The U.S. Navy has formally launched its competition for a new jet training system, opening one of the largest ongoing military aviation contests in the United States. The Undergraduate Jet Training System, or UJTS, calls for the acquisition of 216 aircraft that will eventually replace the increasingly troubled T-45 Goshawk training fleet.
The competition comes as the Navy accelerates efforts to find a successor to the T-45, an aircraft that has faced a series of technical and operational problems in recent years, including multiple engine related groundings. Reliability issues within the current training fleet have added urgency to the replacement effort.
The formal request for proposals was released on March 26, while the engineering and manufacturing development award is expected in March 2027. That phase will be capped at $1.751 billion and includes development work, up to seven low rate initial production aircraft, ground based training systems, and contractor logistics support.
One of the most significant issues now resolved concerns the training concept itself. For years, the Navy debated whether future pilots should perform unflared, carrier representative landings during undergraduate training. Requiring that capability in the new aircraft would likely have added substantial cost and time to development. The Navy has now decided that field carrier landing practice to touchdown will not be required in the aircraft itself. Instead, that part of training will be handled through other elements of the broader training architecture, particularly advanced simulators and augmented reality tools.
This decision also reflects a wider shift in naval aviation training. Automatic precision landing modes are becoming more common in operational fleets, and the training pipeline is increasingly adapting to that reality. Some pilot classes already skip parts of the traditional landing syllabus and complete their first real carrier style landings later in operational squadrons.
Four major competitors are currently in the race. Boeing is offering the T-7A Red Hawk, the same aircraft selected for the U.S. Air Force trainer program, although that effort has been affected by delays and development challenges. Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries are competing with the TF-50N, while Beechcraft and Leonardo are backing the M-346N. A surprise entrant emerged in August 2025, when Sierra Nevada Corporation unveiled its Freedom trainer, a clean sheet design that the company says is capable of carrier representative landings. In February this year, Sierra Nevada strengthened its bid by partnering with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Northrop Grumman.
The Navy expects production of the new training system to begin in 2032. The planned build up would reach 12 aircraft per year in 2033, 20 in 2034, and 25 annually over the following six years. Most of the future fleet is expected to be assigned to NAS Meridian in Mississippi and NAS Kingsville in Texas, with 95 aircraft each, while 26 are planned for NAS Pensacola in Florida.
That makes the UJTS program one of the central future pillars of Navy pilot training, while also serving as an important test for the aerospace industry at a time when many other parts of the future carrier air wing remain uncertain or subject to change.
