Originally Posted by
KC10 FATboy
Doesn't the T-6 out perform the T-37? If so, other than the reliability of having a second motor, what real advantage would there have been in having a twin engine airplane for an initial pilot training aircraft?
There were (in our minds) ramp safety issues that the Navy said weren't there but the biggest was having to train flame out landings. How do they do it now with mixing straight ins, overheads and SFO landings all at one aux field? We just weren't set up for that. I retired before the T-6s arrived so I don't know how it's done or if they decided the engine reliability was good enough not to worry about it, but we didn't want a single engine trainer.
Yes the PC-9 that I flew way out performed a tweet. It would do a "snowman" - 3 Immelmans followed by 3 Split Ss. Oh, and 300K on initial if you needed it too. Plus, the T-6 has a bigger engine than the PC-9 did (for the pressurization).
Ferd