BOEING FRONTIERS / JUNE 2013 13 The Navy announced the selection of “Goshawk” as the name for the T-45A in 1985. The name originally was assigned to the Curtis F11C, a U.S. Navy fighter aircraft in 1932. The aft fuselage and wings of the Goshawk were built by British Aerospace in the United Kingdom; McDonnell Douglas assembled the forward fuselage at its Long Beach, Calif., plant and performed final assembly and production testing in Palmdale, Calif. Final assembly of the first production model of the Goshawk began in December 1988 in Air Force Plant 42 at Palmdale. In 1989, McDonnell Douglas announced it would move production of the T-45 program to its St. Louis, Mo., facility. First flight of the Goshawk came in April 1988 at Long Beach. Test pilot Fred Hamilton noted the T-45 “handled very much like the Hawk—just as we expected. It’s an agile little aircraft.” Production deliveries began in 1992. Two years later, the first students earned their wings as U.S. naval aviators after going through the T-45A training program at Naval Air Station Kingsville in Texas. In October of 1997, the T-45C, equipped with a digital cockpit PHOTOS: (Clockwise from far left) The T-45A Goshawk jet trainer is at the heart of the T45TS, the U.S. Navy’s first totally integrated training system for undergraduate jet flight training; the T-45C’s digital cockpit resembles that of a front-line U.S. Navy fighter such as the F/A-18 Super Hornet; the T45TS includes advanced flight simulators. BOEING ARCHIVES that resembles the Navy’s front-line fighters, made its first flight. The Navy is continuing to upgrade its T-45A’s to T-45C’s. Boeing delivered the 221st and final T-45C Goshawk to the U.S. Navy in 2009. By then, more than 3,600 Navy and Marine Corps student pilots, and student pilots from ally nations, had trained in the Goshawk. Today, these graduates go on to assignments flying the Hornet, Super Hornet, Growler, Harrier and Grumman EA-6B Prowler. Capt. Andrew Hartigan, Naval Undergraduate Flight Training Systems program manager speaking at the final delivery ceremony, summed up the many contributions of Boeing and its heritage companies: “The equipment of Naval Aviation is truly in the hands of Boeing … that truth demonstrates an extraordinary trust and confidence, trust that has been built for decades and trust we look forward to continuing.” The Navy has said it will utilize the T-45 Training System through 2035. n henry.t.brownlee-jr@boeing.com
Frontiers June 2013 Issue
To see the actual publication please follow the link above