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Pilot pipeline would delay specific tracks

Change is in the air for how the Air Force teaches aircrews — and it could be revolutionary, according to the officer who heads Air Education and Training Command.

The most wide-ranging proposal mentioned by Gen. Stephen Lorenz in an interview Sept. 14 with Air Force Times is a unified undergraduate pilot pipeline that would route students into specific tracks — fighter/bomber, helicopter and tanker/transport — only after they had completed much of their training. He also put out the possibility of a new training jet in 10 years.

As outlined by Lorenz, all students would start in the T-6A Texan II, a single-engine turboprop; move to the T-38 Talon, a twin-engine jet; and then finish their training in the aircraft they will be assigned to, such as the F-15 Eagle fighter or the C-17 Globemaster III transport. Today, students start in the T-6 and then shift to specific tracks and aircraft. For example, mobility pilots fly the T-1 Jayhawk, a training version of an executive jet, while students headed for fighters or bombers go to the T-38.

The Air Force already has changed its navigator/combat systems officer course so that students fly in the same planes until they enter tracks for specific missions such as electronic warfare. The revision was made to create a career field with a larger range of common skills and to allow instructors more time to determine which students to assign to which operational aircraft.

If the Air Force made the switch for pilot training, it would be a return to the training pipeline in use when Lorenz was learning to fly in the mid-1970s. Even though Lorenz ended up piloting a KC-135 Stratotanker on the job, he flew the T-38 as a student.

The oldest of the service’s 540 T-38s are marking a half-century in the air, Lorenz pointed out.

“The T-38 is aging out,” said Lorenz, who traveled to the nation’s capital from Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, to attend the Air Force Association Air & Space Conference.

Although the Air Force recently upgraded the T-38’s avionics — the cockpit now has digital displays and a computer screen — the plane’s frame is showing wear and tear. Last year, the service linked a fatal T-38 crash to a cracked wing lever in the plane and grounded nearly all the trainers. The planes started flying again only after maintainers replaced all the levers.

The Air Force would like to start replacing the T-38 with a new trainer, dubbed the T-X, in the next 10 to 15 years, Lorenz said.

Some officials also want the T-X to better prepare future F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II pilots. They argue students don’t have the skills to move directly from the T-38 to the new fighters, especially the F-22 and F-35, both single-seaters. The Air Force addresses the solo-flight dilemma today by sending future F-22 pilots up in two-seat F-16 Fighting Falcons with instructors.

A new trainer buy would include flight simulators, which speed up pilot training, Lorenz said.

When Lorenz was learning to fly the KC-135, it took him 10 or more flights to graduate and move on to an operational assignment. Today, because of their use of flight simulators, KC-135 students need only five flights to graduate.

The Air Force needs approval from the Defense Department’s Joint Requirements Oversight Council to move ahead with the project, Lorenz said.

Specifications for the T-X are still up for debate. For example, no decision has been reached on whether the T-X should be supersonic or whether if it would replace the T-38 on a one-for-one basis.

“There is nothing off the table,” Lorenz said.