Production Red Hawk Advanced Trainer Prepares for Flight

Paris Air Show 2023

Production Red Hawk Prepares for Flight

The first engineering and manufacturing develop example of the Boeing T-7A has begun taxi trials at St. Louis as the program gets ready to take to the air.

Boeing T-7A Red Hawk — Chief test pilot Steven Schmidt steers the first EMD Red Hawk onto the Lambert Field runway for the type’s first taxi run. (Photo: Boeing)

By David Donald • Contributor - UK

June 21, 2023

Boeing’s new advanced trainer, the T-7A Red Hawk, cleared a significant hurdle earlier this month by entering taxi trials. Boeing has been flying a pair of production-representative jets for some time and has amassed about 500 flight hours and cleared nearly 8,000 data points with them, but the taxi test marks the first time that the production advanced pilot trainer has moved under its own power. Further taxi trials at increasing speeds followed, signaling that a first flight is imminent, likely in the coming weeks.

The aircraft involved in the trial was APT2, the first of five engineering and manufacturing development machines to be built for the U.S. Air Force. Two Boeing pilots were aboard, including chief T-7 test pilot Steven Schmidt in the front cockpit. The first test successfully validated ground handling functions.

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