I tempi, però, sono ancora lunghi e la competizione, in particolar modo col team Boeing/Saab (non considerando Northrop Grumman, già vincitrice della competizione LRSB, e Finmeccanica che presenta un velivolo che negli USA verrà, poco ma sicuro, accusato di essere di origine sovietico-putiniana), riserverà certamente ancora numerosi colpi di scena .....
Get on the Seoul Trainer .....
John A. Tirpak (2/12/2016)
A rendering of the T-50A, Lockheed Martin's entry to the Air Force T-X program.
(Lockheed Martin photo)
Lockheed Martin will offer the T-50A supersonic jet trainer in the Air Force competition to replace the T-38 Talon, the company said Thursday, also announcing it will build a final assembly and checkout facility for the jet in Greenville, S.C.
Rob Weiss, head of Lockheed Martin’s “Skunk Works” advanced development division, said the company settled on the T-50 late in 2015 after completing 80 percent of the work on a parallel “clean sheet” design.
At that point, it was clear that designing, developing, and creating a manufacturing capability for an all-new jet would be “eight times more expensive” than a modified T-50, and the clean-sheet “wouldn’t do anything the T-50 doesn’t already do,” Weiss said.
The T-50A is a modification of the T-50 trainer Lockheed helped Korean Aerospace Industries design for the Republic of Korea Air Force, and derives in part from the company’s F-16.
Besides avoiding the risk of an all-new design, the T-50A will allow the USAF to get jets in service possibly even before the service’s 2024 goal, Weiss said.
A new design would demand a “substantial and unacceptable amount of concurrency;” compelling the USAF to develop the jet while producing it, he said.
Two T-50s are being modified into production-representative T-50A prototypes and will come to the US from Korea in the next few months, Weiss said, adding that USAF will be invited to do extensive flying evaluations with them.
Boeing and Northrop Grumman have both said they will offer an all-new design for the T-X competition.
The Argument for T-50A .....
John A. Tirpak (2/12/2016)
Lockheed Martin’s T-50A would be the best bet for the Air Force’s T-X trainer because it not only meets all the service’s performance requirements, but also it would draw on the company’s incumbent knowledge of the F-16, F-22, and F-35: most of the jets the T-X will train pilots to fly, said Lockheed’s T-X capture chief, Mike Griswold.
Lockheed could adapt its F-35 Ground Based Training System to the T-X, reusing hardware and software and making the transition easier from one to the other, he said.
The T-50A cockpit, using flight controls and displays highly similar to that of the F-35, would also ease the transition, he said.
The T-50A could also perform some F-35 training at lower cost, Griswold noted, because of embedded training software that would simulate sensors and weapons.
The T-50A, with a new refueling receptacle behind the cockpit – as it is on the F-16, F-22, and F-35 – could also give F-35 pilots their first real-world tanker contacts with an experienced instructor in the back seat; something that can’t be done with the F-35, of which there are no two-seat models.
The T-50 trainer has racked up 100,000 flight hours in Korean service and has trained more than 1,000 pilots, company officials noted.
.State of the Non-Union .....
John A. Tirpak (2/12/2016)
Lockheed Martin’s choice of Greenville, S.C., as the site of its T-50A final assembly and checkout facility followed “extensive analysis” of all the locations where the company makes aircraft, Lockheed Skunk Works head Rob Weiss said Thursday ..... http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/p ... -site.html
Greenville won out because of the “competitive cost structure” of the location and the “flexible workforce” there.
It made more financial sense to choose Greenville instead of Marietta, Ga., Weiss said, even though Marietta has unused floor capacity since the F-22 line shut down.
Lockheed does some P-3, C-130, and F-16 work at Greenville, and Weiss acknowledged without comment that the International Machinists Union has not organized in South Carolina; an important reason why Boeing put its 787 Dreamliner plant there.
Lockheed could start T-50A deliveries from Greenville “by the end of the year,” Weiss said, even though the USAF likely won’t choose the T-X winner until 2017 or later.
He told Air Force Magazine that the T-50A – which retains the hardpoints and some other capabilities of the Korean Aerospace Industries FA-50 light fighter – could become a preferred “export fighter” to US allies who don’t want or can’t manage more expensive or sophisticated jets like the F-16 and F-35.
The Greenville facility is located at the former Donaldson AFB, which closed in 1962 and became Donaldson Center Airport.
