The Navy wants to replace the T-45, but without aircraft carrier-style touch-and-go landing exercises. Why this choice changes training, costs, and risks.
Summary
In early February 2026, the U.S. Navy published a draft request for proposals for the successor to the T-45 Goshawk, setting a clear limit: the future training aircraft will no longer perform “aircraft carrier-style” touch-and-go maneuvers on land-based facilities. Training will be limited to wave-offs, and learning to touch down without flares will have to be done using other tools (simulators, ground devices, data). The context is well known: since March 2025, students in the carrier-based fighter program can receive their wings without landing on an aircraft carrier, with qualification being postponed to a conversion squadron on F/A-18E/F, F-35C, or EA-18G aircraft. The goal is to save training time and avoid imposing costly reinforcements on the new aircraft. The risk is also obvious: the first real rehearsal of the “deck shock” will take place later, on a combat aircraft, in a more expensive and demanding environment for operational safety.
The new development that removes a key training maneuver
In early February 2026, the U.S. Navy published draft specifications for the Undergraduate Jet Training System (UJTS), which is set to replace the training aircraft. The most sensitive issue is not aesthetic. It is pedagogical and mechanical. The future aircraft will have to perform Field Carrier Landing Practice up to the wave-off, on a typical landing slope (approximately 3.5°), but without an “impact” exercise. The Navy no longer wants the new aircraft to repeat, on the runway, these touch-and-goes designed to mimic a carrier landing.
The consequence is simple: the replacement can be designed like a land-based training jet, with a landing gear and structure optimized for flared landings. In this context, attempting “non-flared” aircraft carrier-type touch-and-goes would become mechanically out of the question and therefore prohibited in training.
This requirement confirms a broader trend. Since March 2025, some students destined for carrier-based fighter training can receive their wings without having landed a jet on an aircraft carrier. Aircraft carrier qualification is postponed until the conversion squadron. The moment of truth is therefore shifting from the training program to the fleet.
The current training jet and the purpose of its touch-and-go maneuvers
The T-45 Goshawk was designed as a “deck-compatible” trainer. Its structure and landing gear are sized for the constraints of carrier landings, where the aircraft touches down without a pronounced flare. Its characteristics illustrate its mission: 1,038 km/h (645 mph) maximum speed, 1,288 km (700 nautical miles) announced range, ceiling of 12,954 m (42,500 ft), maximum takeoff weight of 6,075 kg (13,500 lb). These are not spectacular figures, but they are sufficient for hundreds of approaches and landings in profiles similar to those of naval aviation.
Airlanding requires a particular brutality. The T-45 has been adapted to withstand high-rate-of-descent landings, up to 4.3 m/s (14 ft/s) in the reference documentation. This margin serves to absorb a reality: on deck, the trajectory is stabilized, but the margin for error is small. When you remove the “hard touch” from training, you also remove a form of habituation to this brutality.
The role of Field Carrier Landing Practice in learning
Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) is ground training that, historically, relies on repeated touch-and-goes to simulate, “as closely as possible,” the conditions on the deck. It focuses on circuit discipline, slope maintenance, alignment, and go-arounds. Above all, it accustoms the student to a firm touchdown, deliberately not very “civil.” This last point is precisely what disappears with the UJTS “wave-off only” requirement.
Let’s not misdiagnose the situation: wave-off is a critical skill.
But wave-off does not teach the moment when the aircraft ceases to be “in flight” and becomes a mass that must land quickly, straight, without indulgence. That last second is a learning experience in itself.
The budgetary and industrial logic behind wave-off
Why remove this maneuver? Because it is expensive to impose on a new aircraft. A “bridge-type” touch-and-go is not a standard landing. It requires a landing gear, shock absorbers, and airframe designed for higher energy, which means they are heavier, more complex, and take longer to certify. By removing this requirement, the Navy is expanding the choice to existing land-based training jets and reducing the risk of schedule slippage.
Aviation Week sums up the challenge: avoiding massive modifications and requalifications can save hundreds of millions, even billions. This is not a formula. It is the reality of programs where every structural reinforcement, every fatigue test, every landing gear test campaign can delay entry into service and cause support costs to skyrocket.
Another factor that is rarely stated so clearly is that the Navy wants to buy a system, not a mini carrier-based aircraft. The cost is not just 216 aircraft. It is the entire ecosystem: simulators, instructors, maintenance, software, infrastructure, and logistics.
The replacement program and expected performance
The program aims to replace a fleet of less than 200 T-45s with 216 aircraft. Official planning mentions a key milestone in early 2026, followed by a contract award around the second quarter of fiscal year 2027. The Navy is buying more than just an aircraft here. It is buying a training system: courses, simulators, maintenance, software updates, and data architecture to track students.
Several families of offers structure the market: a naval version of the T-7, a TF-50N derived from the T-50, an M-346N carried by Textron/Leonardo, and other proposals focused on rapid availability and integrated training. The wave-off specifications automatically favor these platforms, as they do not require a hook, reinforced structure, or specific deck test cycles.
The question of “expected performance” must therefore be interpreted differently. The Navy is not looking for a fast aircraft. It is looking for a stable, available tool that can be integrated into a digital formation, with avionics and training architecture capable of evolving. The best aircraft, in this context, is not the one that can “imitate” the deck, but the one that fits most neatly into the training chain.
The impact on pilot training and risk transfer
The change has a direct consequence: the first real contact with the “hard touch” will come later. Students will move on to the Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) to learn how to land on a combat aircraft. This choice has advantages: they learn on the operational machine, with its aids and sensors. But it also shifts the cost and the danger.
Let’s be honest. An hour of flight time in a fighter jet costs more than an hour in a training aircraft. Deck slots are rare, subject to the ship’s operational schedule. And a student who has not experienced hard landing in training arrives with incomplete experience. They have the trajectory. They don’t have the impact. But the impact influences behavior: a tendency to float, to correct late, or to hesitate on the go-around.
The Navy puts forward a strong argument: fleet aircraft have aids that simplify the approach.
The best-known example is Magic Carpet on the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G, which reduces workload and stabilizes the approach. That’s true. But it doesn’t erase reality. The aid reduces the complexity of precision flying. It doesn’t eliminate fatigue, weather, pressure, or traffic density.
The main risk is therefore not an automatic “drop in standards.” It is an increase in variability. Some students will compensate very well through simulation and coaching. Others will need more flights, more approaches, and more corrections. If the fleet does not have the resources to absorb this variability, training will pay off elsewhere: in time, incidents, or increased workload for instructors.
Realistic ways to compensate for the absence of “bridge” touch-and-go
If the Navy removes one action, it must add something else. Three approaches seem credible, but they require real investment, not just a promise.
Toughening up simulation, not multiplying it
The cleanest compensation is high-level simulation. It must incorporate detailed flight models, force feedback, and realistic bridge scenarios. The goal is to recreate what the school is losing: last-second management and reaction to touch, even if the touch is not physically performed.
The Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) simulation framework is useful here: it connects real aircraft, simulators, and generated forces, while recording detailed metrics for evaluation. The key is objectification: lateral deviation, angle of attack stability, descent rate, wave-off reaction, slope holding. Without metrics, simulation becomes a comfort zone. With metrics, it becomes a tool for selection and progression.
Securing a training volume in FRS
The second axis is organizational: ensuring that FRS have sufficient hours and slots to absorb this displaced skill. Otherwise, the initial savings will be paid for in delays in transformation. And, above all, in inequalities in progress: a student who is well served in sorties will progress quickly, while another who is less well served will lag behind and consume more resources.
This is a sensitive issue, as it affects the pace of deployments, aircraft carrier maintenance cycles, and the saturation level of transformation units. The “wave-off only” approach can only work if the fleet agrees to take on this volume of training on a long-term basis.
Maintaining a minimum of “real contact” before landing
The third approach is a hybrid solution. Until the UJTS has proven its effectiveness, maintaining a firm landing capability on a dedicated platform (extended T-45s or surrogate aircraft) can prevent the first “shock” from coming too late, on a more expensive and demanding machine.
This is not free. But it is insurance. And in an activity where mistakes are unforgiving, insurance is sometimes less expensive than repairs.
The strategic question the Navy will have to decide
The debate is not just about an aircraft. It is about what the Navy wants to optimize. If the priority is to produce faster, then wave-offs, simulation, and transfer to the fleet are consistent. If the priority is to preserve a cultural standard of naval aviation, then reality will have to be reintroduced in one form or another.
The real verdict will come from the data: FRS landing success rates, number of go-arounds, incidents, average qualification time, and instructor workload. If these indicators deteriorate, the “wave-off only” approach will no longer be an optimization. It will become a training debt.
Sources
The War Zone, Joseph Trevithick, “Navy’s T-45 Replacement Will Not Be Capable Of Making Carrier Landing Touch And Goes,” February 4, 2026
Aviation Week Network, Steve Trimble, “Draft Tender U.S. Navy Trainer Keeps Wave-Off Requirement,” February 3, 2026
U.S. Fleet Forces Command, “Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP),” institutional page accessed in February 2026
Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA), “VT-86 Sabrehawks | T-45C Goshawk (Aircraft Specifications),” institutional page accessed in February 2026
Navy Times, Riley Ceder, “Carrier landings no longer required for Navy pilots’ Wings of Gold,” September 2, 2025
Navy.mil, “Magic Carpet Lands Aboard Washington,” press release, June 28, 2016
FlightGlobal, “US Navy ditches field carrier landing requirement for T-45 Goshawk replacement,” April 1, 2025
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