Originally Posted by
YellowTom
Buying "off the peg" is working well for some of our most recent big purchases. We don't have a P-8D or an RC-135Z etc.
Buying in a model as close as possible to Commercial Off The Shelf is also resulting in challenges in terms of meeting our own regulations, such as evidence for certification, or how much we recognise the opinions of another certifying body, if we cannot easily access the evidence ourselves. None of these things are quite "free", if we judge not only in monetary costs, but risks and flexibility etc as well.