The Air Force will officially retire the T-37 twin-engine trainer aircraft on Friday at a ceremony at Sheppard AFB, Tex. The service began using the Tweet in 1957 and has trained more than 78,000 pilots in it, according to a Sheppard release. Sheppard’s 80th Flying Training Wing conducted its last T-37 training flight on June 17 as part of the unit’s Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program. Last year, the Air Force began using the T-6 Texan II in place of the Tweet for specialized undergraduate pilot training. During Friday’s retirement ceremony, four T-37s will take off from Sheppard one last time on a flight to the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., for placement in storage.
A legislative standoff has led to a lapse in a $4.26 billion small business innovation contracting program widely used by the Air Force and could spell the end of it entirely, industry sources warned Air & Space Forces Magazine.
