The Boeing [BA] T-7A Red Hawk had its first engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) flight test on June 28 from St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
The flight, which lasted about an hour, was the first U.S. Air Force acceptance flight of the T-7A.
Air Force Maj. Bryce “Triple” Turner of the 416th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards AFB, Calif., helmed the T-7A on June 28, while Steve “Bull” Schmidt, a former U.S. Navy aviator and Boeing’s chief T-7A test pilot, was the back seater.
T-7A production aircraft have the “Red Tail” symbol of World War II’s elite Tuskegee Airmen. The “Red Hawk” nickname stems from the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, a fighter flown by the 99th Fighter Squadron before the introduction of the P-51 Mustang. The 99th Fighter Squadron was the U.S. Army Air Forces’ first African-American fighter squadron.
Turner said that he is a third generation Air Force pilot, as his grandfather flew F-4s in Vietnam, while his father flew the F-16 and F-22.
Boeing spokesman Randy Jackson narrated a webcast of the flight on June 28th with Mike “Houdini” Quintini, a Boeing test pilot and former Air Force aviator.
Quintini said that the T-7A is easy to fly and has “a lot of power’ in the aircraft’s General Electric [GE] F404 engine, which provides 18,000 pounds maximum thrust. Given the plane’s 22,000 pounds gross weight, the thrust to weight ratio is more than .8–a “significant advantage over the T-38” that the T-7A is to replace, Quintini said. The T-38C thrust to weight ratio is about .65, as the T-38C’s twin GE J85 engines provide a total of about 7,700 pounds of thrust lifting an aircraft weight of 11,820 pounds.
Boeing has said that the T-7A’s digital fly-by-wire system will make Air Force flight training simpler.
Boeing is targeting the third quarter of 2024 for a decision to proceed into low-rate production of the T-7A and the Air Force is aiming for the first quarter of 2025, Boeing said (Defense Daily, May 26).
In 2018, Boeing and its T-7A teammate Saab won an up to $9.2 billion contract for 351 T-7As to replace the Air Force’s T-38Cs. The program schedule called for 14 T-7As to reach initial operational capability (IOC) in March 2026. Now the Air Force is projecting January 2027 for IOC.
The House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) draft version of the committee’s fiscal 2024 defense authorization bill, H.R. 2670, asks Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to provide HASC by March 1 next year with options to accelerate procurement and fielding of the T-7A (Defense Daily, June 21).
An en bloc amendment by Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) to H.R. 2670 said that a shortage of J85s has curtailed T-38C availability.
“Three years of delays for procurement of the Air Force’s new fighter trainer, the T-7 Red Hawk, amplifies the impact of the J85 engine shortage as the Air Force is compelled to continue to rely upon the T-38 as the Air Force awaits the arrival of the new training aircraft,” the amendment said. “Consequently with the T-7’s expected delivery rate, the Air Force will continue reliance upon the T-38 in pilot training for the foreseeable future.”
“The T-38’s aging airframe, especially its General Electric J85 turbojet engines, requires significant maintenance, and spare parts are becoming increasingly difficult to procure,” per Jackson’s amendment. “The committee notes that in May 2020, the Air Force switched from performing organically sourced engine maintenance on T-38 engines to relying upon contractor logistics and maintenance support for performing full overhauls. The committee is concerned that in recent years T-38 sorties have declined due to a lack of serviceable J85 engines. Problems with spare parts and limited fiscal resources have created a maintenance backlog preventing aircraft from flying, thereby constraining the number of pilots the Air Force can produce, and thus exacerbating its current pilot shortage.”