84 | http://www.airinternational.comMILITARY BOEING BTX-1
T
he US Air Force has been fl ying
the Northrop T-38 jet trainer
for its advanced pilot training
programme since the early 1960s.
It has been a great advanced
trainer but many of the T-38s have been
fl ying for over 50 years and have been rebuilt
many times.
Today the T-38C only meets twelve of the
18 major US Air Force training requirements
for the advanced phase of the undergraduate
pilot training programme designed to produce
qualifi ed pilots to e ectively fl y fi ghters and
bombers. Back in early 2015 Brigadier General
Dawn Dunlop, the then Director of Plans,
Programs and Requirements, Air Education
and Training Command (AETC), commented
the T-38C is: “no longer a practical trainer
to prepare air force pilots for newer, more
advanced aircraft”.
Even if the T-X programme unfolds on
schedule, initial operational capability for the
new training system will not occur until 2024.
T-X full operational capability is scheduled for
2034 meaning that some T-38Cs will need
to soldier on in the advanced training role for
another 16 years or more!T-X requirements
The replacement programme for the T-38
was initiated by the US Air Force in 2010 and
the fi rst draft requirement documents were
released in 2012. In March 2015, revised T-X
requirements were released. They included
high performance capability; a need to
sustain a minimum 15 seconds at 6.5g and
an objective 7.5g so students can experience
fi ghter turn rates and high G levels.
Cockpits, which e ectively prepare students
for fi fth-generation fi ghters driven by high
capacity mission computers, software,
avionics and data links to allow for synthetic
sensors, in-fl ight training and playback.
Boeing’s contender is more than a trainer
aircraft but a training system with advanced
ground-based training devices and student
tracking systems.
Overall capability of the simulator system
provides high-fi delity training to reduce
the number of fl ight hours required for
each student, saving all-important defence
budget dollars.
On December 30, 2016 the US Air Force
released the fi nal requirements for its T-X
programme in an o cial request for proposal
which called for 350 T-X trainer aircraft and46 ground-based training systems.
An estimate of the programme’s research
and development phase was costed at
$1.5 billion, with a $16 billion procurement
price tag. Since those cost estimates were
released the US Air Force focused more on
total vs procurement cost and released an
estimated life cycle cost of $35.3 billion or
less over 20 years.
As of May 2018, fi nal T-X contenders appear
to be Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Leonardo
DRS. The winning contender’s customer, the
US Air Force, plans to base the T-X at fi ve
of Air Education and Training Command’s
bases; Columbus in Mississippi, Laughlin,
Randolph and Sheppard all in Texas, and
Vance, Oklahoma. Ultimately, each aircraft is
projected to fl y 350 hours per year.Partners
In an interview with AIR International, Boeing’s
T-X programme manager, Ted Torgerson,
discussed the background to, and the status
of the company’s contender, the BTX-1
model, imaginatively dubbed T-X: “The US
Air Force has reviewed our proposal [a joint
venture with Saab] and has asked a series of
questions, the fi rst of which were submittedStadium seating
Lon Nordeen provides an overview of Boeing’s BTX-1, the
company’s contender for the US Air Force T-X programme“Over time the requirements evolved.
We rapidly built a cohesive team
with Saab and our other supply base
partners; that is not always easy to do.”
Hakan Buske, President and CEO of Saab