On Tuesday, Boeing announced that it had accomplished taxi-tests for its five newly built T-7A Red Hawk trainer jets. They’re currently positioned at Lambert field in St. Louis, Missouri. That leaves the best way clear for a primary flight of this second-phase iteration of the supersonic jet trainer in the approaching days or even weeks—though, keep in mind, Boeing began flying two precursor prototypes of the T-7 way back in December of 2016.
In a press release, Boeing’s chief test pilot Steve Schmidt stated that “the flight controls and commands to the fly-by-wire system were crisp and the aircraft maneuvered exceptionally well. Every part operated as designed and expected.”
Unfortunately, that last remark can’t be prolonged to the T-7’s development process as an entire, because it has fallen well behind schedule. A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the federal government’s top watchdog agency, suggests the Pentagon and Boeing could also be in need of something akin to marriage counseling over the year-long delays in finalizing the corporate’s T-7A Red Hawk trainer that might cost the Air Force billions.
The report notes Boeing and the Air Force have differing interpretations of the previous’s contractual obligations, and characterised their relationship as “tenuous.” The corporate has run up over $1.1 billion in losses attempting to correct problems.
Just like the more seriously troubled KC-46 Pegasus tanker, the T-7 is a Boeing project that originally appeared like a slam dunk, but has amassed significant costs and delays because of unanticipated problems with subcomponents.
The most important source of the delays? Tests show the Red Hawk’s ejection seat handling crash test dummies lower in the burden range roughly. There have also been difficulties perfecting the T-7’s digital flight control system, finalizing training simulators, and producing a transparent accounting of sustainment requirements.
Sources cited by the report said the connection improved when the Pentagon chipped in to fund a few of the needed additional tests, but those sources expected that good will to deteriorate again as Boeing is required to pay for future tests.
To be fair, a “top Air Force official” later insisted to Breaking Defense that they’d an “actually incredible” relationship with Boeing after publication of the GAO report on May 18, and expressed optimism that there remained enough “flexibility” within the schedule to achieve objectives on schedule.
For now, a few of the five latest T-7As are slated to start flight tests at Lambert Field in St. Louis this summer. They’ll then be transferred to Edwards Air Force base in California for further evaluations.
The Air Force’s Next-Generation Supersonic Trainer
Boeing’s T-7 relies on a clean sheet designed and developed for the T-X competition, which sought to search out a substitute for its greater than 400 Norhtrop T-38 Talon supersonic jet trainers. This over-60-year-old design has served well, but is running long within the tooth and lacks the avionics to enable trainees to practice latest capabilities widely used on Air Force jets. The brand new jet trainer would also include hi-tech simulators that will further reduce training costs.
In September of 2018, Boeing’s two single-engine T-X prototypes—with tails harking back to the FA-18 Super Hornet jet—defeated rival proposals based on the F-16-like T-50 jet trainer and Italian MB-346, partially by competing aggressively lower on price. In 2019, the design was officially designated the T-7 Red Hawk in tribute to the Black World War II fighter pilots of the 99th Fighter Squadron.
The plan was for Boeing to provide around 351 T-7As, together with 46 simulators, at their factory in St. Louis, Missouri. Partner Saab was to contribute aft sections of the aircraft, mostly from a brand new facility in Indiana. This order—produced in 11 lots between 2025-2034—would cost a complete of between $7.2 billion and $9.2 billion, with a unit price per plane of $21.8 million. Technically, the contract might be optioned out to 473 aircraft and 120 simulators.
Boeing hopes to also eventually export over 2,000 T-7s abroad, a few of which is likely to be evolved into a lightweight fighter aircraft configuration much like the FA-50. Pitches have already been made to Australia, Brazil, and Serbia. Moreover, the Air Force may procure an extra 100 T-7s to meet a requirement for an Advanced Tactical Trainer, particularly to be used as ‘bad guy’ aggressor aircraft used for training. The T-7 can also be being offered to fulfill an analogous U.S. Navy requirement for 64 such ‘surrogate’ aircraft.
But before scooping up more sales, Boeing needed to finalize a production model jet within the Engineering Manufacturing and Development (EMD) phase for which it could leverage digital design tools that will require much less expensive prototyping. These included high-accuracy automatic drilling technology called ‘determinant assembly,’ which reportedly reduced hours needed for aircraft assembly by 80% and facilitated construction of 5 latest pre-production aircraft. These latest techniques led to a (thankfully short-lived) try and brand the jet Silicon Valley-style because the eT-7.
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Attack of the Crash Test Dummies
The rapid pace of T-7 development, nonetheless, slowed because of unsatisfactory test results of the aircraft’s ejection seat.
The ejection mechanism is designed to routinely blast the cover glass above the pilot open and outward before rocketing them to safety using a Collins Aerospace ACES 5 ejection seat. As a backup, the cover is also designed to shatter on contact, with breakers built into the pilot’s seat during ejection. Software then calculates when it’s safest to release the parachute and drop the seat from under the pilot.
An ejection systems’ safety is evaluated in sled tests, during which a sensor-laden crash-test dummy clad identical to an actual life fighter pilot sits in an actual ejection seat and simulated cockpit atop a rocket-powered sled. This sled is then propelled down a whole lot of meters of rail at just a few hundred miles per hour until the ejection system is activated. The outcomes are recorded using multiple cameras and other sensors. Lots of these tests were conducted by the 846th Test Squadron using its HHST facility at Holloman Air Force base in Latest Mexico, with findings transmitted in real time to Boeing.
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While the force generated by T-7’s system hit “barely acceptable” levels of injury for crash test dummies representing heavier pilots, it was inflecting unacceptable levels roughness on lighter-weight manikins which may be more representative of female pilots. Here, “roughness” means “risk of concussion upon ejection, body acceleration that might lead to spinal injury, and eye and neck injury.”
Each unsatisfactory test requires adjustments and more tests. They usually aren’t low-cost: a $9 million dollar contract, for instance, funded just 4 tests.
Until the ejection seat problems are deemed fixed, Air Force personnel legally can’t fly the planes—and even receive them—which holds up the strategy of issuing a production contract.
In accordance with the report, the issues (and solutions) boil right down to:
- The blast of the cover fracturing system is causing overpressure sufficient to cause a concession in 20% of simulated escapees as an alternative of the goal threshold of 5%. Reducing the quantity of explosives, and changing its location, may reduce the overpressure adequately.
- In several tests, “large cover fragments stuck to the test manikins”
- The seat must be perfectly aligned with the pilot’s spinal chord, or high G-forces risks causing “injury or death” when the parachute is deployed.
Reportedly, tweaks to the parachute systems software and the way it evaluates deceleration of the pilot have already made progress in reducing this risk. The general revisions to the ejection system, nonetheless, are expected to require seven more tests.
Boeing and the Air Force also don’t see eye to eye on the T-7’s flight control software, which interprets the pilots joystick commands while compensating for other aerodynamic aspects. Boeing expects that it’s going to be ready mid-2023, while Air Force specialists expect it’s going to require “five-to-six software iterations” to repair anticipated performance issues when performing tougher maneuvers.
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This relies on rocky performance already encountered, when the difference between the aircraft’s trajectory and where its nose is pointed (referred to as ‘angle of attack’) exceeds 25 degrees—a standard situation when changing elevation. In accordance with an engineer, when flying slowly at high angles of attack, T-7s exhibited “unexpected airflow across the aircraft, which resulted in undesired wing movement.”
Such problems will be corrected for via the flight control software without redesigning the airframe, and the Air Force has already claimed last December that flight control problems “thus far have been resolved and will probably be tested…” But experts consulted by GAO expected latest flight control issues to be identified during flight testing, and that each of the expected 5-6 iteration could take six months to finish, potentially delaying production by over two years.
The GAO also complains that Boeing has yet to supply an entire list of materials required to construct and maintain each T-7. This can be a problem since the Air Force desires to handle as much maintenance as possible in-house to attenuate dependence on external contractors, as is notoriously a difficulty with Lockheed’s F-35 stealth jet.
Currently, the service alleges that Boeing submitted only one-third of the overall ‘bill of materials’ three years after it was contractually required. Without that data, the Pentagon doesn’t know what parts it needs, or how much it’s going to cost to sustain T-7s—including the five newer pre-production T-7s Boeing has built.
The report also highlights the “on the right track but not yet complete” state of the ground-based simulator, specifically related to muddy visuals (apparently not representative of production hardware) and lack of software to interface the simulators with the aircraft (due in mid-2023).
The Boeing-Air Force Relationship
It apparently took 15 months for the Air Force and Boeing to work out the ejection system problem, because of disagreements on learn how to measure safety test metrics. The GAO report claims that meeting safety standards will take two more years, going by the present schedule.
Currently, the due date for a production order has been pushed back from 2023 to February of 2025, with expected first delivery following December of 2025 and designation as initial operations capable (IOC) coming no before Spring of 2027. But a delay beyond the date could have cascading financial implications.
The Air Force is already projected to spend $750 million extending the lifetime of lots of its T-38s—an investment which could grow if the T-7 is further delayed. And since the T-38 lacks so many capabilities, trainees find yourself spending more hours training on expensive combat aircraft that cost far more to fly.
Overall, the GAO report’s biggest beef is that Boeing appears to be operating on an optimistic schedule and assuming a “very high success rate” of forthcoming tests. The watchdog is skeptical that they are going to keep to that schedule, as there’s now “little to no margin” for delays because of earlier non-satisfactory test results.
Maintenance issues with the aircraft have contributed to the execution of only 42% of planned flight testing. The GAO note that “…the contractor has been capable of keep one prototype aircraft flying since it needed to borrow parts from the opposite prototype aircraft.”
The watchdog faults the Air Force for making a risk assessment that didn’t consider risks posed by concurrent development of inter-dependent components (problems with one part causing delay-inducing modifications to other parts) and timely resolution of contractor disputes. Going forward, it advocates a more realistic reassessment of when the T-7 will likely be ready, and establishes conditions under which it might be worthwhile to position a production order even when some parts of development remain incomplete.
The report’s authors are also weary of Boeing’s decision to construct the five T-7s at its own expense—before development is finalized and before the Air Force has placed an actual order. Though the choice is meant to cut back delays and costs by starting early procurement of long lead-time components, the GAO fears it could pressure the Air Force right into a premature production order which will eventually require expensive modifications of early production aircraft based on corrections made later in development. Nonetheless, had Boeing not built the pre-production T-7s, it seems likely delays can be much more serious.
Recently, Air Force secretary Frank Kendall downplayed the advantages of the digital design tools utilized in the T-7’s development, estimating that they only reduced costs by around 20%. To be fair, that also a substantial savings for expensive warplanes, even when falling wanting the sooner boasted paradigm change.
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In the massive picture, lots of the T-7’s problems are likely unavoidable parts of debuting a clean sheet air frame which might be sure to be ironed out over time. It looks like digital prototyping, while time-saving, couldn’t avoid the invention of unexpected problems that hadn’t been simulated upfront, as often occurs in aircraft development.
Perhaps this experience will persuade Pentagon procurers to position more value on mature airframes, even when offered at higher prices. Nonetheless, if the T-7 lives as much as its promise, it should eventually save the U.S. military—and taxpayers—billions of dollars by allowing pilots to finish more of their flight training on simulators, or on a supersonic jet that’s over and over cheaper per flight hour than a purpose-built combat aircraft.
It’s just nailing down ending touches on protected flying that’s proving more costly and time-consuming than expected. Boeing’s cadre of crash test dummies still have their work cut out for them.