[Sebastian Balos]

What would be the best option for T-38 Talon replacement? Talons are in service for almost half a century and it seems they will be replaced in the near future. What would be the best option?

There're few aircraft that might do the job:


1. South Korean T-50 Golden Eagle, partially designed by Lockheed Martin - a modern supersonic trainer, not too expensive to maintain and derived from the well known F-16
2. Italian M346 - nice aircraft, but too "Russian" to be adopted by the USA
3. Perhaps a revival of F-20 Tigershark in a two seater version - close to the Talon, but with better performance, more modern and capable of an effective secondary strike/fighter role, suitable for export - F35 and F22 are certainly better by a solid margin
4. Hawk Mk.? - a well proven design, used by the UNS, but it shows it's age.
5.?

What's your opinion?

[EvanDP]

Sebastian Balos, on Tue 12 Aug 2008 0931, said:

What would be the best option for T-38 Talon replacement? Talons are in service for almost half a century and it seems they will be replaced in the near future. What would be the best option?

There're few aircraft that might do the job:
1. South Korean T-50 Golden Eagle, partially designed by Lockheed Martin - a modern supersonic trainer, not too expensive to maintain and derived from the well known F-16
2. Italian M346 - nice aircraft, but too "Russian" to be adopted by the USA
3. Perhaps a revival of F-20 Tigershark in a two seater version - close to the Talon, but with better performance, more modern and capable of an effective secondary strike/fighter role, suitable for export - F35 and F22 are certainly better by a solid margin
4. Hawk Mk.? - a well proven design, used by the UNS, but it shows it's age.
5.?

What's your opinion?

Maybe a refurb or new builds (if they still have the jigs and what not) with the Garret turbofans from the Taiwanese AIDC? I remember they were considering doing that to the rest of the F-5 fleet. The F-5E/F wing would also be a good choice.

[mobryan]

Sebastian Balos, on Tue 12 Aug 2008 1031, said:

What would be the best option for T-38 Talon replacement? Talons are in service for almost half a century and it seems they will be replaced in the near future. What would be the best option?

There're few aircraft that might do the job:
1. South Korean T-50 Golden Eagle, partially designed by Lockheed Martin - a modern supersonic trainer, not too expensive to maintain and derived from the well known F-16
2. Italian M346 - nice aircraft, but too "Russian" to be adopted by the USA
3. Perhaps a revival of F-20 Tigershark in a two seater version - close to the Talon, but with better performance, more modern and capable of an effective secondary strike/fighter role, suitable for export - F35 and F22 are certainly better by a solid margin
4. Hawk Mk.? - a well proven design, used by the UNS, but it shows it's age.
5.?

What's your opinion?

T-50 is the likely choice, because the AF "has" to have a supersonic trainer. <_< The better choice, IMO, is to do half a Goshawk, ie: intergrate the US engine and USAF spec avionics into a standard Hawk airframe. Probably the easiest would be to just buy Goshawks and disable the carrier specific features. You can't have too sturdy of a airframe in a trainer ;) OF course, the Blue Suiters would have a fit if a USN aircraft was forced on them :shrug:

Matt

[mobryan]

double post

This post has been edited by mobryan: 12 August 2008 - 1621 PM

[shep854]

mobryan, on Tue 12 Aug 2008 2108, said:

OF course, the Blue Suiters would have a fit if a USN aircraft was forced on them :shrug:

Matt

They are probably still recovering from the PTSD incurred during the '60s, when they had to accept the fact that F-4s, A-7s, H-3s, and A-1s were the best at their respective tasks...OV-10 gets honorable mention, along with B-66. :blink:

[mobryan]

shep854, on Tue 12 Aug 2008 2015, said:

They are probably still recovering from the PTSD incurred during the '60s, when they had to accept the fact that F-4s, A-7s, H-3s, and A-1s were the best at their respective tasks...OV-10 gets honorable mention, along with B-66. :blink:

Agreed on everything except the B-66, there wasn't enough navy left in that mickey-moused conglomeration to swab the deck :blink: Of course, that probably explains why it was such a mantainace whore.... :P


Matt

[Lampshade111]

T-50 is probably the most capable aircraft, but in my opinion Lockheed Martin has enough things on their plate already. Is Boeing, Northrop, or anybody else interesting in this?

[Tomas Hoting]

Invest some money and finally realize the German EADS Mako. ;)

[Sebastian Balos]

Tomas Hoting, on Wed 13 Aug 2008 0940, said:

Invest some money and finally realize the German EADS Mako. ;)

I forgot to add this one... mako should have been the most capable of all these.

In addition to supersonic trainer, I think it's time to revive the cheap fighter concept of F-5 Freedom Fighter/Tiger II, since it seems F-22 will be reserved to USAF only (until now it seems Israeli might get it, but not the Japan - later it probably will) and F-35 will be pretty expensive and complex for most less demanding buyers than might turn to other aircraft: MiG-29, Gripen, even Rafale since the French are keen to export them... On the other hand, there's a bunch of second-hand F-16s tat might to the job.

[Cromwell]

My first reaction would be another T-38, once you start with a clean sheet design all that is so very very wrong with the US acquisition system will come out of the woodwork. The final design costing billions and billions will only be available in 20 years - let's see that's FY2028. However a T-38 with new engines and new avionics would be quite adequate.
That probably won't fly. After looking at the alternatives, and the Korean design is interesting, I would build new F-16Bs (to be called a TF-16H (G being reserved for a Wild Weasel SEAD))- Should be able to get them for <$20m/a pop with no R&D costs. Other manufacturers should be allowed to bid for production with the Lockheed design - especially Cessna and Ratheon/Beech.

[Tomas Hoting]

Sebastian Balos, on Wed 13 Aug 2008 1156, said:

I forgot to add this one... mako should have been the most capable of all these.

In addition to supersonic trainer, I think it's time to revive the cheap fighter concept of F-5 Freedom Fighter/Tiger II, since it seems F-22 will be reserved to USAF only (until now it seems Israeli might get it, but not the Japan - later it probably will) and F-35 will be pretty expensive and complex for most less demanding buyers than might turn to other aircraft: MiG-29, Gripen, even Rafale since the French are keen to export them... On the other hand, there's a bunch of second-hand F-16s tat might to the job.

I just remembered that Dassault also came up with their own supersonic trainer aircraft proposal, the Mirage 2000AT. It would be an advanced trainer based on the two-seater Mirage 2000-9D combat aircraft, but without the non-training relevant avionics and systems.

I suppose the T-50 LIFT AKA A-50 with the AN/APG-67(V)4 radar or the Mako concept with the Blue Hawk, RC-400/RDY-3 or AN/APG-67(V)4 radar would already fulfill the requirements for a light fighter concept like the original F-5E/F Tiger II.

Sadly enough the Mirage 2000 is out of production now. :(

[shep854]

mobryan, on Wed 13 Aug 2008 0333, said:

Agreed on everything except the B-66, there wasn't enough navy left in that mickey-moused conglomeration to swab the deck :blink: Of course, that probably explains why it was such a mantainace whore.... :P
Matt

Yeah, I knew the B-66 was something of a stretch, but the basic a/c was Navy...at least the AF got ejection seats :) . The Air force C/HH-3s were also heavily modded from the Navy SH-3.

I just remembered; the HH-53 was also Navy and (gasp!) Marines! :o . Recently, the syndrome must have been aggravated by the Osprey. :P

[Hellfish6]

You're all wrong. The USAF is gonna want their own home-made trainer, involving several billion dollars and 10-15 years of development to produce something just slightly more capable than any of the existing trainers.

[swerve]

Tomas Hoting, on Wed 13 Aug 2008 1208, said:

I suppose the T-50 LIFT AKA A-50 with the AN/APG-67(V)4 radar or the Mako concept with the Blue Hawk, RC-400/RDY-3 or AN/APG-67(V)4 radar would already fulfill the requirements for a light fighter concept like the original F-5E/F Tiger II.

Selex & KAI proposed the Vixen AESA radar for the F-50 (the fighter variant of T-50: AFAIK A-50 is an attack variant), but apparently Lockheed Martin objected, & the contract under which it assisted development gives LM a veto.

[Tomas Hoting]

swerve, on Wed 13 Aug 2008 2237, said:

Selex & KAI proposed the Vixen AESA radar for the F-50 (the fighter variant of T-50: AFAIK A-50 is an attack variant), but apparently Lockheed Martin objected, & the contract under which it assisted development gives LM a veto.

According to the KAI website, there's the T-50 AJT, the TA-50 LIFT (with the APG-67) and the proposed FA-50 (with additional combat avionics, which probably includes the radar you mentioned).

[Calvinb1nav]

The T-38C is supposed to stay in USAF service until 2020 (http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=126) and it's had avionics upgrades, engine inlet mods, engine mods, and is getting a new ejection seat.

IIRC, the congressman whose district includes the Lockheed plant in Fort Worth was pushing the USAF to buy the T-50... What with buying a new tanker, new CSAR helo, F-35, F-22, 2018 bomber (well, that one is just a pipedream), etc. I don't see any serious money around for a new advanced trainer. Other stuff needs to be replaced before that such as the E-3, EC-130H, RC-135, etc.

As an aside, the Korean AF still has its leased T-38As and is supposed to be getting rid of them when the T-50 production is complete. They might end up placing them in storage as shipping them back to the US is too expensive. The Koreans also use the Hawk and so are kinda unique in using three of the major advanced trainers on in the world.

PBAR

[EvanDP]

Anybody know how many or if there are any two seat F-16's in the "boneyard"? Maybe they could be reset to a common trainer standard.

[shep854]

EvanDP, on Sat 16 Aug 2008 0504, said:

Anybody know how many or if there are any two seat F-16's in the "boneyard"? Maybe they could be reset to a common trainer standard.

That would be my first choice; they're paid for, and if detuned, they would be less expensive to operate.

[JOE BRENNAN]

Recently there were 36 F-16B's at AMARC (google 'AMARC' to get to their inventory page). Two seat F-16's still issued to units will be well worn out before retired. The T-38 replacement would be at few 100 a/c (there are ca. 500 T-38's in service), and T-38 is planned to be around till 2020 as mentioned above. So there's no viable replacement among already bought a/c, except the T-38 itself past 2020, which seems fairly likely for at least some of them.

When it comes to really replacing it I guess it would be the usual competitive procurement straightjacket where the process has to be 'fair' and so causes weird outcomes. But, the fairly obvious plane, if competitively priced, would seem to be the T-50, being part-US already, and right in line with the T-38 concept. The Hawk-derived USN T-45 was extensively, expensively and slowly modified to meet USN requirements, and would be a restart anyway by the time the USAF gets going. I don't see them diverting money to develop an advanced trainer from scratch just from bullheaded 'NIH' mentality, and resurrecting somebody else's paper concept (eg. Mako) makes less sense still.

Joe

[On the way]

Sebastian Balos, on Tue 12 Aug 2008 1631, said:

What would be the best option for T-38 Talon replacement? Talons are in service for almost half a century and it seems they will be replaced in the near future. What would be the best option?

There're few aircraft that might do the job:
1. South Korean T-50 Golden Eagle, partially designed by Lockheed Martin - a modern supersonic trainer, not too expensive to maintain and derived from the well known F-16
2. Italian M346 - nice aircraft, but too "Russian" to be adopted by the USA
3. Perhaps a revival of F-20 Tigershark in a two seater version - close to the Talon, but with better performance, more modern and capable of an effective secondary strike/fighter role, suitable for export - F35 and F22 are certainly better by a solid margin
4. Hawk Mk.? - a well proven design, used by the UNS, but it shows it's age.
5.?

What's your opinion?

The best solution would be to buy a plane with low unit cost, proven, low maintenance cost and high capability. I.E. The Aero Vodochody L-159. Unit cost is $8 million only. And it comes fully loaded. Boeing at one time owned a substantial share in the company. Can't see why they wouldn't buy the whole thing and offer the L-159 as a replacement for the T-38. It has the ability to do live firing too.

This post has been edited by On the way: 17 August 2008 - 0036 AM