You Never Forget Your First Trap on a T-45 Goshawk- Especially If It’s an OK Three Wire
Today’s feature is Goshawk Ball, featuring the T-45 Goshawk of United States Navy (USN) Training Squadron 7 (VT-7) Eagles and VT-9 Tigers of Training Air Wing One (Tail code A– TW-1). TW-1 is based at Naval Air Station (NAS) Meridian north northeast of the town of Meridian in Mississippi.
The video is a high-def look at the student naval aviators and their training in the air. A few laughs, a pounding soundtrack, great videography, some carrier qualification footage- this one has it all.
Replacing a Couple of Legends
When the USN started looking for a replacement for its aging North American T-2 Buckeye intermediate trainers and Douglas TA-4 Skyhawk advanced trainers during the mid-1970s, McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace teamed up to propose what amounted to a navalized version of the very successful BAe Hawk Mark 60 trainer.
A Few Tweaks Required
In order to make the T-45 Goshawk suitable for operations around an aircraft carrier, the British aircraft received a beefier airframe, wing leading edge slats, after fuselage strakes, landing gear modifications to make them stronger and wider, a ventral fin to enhance directional stability, and modifications to the outer wing and tail shapes to enhance low-speed controllability. Somebody bolted on a nose gear launch bar and a tail hook too. Presto- meet the Goshawk. The T-45A went into service in 1991.
Keeping The Goshawk in the Groove
Today’s T-45C differs from the original variant primarily in the cockpit. The original analog gauges used in the initial T-45A variant have been replaced by multi-function displays (MFDs) and a head up display (HUD) has been added. When the last of the 221 T-45s built came out of the factory in November of 2009 like every other Goshawk it already had some miles on it.
The rear fuselage (everything behind the cockpit), engine air inlets, vertical stabilizer, and wings of the jet were built in England and shipped to McDonnell Douglas (Boeing) for mating with the remainder of the airframe (built by McDonnell Douglas) and final assembly here in the States. Early-model Goshawks have all been reworked to bring them up to the T-45C specification.
Gulf Coast Goshawks
In addition to TW-1, TW-2 (Tail code B– VT-21 Red Hawks and VT-22 Golden Eagles) at NAS Kingsville in South Texas also employs the T-45C for the Intermediate and Advanced portions of the Navy / Marine Corps Strike Pilot Training Program.
When the T-45 finally began to replace the T-2C and TA-4 in service, there was an entire integrated training system package that came along with the jet, including high-fidelity operational and instrument flight simulators, computer-assisted training curriculum and academics, and McDonnell Douglas (Boeing) support for the entire training system.
[…] year, the Navy conducted a similar stand down of flying after numerous crews reported issues with the T-45 Goshawk and the F/A-18 Super Hornet. Most suspect that issues are related to the OBOGs or On-board […]
[…] Greyhound in the Navy, the SNA will be required to complete carrier qualification (CQ) flying the McDonnell Douglas (Boeing) T-45C Goshawk jet trainer. This HD video, uploaded to YouTube by The Joint Forces Channel, follows a group of SNAs through […]
[…] that’s the aircraft that our students will fly before they move on to the F-18 or other aircraft. But carrier-based fighters, typically. And I did […]