Will Lockheed's T-50A Train America's Future F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Pilots?

Dave Majumdar

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You can have all the fancy fighters in the world--but if you can't fly them...

Lockheed Martin is offering its T-50A jet trainer—which was co-developed with South Korea—for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X Advanced Pilot Training program. In preparation for the forthcoming contest, the first of two T-50A prototypes made its first flight on June 2, 2016, in Sacheon, South Korea, with company test pilot Mark Ward at the controls.

According to Mike Griswold, Lockheed’s business development director for the T-50, the aircraft was originally co-developed with Korean Aerospace Industries using technology from the company’s successful F-16 Fighting Falcon fourth-generation fighter to replace Seoul’s fleet of Northrop T-38 Talons trainers and F-5 jet fighters. The two companies also anticipated a future U.S. Air Force requirement to replace its T-38 aircraft when developing the baseline T-50. However, the new T-50A—the version Lockheed developed for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X competition—is a significantly upgraded model customized to meet American requirements.

“The T-50A is a block upgrade to uniquely tailor that to the U.S Air Force requirements,” Griswold said. “So we’ve taken the basic T-50, we’ve put the fifth-gen cockpit in it similar to the F-35, we’ve added an embedded training system to give it simulated weapons and sensors that are consistent with the requirements for USAF training and we have added an aerial refueling capability.”

Real aerial refueling capability is one of the Air Force’s objective—or desired—requirements for the new aircraft, but the service—as a bare minimum—wants a capability to conduct aerial refueling training in the T-X simulator. The inclusion of a genuine aerial refueling capability onboard the T-50A will be one of the new aircraft’s major selling points to the Air Force, Griswold said. The T-50A is also fully night vision capable, which addresses another critical Air Force requirement for the T-X.