The Air Force's New T-X Jet Trainer Now Has An Official Name And Designation [3/3] - T-7A 'Red Hawk' 2.png (1/1)

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...nd-designation

The United States Air Force has just disclosed its official name and designation
for its new jet trainer—the T-7A "Red Hawk."

The announcement came at the Air Force Association's symposium that opened today
outside of Washington, D.C. Acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan disclosed
the jet's official moniker while standing with one of the legendary Tuskegee
Airmen, Colonel Charles McGee—a highly decorated veteran with a whopping 409
combat missions spread across WWII, Korea, and Vietnam—by his side.

McGee and his Red Hawk squadronmates not only bombed and strafed the Nazis with
amazing acumen, they also did the same to racial biases and the artificial
limitations placed on African Americans' service. The unit was known for their
bright red tail flashes on their P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs, a
tradition that still continues with the unit that bears the name "Red Tails" to
this very day.


Donovon stated:

“The name Red Hawk honors the legacy of Tuskegee Airmen and pays homage to their
signature red-tailed aircraft from World War II... The name is also a tribute
to the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, an American fighter aircraft that first flew in
1938 and was flown by the 99th Fighter Squadron, the U.S. Army Air Forces’ first
African American fighter squadron.

...

The T-7A will be the staple of a new generation of aircraft... The Red Hawk
offers advanced capabilities for training tomorrow’s pilots on data links,
simulated radar, smart weapons, defensive management systems, as well as
synthetic training capabilities.”

I can't think of a better name for the clean-sheet trainer design that will
build much of the force's future pilot cadre.


https://youtu.be/ryqFPM2ZRGM


The T-7 is being built by Boeing with their help of their Swedish partners on
the program—SAAB.

Boeing won the T-X contract a year ago in the face of stiff competition. The win
was much more than a realized opportunity to build 351 trainers to replace the
flying force's venerable T-38 Talons—and possibly many more of the jets for
foreign air arms and to fill additional roles within the Pentagon's air combat
portfolio—it was a lifeline to Boeing's St. Louis tactical aircraft production
facility and more. You can read all about what this win meant for Boeing in this
past editorial feature of mine.

Boeing's two T-X—or should I say T-7—prototypes just made their combined 100th
flight and the program is accelerating.

USAF Chief of Staff General David Goldfein said the following about the T-7 at
the symposium:

"The distance between the T-38 and an F-35 is night and day... But with the T-7A
the distance is much, much smaller, and that’s important because it means the
pilots trained on it will be that much better, that much faster at a time when
we must be able to train to the speed of the threat."

It's worth noting that another T-7 does exist internationally. Japan's basic
flight training aircraft, the Fuji T-7.

Callbacks to the USAF's WWII heritage have become almost standardized in new
aircraft naming convention. The force's next stealth bomber was named the Raider
after the Doolittle Raiders that were the first to respond to the attacks on
Pearl Harbor with an offensive strike. Before that, the force's skipped forward
in its rebooted trainer designation sequence to name its new primary trainer the
T-6 Texan II after the North American T-6 Texan of WWII fame.

Regardless, here's to the new T-7 Red Hawk, hopefully, the airplane will prove
worthy of its new name in the decades to come.




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