“Boeing T-7A Red Hawk Triples Progress” was the headline of an Apr. 29 Boeing [BA] press release on the company’s trainer for the U.S. Air Force, but top Air Force officials told the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel (HAC-D) the next day that the Red Hawk is facing significant challenges and that legislative action may not speed fielding of the trainer.
Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.), a former Navy F/A-18 pilot and business manager at Raytheon, now RTX [RTX], said at the hearing that he and Rep. Jake Elvey (R-Texas), also a former Navy F/A-18 and F-14 pilot, had lost a “good friend,” 47-year-old Air Force Lt. Col. Matt Kincade, in a T-38C accident on Nov. 21, 2019 at Vance AFB in Enid, Okla.
“My concern is around the T-7 and how we can go faster,” Garcia said during the hearing. “I’ve been asking this question for a few years.”
The Northrop T-38 “was not a good trainer in the 1960s or 70s,” he said. “It sure as hell isn’t a good trainer today, and it’s the widow maker. I think it’s killed about 149-150 aviators since it’s come online.”
Garcia asked Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin at the Apr. 30 HAC-D hearing what Congress can do to accelerate fielding of the T-7A “to avoid T-38 deaths” in the next two to four years.
“I’m not aware of anything you can do to make the program move faster,” Kendall replied. “We had to slip production out a year because of trying to negotiate and get the cost down and deal with some difficulties that have occurred in development–problems with the ejection system and some of the controls. I think that we’re working our way through those. I could get you a more detailed report.”
The Red Hawk had its first engineering and manufacturing development flight test last June (Defense Daily, June 28, 2023). Boeing has said that the T-7A’s digital fly-by-wire system will make Air Force flight training simpler.
In 2018, Boeing and Saab won an up to $9.2 billion contract for 351 T-7As to replace the Air Force’s T-38s.
Allvin testified on Apr. 20 that there are “some growing pains when you start with a new way of building and designing.”
“This started with more digital engineering, and so there may have been some things associated with that that hindered the pace of the development,” he said. “I am encouraged that it’s in flight test. This is perhaps where we can accelerate…We’re buying the first ones next year.”
Garcia said that shortening the T-7A fielding timeline would come with concurrency risk but that such penalties would not be as severe as for more technologically advanced aircraft, such as the Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35.
Boeing had targeted the third quarter this year for a decision to proceed into low-rate production of the T-7A, while the Air Force has aimed for the first quarter of 2025, Boeing said (Defense Daily, May 26, 2023).
Boeing said on Apr. 29 that the Red Hawk recently met goals in climate chamber testing, dynamic sled testing at Holloman AFB, N.M., of design changes to the RTX [RTX] Collins Aerospace ACES 5 ejection seat and Pacific Scientific EMC’s “canopy fracturing system to reduce the risk of injury,” and testing of new flight controls.
“Boeing completed development in February of a new software flight control law and since then, has flown the aircraft more than 10 times, reaching 25-degree angle of attack,” the company said on Apr. 29. “Additionally, three of those flights demonstrated the aircraft’s ability to achieve fine tracking while in high angle of attack, a key capability for pilot training. Incorporation of control law 17.5 clears the path for the Air Force to start high angle of attack and departure resistance testing” at Edwards AFB, Calif.