No decisions yet on new RAF jet trainer, says Pollard

The Jet Training System programme is ongoing and no final procurement decisions have been made, according to an answer given in Parliament.

Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative member for Huntingdon, asked what comparative assessment the Secretary of State has made of the effectiveness of the Collins Aerospace ACES 5 ejection seat fitted to the Boeing T-7A Red Hawk against the Martin-Baker seats used across the rest of the RAF fleet.

Luke Pollard, the Minister of State for Defence, said: “The Jet Training System programme is ongoing and no final procurement decisions have been made.”

The Jet Training System will replace the Hawk T2 that trains fast jet pilots at RAF Valley, with the older Hawk T1 already retired and the T2 fleet running towards the end of the decade. A competition is expected, and Boeing, Saab and BAE Systems have offered the T-7A Red Hawk with local assembly in the United Kingdom, with Leonardo’s M-346 among the alternatives.

Ejection seats carry unusual weight in a British competition because Martin-Baker is a British company that has equipped almost every RAF type since the 1940s and holds a worldwide position built on that record. Choosing an airframe fitted with the American ACES 5 would move that work, and swapping a seat into an airframe designed around a different one is a design and certification exercise in its own right.

The T-7A’s escape system drew sustained criticism during American testing, with problems identified around the performance of the seat and canopy for pilots at the light end of the weight range and around the sequencing of the escape itself, and Boeing has worked through a series of modifications. Programme delays in the United States have pushed initial operating capability for the American air force to the end of the decade.

Martin-Baker’s Mk16 variants are fitted to Typhoon, the F-35 and the Hawk, which means an RAF trainer on a different seat would put student pilots through a different escape system from the one they meet on the front line.