This is the latest in a series of semi-regular columns by Robbin Laird, where he will tackle current defense issues through the lens of more than 45 years of defense expertise in both the US and abroad. The goal of these columns: to look back at how questions and perspectives of the past should inform decisions being made today.
Boeing’s decision this month to withdraw the T-7A Red Hawk from the US Navy’s Undergraduate Jet Training System (UJTS) competition could open up the question of whether the service should slow down or reboot its search for a T-45 Goshawk replacement.
The company became the second major competitor to drop out, after Lockheed Martin exited the field. That has left two teams: Textron/Leonardo with a navalized M-346 variant, and Sierra Nevada Corporation leading a consortium “white sheet” Freedom Trainer bid. And in the past, Pentagon officials have delayed or restarted competitions when competitors drop out, under the thinking that fewer bidders leads to a weaker outcome and operational risk.
But delaying UJTS in search of a “better” competition would lock in a more immediate operational risk: keeping naval jet pilot production dependent on an aging, failure-prone T-45 fleet, and pushing even more of the basic training burden onto already-stressed F/A-18 and F-35C squadrons.
The Navy does have choices to make between Textron and SNC. But it no longer has the luxury of pretending time is an independent variable.
The T-45 Goshawk has been the backbone of Navy and Marine Corps carrier jet training since the early 1990s. It has also been the source of repeated training disruptions and safety concerns for more than a decade. In fact, at a recent Sea, Air Space Symposium, the then-outgoing Air Boss lamented failure to get the T-45 replacement moving as one of his biggest disappointments.
Beginning with well-publicized physiological episodes tied to the aircraft’s oxygen system, and continuing through engine and component failures, T-45 availability has repeatedly forced the Navy into full or partial standdowns of the entire fleet. In 2017, T-45 pilots effectively refused to fly until the service addressed cockpit oxygen problems; a Navy review warned (PDF) at the time that finding a durable solution had “proved elusive.” More recently, in April 2024, an in-flight engine malfunction prompted Naval Air Forces to pause all T-45C operations while it reassessed the fleet’s airworthiness.
Each of these events rippled through the pilot training pipeline. In 2020, the head of naval air training acknowledged that oxygen-system issues, engine problems, and other readiness shortfalls had already stretched strike fighter pilot training from roughly three years to closer to four, contributing to a fleet fighter pilot shortfall approaching 100 billets. T-45 disruptions were a central part of that story.
Rear Adm. Gregory Harris, then the Navy’s director for air warfare, told an audience in 2021 that the strike fighter training pipeline had become “too darn long.” Instructor shortages and aircraft availability problems meant the Navy had “underloaded the program,” bringing in fewer students than required and stretching the time needed to develop a strike fighter pilot from about two and a half years to around three or longer. The result was a pilot shortfall already baked into fleet manning.
CNATRA has since worked to shorten the backlog and has reported progress toward a “105-percent production” goal designed to burn down the queue. But those efforts are being made on top of a fragile hardware foundation. Even with improved syllabus design and greater reliance on simulation, every T-45 standdown and every year of recapitalization delay forces the command into the same trade-off: cancel or compress training events now and attempt to recover them later in the Fleet Replacement Squadrons (FRSs).
The Navy has since launched a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) for about 145 T-45s to keep the fleet viable into the 2040s. But the service’s own budget documents describe the jet as facing “significant aircraft, engine, and component obsolescence issues” that are “projected to dramatically increase operating costs and affect aircraft availability by 2030.” In other words, the life extension buys time; it does not eliminate the underlying risk.
When the trainer fleet cannot deliver the necessary volume or syllabus depth, those shortfalls get absorbed by the operational fleet. The Navy has tried to mitigate those pressures through initiatives such as the “Flight School 2.0” model, expanded use of simulation, and syllabus restructuring, but the basic reality remains: shortfalls in intermediate and advanced training are ultimately absorbed by F/A-18 and F-35C squadrons.
That shift carries real costs. The Pentagon’s own oversight bodies have documented how F-35 mission-capable rates have fallen well below program goals, with full mission-capable rates dropping into the mid-20 percent range and sustainment costs projected to exceed affordability targets in the 2030s. Every hour an F-35C or Super Hornet spends compensating for gaps that should have been filled by a trainer is an hour unavailable for high-end mission training and an hour of airframe life consumed on a far more expensive aircraft.
From a fleet readiness perspective, delaying UJTS in hopes of attracting more competitors or refining the requirements document effectively trades near-term procurement flexibility for years of higher operating costs and degraded combat readiness.
Fewer bidders, but more urgency
Against that backdrop, what does the exit of Boeing and Lockheed actually mean?
Boeing has been candid that the T-7A, already behind schedule for the Air Force, would have required additional engine qualification and other modifications to meet Navy UJTS requirements within the service’s desired timeline, creating a schedule and development-risk profile the company was unwilling to accept. Lockheed’s decision to withdraw its TF-50N concept has been linked to US content requirements and the economic difficulties of teaming with Korea Aerospace Industries under a tight development cap.
Those exits have narrowed the field, but they have also clarified something important: the Navy’s schedule is not a rhetorical device.
The service’s earlier requests for information stressed a requirement for roughly 200 aircraft and an initial operational capability (IOC) less than three years after contract award. That is an aggressive ask by Pentagon standards, and it reflects an institutional recognition that the T-45 SLEP is not a long-term solution. While the most recent request for proposal has provided more time from contract to IOC, presumably to give a higher risk “white sheet” design the chance to compete, the need has become no less compelling.
Textron/Leonardo and Sierra Nevada now offer two different paths to recovering lost time.
The M-346N brings a mature, in-service integrated training system with a well-established production capability and a proven track record training fliers for 5th generation aircraft in allied air forces. SNC’s “Freedom Trainer” offers a clean-sheet design similar in appearance to Textron’s Scorpion Jet which, while unproven and as yet undeveloped, claims to be optimized specifically for the Navy’s training needs.
I don’t know which is the better choice for the Navy, but I do know this: Both are more likely to close the Navy’s training gap in a timely fashion than any notional restart that attempts to bring Boeing or Lockheed back into the competition.
It is easy, in debates over acquisition strategy and industrial base, to treat “delay” as the safest option. In the case of UJTS, it is not.
Waiting for more bidders or a revised requirement set does not freeze the current situation in place. It means more years in which the T-45 fleet faces rising obsolescence and safety risk, more chances of fleet-wide pauses that clog the training pipeline, and more p
