WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force plans to fly its first T-7A Red Hawk trainer halfway across the country to Edwards Air Force Base in California for further testing as soon as Oct. 26.
Col. Kirt Cassell, the Air Force’s T-7 program manager, told Defense News on Friday that the service’s first 4 T-7 test pilots are days away from starting their familiarization and training flights at Boeing’s facility in St. Louis, Missouri.
Those Air Force pilots’ flights will pave the way in which for this primary T-7, which Boeing officially delivered to the Air Force in mid-September, to travel to Edwards in a series of ferrying flights possibly next week, he said.
These are experienced pilots with 1000’s of flight hours each, he added, and would likely just need about two flights before becoming qualified.
“They’re trained to have the ability to fly just about any aircraft you set them in, but you continue to have to get them qualified in that aircraft,” Cassell said. “That sometimes takes a handful of sorties.”
The T-7 will likely be the Air Force’s next jet aircraft for training recent pilots. It’s designed to emulate a fifth-generation fighter equivalent to the F-22 and F-35. The Air Force plans to purchase 351 Red Hawks to exchange its 504 aging T-38 Talon trainers.
But this system is years behind schedule as a result of problems equivalent to a potentially dangerous escape system and faulty flight control software. The T-7 was originally scheduled to succeed in initial operational capability in 2024, but that has now slipped to spring 2027.
Boeing officials have continued preoperational maintenance and other support for the T-7 for the reason that Air Force accepted the primary one. Boeing said in an email to Defense News that ground testing of the jet’s latest software is complete and that the corporate’s own flight testing is about to start.
Cassell said Boeing pilots are scheduled to fly the T-7 on Oct. 20.
The Air Force and Boeing are also going through testing processes to make sure no surprises pop up in the course of the ferrying flights.
Cassell said that the T-7, as a brand new aircraft, has “run right into a couple [of] growing pains” that the service and Boeing are working through. For instance, he said, a leaking aileron was discovered on the T-7 and needed to get replaced.
But Cassell described such nonconformance problems as standard for a brand new program. Although the late-October delivery of the T-7 to Edwards is barely behind the Air Force’s expectation earlier this yr that it could occur in September, Cassell said he’s comfortable with this system’s pace.
“It’s the fee of doing business if you put together a brand new aircraft,” he said. “We’re stretching its legs, attempting to get it on the market and flying. … There’s a steep learning curve.”
The ferrying flights will likely take two or three days, he said, and involve three or 4 stops along the way in which. Those stops will give the pilots a likelihood to rest and for a support crew to refuel the T-7 in addition to take a look at how well it’s performing.
A Boeing Challenger business jet, which may even carry spare parts, maintainers, and other support crew and pilots, will shadow the T-7. The ferrying pilots will include Air Force pilots from Edwards’ 416th Flight Test Squadron, which is able to receive qualification on the jet next week, and Boeing test pilots.
“It’s an in depth effort” to organize this primary T-7 for the roughly 1,800-mile flight to Edwards, Cassell said.
“It hasn’t been flown loads,” he added. “We haven’t tested its navigation system yet. So it is advisable have an aircraft with a known, tested, fielded navigation system [chase the T-7] so the 2 aircraft can safely get across the country.”
Cassell said the Oct. 26 goal for the ferry flights to start will depend upon weather conditions. Thunderstorms or low, heavy clouds could prompt the Air Force to delay takeoff and wait for clearer skies.
Boeing has also worked at Edwards to organize for the primary T-7′s arrival, Cassell said, equivalent to by delivering and establishing a simulator and other activities to prepare for flight tests. Each Boeing and Air Force test pilots will fly the T-7 once it gets to Edwards.
Cassell said the Air Force can be continuing to check fixes to the T-7′s problematic escape system and flight control software, which earlier this yr caused this system to be re-baselined and fall further behind schedule.
Tests of the T-7′s escape system in 2021 found it might be dangerous and cause concussions or other injuries to ejecting pilots. The Air Force and Boeing worked to revamp it.
In the following two or three weeks, Cassell said, the Air Force plans to check the escape system’s redesigned drogue chute at an on-the-ground testing site in Utah run by Collins Aerospace, a subsidiary of RTX. And work is underway to model how the T-7′s cover fractures to permit a pilot to eject through it.
The remaining tests should tell the Air Force and Boeing how else the escape system’s design needs tweaked, he said, and people changes will undergo testing on the bottom in January or February.
The T-7 that can soon fly to Edwards has received recent and updated flight control software, Cassell noted. Those flight controls are still being refined, he said, however the test aircraft have all of the changes needed to start out flight testing.
More Red Hawks on the way in which
The Air Force can be preparing for the delivery of the following 4 T-7s in the approaching months.
Boeing is predicted to deliver the Air Force’s second T-7 across the first week of November, Cassell said, and it should be flown to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida for testing in the bottom’s McKinley Climatic Laboratory in mid- to late November. An F-15 or F-16 from Eglin’s fortieth Flight Test Squadron will likely “chase” this T-7 on its trip.
The climate testing is designed to emulate various temperatures and weather scenarios to be sure the T-7 can operate safely in a wide range of conditions. At one point, the lab will subject the T-7 to cold soaking, where the jet is immersed in frigid temperatures after which operated. One other test is known as solar loading, where lights replicating the effect of long exposures to vibrant Texas sun on a flight line are shone on the T-7 to make sure it runs as intended.
Once that T-7′s climate testing is finished in January 2024, Cassell said, it should probably fly back to St. Louis for more flight tests, and later out to Edwards for a brief period of mission systems testing.
The third T-7 can be on its way and is predicted to fly to Edwards around the tip of November, after Thanksgiving, he added.
The fourth and fifth T-7s are still on course for delivery by the tip of December. Those jets will stay on the St. Louis facility for the immediate future, where the Air Force will conduct technical order certification and verification. That may be a detailed process through which Air Force and Boeing maintainers go over the T-7′s manuals to be sure that, for instance, the procedure for changing a battery within the plane is precisely the way it is described in writing.
“It could [find problems] so simple as: ‘It says remove 10 screws … but there’s only nine screws,’ ” Cassell said. “It’s labor intensive, however it’s very vital to be sure that we’re doing appropriate sustainment and maintenance on the aircraft.”
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.