Boeing has progressed flight trials of the T-7A Red Hawk jet trainer out of its St Louis facility in Missouri, with an in-flight engine restart announced by the company on 27 February.
Boeing is performing flight trials on its two Production-Representative Jets, with the latest involving an in-flight engine shutdown. (Boeing)
The test of the single-engined aircraft that the company has developed with Saab saw the General Electric F404 powerplant shutdown for 48 seconds at 20,000 ft, before being restarted. As noted by Boeing, this is a critical safety feature in the event that a pilot has to shut the engine down in an emergency and power it back-up again.
”The test was the latest success for a programme that’s meeting all its critical development milestones,” Boeing said in a statement, adding that more than 160 developmental test flights have been flown to date.
Boeing was awarded the USD9.2 billion contract in September 2018 to deliver 351 aircraft (potentially rising to 475) under the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) wider T-X Advanced Pilot Training (APT) system, with an initial USD813 million deal for the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) portion.
With two Production-Representative Jets (PRJs) already built and flying, the EMD phase of the contract covers the five further aircraft and seven simulators. Previously, Boeing’s partner, Saab, declined to say when the first EMD aircraft will fly, noting that “this is very sensitive information for the USAF”.
As previously told to Jane’s
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