Letter to the Editor

By

In the DataStream section of your March 18 issue, you have an item titled, "Boeing-SAIC nab tank deal." You then go on to describe the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program as a "contract to develop next-generation tanks."

In the DataStream section of your March 18 issue, you have an item titled, "Boeing-SAIC nab tank deal." You then go on to describe the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program as a "contract to develop next-generation tanks."

About 60 seconds of research on the Internet would have informed your writers and editors that FCS is not a contract to develop tanks. It is an Army transformation program to develop a "system of systems" based on a distributed network-centric concept with all of the functionality necessary to be successful on the modern battlefield.

Calling the Army's largest acquisition program in history a contract to develop tanks is like calling the space shuttle program a contract to build a "longer range airplane."

Jill Meyers, program engineer,

Advanced and Emerging Technology Systems

Raytheon Co., Falls Church, Va.

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