October 21, 2023 | International, Naval
Australia makes decision on Chinese firm’s lease of critical port
The U.S. is concerned that foreign control could be used to spy on its military forces.
September 5, 2018 | International, Aerospace
2018-08-30 WILLIAM KUCINSKI
Officials will soon award a 350-unit contract to one of three competing aircraft teams.
According to officials, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) will select a new trainer aircraft by September 30 – before the end of the 2018 fiscal year. The aircraft will be one of the three remaining next-gen trainer candidates from the USAF's ongoing T-X competition, either the clean-sheet T-X from Boeing and Saab, the T-50A from Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries, Ltd. (KAI), or the T-100 from Leonardo DRS.
The USAF will replace its aging fleet of Northrop T-38 Talon supersonic jet trainers with 350 new aircraft from the T-X competition, spending approximately $16 billion to acquire and maintain the new trainers over the course of their service life – one of the largest USAF contracts in recent times.
The seasoned T-38 has been in use since 1961, training nearly 50,000 pilots who would later fly aircraft like the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, McDonell Douglass F-15 Eagle, and Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. However, as the USAF transitions employs more and more cutting-edge technologies, a next-gen trainer is needed to better facilitate fifth-gen fighter aircraft pilot training for the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lighting II.
The winning T-X aircraft will serve as a platform to acclimate pilots to aircraft with extreme agility, full-sensor fusion, integrated avionics, supercruise, and consolidated and integrated battlespace management technologies.
Industry analysts currently favor the Lockheed/KAI T-50A – based on KAI's T-50 trainer used by South Korea's Republic of Korea Air Force and co-developed by Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F-22 and F-35; and the Boeing/Saab T-X – which, as a completely new design – benefited from additional development time due to the T-X competition's repeatedly protracted award announcement.
While speculation has floated that the T-X award announcement would occur during the Air Force Association's Air, Space & Cyber (ASC) Conference from Sept. 17-19, those close to the program hinted at a decision coming through the following week of Sept. 24.
October 21, 2023 | International, Naval
The U.S. is concerned that foreign control could be used to spy on its military forces.
October 7, 2021 | International, Aerospace
The US Air Force is one step closer to having a new aircraft for jamming enemy communications.
March 15, 2021 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR
In addition to providing field support to the Air Force's Distributed Common Ground System, Raytheon will help transition the system of systems to an open architecture.