The Air Force plans to buy four more production-representative T-7 jets for test and delay the first production contract by a year, until fiscal 2026—the latest setback to acquiring USAF’s first new trainer in decades.
The plans increase the test fleet from five to nine, mostly at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where the developmental flight test campaign has been underway since November 2023, when the Air Force formally took possession of the first aircraft.
In a Jan. 15 release, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Andrew P. Hunter said the additional test aircraft would allow Air Education and Training Command to more quickly develop future curriculum for the T-7, while also addressing “emergent issues.”
Officials have told Air & Space Forces Magazine in recent weeks that the T-7 has encountered problems during testing. Multiple updates to the T-7’s flight control software have been required, delaying progress. According to the commander of Edwards’s 412th Test Wing, Brig. Gen. Douglas P. Wickert, the problem centered on control issues when the aircraft was operating at high angles of attack.
The T-7 will eventually replace the aging T-38 Talon as the Air Force’s advanced trainer. Now averaging about 60 years of age, the T-38 has had safety issues of its own. But Wickert said the Air Force did not want to rush the T-7 workup.
“The T-38 is a dangerous aircraft,” he said in December. “We don’t want something that’s just as dangerous.”
A Boeing spokesperson acknowledged the flight control setbacks, but said the problem is now solved.
“We experienced a delay, but the issues have been resolved and the program is pressing forward with high angle of attack testing up to 30 degrees,” a Boeing spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine before the latest Air Force announcement. The spokesperson said such issues “are not uncommon when testing a new aircraft.”
Wickert and the Air Force’s chief test pilot for the T-7, Lt. Col. Jonathan “Gremlin” Aronoff, expressed optimism the program was getting on track.
“Software blocks are a normal part of developing an airplane,” Aronoff said. “As we find things, we’ll fix them and move forward. So it’s very much an iterative process.”
Yet as the number of test aircraft will increase, the timeline for the program to clear Milestone C and start getting production aircraft continues to slip. In its fiscal 2025 budget request, the Air Force planned to buy its first lot of seven production T-7s this year. Now it wants to push that lot buy to fiscal 2026.
The T-7’s launch has had ups and downs from the start. USAF awarded Boeing a contract for 351 aircraft in 2018, and one year later unveiled the “Red Hawk” moniker as they announced the T-7 had passed its critical design review. By then Boeing was flying two production-representative T-7s and boasting that it had “revolutionized” aircraft design by using digital methods to go from the drawing board to first flight of the prototype in three years.
Along the way, however, issues emerged. In 2021, the Air Force revealed that the T-7 suffered from “aircraft wing rock” at high angles of attack, making it unstable in the roll axis. In late 2022, after the rollout, issues with the flight control software and escape system came to light. The ejection seat was required to accommodate a wider range of body sizes, and what was eventually revealed as faulty instruments caused problems with testing data. And in early 2024, Boeing identified quality problems with some T-7 parts.
Meanwhile, projected initial operational capability was repeatedly delayed. How projected IOC has slipped:
- At contract signing in 2018: End of fiscal 2024
- 2022 (in 2023 budget request): Q1 of fiscal 2026
- 2023 (in 2024 budget request): Q2 of fiscal 2027
- 2025 (in 2025 budget request): Q2 of fiscal 2028
Now the Air Force is trying to accelerate IOC once again, with with hopes of reaching IOC by 2027, the Jan. 15 release said.
“We appreciate the partnership with the U.S. Air Force and are committed to providing our warfighters with the safest, most-advanced training system in the world,” interim Boeing Defense, Space and Security president and CEO Steve Parker said in a statement to Air & Space Forces Magazine about the new plan. “This innovative approach allows us to provide a production-ready configuration to the Air Force prior to low-rate initial production, further reducing any future risk to production. This will accelerate the path to delivering this critical capability on the timeline the Air Force needs.”
Slower procurement is another result of all the delays:
- In its 2023 budget request, the Air Force projected that it would buy 21 T-7s in 2025 after procuring 14 the year before
- In its 2024 request, that projected number dropped to 14 T-7s in 2025 as the first year of production.
- In its 2025 request, the buy was set for just 7 T-7s.
- Now, it will procure 0 production T-7s.
To execute the adjusted plan, the Air Force will seek Congressional action in the months ahead. Lawmakers have already expressed skepticism and frustration with T-7 delays, inserting report language in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act requiring a “schedule risk assessment” of the T-7A, “at the 80 percent confidence level, that includes risks associated with the overlap of the development, testing, and production phases of the program and risks related to contractor management.”