Unapproved missile warning test successful - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Unapproved missile warning test successful

In a case of a mistake that turned out well, the Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Test Center in Tucson, Ariz., last year tested a missile warning system aboard the A-10 Thunderbolt II without the oversight or involvement of relevant Air Force and Pentagon evaluators.

But the testing of the AAR-47 missile warning system — which the Navy uses on the KC-130J aerial refueler and the Air Force on the C-130J Hercules transport — apparently went off to the Air Force’s satisfaction, according to Ron Moore, director of testing at the Tucson center.

Moore said the warning system has been installed in A-10s bound for Osan Air Base, South Korea, and Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany.

In its fiscal 2006 annual report, the Directorate of Operational Test & Evaluation at the Pentagon said the center’s use of the AAR-47 without the oversight and involvement of the Air Force Operational Test & Evaluation Center, or OT&E, within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, was “very serious because of the dependence of self-protection system operational effectiveness and suitability on proper aircraft integration for new mission environments.”

Moore said no one told him that the testing was a problem.

“If someone at OSD didn’t like it, they should have come to us directly. … We didn’t get any notification that we did bad,” he said.

OT&E, in its recommendations, said the center must get OT&E approval for testing the system on new platforms in the future.