T-X - Go for a ride in the T-50A - AW&ST Video

Aviation Week Rides in Lockheed’s T-50A Pilot Trainer

Feb 24, 2017Lara Seligman  | Aviation Week & Space Technology

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Go for a ride here: http://tinyurl.com/hevb7hm

As the U.S. Air Force’s $16 billion competition for an advanced pilot trainer reaches its final stage, Lockheed Martin is upping the ante. The company took five reporters on the ride of their lives in the T-50A, showing off the capabilities of the production-ready aircraft just weeks before proposals are due to the Air Force.

For Lockheed, the media flights were not only a chance to prove the T-50A would be ready to go on day one, but that it can meet and even exceed the T-X capability requirements. The T-50A, a block upgrade of Korea Aerospace Industries’ T-50, can achieve 25-degree angle of attack, pull up to 8Gs (Aviation Week pulled 7.9), and fly supersonic. During Aviation Week’s flight Feb. 23, Lockheed chief T-50A test pilot Mark Ward also demonstrated a Ground Based Training System that enables a pilot in a simulator to sync up with a pilot actually flying the aircraft. Working in a three-ship team made up of two real-life and one virtual T-50A, Ward tracked and shot down two simulated MiG fighters as well as ground threats.

With the sudden exit of two major players – Northrop Grumman and Raytheon-Leonardo – the 350-aircraft T-X contract will come down to a price shootout between the T-50A and Boeing-Saab’s clean-sheet design. As Lockheed tells it, the T-50As main advantage is that it is a “low-risk, low-cost” solution, a proven trainer that has been operating with the South Korean Air Force since 2005. As an off-the-shelf aircraft, the T-50 won’t suffer any risk-related cost growth. There is no doubt the T-50A can meet the capability requirements; the rest hinges on sticker price.

Boeing is hungry for the T-X contract and will likely bid aggressively, but much depends on how much of the non-recurring development cost the companies can absorb. Boeing says its two T-X aircraft are production ready, not prototypes; the first just took flight Dec. 20. As with any new aircraft, the design will have to go through a rigorous flight-test and certification process.

Technically, Leonardo and DRS, now teamed to offer the T-100 and Sierra Nevada are still in the race. But as Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group wrote for Aviation Week & Space Technology recently, it’s looking more and more like T-X is Lockheed’s to lose, and Boeing’s to win.