Once again the Navy is having training jet problems…
The Navy lifted an operational pause on the its T-45C Goshawk jet trainer fleet last week, after grounding the entire fleet on July 10 following an engine malfunction.
The grounding marked at least the second such pause the fleet has implemented this year, and the third since October 2022, according to a tally by Navy Times.
Full article, HERE from Navy Times.
This is NOT a new issue, and it comes down to the Adour engines from Rolls-Royce, provided by BAE. It’s also NOT a new issue for the Brits either.
In written evidence to the UK government’s Defence Select Committee on January 11, the firm said the problem meant the Hawk T2 training aircraft fleet would only be able to fly half of the hours contracted to train Royal Air Force (RAF) fast-jet pilots. In its written evidence, BAE Systems said: “On March 25, 2022, Rolls-Royce reported that significant technical issues had been found in the Low Pressure Compressor (Module 01) of the Adour Mk 951 engine. The result was that the 4,000-hour planned design life of each engine was reduced to a clearance of 1,700 hours.
Full article, HERE from Key Aero in 2023.
I can’t help but wonder how much the salt water corrosion has played into these problems, especially for the Navy. Training aircraft are crucial to the student aviator pipeline, and loss of aircraft and/or training cycles due to operational groundings aren’t good either for progress, morale, or peace of mind in a new aviator.
As good as simulators are these days, they still do not replace butt in the seat, flying the aircraft, pulling Gs and watching the world spin around you.
When you’re already sweating out a hop, the last thing you want is to be worried about the engine quitting, or not being able to fly for a month. Once you get in a ‘flow’, you want to keep going.
And cutting engine availability in half is going to hurt, not only in costs, but in availability of flyable aircraft. This could also back the ‘pipeline’ up, causing students to spend months in what are called ‘pools’ doing effectively nothing but sitting around waiting.
Not good, especially in the austere budget cycle all the services are in right now!
Hey Old NFO,
Makes me wonder why they didn’t find out “this little problem during development”, I may be just an army guy but even I know that the squids operate a bunch of big gray canoe’s on what is a bunch of salt water that happens to encompass 3/4 of the Earth’s surface to break things and hurt people in the name of national interest? And the navy ain’t the only one having problems with new weapons systems, it seems to endemic with all the services..they want all these high tech gee wiz high dollar systems that are super efficient because they also have to appease the greenies and *damm* the sumbitches have problems. Also it seems that we as a nation have lost our technological edge or am I making too much out of this. *Sorry for the rant*
I was a test pilot for the T-45 at Strike Aircraft Test Directorate. Testers may be altruistic, but there are a lot of politics at the top (hint: DC) that keep things going that shouldn’t or at least should be fixed. You note a deficiency, and it either gets buried or ignored, or minimally fixed. It is frustrating for all involved.
Oh trust me, I’m WELL aware… A friend of mine was one of the test pilots on the replacement HMX-1 bird that got killed. SHE had stories… And ended up getting out she was so frustrated.
Disclaimer – these are rumors. US Navy is not too impressed with USAF selection of the Boeing T-7 Redhawk trainer and is looking around at the Lockheed Martin T-50 Golden Eagle which was LM’s entry into the competition that the T-7 won. The T-50 has been in production in the ROK for many years and is a flight proven platform. Just some things I’ve heard in the wind.
Bob- I don’t think you are wrong…
Mikey- Interesting, thanks! I’ll go poke some folks…
Having reliable mechanical systems is important for training. It’s life and death when war arrives. And it’s coming.
Dan- Excellent point!
Wasn’t there a problem with the O2 system that caused a grounding while it was addressed?
Rolls Royce has had engine problems times. Boeing fought having their engines on the 747 and when BA insisted, they set a new record for problems and downtime.