The Air Force is further delaying the production contract for its newest trainer aircraft, the T-7 Red Hawk, and will expand its testing in a major reorganization of the program’s acquisition strategy.
The service originally planned to award Boeing a contract to build the first production T-7s in fiscal 2025 and would have bought seven jets this year. Under the Air Force and Boeing’s revised plan, the service will now award that contract in 2026, Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter said in a Wednesday release.
“Acquisition programs cannot be stagnant, even when they are fixed-price,” Hunter said. “This is why I’ve directed the T-7A team to implement updates to reduce risk and increase our confidence in the aircraft design, all to ensure we can deliver the T-7A to the warfighter when needed.”
The Air Force will also buy four additional production-representative test T-7s using 2025 research and development funds that will be delivered in fiscal 2026. This will nearly double the fleet of five test aircraft now being flown at locations that include Edwards Air Force Base in California.
“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,” said Steve Parker, interim president and chief executive for Boeing Defense, Space and Security, in a statement. “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.”
The Air Force is in the process of buying about 350 of Boeing’s T-7s, which will replace the aging T-38 Talon trainer fleet. The T-7 is a fifth-generation aircraft trainer that will make it easier to teach new pilots to fly fighters, such as the F-35, as well as bombers. Boeing has touted its digital design as an advancement in how planes are made.
But the T-7 program has been beset by design, testing and production issues that have caused its schedule to slip behind repeatedly. The service originally expected to buy the first operational T-7s in 2023, but problems with its ejection systems and flight control software pushed that to 2024, and then to 2025. It is now expected to be three years behind the original plan.
In February 2024, Boeing said it would delay delivery of its next test T-7 by several months due to quality problems with some parts. The company also said supply chain issues were forcing it to postpone the planned start of low-rate initial production by several months.
At the time, Boeing said the fifth engineering and manufacturing development jet would be delivered around March or April 2024. But in Wednesday’s release, the Air Force said the fifth jet was delivered in December 2024.
The additional test jets will allow Air Education and Training Command to speed up its test plans, as well as its development of a curriculum for flying the T-7, Hunter said. With the jets, the service will be able to stick to its plan of achieving initial operational capability in fiscal 2027.
“Procuring these [test jets] in FY25 also allows the Air Force and Boeing to improve manufacturing readiness prior to entering the production phase for the entire run of over 350 T-7As,” Hunter said. “Decreasing overlap between development, testing and production lowers the likelihood of potential costly refits of a significant number of aircraft.”
Hunter also said the new acquisition plan includes “using a management approach which incentivizes Boeing to address emergent issues that were not part of the contract that was signed in 2018 and to accelerate elements of the program.”
An Air Force official told Defense News one of those “emergent issues” was the service’s desire to increase the T-7′s range.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.
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