Air Force Wants to be ‘Smart Buyer’ with AEDC Contract

Inside the 16 Foot Wind Tunnel at AEDC. Credit Phil Tarver via Arnold AFB

The contract that runs nearly everything at Arnold Engineering Development Complex has been reupped each year since 2003. But this time, the Air Force is thinking twice about how it handles its Tullahoma facility.

AEDC is one of a handful of sites where the Air Force tests and designs aircraft and their components. Most of the work, from running wind tunnels to picking up trash, is done by a coalition of defense contractors called the Aerospace Testing Alliance, formed specifically for handling the AEDC contract.

But things have changed in the last year. Air Force testing operations were reorganized as a cost-cutting maneuver, meaning decisions about AEDC are now made by officers in California. And under sequestration, every military base is under pressure to find savings, especially in the civilian workforce.

While officials haven’t counted out renewing the current single, overarching contract at Arnold, they’re also shopping around to see if they might prefer awarding a patchwork of smaller ones.