T-X programma ... the new trainer ... or next light multi-roll fighter ?

[Harald]

Bij de ontwerpen van de M-346 (T-100) en de T-50A, heb ik gevoelsmatig een meer fighter/bomber gevoel. Misschien komt dat ook wel doordat de basis van die 2 ontwerpen ook die capaciteiten idd hebben.

We zullen zien, eerst maar eens afwachten op de specs en meer info.

Kan me voorstellen dat ze gekozen hebben voor een motor in de serie General Electric F414-GE-400, dezelfde als van de Gripen E en de F-18E/F

Het lijkt mij handiger om in dit topic verder te gaan over de Boeing/Saab T-X kandidaat.

Mocht dit ontwerp winnen, dan kan Boeing en/of Saab eventueel een gevechtsversie ernaast ontwikkelen. Net zoals Northrop dat deed met de F-5A/B naast de T-38A.

idd, dat ik ook al even, nu is het een T-38A vervanger.
De huidige vleugel geeft niet echt aan dat er veel voorzieningen zijn voor ophangpunten voor het aanbrengen van bewapening. In iedergeval geen raketten aan de wingtips, zoals bij de F-16.

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Het lijkt mij handiger om in dit topic verder te gaan over de Boeing/Saab T-X kandidaat.

Mocht dit ontwerp winnen, dan kan Boeing en/of Saab eventueel een gevechtsversie ernaast ontwikkelen. Net zoals Northrop dat deed met de F-5A/B naast de T-38A.

.@BoeingDefense T-X uses forward and main landing gear from F-16, and internal equipment from @Saab Gripen fighter, officials say.

[Sparkplug]

Het lijkt mij handiger om in dit topic verder te gaan over de Boeing/Saab T-X kandidaat.

Lijkt vanuit mijn leken oog meer in huis te hebben dan louter een trainer.

Mocht dit ontwerp winnen, dan kan Boeing en/of Saab eventueel een gevechtsversie ernaast ontwikkelen. Net zoals Northrop dat deed met de F-5A/B naast de T-38A.

[Harald]

Boeing to Reveal New Details on its T-X Trainer Next Week

More details on Boeing's new T-X trainer should be unveiled Tuesday, a week before the Air Force Association's annual Air, Space and Cyber Conference outside Washington, D.C.

For three years, Boeing has been secretive about its proposal to manufacture the new twin-engine, supersonic jet trainer. The Chicago-based company, collaborating with Saab, is directly competing with Northrop Grumman Corp. for a new "clean sheet" design.

The Air Force wants a replacement for its T-38 Talon trainer aircraft, first produced by Northrop in 1959. The Talon is used to prep pilots for "front-line fighter and bomber aircraft such as the F-15E Strike Eagle, F-15C Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, B-1B Lancer, A-10 Thunderbolt and F-22 Raptor," according to the service.

The service hopes to buy 350 new trainer jets.

Photos surfaced last month on social media showing the Northrop version of the aircraft. Northrop spokeswoman Katherine Thompson confirmed to Defense News that the photos were of its trainer, which was conducting taxi testing in Mojave, California. Northrop is partnering with BAE Systems, L-3 and Rolls-Royce on the project.

Promo videos of Boeing's version were posted on the company's site days after Northrop's flightline tests. The official Twitter account for Boeing on Sept. 1 also posted, "Mark your calendars: #NewBoeingTX will be revealed in St. Louis on September 13" with a link to the sneak peek videos.

Other vendor teams such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and Korea Aerospace Industries, and Raytheon Co., Leonardo-Finmeccanica and CAE Inc. are offering modification designs to current aircraft, but are not competing in clean sheet designs.

At the upcoming AFA conference, Boeing will have five exhibit booths on the technology show floor, more than any other defense company presenting at the exposition.

http://www.defensetech.org/2016/09/09/boeing-to-reveal-new-details-on-its-t-x-trainer-next-week/

bekijk de promo video in bovenstaande link ....

[Harald]

Commander of USAF's AETC to fly T-50 in South Korea

Head of the U.S. Air Force's Air Education and Training Command (AETC) Lt. Gen. Darryl Roberson is on an official visit to South Korea this week, during his stay there, he will tour the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) T-50 production line and fly the jet at the 16th tactical fighter wing in Yecheon, North Gyeongsang Province.

http://alert5.com/2016/09/08/commander-of-usafs-aetc-to-fly-t-50-in-south-korea/

[Harald]

US Air Force Closes in on Assessment of Lockheed's FA-50

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/fa-50-air-force-lockheed-martin-crada-airworthiness-assessment-international-sales

[Ace1]

Hier wat meer te vinden over het Boeing ontwerp.

http://www.boeing.com/defense/t-x#/video-player/boeing-t-x-sneak-peek-1

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

New Images Offer Sneak Peak of Boeing, Northrop T-X Designs

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/tx-trainer-northrop-grumman-boeing-saab

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Northrop Grumman's T-X design breaks cover

Nog één te gaan en we hebben de volledige competitie in beeld...

Gevoelsmatig wachten we op de winnaar: Boeing-Saab.

[Sparkplug]

Northrop Grumman's T-X design breaks cover

Gareth Jennings, London - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly - 22 August 2016


The Northrop Grumman T-X prototype seen during taxi trials at Mojave Air and Space Port on 19 August. Its appearance is broadly similar to the T-38 Talon that it is aiming to replace. Source: Withheld

Three of the four offerings for the US Air Force's (USAF's) T-X jet trainer competition are now known, with Northrop Grumman's clean-sheet design being photographed for the first time on 19 August.

The single-engined jet was seen performing high-speed taxi trials at Mojave Air and Space Port in California ahead of an imminently expected first flight.

Details of the twin-seat aircraft had until now been largely kept secret by the company. A model had previously been briefly shown to reporters, but photographs were not allowed. Sporting registration number N400NT, the low-winged aircraft that has been built by Northrop Grumman subsidiary company Scaled Composites looks somewhat similar to the Northrop T-38 Talon that it is aiming to replace, albeit it with a chined-forward fuselage and single-engined configuration.

Northrop Grumman had originally planned to offer the Hawk Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) with its partner, BAE Systems. This option was later abandoned in favour of the clean-sheet design. Besides the Northrop Grumman/BAE Systems team, the USD1 billion T-X requirement is also being competed by Boeing-Saab, Lockheed Martin-Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI), and Raytheon-Leonardo.

Boeing/Saab is to offer its own clean-sheet design; Lockheed Martin is offering a version of the KAI T-50 (designated T-50A for the USAF); and Raytheon/Leonardo is to offer the M-346 (to be designated T-100 for T-X). Of these, only Boeing/Saab has yet to reveal details of its offering.

According to the USAF's fiscal year 2016 budget request, a T-X contract for upwards of 450 aircraft will be awarded about 12 months on from the release of a request for proposals that is expected before the end of 2016.

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http://www.janes.com/article/63129/northrop-grumman-s-t-x-design-breaks-cover

[Sparkplug]

Air Force Needs to Pull the Trigger On An RFP for A New Jet Trainer

Source: Lexington Institute; issued July 13, 2016

The U.S. Air Force flies the most modern combat aircraft and the oldest trainers of any major air force on Earth. In a world in which the difference between winning and losing in combat is most often a matter of the quality of military personnel and their training, the lack of a modern jet trainer is unacceptable. The average age of the Air Force's primary jet trainer, the venerable T-38 Talon, is 42 years.

Reliance on essentially an obsolete aircraft creates a maintenance nightmare, risks a catastrophic fleet failure that would halt all jet pilot training and creates a potential skills gap as new pilots move to highly sophisticated aircraft such as the F-22 and F-35.

Even though the Air Force is all about technology and airplanes, trainer aircraft have a tendency to fall to the bottom of the priority list. When defense budgets are flush, this is usually because there are external demands that focus attention on maintaining high readiness and a large force of combat-coded aircraft. When defense budgets are lean, attention goes to protecting the major modernization programs for combat systems. Now the Air Force is looking at a "Perfect Storm" problem of high operational tempo, tight procurement budgets and multiple major acquisition programs going into production in the next decade. Somehow it is never the right time for a new jet trainer.

Planning for this procurement, including development of requirements, consultations with industry and analysis of alternatives, began in 2003. The Air Force repeatedly slipped the expected time for pursuing a contract for a T-38 replacement to the right. A formal T-X statement of requirements wasn't released until March 2015. Unfortunately, the Air Force has announced that it will delay releasing the formal request for proposals (RFP) until the end of 2016 with initial operational capability for the T-X not expected until 2024.

A major reason for the delay has been the inability of the Air Force to settle on the critical performance requirements for the T-X. Initially, the idea was to demand that the T-X be a non-developmental item. But as additional requirements emerged, several potential competitors decided that only a clean sheet design, even with its potentially higher costs and greater risks, made sense. Most recently, the Air Force has begun to suggest that this new trainer might also serve as the basis for an A-10 replacement.

As any observer of the defense acquisition system knows, there are real dangers associated with unstable and ever increasing requirements. Costs go up, development times lengthen, risk increases and testing takes longer. The tendency with these one-every-half-century acquisition programs is to load them down with the requirement to respond to everything that might possibly be needed over the next 50 years. Such an approach is guaranteed to fail in the future as it has so often in the past.

Fortunately, the Air Force looks to have a rich menu of candidate platforms from which to choose. In fact, the number of teams in the hunt for the T-X and the variety of their offerings belies warnings made by analysts and outside experts over the past few years that this sector was in decline.

There are at least four likely offerings for the T-X. Raytheon has teamed with Leonardo (formerly Finmeccanica) to provide an enhanced variant of the latter's popular Alenia Aermacchi M-346 advanced jet trainer. Lockheed Martin is teamed with Korea Aerospace Industries to provide a version of the T-50, produced as an advanced trainer for the South Korean Air Force. Northrop Grumman had originally thought to provide an upgraded version of the BAE Systems Hawk T2 but since the initial discussions with the Air Force regarding high end requirements, both it and the fourth team, Boeing/SAAB, have indicated that they will compete but with clear sheet designs that have not yet been revealed. A fifth potential competitor, Textron and its teammate, AirLand, had intended to offer their Scorpion light attack jet, but apparently decided to withdraw when the Air Force levied additional requirements on the program. This may be the canary in the coal mine, indicating that the Air Force is overreaching with its requirements for T-X.

There is a window, albeit a narrow one, for the Air Force to acquire a new jet trainer before the bow wave of major acquisition programs – F-35, KC-46, B-21, advanced munitions, ICBM recap – hits procurement budgets. But this would require releasing an RFP and making an award in the most expeditious fashion.

Any further delays in this important, even vital, modernization program could get submerged in the anticipated budgetary battles to protect major acquisition programs for critical combat capabilities.

But this means that the Air Force has to temper its lust for additional requirements as well as manage its laborious process for developing bulletproof RFPs.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/175560/us-air-force-should-launch-rfp-for-new-trainer-soon.html

[Sparkplug]

FARNBOROUGH: USAF considers expanded role for T-X

By Leigh Giangreco, Farnborough | 12 July 2016

The US Air Force is considering expanding the scope of its T-X trainer requirement to include the role of an aggressor aircraft or potentially as a replacement for its Fairchild Dornier A-10 Warthogs.

Although the service is yet to issue a formal request for proposals on T-X, USAF officials have expressed interest in using the aircraft to fulfill the close air support mission of the A-10 replacement, also known as AT-X, said Dan Darnell, vice-president of strategic initiatives at Raytheon, speaking at the show on Tuesday.

"They made it clear that it'd sure be nice if there was some accommodation for air refueling beyond this point and the aircraft could be used as an aggressor and/or a replacement for the A-10," Darnell says.

Leonardo, Raytheon's airframe partner in the T-X contest, unveiled a new multi-role version of its M-346 trainer this week. The M-346T can switch between a trainer and combat role, and development will wrap up in about two years.


Raytheon, along with its partners, will implement a block upgrade on an existing airframe for their T-100 offering. The T-100 has aerial refueling capability via a hose and drogue system, but design engineering work to develop a boom receiver is ongoing, Darnell says.

T-X competitor Lockheed Martin recently scrapped its clean-sheet design for the trainer in favor of the T-50A, while Boeing/Saab and Northrop Grumman/BAE Systems teams are moving forward with new designs.

The air force is still finalising its requirements for the trainer and Darnell estimates that the service's final request for proposals should be issued by year-end, with a downselect at the end of 2017.

Raytheon's proposed aircraft already exceeds the service's stringent sustained 6.5g requirement, Darnell says.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/farnborough-usaf-considers-expanded-role-for-t-x-427313/

[Harald]

Boeing Likely To Market Mysterious Trainer Outside US  (helaas nog weinig/niets bekend over het ontwerp .. )

Whether or not it wins the US Air Force T-X trainer competition, Boeing and Saab are likely to market their next-generation trainer design around the globe.

Speaking to reporters Sunday in London, Boeing defense head Leanne Caret expressed confidence in the trainer design, even as she continued to keep details of the heretofore mysterious trainer design close to the vest.

"Regardless of T-X or any of our weapon systems, the reason we have been so successful is because we take a global view of all of our product lines," Caret said in response to a question about marketing the jet outside the US. "So I don't look to T-X being any different in that regard."

.../...

The global trainer market remains strong, so marketing the design globally makes sense. However, winning the T-X competition will remain the primary focus of all those involved in the competition, as the size of the US buy — which could potentially grow in the future — represents a procurement few other nations could match.

Additionally, many countries are likely to follow the US lead in selecting a trainer, especially those which operate the F-35.

.../...

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/show-daily/farnborough/2016/07/10/boeing-saab-market-mysterious-trainer-outside-us-tx-farnborough/86919356/

[Harald]

Dual-Role M-346 to Shift From Trainer to Fighter 'At Flick of a Switch'

Italy's Leonardo-Finmeccanica is promising that its planned M-346 dual-role aircraft will be able to turn from trainer to fighter "at the flick of a switch."

.../...

You could keep the armaments, but with one switch stop them being fired," he said. "Nobody else can do this," he added.

With both air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons planned for the aircraft, Leonardo-Finmeccanica is hoping to woo customers looking for the economy of one aircraft doing two jobs.

"We realized customers need an aircraft that can do two missions," said Ghione.

Leonardo-Finmeccanica will also present at Farnborough a mock-up of the version of the M-346 that will be offered — with Raytheon as prime contractor — in the US TX trainer bid.

.../...

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2016/06/20/dual-role-m-346-shift-trainer-fighter-flick-switch/86133754/

[Harald]

The T-X Is How America Will Train Its Future Fighter Pilots

The U.S. Air Force is working on a set of system specifications for a new next-generation advanced jet trainer to replace the long-serving Northrop T-38 Talon, which first became operational in 1961.

While the venerable Talon remains an outstanding trainer, the diminutive twin-engine supersonic jet can no longer meet the demands of training pilots to fly advanced fifth-generation stealth fighters such as the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

As such, the Air Force hopes to replace the T-38 with 350 new advanced jet trainers under a program it calls the Advanced Pilot Training program, or simply T-X, which includes a fully integrated aircraft, ground-based training system and sustainment elements.

The service finalized the requirement for the new aircraft earlier this year.

"The T-X will replace the T-38," Skip Hinman, the Air Education and Training Command's branch chief for Advanced Pilot Training (APT) — or T-X — requirements, told The National Interest.

Hinman explained that both he and his father flew the same T-38 during pilot training. "It's a 55-year-old aircraft today, and by the time we're completely done with fielding the T-X, the T-38 will be 73 years old."

The T-38 was originally developed to train pilots to fly so-called third generation fighters like the Convair F-106 Delta Dart and F-105 Thunderchief. In fact, one retired Air Force pilot — who flew the Delta Dart — said that the Talon handles remarkably similarly.

But while the Air Force could make the T-38 work for training pilots to fly more advanced fourth-generation fighters like the Boeing F-15C Eagle and the Lockheed Martin F-16C Fighting Falcon, the service was forced to shift training to formal training units where young aviators learn to fly operational fighters.

"As we moved onto fourth-gen aircraft like the F-15 and the F-16, gaps began to develop in the capabilities of the T-38," Hinman said. "Those gaps further increased now as we move onto fifth-gen capabilities like the F-22 and the F-35."

Indeed, the situation now is such that the Air Force has moved two-thirds of the pilot training tasks that were originally intended to be completed in undergraduate pilot training into formal training units that fly the F-15, F-16, F-22 and F-35.

The practice is expensive because of the high cost of flying those aircraft — and because it eats up the precious airframe life of those pricey machines. "The goal with T-X is to pull those tasks back into the advanced pilot training program," Hinman said.

There are 18 specific tasks that prospective pilots need to learn while qualifying to fly a fighter in the U.S. Air Force. Currently, 12 of those tasks have been pushed to the formal training units. Most of the gaps are "transferable" skills such as flying air-to-air, night flying, operating complex avionics and aerial refueling.

For air-to-air training, for example, the T-38 can sustain less than 5.5G turns operationally.

"We know we need an aircraft that has a greater performance capability," Hinman said. "The T-X minimum requirement for sustained Gs is 6.5. We refer to that as the threshold requirement in acquisitions speak, the maximum or desired capability is 7.5G."

The Air Force has also set the bar for a minimum "angle of attack" capability of 20 degrees, with an objective requirement of 25 degrees AOA.

"When you combine those two capabilities, you begin to see a platform where we can train in the types of air-to-air skill sets that they need to develop in a trainer aircraft," Hinman said. "When they move onto a fifth-gen, the capabilities are beyond that, but they have developed the baseline fundamentals they need."

Another T-38 limitation is that pilots cannot train with night-vision goggles, but night-vision capability will be mandatory on the T-X. The new trainer will also include aerial refueling training capability.

"That's a substantial, very significant improvement," Hinman said. "There is no air refueling training in the T-38. In the T-X — as a threshold requirement — we will be able to perform air refuel training in a very sophisticated ground based trainer. For the aircraft, that will be an objective requirement. The desired capability is that the aircraft itself will be able to perform air refuelings."

The T-X will also be able to replicate the cockpit environment found in fifth-generation fighters such as the F-22 and F-35. The T-X will include not only a large area display similar to the one found on the F-35, but simulate a multitude of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons and sensors onboard the aircraft.

Onboard, there will be a simulated radar and potentially a targeting pod (the targeting pod is something the Air Force wants ideally, but the threshold requirement is for a targeting pod in the simulator), and the students will be able to fuse data from multiple sources — with a real and simulated datalink — just like a pilot inside an F-22 or F-35, Hinman said.

The Air Force calls the ability to simulate weapons and sensors onboard the aircraft "embedded training."

The current T-X program is geared purely towards replacing the T-38s being used for Undergraduate Pilot Training and the "Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals" course. The current program won't address the need to replace Talons being used for other purposes like testing, or at aggressor units such as the ones that fly alongside F-22 squadrons in Virginia and Florida.

But the Air Force is mandating that the T-X aircraft be adaptable for future modifications. "We've designed in some flexibility and adaptability to those future needs," Hinman said. "We have designed in excess space, weight, power and cooling (SWaP-C)."

The T-X airframe will be built with the ability to accept additional line replaceable units to host additional avionics — including the power and cooling necessary to handle those electronics. The airframe itself will also have the ability to handle additional weight and the wiring needed to install weapons hardpoints on the wings.

There will also be space in the nose to add a real radar should the need arise. Moreover, even if a contractor chose not to include a real aerial refueling capability onboard the T-X, the requirements will state that the aircraft have the ability to add in that capability later, without major modifications.

"We're intentionally building that in," Hinman said.

The Air Force — which describes the need for the T-X as "existential" — hopes to have the new jet achieve initial operational capability no later than 2024.

"We on a timeline to meet IOC in 2024 and a full operational capability in 2034," Hinman said — noting that's also the date the T-38 will be finally retired. To meet that deadline, the Air Force will have to work quickly. The service hopes to release its request for proposals this December and award a contract by the following December in 2017.

To meet the T-X requirement, Northrop Grumman and Boeing are both designing new "purpose built" aircraft. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin is offering a modified T-50 — which it co-developed with South Korea for the T-X requirement.

The last contender is Raytheon, which has teamed up with Italy's Alenia — recently renamed Leonardo — to offer the T-100 Master, which originates as a co-development effort with Russia's Yakovlev.

The current T-X program is the Air Force's second attempt — ongoing since 2008 — to replace the T-38 Talon. The Air Force seems committed to developing and fielding the new jet, however, the service's budgets are unpredictable given the turmoil in Congress.

Nonetheless, if the Air Force succeeds in developing the T-X, it would open the door to many new markets for the winning contractor. With the majority of America's allies purchasing the F-35, those nations too will require a new trainer.

For those future F-35 customers, the T-X could be their trainer of choice.

https://warisboring.com/the-t-x-is-how-america-will-train-its-future-fighter-pilots-36bace950606#.2ldyh01ky