The final T-1 Jayhawk at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, took off for the Boneyard last month, as the Air Force continues to retire its venerable trainer for “heavies.”
After three decades in action, the Jayhawks are retiring rapidly. The last flight from Laughlin came Dec. 17, heralded by a five-plane flyover that also featured two T-38s and two T-6s.
“The T-1A is an excellent plane, it prepared pilots for the next plane they would be moving on to,” Capt. Nickolas Johnson, 86th Flying Training Squadron chief of operations, said in a release. “It gives pilots the opportunity to train on crew resource management, which is what they will do on the heavier aircraft.”
The Air Force is retiring the T-1s before they fulfill their expected service life to avoid “expensive engine overhauls,” according to budget documents released in April 2024. The retirements will free up “funding and instructor pilots for higher priorities,” the documents assert. Officials have argued the loss can be made up with a combination of simulators and other flying platforms, including the new T-7A Red Hawk.
USAF has been working on the retirement plan for several years now, first asking Congress to let it divest 50 T-1 Jayhawks in fiscal 2023. Data from the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group—the Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.—shows that 48 aircraft arrived there in fiscal 2023.
Another 52 T-1s were set to retire fiscal in 2024, part of a plan to shelve every T-1 at Laughlin as well as at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas; Vance Air Force Base, Okla.; and Columbus Air Force Base, Miss. That would have left just a few for combat systems officer training at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla.
But Congress barred the service from retiring aircraft until “full, fleet-wide implementation” of the new Undergraduate Pilot Training curriculum is in place, an action that wasn’t completed until April 2024. Through the rest of fiscal ’24, only 33 T-1 airframes arrived at the Boneyard.
In fiscal 2025, the Air Force is seeking permission to retire 22 more T-1s, including those used for combat systems officers, leaving 53 more to be retired through fiscal 2029.
Laughlin joins JBSA-Randolph in bidding farewell to all its Jayhawks—the Texas base had its final flight in July 2024.
The Air Force has significantly reduced or retired completely several other fleets in recent times, including the KC-10 tanker, the A-10 Thunderbolt attack jet, the E-3 AWACS, and the EC-130H and J variants. It is also making deep cuts to its aging F-15 fleet.