Arlington, Virginia – Lockheed Martin is entering the T-50A aircraft in the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Pilot Training (APT) competition. The T-50A was developed jointly by Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) to replace the T-38 and train the next generation of pilots to fly fifth-generation aircraft.
Lockheed Martin also has selected the company’s Greenville Operations facility in Greenville, South Carolina, as the preferred Final Assembly and Checkout (FACO) site for the T-50A.
“A number of sites were considered for the FACO location. Following a detailed examination, the Greenville Operations facility was selected based upon the unique requirements of the APT competition and the support and partnership of the state of South Carolina,” said Orlando Carvalho, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. “While the FACO site will be located in Greenville, Lockheed Martin will continue leveraging people and capabilities from across our corporation and our industry partners to win the APT competition.”
Lockheed Martin’s Greenville Operations has a history of aircraft final assembly and checkout, and capabilities in modernization and upgrades on a variety of aircraft platforms. The 227-acre Greenville site has 13 hangars, 1,200,000ft2 of covered space for APT and 8,000ft of runway.
The T-50A offers fighter-like performance and capabilities needed to eliminate fifth-generation training gaps and inefficiencies.
“The T-50A is production ready now. It is the only offering that meets all of the APT requirements and can deliver those capabilities on schedule,” said Rob Weiss, executive vice president and general manager, Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Programs (Skunk Works). “We carefully studied a clean-sheet option for the [Advanced Pilot Training] competition and determined that it posed excessive risk to the APT cost and schedule requirements.”
Lockheed Martin’s accompanying T-50A Ground-Based Training System (GBTS) features technologies to deliver an immersive, synchronized ground-based training platform.
Source: Lockheed Martin