As the Army races forward to take flight in its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), Breaking Defense contributor and acquisition expert Bill Greenwalt sees too many troubling parallels with the Air Force’s infamous production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. With taxpayer dollars and Army tactical capabilities in the balance, he argues in the op-ed below that Congress should act to prevent a costly repeat of history. Almost a decade ago, Frank Kendall, the acquisitions official who is now Air Force Secretary, observed that the Air Force had committed “acquisition malpractice” by moving the F-35 to production years before it was ever flight tested. That decision sentenced the program to a plague of cost, schedule, and performance problems. Now, the Army appears to be following in the Air Force’s footstep as its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) lumbers down this well-trodden path. But with FARA the Army is not just mirroring the F-35’s mistakes, it h