“Fatigue spectrums are compiled based on the best knowledge for how airplanes will be used, but it is only ever a good guess. “Once the aircraft are delivered and progress through their operational lives, we will collect and download data that will help us understand how those airframes have been used and further calibrate the models to reflect fleet usage. We have digital models and as we go through the program our testing is calibrating those models, helping us refine our understanding along the way. Paul Niewald, vice president / program manager of T-7 programs and former T-7 chief engineer at Boeing says, “The T-7 is enabled to have a digital life. (Photo: Boeing / Eric Shindelbower) Model calibrationīoeing and Saab are defining a digital lifetime for the aircraft that must include new trials processes in keeping with its digital design philosophy. The T-7 Red Hawk weapons systems trainers and operational flight trainer will provide future pilots with simulation training that uses high-end optics and dynamic motion seats.

These operational design drivers, combined with the fact that Boeing has created the T-7A as the flyable component of a digital training system, mean that this is a ground-breaking program, even more so because the T-7A is the result of a pioneering digital engineering concept.

It is also built to fly several times daily and be maintainable and serviceable. Therefore, the T-7A is built to withstand heavy landings, lots of landings and regular high-Alpha and high-g flight. Most Red Hawk sorties will likely include several circuits and touch-and-go landings and while front line pilots occasionally fly circuits, the majority of F-16 or F-35A flights are likely to include just one landing when the aircraft is light on fuel at the end of its mission. Some landings are inevitably harder than others, but the real fatigue challenges on landing gear and attachment points come from the frequency of touchdowns.

On another level, the T-7A, T-38 and perhaps every other successful training aircraft must satisfy a set of more prosaic requirements, established through the use and abuse meted out over a century or more of military pilot instruction. The T-7A must provide student pilots a feel for the rigors of combat flying to come. The Red Hawk is designed to train pilots destined for the cockpits of fourth, fifth and even sixth-generation fighters, capable of high-g, high angle of attack manoeuvres inconceivable when Northrop designed the Talon.

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