happening

Individuals training to become U.S. Navy tactical jet pilots can still get carrier qualifications in T-45 Goshawk jet trainers, even though it is no longer a graduation requirement. If there is time and space available, they can join future E-2 Hawkeye pilots, as well as foreign student aviators training with the Navy, for whom this is still a requirement, at least for now.

The Navy is separately in the process of evaluating new ways to ensure it can keep providing key carrier aviation training, at least in the virtual realm, as it moves ahead with plans to replace its T-45 fleet. The service’s next jet trainer will not even be required to perform carrier landing touch-and-go training.

TWZ had reached out to the office of the Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) for an update on carrier aviation training plans last week. This followed the release of a new batch of pictures showing T-45s conducting carrier qualifications aboard the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower at the end of June. CNATRA also forwarded some of our queries to Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), which offered additional details about the full ‘systems of systems’ being pursued under the Undergraduate Jet Training System (UJTS) program that will take the place of the just under 200 Goshawks in inventory today.

“Those photos consisted of 26 student naval aviators from the following pipelines: 17 E-2 students, seven international military students and two strike students,” a spokesperson for CNATRA told us to begin with. “Carrier qualifications are not required for strike students, but if aircraft and deck time are available, we will select a small number of strike students to participate alongside E-2 and international military students.”

“Carrier qualifications remain an integral part of the E-2 and international military student training pipeline,” they added.

“The determination of when a student conducts carrier qualifications is dependent on several factors, including the student’s position in the training pipeline at the time the opportunity becomes available,” they also explained when asked for more details. “More specifically, CNATRA and the fleet determine that a carrier has the deck time and aviation assets available to support training operations, and the Training Air Wings evaluate their rosters to determine if there are students at the right phase of their training where a carrier qualification evolution is appropriate.”

As noted, as part of the UJTS effort, the Navy is already moving to acquire a new jet trainer to directly replace the T-45, which will not be required to perform carrier landing touch-and-goes or similar training called Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) at facilities ashore. FCLP, as it exists now, is structured in a way that “simulates, as near as practicable, the conditions encountered during carrier landing operations,” per the Navy. This historically served as a lead-up to full carrier qualifications.

F-18 Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP). Touch-and-Go Landing.

With carrier qualifications already eliminated from the strike pipeline syllabus, this prompts further questions about what will happen to the syllabus for E-2 and foreign student aviators after the T-45s are retired for good. For most prospective strike pilots, the current curriculum already means they will not touch down on a real carrier until after they are winged and flying a front-line aircraft.

“The UJTS system must be capable of training student pilots to land on a carrier,” Navy Capt. Duane Whitmer, head of the UJTS program office at NAVAIR, told TWZ in a statement. “As [the] T-45 is planned to be operational through 2040 and UJTS is currently going through source selection, any discussion regarding CNATRA carrier qualification syllabus requirements once UJTS is fielded would be premature.”

“We are essentially explaining the same requirement from different angles. UJTS is a comprehensive ‘system of systems’ encompassing both the physical aircraft and advanced simulators,” he added. “By design, this approach ensures the FCLP training capability exists within the overall program, even though the RFP [request for proposals for the T-45 replacement] does not explicitly mandate FCLP to touchdown in the aircraft itself. We are currently in source selection to evaluate how industry proposes delivering this capability across the combined system, [but] any discussion regarding future CNATRA syllabus changes remains premature.”

For years now, the Navy has made clear that it sees advances in virtualized training, as well as automated carrier landing capabilities like Magic Carpet and its successors, as having fundamentally altered the training landscape. The service has also said that eliminating FCLP and carrier qualification requirements will help move student aviators through training faster amid chronic pilot shortages. There is a cost-benefit argument to be made, as well.

Flight Ready: Live, Virtual, Constructive

Flight Ready: Magic Carpet

Despite all this, concerns and criticism have been and continue to be voiced about the broader ramifications of cutting elements long considered critical to naval aviation training. As TWZ regularly noted, virtualized aviation training environments have become very impressive in recent years, but still cannot be expected to truly replicate live training. It’s also worth pointing out here that the Navy’s E-2 fleets do not currently benefit from automated carrier landing developments, though the Navy is now moving to change that with a Precision Approach Landing Capability (PALC) upgrade.

“Carrier qualifications demand the highest levels of focus, skill, and teamwork,” Navy Capt. Travis Suggs, CNATRA operations officer, was quoted as saying in an official Navy news item about the training conducted on Eisenhower last month. “Watching our future pilots and our international military students successfully catch the wire aboard the Dwight D. Eisenhower is a testament to the quality of our training pipelines, the dedication of our instructors, and the immense capability of the ship’s crew.”

There remains a window for the Navy to potentially adopt something of a different approach as it firms up the rest of its UJTS ‘systems of systems’ plans. The Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) proposed T-45 replacement, called the Freedom jet, is still being designed to be capable of conducting FCLP training. SNC has also now partnered with Northrop Grumman and General Atomics on this effort.

Freedom Family of Training Systems (FoTS)

In addition, the expectation was that removing the FCLP training requirement for the Navy’s next jet trainer would help open the field to more competitors, including ones based on types intended for operation from bases on land. However, this has not come to pass. SNC is one of just two major competitors still in the running after Boeing dropped out last month. Lockheed Martin, which had teamed with Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), bowed out in April. A team led by Leonardo and Textron is still competing with a proposal centered on the M-346N aircraft. Both the Freedom jet and the M-346N are also notable twin-engine designs. The T-45, as well as the proposals from Boeing and Lockheed Martin/KAI, are all single-engine designs.

We Fly Aboard The M-346 That Could Become The Navy’s Next Jet Trainer

It is worth noting here that the Navy’s UJTS plans have already been evolving for years amid repeated delays with the program, which first emerged publicly back in 2020. The original goal was to have a T-45 replacement enter operational service in 2028. The Navy is now aiming to just pick a winning design next year, after which it will take some amount of time to complete the aircraft’s development and begin actual deliveries.

In the meantime, the aging T-45s have faced their own struggles in recent years. This includes a spate of reported hypoxia-like physiological episodes among pilots that led to the development of a new oxygen system. Engine issues have also hounded the fleet. In recent years, there have been several Goshawk crashes, some of which have been fatal, due to a variety of factors. The most recent of these came in May, but the individuals on board thankfully survived.

The Navy’s overall vision for training future aviators continues to solidify, with the new jet trainer being just one component. Just how much training ends up moving into virtualized spaces remains to be seen.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Madonna is just a material girl, living in a material world.

The “Vogue” hitmaker graced the cover of Interview magazine for the Summer 2026 issue and in the accompanying chat, the singer revealed the reason the ultra-hyped biopic with “Ozark” star Julia Garner was scrapped: not enough cold hard cash.

Turns out, Universal Studios was not Madonna’s Mr. Right. According to the pop star, the studio didn’t share her vision for a budget for the film.

“I worked on my script for two years and spent two years at Universal Studios with the line producers doing budgeting and casting,” she told the magazine. “We had a falling out, me and Universal, regarding budget because I needed — I’ve had an extraordinary life. I’ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget. You know what I mean?”

The film had been in the works for years, and in 2021 Universal Pictures won a multi-studio auction to helm the biopic. According to Variety, the script followed Madonna from her upbringing in the suburbs of Detroit, her artistic awakening in 1980s New York City, and concluded around the 1998 release of “Ray of Light.”

“I found a way to make it for less money in Serbia, but I don’t think they were into the idea of — I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe they just didn’t believe in me.”

Madonna said the studio couldn’t wrap its head around what she was suggesting and countered that she wouldn’t “stay in Serbia more than four days.”

“I said, ‘Did you read the script?’ My whole life has been survival. I’m not going there for a holiday.’”

Madonna said that she was in “limbo” when the movie plans fell apart, and she considered telling her life story through a Netflix series when the streamer came knocking. But she wouldn’t be able to use the script she had penned for Universal without buying it from the studio for “an extortionist’s price,” even though she wrote it.

“That’s just the way it goes,” she continued. “I started trying to understand how making a series would work. It’s a very, very different process. You have to meet a lot of writers and find the right showrunner, and I couldn’t find one. This went on for another eight or nine months. I was like, ‘Good thing I have another job because I need to work, I need to create. I need to do what I was put on this earth to do.’”

Representatives for Universal Pictures, Netflix and Garner did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

Through the process of writing the script, Madonna was bitten by the memoir bug, but she channeled that confessional energy into her forthcoming album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor: Part II,” which drops July 3. A 13-minute music video weaving together six tracks from the new album was released earlier this month and featured A-list cameos by Sabrina Carpenter, Kate Moss, Lourdes Leon, Benedict Cumberbatch and more.

While the biopic and buzz around Garner’s portrayal of the “Like a Virgin” star had fans of the two blondes chomping at the bit, all is not lost: Art captures life. Garner and Madonna were spotted filming scenes in Venice two weeks ago for the second season of “The Studio,” in which Madonna plays herself struggling to get her biopic made.

Trump weighs next steps on Iran deal as Tehran insists negotiations are continuing and no final agreement exists.

Prospects for a US-Iran agreement to end the conflict remained uncertain on Friday, with President Donald Trump saying he would make a “final determination” on a deal, while Iranian officials stressed that no understanding had yet been reached.

Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Tehran would judge any agreement by actions rather than words, adding that no steps would be taken unless Washington acted first.

Meanwhile, fighting continued elsewhere in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces had advanced beyond Lebanon’s Litani River, as Israeli attacks across Lebanon on Friday left dozens more civilians reportedly killed or wounded.

Here is what we know:

In Iran

• Iran says talks continue, but no deal yet: Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said exchanges with the United States are continuing but stressed that no final agreement has been reached. He rejected Trump’s demands-based approach and described the US naval blockade as illegal, adding that Tehran would judge any easing of restrictions by actions rather than words.
  

War diplomacy

• CENTCOM highlights ongoing regional patrols: US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces remain “present and vigilant” across the region, sharing an image of an F-16 fighter jet conducting a patrol over the Middle East.
• US pushes allies to boost defence spending: Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Trump plans a $1.5 trillion investment in defence and described it as part of a historic expansion of America’s military-industrial base. Hegseth urged allies to spend at least 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, warning that countries that fail to do so could face changes in their relationship with Washington. He also reiterated that the US remains committed to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
• Washington praises Israel-Lebanon security talks: The US Department of Defense described military-to-military talks between Israeli and Lebanese delegations in Washington as “productive”, saying they focused on regional security and stability. The Pentagon also reaffirmed support for Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In the US

• Uncertainty remains after White House talks: Reporting from the White House, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher said there was still no clarity after Trump’s Situation Room meeting on whether a final agreement with Iran had been reached. Fisher said any easing of restrictions around the Strait of Hormuz could signal progress, but officials are still waiting for concrete details from the White House.

In Israel

• Air raid sirens sound in northern Israel: The Israeli military said it intercepted several projectiles launched from Lebanon, while another landed near Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel. The military reported no casualties and did not specify whether the projectiles were rockets or drones.

In Lebanon

• Netanyahu says Israeli troops have crossed the Litani River: Israel’s Netanyahu said Israeli forces have advanced north of the Litani River near Nabatieh, signalling an expansion of operations in southern Lebanon. The move comes amid ongoing Israel-Lebanon talks and could be followed by further strikes on Beirut and the western Bekaa Valley.