The U.S. Air Force is finally taking deliveries of its new advanced jet trainer, the T-7A Red Hawk. It will replace the T-38 Talon, which has been the USAF’s advanced jet trainer since the 1960s, at pilot training bases.
From Wikipedia: “In September 2019, the USAF named the aircraft the ‘T-7A Red Hawk’ as a tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen, who painted their airplanes’ tails bright red, and to the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, the first aircraft flown in combat by the 99th Fighter Squadron, the U.S. Army Air Force’s first black fighter squadron.” It is only fitting, then, that the first Red Hawks are being delivered to the current incarnation of that squadron, the 99th Flying Training Squadron at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
The USAF, in naming the new trainer and adopting its red-tailed livery, almost certainly did not anticipate the current commander in chief and secretary of defense, who lead the most openly racist administration since Woodrow Wilson’s. Stand by for the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say.
Anti-woke thuggishness aside, I’m happy the T-38s will finally be retired. They are the coolest little jets and I loved flying them, but the aircraft they were designed to train pilots for, the Century-series fighters of the 1950s and 60s, are long gone, and they don’t fly like any high-performance fighter currently in use.
I’ve been neglecting the blog, and for that I apologize. I’ve been distracted and worried. Unless you’ve been ignoring the news, you probably are too.