Let’s be honest: No kid has ever grown up wanting to be a cargo pilot. There aren’t any Tom Cruise movies about a pilot who refuels the fighters and bombers. When assignments are made for what type of aircraft the student pilots at Columbus Air Force Base will complete their training on, tankers are not their top preference.
Yet the pilots training for transporting equipment and troops and mid-air refueling are as essential to the mission as the more glamorous bombers and fighters.
So kudos to the 14th Training Wing at Columbus Air Force Base which gave the old reliable aircraft used to train pilots to fly the types of heavy aircraft a proper sendoff.
Tuesday’s ceremony celebrated the retirement of the T-1A Jayhawk trainer, which had been a big part of the CAFB aircraft inventory since it first arrived in Columbus in 1996. It is being replaced not with another more modern aircraft but by advanced flight simulators, a sign of the times perhaps.
The Air Force is moving away from the T-1A Jayhawk at the same time is it shifting to Undergraduate Pilot Training 2.5, allowing the service to save on the high maintenance costs of aging jet engines by utilizing advanced high-fidelity flight simulators, artificial intelligence and other cutting edge technologies.
Phase-out of the T-1 has been going on for several years. The stock of T-1As went from 47 in 2002 to 26 today. Actual training on the T-1A at CAFB ended last year. The only flights CAFB’s T-1A inventory will make now will terminate at “The Boneyard” in Tucson.
The retirement of CAFB’s T-1A fleet is the start of a transition that will ultimately include the replacement of the larger fleet of T-38Cs. The phase-out of the 87 T-38Cs at CAFB will begin in 2028 when their replacement, the T-7 Red Hawks, begin arriving. The phaseout will be completed in two years.
The Air Force plans to acquire between 61 and 77 T-7A jets to restock the training inventory at CAFB.
It is unlikely that civilians are able to distinguish one aircraft from another when looking up in the sky, but these training flights have become familiar sights and a reminder of the important training that is being carried out here in our community.
For the thousands of Air Force pilots who finished their training in T-1As, Tuesday’s ceremony is certain to evoke fond memories. In civilian life, it would be comparable to your first car: It’s something you never forget.
The T-1A wasn’t glamorous. It was a workhorse, steady and reliable.
They have earned their rest after 30 years of service.
This piece has been updated since it was first published to correct the description of the Undergraduate Pilot Training 2.5.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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