To better prepare tanker and airlift student pilots for low-level flying in combat environments, two Air Force Reserve Command majors—T-1 Jayhawk instructor pilots Randy Tiedt and Doug Stouffer with the 5th Flying Training Squadron at Vance AFB, Okla.—have devised a user-friendly, flexible map software program. It allows instructors and students to program updated threat scenarios via computer rather than the old grease pencil on a laminated paper map style of mission planning. The old system “just didn’t allow for changing scenarios,” said Tiedt, adding, “Without that flexibility we had no way to mirror scenarios of the real world.”
The last remaining T-1 Jayhawk at JBSA-Randolph, Texas, took its final flight to the "Boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., on July 15. The 99th Flying Training Squadron will train pilots using T-6 and simulator until it gets T-7 Red Hawk in fiscal 2026.