The McDonnell Douglas T-45 Goshawk is a modern American-made training aircraft. The flight of the prototype took place in 1988 and in the same year mass production started, which led to the creation of about 220 aircraft of this type. In the T-45A version, the length of the machine is approx. 12 m with a wingspan of approx. 9.4 meters. The drive is provided by a single Rolls-Royce Turbomeca F405-RR-401 turbofan engine with a thrust of 26 kN. The maximum speed is approx. 1040 km / h.
The T-45 Goshawk aircraft was developed at the McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corporation (now part of the Boeing concern) for the needs of the US Navy, which in the 1980s sought to replace the increasingly older North American T-2 Buckeye training and training aircraft and Douglas training versions A-4 Skyhawk. However, to simplify things very much, the presented machine is in fact a development of the BAE Hawk aircraft produced by BAE Systems. Compared to its predecessor, the T-45 was primarily adapted to operating with aircraft carriers, which entailed a significant strengthening of the structure of the fuselage, wings, landing gear, and the addition of specialized equipment. The aerodynamics of the aircraft has also been significantly improved and there has been a significant interference in its control system. Much changed avionics was also used. Finally, a completely new plane was created, which only externally resembles its “British cousin”. Currently, the McDonnell Douglas T-45 Goshawk is used by the US Navy and US Marine Corps as a training machine designed to train future pilots of on-board aircraft.
