Textron Aviation is not ruling itself out of the U.S. Air Force’s forthcoming T-X fighter trainer competition, just weeks out from the expected request for proposals (RFP). If it did jump into the race, the Wichita, Kansas-based aircraft manufacturer would be the sixth entrant in an already heated battle to produce 350 or more high-performance trainers for Air Education and Training Command’s prospective fighter and bomber pilots. 

 The competition for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X requirement has drawn clean-sheet designs from Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Sierra Nevada Corp., but the winner will enter a global trainer market that is already crowded.