Air Force delays T-7 production but expects accelerated initial operational capability

Production of the Air Force’s new T-7A trainer has slipped yet another year, service officials said Wednesday as they announced several changes to the jet’s acquisition plan.

T-7 production is now slated to begin in 2026, almost eight years after Boeing won the original contract to replace the service’s half-century-old T-38 trainers.

Officials also said they would buy four “production representative” aircraft to speed up testing so the service can achieve initial operational capability at the end of 2027 or the first quarter of fiscal 2028, which is at least a few months earlier than announced last year.

“These acquisition updates include expanding test capacity, enabling the start of AETC’s curriculum development activities, and using a management approach which incentivizes Boeing to address emergent issues that were not part of the contract that was signed in 2018 and to accelerate elements of the program,” said Andrew Hunter, assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics. 

The Air Force did not detail how much Boeing could get through these new incentives, but a service official noted that there would be no change to the total $362 million request for the program in the 2025 budget. 

“While no specific incentive allocations have been made, incentives under consideration largely relate to on-time production of [production representative test vehicles], [engineering and manufacturing development] completion, and production readiness. The spirit of the agreement is to apply these incentives in critical areas that are not clearly specified in the existing contract,” the official said. 

As of last year, the official start of T-7 production—Milestone C, in acquisition jargon—was supposed to begin in February 2025, a date already pushed back from the original goal of December 2023.

Under the new plan, the service will use research and development funds from fiscal 2025 to buy the four test aircraft, which will be delivered the following year.

“Procuring these [production representative test vehicles] in FY-25 also allows the Air Force and Boeing to improve manufacturing readiness prior to entering the production phase for the entire run of over 350 T-7As,” Hunter said. “Decreasing overlap between development, testing, and production lowers the likelihood of potential costly retrofits of a significant number of aircraft.”

The Boeing-Saab T-7 program has struggled over the years. Problems with the aircraft’s ejection seat and supply-chain woes pushed the in-service date back multiple times. Boeing has eaten more than a billion dollars in losses since it underbid to win the fixed-price contract.

In a statement, Steve Parker, interim president of Boeing defense and space, said, “We appreciate the partnership with the U.S. Air Force and are committed to providing our warfighters with the safest, most advanced training system in the world. This innovative approach allows us to provide a production-ready configuration to the Air Force prior to low-rate initial production, further reducing any future risk to production. This will accelerate the path to delivering this critical capability on the timeline the Air Force needs.”