Boeing, manufacturer of the US Air Force’s (USAF) T-7A Red Hawk future trainer aircraft, has revealed that it will begin to deliver the first production units in early 2026.
Kirk Schultz, Boeing’s senior director for the Middle East, Africa, and Türkiye, confirmed the new delivery period in an exclusive interview with Airforce Technology at the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX 2025) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Known as ‘Milestone C’ in military procurement parlance, this level of delivery denotes the point at which the company will transition from delivering a preliminary aircraft variant designated the Engineering, Manufacturing, and Development (EMD) platform – of which five units have been delivered to the service in the past year – to rolling out the end result, referred to as ‘production and deployment’ (P&D) platforms.
Boeing produces and tests the T-7As at its site in St. Louis, Missouri. Currently, the EMD trainers are conducting flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
However, the contractor has recently had to revise plans for Red Hawk.
In January 2025, Air Education and Training Command, the oldest major command in the USAF, requested that Boeing provide four Production Representative Test Vehicles (PRTVs) over the next 12 months to increase service confidence in meeting certain safety requirements.
Advanced manufacturing methods
Schultz pointed to what he described as the “revolutionary training capabilities” that Boeing and their subcontractor, Saab, tasked with building the aft section, used to produce the trainer aircraft.
Digital twin technology – creating a virtual model of the aircraft design – was used to develop, build, and maintain the the T-7A jet trainer. Schultz emphasised that this model-based engineering saved a lot of time in man hours during the construction phase, allowing for Full-Size Determinant Assembly and other precision manufacturing techniques.
Digital twin models are used to help detect, prevent, predict, and optimise the physical environment using artificial intelligence, real-time analytics, visualisation, and simulation tools. According to GlobalData intelligence, the sector will surpass $150bn by 2030.
