An adjusted process for the U.S. Air Force’s acquisition of the Boeing T-7A Red Hawk trainer has been announced, with the decision on commencing production delayed by one year.
A joint venture between U.S. aerospace giant Boeing and Swedish manufacturer Saab, the T-7 Red Hawk was selected as the U.S. Air Force’s future jet trainer in 2018. The collaboration fought off Lockheed Martin, who teamed with KAI to offer the T-50 Golden Eagle, and Leonardo with the M-346 derived T-100, to win the T-X program competition.
Initially intended to enter service in 2023-24, the winning aircraft’s initial operating capability (IOC) date is currently scheduled for 2027. It will replace the Northrop T-38 Talon, a type which has now been in service for 64 years.
When the U.S. Air Force budget for FY 2025 was signed off in 2024, the intention was that the Lot 1 production contract for the T-7 Red Hawk would be awarded in 2025. Instead, it has recently been revealed that the purchase of production specification airframes will be delayed until 2026. The 2025 budget had already decreased the intended order from 14 airframes to 7.
In place of production airframes, the Air Force will instead procure four Production Representative Test Vehicles (PRTV) in FY 2025, with an estimated delivery during FY 2026. The test vehicles will allow Boeing to refine its production processes prior to the manufacturing of operational production units. They will also be utilized by the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) to conduct further trials with the aircraft type and develop a more informed training curriculum ahead of IOC.
The expected IOC of 2027 is not expected to be affected by the production pushback as preparations for this milestone can continue to take place using the PRTVs.
According to Andrew Hunter, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, the revised plan has been put in place to “reduce risk and increase our confidence in the aircraft design”.
He further added: “These acquisition updates include expanding test capacity, enabling the start of AETC’s curriculum development activities, and using a management approach which incentivizes Boeing to address emergent issues that were not part of the contract that was signed in 2018 and to accelerate elements of the program.”
T-7 Troubles
The Red Hawk’s entry to service has been impacted by several notable issues, including supply chain delays, quality control problems, and trouble with the aircraft’s ejection seat system. It was also reported that the aircraft suffered from roll instability at high angles of attack. Boeing states this was rectified by a software update.
What we thought at the time was the final pre-production T-7A was delivered to the U.S. Air Force in December 2024. At that time, a decision on whether the production contract would be issued was expected by February 2025.
In total, the USAF intends to procure 351 T-7A Red Hawk aircraft by 2034. Of the 1,189 T-38 Talons constructed, around 500 remain in service with the U.S. military. While this appears to leave the T-7 order short, it should be noted that the Red Hawk’s primary purpose is to fulfil the Air Force’s pilot training requirements. Meanwhile the T-38 Talon operates in a variety of roles, including equipment testing, test pilot instruction, and threat simulation.
More from The Aviationist
A number of T-38 Talons are even based at Beale AFB and Whiteman AFB to allow U-2 Dragon Lady and B-2 Spirit pilots, respectively, to maintain flight hour requirements without sacrificing the airframe life of their valuable frontline aircraft.
Boeing’s hope is to build a significant number of T-7 aircraft for U.S. and overseas customers, but so far has been unable to secure firm orders beyond those for the USAF. Japan, Australia, and Serbia have all been mentioned as potential sale opportunities.
Spain considered the T-7, along with the KAI T-50 and Leonardo M-346, to replace their Northrop SF-5M trainer aircraft. Based on the F-5, this trainer shares the same lineage as the T-38 Talon. Eventually, the Spanish Air Force settled on the Turkish Hürjet.
One potential sale could eventually be to the United Kingdom. Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, Chief of the Air Staff and figurative head of the Royal Air Force, recently commented at a lecture that “We don’t get what we need from Hawk today – we get about half of what we should get out of it.”. The Hawk T2, a development of the very successful BAE Hawk design, has faced problems with its Rolls-Royce Adour turbofan engine that has caused aircraft unavailability and even groundings. Despite an official out of service date of 2040, Knighton said he “would like to replace the Hawk T2 as soon as we can”.
.@ChiefofAirStaff has said the Hawk T2 is outdated and unreliable and that he would like it to be replaced
“We don’t get what need from the Hawk today,” Sir Rich Knighton said at the Freeman Air and Space Institute annual lecture
Read more 👇https://t.co/vbDiKWhUxA
— BFBS Forces News (@ForcesNews) November 27, 2024
This contract, though, would attract fierce competition from other manufacturers. Leonardo’s M-346 could leverage the company’s existing presence in the country as well as the future operation by both Italy, the main M-346 operator, and the United Kingdom of the Global Combat Air Programme, or Tempest, fighter.
A light fighter variant of the T-7 has been proposed by Boeing as a potential replacement aircraft for countries still operating types like the Northrop F-5, but no production ready example has yet been demonstrated.
