The Air Force is asking for a fleet of 350 high-performance trainer aircraft to replace the current fleet of T-38 advanced trainers. While small numbers by defense budget standards, this could still be a $16 billion program. That’s not exactly chump change.
Contrary to what some people seem to think, the Air Force is going to have pilots for a while and those pilots will need to be trained. In fact, the Air Force is complaining about a pilot shortage, although I suspect that has more to do with airline hiring than anything else.
I instructed in the T-38 back in the 1980s. It’s a great jet, but it’s getting pretty old. They first flew in 1959 and the airframes have taken a lot of punishment since then. With a major structural refit they might get another ten years out of them but that’s about it.
The other issue that I see with the T-38 is that it was designed to teach you how to fly the jets of the late 50s and early 60s. Anything built after the F-4 flies nothing like a T-38.
The F-15, F-16 and presumably F-22 are actually much easier to fly than a T-38. I got a ride in a two-seat F-15 once and was amazed at how easy it was to fly. While the mission of an F-15 is extremely demanding the plane itself is pretty docile.
I looked up the requirements for the new trainer and most notably the Air Forces wants an aircraft that is capable of making a 180 degree turn at 7.5g “while losing no more than 2,000ft of vertical altitude and 10% of the initial airspeed”.
That sounds like a pretty high performance aircraft, but then the T-38 had better performance than some of the fighters of the day when it was first built.
To put that in perspective, we never pulled more than 6g in the T-38 and it couldn’t sustain that for very long because it would bleed off airspeed quickly. When I got my F-15 ride they pulled 7g and sustained it for quite a long time. It doesn’t sound like much difference, but 7g feels like quite a lot more than 6g especially over a long period of time. I can only imagine what 9g in an F-16 feels like.
Supersonic capability is not a requirement, although at least one of the contenders (T-50A) is supersonic. This doesn’t really surprise me. A T-38 student went supersonic exactly once during the program. That ended up being a very short training sortie because you burned up most of your gas doing it.
So it sounds like the USAF is willing to give up a little speed for turning capability, which makes sense the way today’s aircraft fly. We’re not teaching people to fly F-105s and F-4s any more.
The other big requirement is “embedded training with synthetic sensors and data link”. Cutting through the DoD jargon, they essentially want it to be able to mimic an F-22 or F-35.
Since it costs a lot to fly an F-22 or F-35, it seems that that they want to “offload” some of that training to a cheaper aircraft.
Let’s take a look at the contenders.
Raytheon/Leonardo T-100
Raytheon is partnering with Italian company Leonardo (formerly Finmeccanica, formerly Alenia-Aermacchi, formerly Aermacchi) to produce a version of the M-346 Master. Note that the M-346 was jointly developed with Yakovlev as the Yak-130. They’re different aircraft but still share a lot of DNA.
I’ll leave you to decide the implications of the USAF training in a Russian design given the current political climate.
The T-100 is powered by two Honeywell F124 turbofan engines without afterburner.
Two engines adds complexity but gives an additional margin of safety. Since the Air Force replaced the twin engine T-37 with the single engine T-6 I’m guessing that having two engines isn’t as big a deal for them as it used to be.
Lockheed-Martin/KAI T-50A
The T-50A would be a Lockheed Martin produced version of the Korean Aerospace Industries T-50.
The T-50 is a home-grown South Korean trainer that shares a lot of DNA with the F-16. It’s powered by a single GE F404 engine with afterburner, the same engine that powers the F/A-18.
There is also a lightweight fighter/attack version designated FA-50. This might be seen as an advantage for fighter lead-in training.
Boeing/Saab T-X
It takes a lot of chutzpah to name your jet after the contract you’re trying to win! The T-X looks a bit like a miniature F/A-18 with its high wing and canted twin tails. It’s powered by a single GE F404 engine with afterburner.
This is a “clean sheet” design, meaning it isn’t based on an existing aircraft.
I like the “stadium seating” as Boeing calls it. Back seat landings were always a challenge in the T-38 because the student’s head blocked most of your view. The T-X has the instructor sitting higher up than the student for much better forward visibility.
I’m not thrilled with the single engine, although it would certainly reduce cost and maintenance. Today’s engines are much more reliable than what the T-38 has so maybe I’m just being old-fashioned.
Northrop/BAE L-3
When I started writing this I was surprised that Northrop/BAE didn’t just go with an updated version of the Navy T-45 Goshawk. It seemed like a no-brainer given the partnership with BAE, who built the original Hawk for the Royal Air Force.
Well it turns out that they originally were going to build a version of the T-45 for the Air Force, but it couldn’t meet the performance requirements set out by the USAF. Instead they had to go with a clean-sheet design.
The L-3 seems to have a lot of T-38/F-5/F-20 DNA in it. The tail especially reminds me of the T-38/F-5.
It’s powered by a single F404 engine except without an afterburner like the F-20. I don’t believe the prototype has actually flown yet. The one pictures I could find are from high-speed taxi tests.
Sierra Nevada/TAI “Freedom Trainer”
Sierra Nevada (I thought they made beer) and Turkish Aerospace Industries are partnering to produce the “Freedom Trainer”. Because when I think “freedom”, Turkey is the first place that comes to mind these days.
The trainer would be powered by a pair of Williams International FJ44-4M engines. These were originally built for the light business-jet market but currently power a couple trainers like the L-39NG (Czech Republic) and M-345 (Italy).
The goal here is to meet the performance requirements with a lighter, cheaper more fuel efficient aircraft.
At this time I don’t believe this aircraft exists except on paper. In the software world they would call it “vaporware”.
Textron AirLand Scorpion
The Textron Scorpion light-attack aircraft could easily be converted to a fairly low-cost trainer ($20 million a pop). Unfortunately it doesn’t meet the performance requirements for the T-X program.
It’s powered by two Honeywell TFE371 turbofans without afterburner.
Textron would have to develop a clean-sheet design to get the kind of performance the Air Force wants.
For now they’re biding their time in case the requirements change.
Aircraft |
manufacturer |
Based on |
engines |
afterburner |
tails |
Summary
T-100 |
Raytheon/Leonardo |
M-346 |
2xF124 |
No |
1 |
T-50A |
Lockheed Martin/KAI |
T-50 |
1xF404 |
Yes |
1 |
T-X |
Boeing/Saab |
N/A |
1xF404 |
Yes |
2 |
L-3 |
Northrop/BAE |
N/A |
1xF404 |
No |
1 |
Freedom |
Sierra Nevada/TAI |
N/A |
2xFJ44 |
No |
2 |
Scorpion |
Textron AirLand |
N/A |
2xTFE371 |
No |
2 |
I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think the Sierra Nevada and Textron entries are serious players. Neither company is one of the “big guys” and we all know how political the procurement process is.
Between the remaining four, I would say it depends on how much priority they are going to place on cost versus performance.
My money would probably be on the T-50A except the Air Force may not want to give Lockheed Martin a “fighter monopoly” since they already have the F-22 and F-35.
Likewise Northrop just got awarded a contract for the next-generation bomber, so the Air Force may decide it’s Boeing’s turn. If Boeing doesn’t get this contract they may have to shut down their St. Louis production facility (the old McDonnell Douglas plant). Sure it’s political but that’s how this usually works.
A lot may also depend on who has the best simulator package, since simulator training is going to be a very big deal with this system.
Overall it seems to me that they want an awful lot of capability for a trainer, even an advanced one.
When a student showed up for the T-38 syllabus they had maybe 100 hours of flying time in the T-37 (today T-6). The T-38 phase of the program was challenging enough without having to teach sensors and data links.
I had about ten rides to get them to solo in a high performance jet without killing themselves. Then we had to teach two-ship formation, instrument flying, navigation, basic low-level flying and four-ship formation,. That was an awful lot to teach in six months and maybe 100 flight hours.
Even the AT-38 instructors at fighter lead-in mostly taught basic fighter tactics, gunnery and bombing. All the really cosmic stuff was taught when they learned to fly the actual fighter.
I’m just not sure how they intend to use all the capabilities of this aircraft unless perhaps they’re looking at a light-attack version (similar to the T-38/F-5) down the road.
I’ve been told by people who have worked on this sort of thing to see if the RFP (Request For Proposals) looks like it was rewritten to favor a certain aircraft. If that’s the case, you’ll know they had already made up their mind before they wrote it.
It’s like those incredibly specific want-ads where you just know they already had someone in mind but they still had to advertise the job opening.