WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio - The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) has awarded The Boeing Company in Arlington, Va., a ceiling $900,000,000 program indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for T-38 avionics sustainment and support.
The contract provides total life cycle support for the T-38C avionics system to ensure the aircraft remains current, airworthy, and capable of meeting evolving mission requirements for advanced pilot training.
The effort focuses on sustaining and modernizing the T-38C’s digital avionics architecture originally fielded under the Air Force’s Avionics Upgrade Program. This includes maintaining and incrementally improving the aircraft’s glass cockpit, navigation systems, communications equipment, and embedded training capabilities.
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Eye on avionics
The aircraft’s avionics suite features multi-function displays and a head-up display designed to replicate front-line fighter cockpit environments, along with an embedded training system that enables simulation of radar, targeting, and weapons employment without onboard sensor hardware. This software-driven approach allows pilots to train against synthetic threats and mission scenarios while reducing system complexity, size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements.
Communications and data systems supported under the contract include dual UHF and VHF radios for civil and military airspace operations, along with compatibility with secure and anti-jam modes such as HAVE QUICK. The avionics architecture incorporates digital data bus technologies, such as MIL-STD-1553, to enable interoperability among subsystems, as well as improved intercom systems for instructor-student coordination in the tandem cockpit.
Sustainment activities will also address reliability and safety across the avionics suite. These include maintaining line-replaceable unit-based designs to simplify maintenance, supporting improved cockpit indications and monitoring of engine and aircraft systems, and ensuring continued integration with navigation systems such as GPS-aided inertial navigation. Together, these efforts help extend the service life of the legacy T-38 airframe while improving situational awareness and reducing pilot workload.
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Onboard simulations
The T-38C's onboard simulation environment can generate virtual air-to-air and air-to-ground targets, enabling pilots to practice intercepts, tracking, and weapons employment using cockpit symbology alone. The system can be integrated with Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation ranges, allowing real-time tracking and post-mission debrief with precise engagement data.
The T-38C incorporates avionics designed around modular line-replaceable units, enabling maintainers to quickly swap components and reduce aircraft downtime. Improved onboard diagnostics provide better fault isolation, which is critical for maintaining high sortie rates in pilot training operations. These enhancements, combined with ongoing structural and propulsion upgrades, have enabled the aircraft to remain in service decades beyond its original design life.
Work will be performed at Columbus Air Force Base, Miss.; Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas; Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph Air Force Base, Texas; Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas; Vance Air Force Base, Okla.; Holloman Air Force Base, N.M.; Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.; Patuxent River, Md.; and St. Louis, Mo., and is expected to be completed by 31 March 2036.
