Breaking the Mission Planning Bottleneck: A New Paradigm

Abstract

Abstract : Mission planning has come a long way from the days of the Wright brothers first flight in 1903. Today, mission planning has grown into an activity as complex as the machines that carry out the missions. No longer a luxury, automated mission planning systems are vital to the success of current and future air operations. The history of automated mission planning development has been a chaotic combination of official systems and grassroots stovepipes. The Air Force has always leaned towards Unix based mission planning systems, but recent growth in the microprocessor industry has made personal computers a viable option. The Air Force's continued emphasis on Unix based mission planning systems designed to do everything for everyone has created a bottleneck which may become a critical failure point when examined in light of increasing mission planning requirements. This paper relies on up to date information obtained through interviews and recent publications to analyze this bottleneck from the perspective of F-16 mission planning. As F-16 mission planning requirements grew through the early 1980's, early mission planning systems progressed along two paths. The larger effort was in the large Unix based systems, which were generally better funded and large scoped projects. The second path was personal computer (PC) based systems, and while smaller in every sense has always been the preferred path by the users. Currently, two members of the Air Force Mission Support System (AFMSS) family dominate mission planning: the Unix based Mission Planning System (MPS) and the PC based Portable Flight Planning Software (PFPS). The size, cost, usability, and portability of the MPS systems have created a bottleneck that threatens the future of mission planning unless a new direction is taken. This new direction must feature heavier use of PC systems, with emphasis on integrated products as opposed to one master mission planner that attempts to fulfill everyone's needs.