Textron sees Scorpion in military training role

Textron AirLand plans to target the international training market as it seeks sales of its Wichita-built Scorpion jet.

The company expects there will be several opportunities to bid on trainers around the world. Many fighter jet trainers used in fleets globally are aging.

“Based on the current fleet around the world and the age, it would be hard to believe that a lot of those aircraft would be left in service,” said Textron spokesman Dave Sylvestre. “They’re getting more and more expensive to keep in the air.”

Many don’t have the current technology, he said.

Textron is also eying the U.S. market.

Textron AirLand may offer a modified version of the Scorpion to the Air Force when it opens competition for a T-X trainer replacement.

The T-X will replace the Air Force’s T-38 trainers with 350 new aircraft.

Whether the company will compete for the contract will depend on what the Air Force includes in its request for proposal, or RFP.

“We’re very excited about the program and very much hope to compete,” Sylvestre said. “We’ll be looking very closely at the RFP when it is issued. To the extent we can offer a solution to the U.S. Air Force that delivers a great aircraft and great services, we will absolutely compete.”

The Air Force plans to issue a request for proposal for the T-X program in the third quarter of fiscal 2016.

The Scorpion jet — built in secret at a Cessna facility in southeast Wichita— was designed as a tactical plane able to take on a variety of missions, such as irregular warfare, border patrol, maritime surveillance, emergency relief, counter-narcotics and defense operations.

The twin-engine plane was unveiled in September and is in flight testing.

Low-volume production is slated for 2015. Testing and early production will be done in Wichita, company officials said.

A trainer variant

The Scorpion was designed to be modular, Sylvestre said, which is an advantage.

The plane will likely require some modifications to be configured as a trainer.

“It’s possible that we would have to modify the aircraft to meet whatever comes out in these trainer program RFP’s,” Sylvestre said. “The Scorpion has been designed with that in mind. The Scorpion was always designed with the intention that there would be different variants of it.”

The prototype flying today is configured for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

It can fly as fast as roughly 520 mph or as slow as 115 mph, Sylvestre said.

“In training, you potentially would want to go faster, endure more ‘G’ forces, do more intense aerial maneuvers, perhaps.” Sylvestre said.

That depends on each country’s requirements and what kind of fighter jets the pilots will eventually operate.

The Scorpion may require a different wing configuration, more powerful engines or a beefed up airframe to compete for some of the jet trainer programs, he said.

Its current wide squared-off wings, designed for slower speeds, could be traded for a swept-wing design, Sylvestre said.

“To trade them out ... would not require a complete redo of the aircraft,” he said.

Should Textron AirLand compete for the T-X program, it will have some heavy-weight competitors.

General Dynamics Corp. and Alenai Aermacchi are reportedly expected to offer the T-100; Lockheed Martin and Korean Aerospace Industries plan to bid the T-50 Golden Eagle, Boeing signed a deal with Saab to develop and build a new system, and BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, L-3 Link Simulation & Training and Rolls-Royce plan to jointly offer a Hawk Advanced Jet Training System, reports say.

Potential customers

In the meantime, Textron AirLand is in talks with potential customers for the Scorpion, he said.

The company is seeking its first customer.

“We are very actively talking to several countries,” Sylvestre said

The Scorpion made its European debut in July at the Farnborough Airshow and the Royal International Air Tattoo.

Those talks have accelerated since the two European shows.

“I can’t comment on how close they are,” he said.

The plane was on display in late August at the National Guard Association of the United States annual conference in Chicago.

And later this month, an armed version will be on display at the Air Force Association’s Air & Space Conference at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It will be the first fly-in to Washington, D.C.

There, it will be on exhibit along with systems suppliers, which will display their products next to the airplane, Sylvestre said.

“We buy them, and we integrate them,” Sylvestre said of the systems. “The modularity of the Scorpion allows us to pick and choose from a pretty large collection of really popular ISR systems. ... Whatever they especially like, there’s something on the market that will plug and play into the Scorpion platform. It’s been designed that way.”

For example, the Scorpion could be configured with a high-definition video system and infrared sensors, if the customer requires it.

Most other aircraft are designed for specific systems, he said. Because of that, it’s difficult to trade one out for another.

This story was originally published September 5, 2014 at 10:46 AM with the headline "Textron sees Scorpion in military training role."