Navy grounds 193 T-45Cs while UK encounters engine problems with Hawk T2, page 1

The US Navy has grounded 193 T45C Goshawk trainers after a problem was found in their Rolls Royce F405 engines. It's believed to be related to a blade failure found during preflight on an aircraft on October 11th. The aircraft was at NAS Kingsville and was preparing for a training flight. A subsequent engineering analysis led to the Chief of Naval Air Training grounding the aircraft.

At the same time, the UK announced that the Hawk T2 trainer will be facing issues with their engines until 2025. A problem was identified with the low pressure turbine in some of the Rolls/Safran Adour 951 engines. Safran makes the low pressure turbine, and steps are being taken to minimize the impact, but an undisclosed number of engines have been removed from service.

The Navy’s fleet of carrier-capable training jets have been grounded for almost a week due to an engine fault discovered earlier this month, Navy officials told USNI News on Thursday.

The service’s 193 T-45C Goshawk trainers used to train Navy and Marine Corps pilots are now in a “safety pause” following an engine blade fault discovered during a pre-flight check on Oct. 11 at Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas, Elizabeth Fahrner, a spokeswoman with Program Executive Officer Tactical Aircraft Programs (PEO(T)), told USNI News on Thursday.

A subsequent engineering analysis of the Rolls-Royce Turbomeaca F405-RR401 engine prompted the grounding of the T-45C fleet by Chief of Naval Air Training Rear Adm. Richard Brophy.

“The Naval Undergraduate Flight Training Systems Program Office, Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Chief of Naval Air Training and Fleet Support Team have been working around the clock with industry partner Rolls Royce to identify the root cause of the recent T-45 engine blade failure. Engineering analysis has been underway and will continue until we can safely return the T-45 fleet to a flying status to support CNATRA’s training,” PEO T Rear Adm. John Lemmon said in an Oct. 18 statement.

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UK military flight training will be affected by a problem found with the powerplant of the BAE Systems Hawk T2 jet, with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) saying that the effects will last until the end of 2025.

Answering a question in the House of Commons on 14 September, Minister of State Alec Shelbrooke said that a fault had been identified with the jet engine of the Hawk T2 that the MoD uses for its Advanced Fast Jet Training (AFJT) programme, and that initial assessments suggest an impact on fast-jet training output for the next three years.