T-X Competition to End in September with Selection of New USAF Trainer Aircraft
Officials will soon award a 350-unit contract to one of three competing aircraft teams.
According to officials, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) will select a new trainer aircraft by September 30 – before the end of the 2018 fiscal year. The aircraft will be one of the three remaining next-gen trainer candidates from the USAF’s ongoing T-X competition, either the clean-sheet T-X from Boeing and Saab , the T-50A from Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries, Ltd. (KAI), or the T-100 from Leonardo DRS .
The USAF will replace its aging fleet of Northrop T-38 Talon supersonic jet trainers with 350 new aircraft from the T-X competition, spending approximately $16 billion to acquire and maintain the new trainers over the course of their service life – one of the largest USAF contracts in recent times.
The seasoned T-38 has been in use since 1961, training nearly 50,000 pilots who would later fly aircraft like the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress , Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird , McDonell Douglass F-15 Eagle , and Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II . However, as the USAF transitions employs more and more cutting-edge technologies, a next-gen trainer is needed to better facilitate fifth-gen fighter aircraft pilot training for the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lighting II .
The winning T-X aircraft will serve as a platform to acclimate pilots to aircraft with extreme agility, full-sensor fusion, integrated avionics, supercruise, and consolidated and integrated battlespace management technologies.
Industry analysts currently favor the Lockheed/KAI T-50A – based on KAI’s T-50 trainer used by South Korea’s Republic of Korea Air Force and co-developed by Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F-22 and F-35; and the Boeing/Saab T-X – which, as a completely new design – benefited from additional development time due to the T-X competition’s repeatedly protracted award announcement.
While speculation has floated that the T-X award announcement would occur during the Air Force Association ’s Air, Space & Cyber (ASC) Conference from Sept. 17-19, those close to the program hinted at a decision coming through the following week of Sept. 24.
William Kucinski is content editor at SAE International, Aerospace Products Group in Warrendale, Pa. Previously, he worked as a writer at the NASA Safety Center in Cleveland, Ohio and was responsible for writing the agency’s System Failure Case Studies. His interests include 'literally anything that has to do with space,' past and present military aircraft, and propulsion technology. And also sportscars.
Contact him regarding any article or collaboration ideas by e-mail at
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