WASHINGTON: Aerospace behemoth Boeing will build the new T-X jet trainer, the Air Force announced this afternoon, beating out the Lockheed/KAI T-50 and the Leonardo DRS/CAE T-100 after years of maneuvering and uncertainty that saw multiple companies drop out of the competition. The first planes will enter service at Randolph Air Force base in 2023, with… Keep reading →

CORRECTED: Removed Reference To AT-6, Which Is Not Derived From T-6  WASHINGTON: The basic training plane for Air Force pilots, the propeller-driven T-6 Texan, is returning to flight almost one month after being grounded after a series of unexplained physiological events (what we used to call suspected hypoxia incidents). As is the case with most such… Keep reading →

AFA: SAAB, the Swedish maker of the Gripen fighter and aspiring partner of Boeing in building the Air Force’s new trainer, says it will establish a US factory should their team win the T-X contract. Hakan Bushke, SAAB CEO, stood with Boeing Defense CEO Leanne Caret to make the announcement here framed by a full-scale… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson says new hires for crucial pilot and cyber slots, as well as the T-X trainer system contract award, may not survive the year if Congress passes a Continuing Resolution, as expected. Wilson told my colleagues at Defense News and Air Force Times earlier today that “the T-X contract award… Keep reading →

PARIS AIR SHOW: With the competition for the US Air Force’s T-X trainer system increasingly seen as a battle between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, it’s easy to overlook perhaps the most intriguing entry: DRS, the US subsidiary of European aerospace giant, Leonardo. Almost everyone who looks at the fairly raucous battle — Northrop was in,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: America cannot apply Buy America provisions on a widescale basis and buy the best weapons, no matter how much President Trump and his team may feel otherwise. It’s a simple as that. All the competitors for the Air Force’s next-generation trainer, the T-X, include enormous amounts of foreign content, some including the aircraft. The… Keep reading →

It may be an exaggeration to say the companies are dropping out of the T-X competition like flies, but the Northrop Grumman-BAE Systems team‘s decision to drop out today means that at least four of the biggest defense companies in the world decided they couldn’t come up with competitive offerings for the Air Force’s next generation… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Adds Force Comment WASHINGTON: Lockheed Martin is pressing the Air Force to change how it evaluates T-X bids, arguing that new aircraft will cost the service close to $1 billion more over six years and delay Initial Operating Capability by several years. The calculus behind this assertion appears pretty simple. New aircraft require structural… Keep reading →

ST. LOUIS: Boeing and Saab unveiled their long-awaited entry for the Air Force’s next generation trainer, known as T-X, an intriguing mix of Super Hornet and a Gripen. The plane is designed to go straight to production without passing through the conventional development stages of a military aircraft. While our colleagues at Aviation Week and… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Oops. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James sounded a tad peeved and seemed to pretty much put the kibosh on plans to buy two replacements for the A-10 Close Air Support (CAS) plane. Why? “You just put your finger on it. Where do we get the money,” she told me at a DefenseOne event this… Keep reading →