Editing Electronic Systems Center (section)

=== Fort Franklin ===
'''Fort Franklin''' ({{coord|42.4729|-71.3033|type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-MA|display=inline}}) was an on-base encampment in the 1990s used for the purpose of testing new technology. The ESC had developed many of the [[radar]]s and sensors used by [[military aircraft]], and had created many of the command and control systems. However, when these systems were deployed for [[Operation Desert Storm]], many did not work as advertised or communicate information to one another.
In October 1993, [[Lieutenant general|Lieutenant General]] [[Charles E. Franklin]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/107029/lieutenant-general-charles-e-franklin/ |title=Biographies : Lieutenant General Charles E. Franklin |publisher=Af.mil |access-date=2014-07-23}}</ref> took over as Commander of the ESC. ESC was the home of most of the new [[command and control]] technologies being sent to the war, but was getting a bad reputation for the lack of quality in the systems sent to the war. He decided to hold a [[Military exercise|technical exercise]] to emulate a deployed headquarters using the equipment ESC was producing, and test the reports.

The technical exercise went live in July 1994. The encampment used a patch of grass near the end of the [[runway]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=&daddr=42.463486,-71.277065&hl=en&geocode=&mra=mi&mrsp=0&sz=16&sll=42.464436,-71.276636&sspn=0.00592,0.017059&ie=UTF8&ll=42.464222,-71.276003&spn=0.00296,0.008529&t=h&z=17 |title=Chennault St - Google Maps |publisher=Google Maps |date=1970-01-01 |access-date=2010-07-29}}</ref>  Using tents, trailers, and communication vans inside a guarded perimeter, the area was quickly dubbed “Fort Franklin.” It was staffed by engineers from every program office and a few junior military. Major Steve Zenishek, with recent [[Gulf War]] experience, became the installation “commander” and was able to show off that the great capability indeed worked fine alone, but unfortunately didn't work well with others.{{Clarify|reason=Other systems, perhaps?|date=May 2016}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.acq.osd.mil/osjtf/library/library_standards_osarch.html |title=OSJTF - Library/Index - Standards and Architecture |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120319183226/http://www.acq.osd.mil/osjtf/library/library_standards_osarch.html |archive-date=2012-03-19 |publisher=Acq.osd.mil |access-date=2014-07-23}}</ref>

Rather than take the failure as a defeat, General Franklin used it to encourage the staff to rebuild the systems under development to [[Interoperability|interoperate]]. Subsequently, by the time the second Fort Franklin occurred on 1–16 May 1995, the systems were beginning to communicate. For the first time, the results of calculations performed by one system were [[Telecommunications engineering|transferred automatically]] to another system for further interpretation or processing.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mitre.org/news/digest/archives/2000/fielding_new_tech.html |title=The MITRE Digest &#124; Experimentation: Fielding New Technologies Fast |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130905014630/http://www.mitre.org/news/digest/archives/2000/fielding_new_tech.html |archive-date=2013-09-05|publisher=MITRE |date=Dec 2000 |access-date=2014-07-23}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R_JSAAAAMAAJ |title=Software Defined Radio: Origins, Drivers and International Perspectives |publisher=Wiley |date=March 2002|isbn=9780470844649 |access-date=2014-07-23}}</ref>

Not wanting to lose the expertise that had created this success, LtGen Franklin established an ongoing experimentation facility at Hanscom known as the Command & Control (C2) Unified Development Environment (CUBE). CUBE was later renamed the C2 Engineering and Integration Facility (CEIF).

The experience of Fort Franklin was instrumental in development in 1997 of the Air Force's major experiment, the Expeditionary Force Experiment (EFX 98), which became a Joint EFX ([[JEFX]]) in 1999.