Boeing marked the start of its flight-test programme for the T-7A Red Hawk advanced jet trainer when the first taxi tests were completed at its St Louis facility in Missouri on June 9.
The start of testing followed the receipt of the new trainer’s Military Flight Release from the USAF, which paved the way for the production-standard variant of the T-7A Red Hawk to make its first flight and authorised military pilots to conduct flight testing. While Boeing – which has teamed up with Saab to deliver the T-7A to the USAF – publicly unveiled the first Red Hawk on April 28, 2022, the Military Flight Release was delayed by issues with the trainer’s canopy fracturing system and the Collins Aerospace ACES 5 ejection seats discovered during testing of the escape system.
The T-7A is one of five Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) aircraft being produced as part of a contract awarded to Boeing in September 2018. It will carry out its initial test flights from Lambert International Airport, St Louis, before moving to Edwards AFB, California, this autumn. Developmental flight testing is expected to begin this summer.
While Boeing has continued to conduct test flights with two company demonstrators, these jets are not fully representative of the final T-7A serial production configuration. On June 12, Boeing announced that the two production-representative jets had completed 500 test flights and were flying up to six sorties each day. A Milestone C production decision is now expected to be made in February 2025 and the Red Hawk will not achieve Initial Operational Capability (IOC) until early 2027.
On June 28, a USAF pilot took to the skies at the controls of the service’s initial T-7A Red Hawk for the first time. During the one-hour-and-three-minute flight – which was flown by Maj Bryce Turner from the USAF’s 416th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards AFB and Steve Schmidt, Boeing’s T-7A chief test pilot – the crew were able to validate key aspects of the aircraft, while demonstrating its power and agility. This flight kicked off the EMD phase of flight testing.
Commenting on the flight, Turner said: “The stable performance of the aircraft and its advanced cockpit and systems are game changers for USAF student pilots and instructors alike.” In 2018, the USAF awarded Boeing a $9.2bn contract for 351 T-7A advanced jet trainers, 46 simulators and support services as a replacement for the air arm’s ageing T-38A/C Talon fleet.
