T-X Jet Training System competition pits old aircraft versus new.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Training + Simulation

In a building near Washington's Dulles Airport, BAE Systems houses a trailer it has been hauling to air shows all over the United States. Inside is a suite of simulators for the Hawk Advanced Jet Training System, a British built aircraft the company will be offering as a candidate to replace the Air Force's aging T-38 trainers. More than 12,000 visitors have toured the mobile showcase, including 400 military officers, said Robert Wood, BAE's T-X lead executive.

"Everything in the trailer is off the shelf and in use by the Royal Air Force today.... There is nothing science fiction there. It is all current stuff," Wood said, eager to point out that the Hawk and its training system are being actively used today and would require minimal development costs.

With so few new big-ticket military hardware programs in the pipeline, major contractors are gearing up for the acquisition of the next-generation T-X jet fighter trainer, and its supporting simulators. Partnerships have been formed, and the marketing has already begun even though the start date is unclear with the current budget crunch. Trainers are not among the most glamorous aviation programs, but with a planned buy of 350 aircraft along with the simulators, and an estimated cost of $11 billion to $17 billion over the contract's lifetime--including sustainment costs--competition in these austere times will be keen.

One of the candidates will be BAE Systems with its updated version of the Hawk, a purpose-built trainer that has been in production since the 1970s. It has partnered with Northrop Grumman, which will do the manufacturing, and L-3 Link Simulation and Training.

Lockheed Martin will also be in the hunt. It is offering another off-the-shelf aircraft, the T-50, which it is building in South Korea with its manufacturing partner, Korean Aerospace Industries. Lockheed Martin formed the partnership to build trainers for the Korean air force in the 1990s with an eye toward a T-38 replacement program, said Mike Griswald, director of T-50 business development.

"It has been a long time in coming," he said. Budget concerns have pushed the program's timeline to the right. The T-38s, meanwhile, are becoming increasingly expensive to operate and maintain as parts become obsolete.

Wood pointed out that the T-38 is four and half decades old and is the only aircraft in the Air Force inventory that has no completely funded replacement program.

Large, lumbering aircraft such as the B-52 bomber...