ACE Common Aviation Support Equipment Challenge

FA2280-23-S-C001-001

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BLUF:

NOTE: This is an update to the original call posted 27 February 2023. Verbiage has been added to emphasize that there is no mandated timeline for request for proposal issuance following Spiral 2 or Showcase. The contact information was also updated to remove a specific point of contact and refer interested parties to the Contact Information section on SAM.gov. These changes can be found in bullet points 13 and 14 of the Government Contracting Terms and Conditions section. Help the United States Air Force conceptualize, design, and develop a highly mobile, multi-capable, resilient, and sustainable suite of aviation support equipment for the flightline.

OVERVIEW

The United States Air Force (USAF) is seeking an innovative suite of aviation maintenance and support equipment to address an important aspect of Agile Combat Employment (ACE), a scheme of maneuver that shifts operations from centralized, physical infrastructures to a network of smaller, dispersed locations, providing flexibility for friendly forces and complicating circumstances for adversaries. To learn more about the ACE concept, please check out this video.
The USAF recognizes the future of USAF maintenance and support equipment must be highly

mobile, resource efficient, multi-capable, resilient, and sustainable. Ideally, equipment and manpower demands will be reduced without degradation of operational capacity to swiftly execute missions.

FA2280-23-S-C001-001

The USAF encourages participants in this Challenge to offer technological solutions for

experimentation and/or feasibility study, as well as developed solutions. In either case, we’re interested in understanding all underlying technologies upon which the solution relies.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the Common Aviation Support Equipment Challenge are twofold: 1. The primary objective is to demonstrate the viability of equipment solutions that streamline and reduce the footprint of maintenance and support equipment necessary to service multiple types of airframes for Contingency Locations. 2. The secondary objective is to accelerate technology development that could lead to operational adoption of advanced capabilities by the U.S. Government.

CONTEXT

The USAF’s ability to effectively and efficiently operate at the edge of a battle area is essential to our superiority. Contingency Locations, also known as CLs, are located at or near the edge and act as non-enduring locations to sustain operations conducted to protect national interests.