WASHINGTON — On the verge of approving the T-7 Red Hawk for production, the Air Force quietly assessed a key problem facing its new training jet: The service may have difficulty adequately sustaining it, according to an Air Force document reviewed by Breaking Defense.
The Air Force document, part of a March 2026 internal presentation for the T-7’s production decision, rates sustainment of the aircraft as “high risk.” Sustainment essentially refers to a platform’s underlying logistics support, and in the case of the T-7, the Air Force is missing technical data it needs to maintain it — a source of tension with Boeing on the Red Hawk’s contract. And the problem is further complicated by parts shortages.
In other words, as one source with direct knowledge of the program told Breaking Defense, the Air Force is “going to struggle mightily to sustain this aircraft.” And to get the necessary data, an Air Force official acknowledged, may well cost taxpayers additional funds on top of Boeing’s already existing $9.2 billion contract to deliver the Red Hawk.
The issue at its core stems from a dispute between the Air Force and Boeing over what the T-7’s contract requires of the company. In a bid to reset relations, the Air Force implemented a new “active management” strategy, which service officials described as fostering greater cooperation to resolve various issues.
This is part two of a three-part investigation into the T-7 Red Hawk. Click here for part one.
The situation is in many ways not unique to the T-7. The government in recent years has placed a greater premium on independently sustaining what it buys, leading to more emphasis on requirements for technical data — features like design drawings, lists of materials and key information on components. The desire for more data stretches to a host of systems across the Pentagon, including top platforms like the F-35, which is notorious for low availability rates.
Sometimes, the government’s desire for technical data leads to tension with contractors that spills out into public view. But rarely are those disagreements, or their consequences, revealed to the extent identified by internal Air Force materials and described by insiders.
In an interview with Breaking Defense, Rodney Stevens, the Air Force’s program executive officer for training, said, “While the program previously experienced significant challenges related to the fulfillment of contractual data obligations,” a new active management strategy implemented last year has enabled officials to forge “a new path forward.”
“Through the Active Management Strategy, both parties are now engaged in a collaborative effort to ensure all necessary technical data is delivered. This partnership is proving effective in posturing the program for operational training and long-term success,” he said.
In response to a detailed list of questions, Boeing said, “While we are working to get this capability to the warfighter as quickly as possible, we will not forgo safety or quality. Safety is paramount to Boeing and the T‑7A program.
“Post contract award, the Boeing T‑7A Red Hawk program has safely accumulated over 344 flight test hours across more than 350 test flights,” the company added. “As we continue to collaborate with the U.S. Air Force, the T‑7 program’s active management approach allows us to provide a production‑ready configuration to the Air Force prior to low‑rate initial production, further reducing future risk and accelerating the path to delivering this critical capability.”
The Air Force is “doing one hell of a job pushing Boeing to deliver the aircraft,” a government source familiar with the program told Breaking Defense. “But there is a flipside, and not enough is being done to ensure sustainment is prepared.
“It just burns me up that it’s a kickass aircraft and going to be great for what it does, but if it’s plagued by sustainment, it’s going to be in the same bucket as many other programs struggling to maintain sustainment and readiness rates,” the source added.
Missing Details
Like most large defense acquisitions, Boeing as the prime contractor designs a weapon system and integrates its components but relies on countless parts shipped from an intricate network of suppliers. It’s through these arrangements, Air Force documents and sources say, that Boeing did not ensure requirements for key data were instilled.
An internal August 2025 Air Force presentation viewed by Breaking Defense describes the impact of Boeing’s claimed “non-compliance” on a range of issues, including critical safety items that have affected the aircraft’s airworthiness. Like with critical safety items, the presentation says Boeing “did not flow down” requirements to its suppliers for the aircraft’s technical data, which the Air Force needs to organically sustain the aircraft — meaning without reliance on the contractor.
“The T-7 contract required data rights necessary for organic sustainment of the aircraft, but Boeing has only provided a very small percentage of the necessary data,” the source with direct knowledge of the program said, who like others was granted anonymity for this story.
Specifically, according to the March 2026 presentation, the Air Force is missing data for intermediate- and depot-level maintenance, which along with a lack of spares is rated as “high risk.” However, the presentation projects only a “low risk” for operational maintenance set to begin next year — essentially referring to sustainment that can be done on the flightline.
To address the lack of data, the person said the Air Force will instead have to contract directly with suppliers, a process that they estimated would take years and hundreds of millions of dollars while also delaying depot standup.
“All this time since 2018 has been wasted. Now the Air Force has to put out RFPs [request for proposals] for data and work with suppliers and develop separate, individual contracts,” they said, referring to the year the Air Force awarded Boeing the competitive T-7 contract.
Without offering a specific price estimate, Stevens acknowledged the Air Force could end up spending more money for the aircraft’s technical data — but only if one assumes that the contract for the jet signed in 2018 sufficiently conveys that requirement. While acknowledging a more precise agreement could’ve been written, Stevens argued that pursuing claims for topics like data rights, potentially via legal action, was not in the best interest of the program.
“There’s probably some debate where probably we, the government, could have been a little bit more specific [in the 2018 contract] on what the requirement is,” Stevens said. “Rather than continuing to argue about it, or taking a legal approach to see what the court would say, who was right and who was wrong, we pivoted to the active management agreement that’s in place to move forward.”
Stevens added that the T-7 is not designated as a Core Logistics Platform under US law, which requires the Defense Department to maintain government-owned and -operated maintenance for essential national defense systems. Officials are working “to determine if there is a business case for certain components to be organically repaired,” he said, adding that as they “become better informed, we will update our product support strategy accordingly to ensure the T-7 is properly sustained to achieve its availability rates over its service life.”
The Air Force is “fully committed” to ensuring organic maintenance, he continued, noting that the program is “currently receiving the technical data required for initial training and operations.” The Air Force’s “long-term strategy” entails “establishing direct government relationships with key suppliers” while “ensur[ing] the highest readiness at the best value,” Stevens said.
“This may ultimately involve a ‘best of both worlds’ model where our US Air Force maintainers perform the vast majority of day-to-day maintenance, while we retain the flexibility to partner with industry for highly specialized functions,” he added. “Any decision regarding a follow-on support contract will be driven by what is most effective and efficient for the warfighter and the taxpayer.”
The jet’s cloudy sustainment picture cuts against a recent approval to move the aircraft into production, sources said. To substantiate their concerns, they pointed to an internal assessment for the aircraft’s manufacturing readiness level (MRL), which examines whether the right infrastructure is in place to support production rates. The August 2025 presentation shows some MRL metrics scored lower than eight, a number typically associated with production. (MRL is rated on a 10-point scale.)
Stevens acknowledged that the MRL scores were lower than eight in certain sub-criteria, particularly around supply for the aircraft, but asserted a score of eight was not necessary for approving production, known in Pentagon parlance as Milestone C. “You have to have manufacturing maturation plans that put us on a good glide slope to get us to where we need to be for full rate production,” he said.
“For the manufacturing assessment areas that we scored lower, mainly in the supplier realm,” he said the manufacturing maturation plans “will get us to a point where we’ll be able to meet the expected production rate with sufficient manufacturing quality for the program.”
Additionally, Stevens emphasized, the aircraft’s production is being approved in a phased approach, where officials can also mitigate risks related to concurrency.
Data Disputes
Data rights are frequently a thorny topic for government programs because they can involve the use of a company’s intellectual property. Firms are wary of releasing any information on their IP to maintain their competitive advantage, and spend internal dollars expecting a return on investment — which often occurs during sustainment, typically the most lucrative part of long-term deals for weapon systems like aircraft.
Military officials stress they need data rights to conduct maintenance independently, particularly in wartime scenarios where contractor support is less feasible. And they argue it can save money, creating a need for what officials call a “right to repair” for Pentagon weapon systems. Lawmakers have taken notice as well, and some are once again backing a right to repair provision after a similar measure was stripped out during legislative negotiations last year.
Sometimes data rights are a problem simply because parties may not know exactly what information they need when a contract is signed, explained Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s acquisition chief under the Biden administration.
“The contractual stipulation that data rights are going to be provided is signed when the contract is awarded. So you can’t specify in that first iteration exactly which data rights you’re talking about, because subsystems may still be in flux, and in many cases, the critical data that ends up becoming a sticking point is data that is coming from suppliers,” Hunter told Breaking Defense in a recent interview.
“So then they have to go to the supplier and say, Hey, we need your IP so we can give it to the government, and that’s, you know, that’s why it gets challenging,” he added. “In many cases, the specificity of exactly what IP is being detailed is not there, and so it becomes a subject of debate, argument and negotiation later on.”
One federal contract expert, who spoke to Breaking Defense on condition of anonymity since they still practice law, speculated that Boeing may not have had its supply base firmed up when it bid for the T-7, which could complicate the desire for underlying technical data.
“Maybe Boeing shouldn’t have promised, or shouldn’t have entered into a contract that put that level of risk on them” for retrieving the aircraft’s technical data, the person said. “A lot of times I think that companies just think, ‘Oh, well, let’s just get the contract.’”
The contract expert told Breaking Defense that all things considered, the Air Force establishing direct relationships with suppliers to obtain the missing data “completely makes sense.” When it comes to redress, the person noted the government generally has enforcement tools at its disposal like altering payments or penalizing future contract bids for poor past performance. Still, “when you have a limited number of suppliers, past performance is not necessarily terribly effective,” they said.
The person also noted the government’s options could ultimately be more limited when it comes to dealing with major prime contractors like Boeing.
“This is always the problem we have with the big boys. … They’re just too big, and they’re running too many critical sole-source programs,” the person said. “There are ways you can beat them over the head, but you can’t just say, ‘We’re taking the contract away.’”
This is part two of a three-part investigation into the T-7 Red Hawk. Click here for part one.
