Boeing announced on 27 September it won the US Air Force’s lucrative T-X trainer contract. Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin and a Leonardo-CAE-Honeywell team to replace the USAF's ageing Northrop T-38 Talon trainers. Boeing and Saab AB teamed to offer a clean sheet aircraft with Triumph Group providing the wing, vertical tail, and horizontal tail structures. Lockheed Martin teamed with Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) to offer KAI's T-50A. The Leonardo team offered its T-100.

Next generation aircraft pilots will be trained at this aircraft.