CHANGE: USAF welcomes delivery of first operational T-7A Red Hawk.
The US Air Force (USAF) ushered its first new-generation T-7A Red Hawk advanced jet trainer into operational service on 7 January, when a formal arrival ceremony for the type was held at Air Education and Training Command’s (AETC’s) headquarters at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph (JBSA-R) in Texas.
This recent ceremony comes after the USAF’s first operational T-7A (serial 21-7005) was delivered to the Texas base from Boeing’s fighter production plant in St Louis, Missouri, on 5 December. Having now arrived at JBSA-R, the new aircraft has formally joined the 12th Flying Training Wing’s (FTW’s) 99th Flying Training Squadron (FTS).
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T-38C: Beginning of the End
This recent delivery marks the beginning of a new era in the training of future USAF fighter pilots as the service presses on with its quest to modernise its primary jet trainer fleet. For more than six decades, the service’s now-veteran T-38C Talon fleet has formed the backbone of its fast-jet training syllabus.
However, due to its advanced age and circa-1960s design, the Talon fleet is now struggling with maintenance issues and unavoidable obsolescence, becoming more expensive to maintain and no longer being representative of the technologies and capabilities offered by modern combat jets, such as the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II.
It lacks the modern digital systems and avionics required to prepare new-generation pilots for complex, multi-domain warfighting in fifth- and future sixth-generation fighters, like Boeing’s F-47.
While the USAF will eventually replace its ageing T-38Cs with the T-7A, but this process won’t start until enough Red Hawks have been handed over to the service. According to Cirium, the USAF still maintains a fleet of more than 480 T-38s. Despite this, USAF officials have cited availability issues with the platform as contributing to ongoing delays in the fast-jet pilot training pipeline.
The new plane, which looks a bit like a McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet with a shrunken body and a jumbo-sized cockpit, was “jointly developed by Boeing and Saab.” Here’s hoping it performs much better than some of Boeing’s more recent product.