantities for major systems. The law, 10 U.S.C. 2400, defined LRIP as the minimum production quantity needed to provide production representative articles for IOT&E, establish an initial production base, and permit an orderly increase in the production rate sufficient to lead to full-rate production after completion of IOT&E. In the conference report supporting the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991 (P.L. 101-189), the conferees indicated that LRIP quantities should not total a significant percentage of a total planned procurement. Later, the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 prescribed new controls for LRIP. The act states that the Secretary of Defense must specifically explain to the Congress why any planned LRIP quantities exceed 10 percent of a planned production quantity of a system, as defined at the milestone II or development decision. This provision, however, was not in effect when the F-22 program reached milestone II. The F-22 passed milestone II in 1991. At that time, the Air Force planned to acquire 648 F-22 operational aircraft at a cost of $86.6 billion. After the Bottom Up Review, completed by DOD in September 1993, the planned quantity of F-22s was reduced to 442 at an estimated cost of $71.6 billion. We recently reported that aircraft systems, including the T-45 trainer aircraft, B-1B bomber, and the C-17 cargo aircraft, as well as many other smaller systems, entered LRIP before successfully completing any IOT&E.This resulted in the purchase of systems requiring significant and sometimes costly modifications to achieve satisfactory performance, acceptance of less capable systems than planned, and in some cases deployment of substandard systems to combat forces. The LRIP contract award is scheduled for September 1997. LRIP aircraft are those to be procured during the period of concurrency. In 1990, DOD performed a statutorily required analysis of the concurrency in acquisition programs partly to define the appropriate measures for evaluating the degree of concurrency and associated risk in programs. The Office of the Secretary of Defense defined a highly concurrent program as one that proceeds into LRIP before significant IOT&E is complete. Using DOD guidelines, concurrency in the F-22 program is high because the F-22 program is scheduled to proceed into LRIP well before any IOT&E is started. Further, considering the new technology advancements being developed for use in the aircraft, the level of concurrency increases the cost, schedule, and technical risks of the program. We found that development flight tests of critical F-22 technology advances are not scheduled to begin until about 1 year after LRIP is scheduled to start and over $2 billion will have been committed to procure F-22 aircraft. According to the F-22 acquisition plan, the Air Force will commit to LRIP quantities that increase from 4 aircraft a year to 36 a year (an 800-percent increase), totaling 80 aircraft, before completion of IOT&E. Production of 36 aircraft a year under LRIP represents 75 percent of the planned full-production rate. The estimated cost of those 80 aircraft is $12.4 billion. Figure 1 shows the planned schedule of commitments to procurement of F-22 aircraft and the estimated cumulative costs prior to completion of IOT&E. A first set of hardened tooling is required initially to produce the developmental aircraft for testing. Program office officials told us that the maximum quantity of F-22s that can be produced with the first set of tooling is about 6 to 8 aircraft a year. The concurrency of development, testing and production in the F-22 program is shown in figure 2, which shows concurrent development and production from September 1997 through February 2002. Low-rate production of the F-22 is scheduled to begin in September 1997. However, IOT&E is not scheduled to take place until December 1999 through February 2002. Thus, the testing is not scheduled to be complete until over 4 years after the start of production and the commitment at an estimated cost of $12.4 billion to procure 80 aircraft (4 preproduction aircraft and 76 production aircraft), or 18 percent of all 442 aircraft to be procured. Although laboratory tests are underway and simulations of the avionics are planned, the Air Force does not plan to flight test several of the critical F-22 technology advances on an F-22 until well after the start of production in September 1997. Flight tests of low observability are not scheduled to begin until September 1998. Although the highest risk element of the F-22 program was reported to be the integrated avionics, the first flight test of an F-22 equipped with a complete integrated avionics system is not scheduled to begin until September 1999, 2 years after the start of production. By the time that testing begins, the Air Force will have already made commitments to procure 20 aircraft and long lead materials for an additional 24. For programs entering the engineering and manufacturing phase of the acquisition cycle, the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 requires the Secretary of Defense to explain to the Congress any plans to procure more than 10 percent of the total procurement quantity in the LRIP phase. This provision of the act is not retroactive to the F-22 program. In 1991, when milestone II was approved for the F-22 program, the total aircraft procurement quantity planned was 648. Accordingly, 10 percent would have been 65 aircraft. Currently, 442 aircraft are to be procured, meaning 10 percent would be 44 aircraft. The number of F-22 LRIP aircraft currently planned is 80, exceeding 10 percent, in either case. The Air Force’s planned commitment to production of F-22’s prior to completion of IOT&E, as a percentage of total production, exceeds the commitments made for recent fighter programs except the F-15, in which the percent is about the same as the F-22. Figure 3 compares the planned percentage of aircraft committed to production before completion of IOT&E for the F-22 and percentages committed for other recent fighter programs. Although the actual number of F-22 aircraft to be acquired before completion of IOT&E is lower than in the F-14, F-15, F-16, and F/A-18, the other fighters were acquired before the end of the Cold War when a greater degree of urgency existed for procuring aircraft. The Air Force plans to use advances in technologies and innovations to provide high performance and increased reliability and maintainability for the F-22. The integrated avionics, engine, and stealth characteristics are the primary areas that increase the cost, schedule, and technical risk in the F-22 program. After reviewing the program, the DOD Defense Science Board (DSB) concluded that concurrency was acceptable and risks were readily controllable, but noted that the F-22 program is very ambitious technically. Descriptions of some of the problems that have occurred in the development program are included below. The purpose of these descriptions is to illustrate that there remain important cost, schedule, and technical risks in the F-22 program. The F-22 Program Office has taken a number of steps to reduce the technical risks of the program, including a 54-month demonstration/validation phase using an F-22 prototype, and a risk management program for engineering and manufacturing. Some deficiencies associated with the higher risk features of the F-22 have been experienced during ground tests, requiring expensive redesigns. The F-22’s integrated avionics are expected to provide unprecedented situational awareness to the pilot. The F-22 is the first aircraft to use integrated avionics, that is, critical systems such as the radar, the weapons management system, and electronic warfare sensors that work as one unit. The key to achieving the necessary performance is the successful development of highly advanced integrated computer processors, known as the common integrated processors, and large amounts of software. Avionics and software integration has been characterized by the DOD Defense Acquisition Board as one of the highest risks to the successful development of the F-22. The risk assessment was prepared for the DOD Defense Acquisition Board to evaluate the readiness of the F-22 to begin the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the acquisition cycle in 1991. This report in June 1991 explained that the estimated 1.3 million single lines of software code needed for the F-22 represented the largest software task ever for an attack/fighter onboard software program. Further, the DSB in 1993 rated the integrated avionics as the highest technical risk in the F-22 program. Program managers for the F-22 agreed in October 1994 that the avionics and software integration are the most risky tasks facing the contractors.