yes and no

The takeoff roll is 1000' less, it is not as fast at cross country cruise 260 TAS at FL250 vice 270 TAS, it won't go faster than 245 KIAS at 14K running max torque, so it can't comply with our weather recall procedures to fly home at 250, if you are coming home from the high area. That one is not so important since RAPCON slows everybody down for sequence anyway. It isn't faster on the deck, but both will exceed 250 below 10K. Oddly enough we do interval takeoffs in formation with less time 6 secs for the T-6 and 10 secs for the Tweet, but it seems like it takes me two miles longer to complete the rejoin on a straight out departure than it did in the Tweet. The Tweet was easier to stop than the T-6. My record in the Tweet is about 1100 feet from brick one with a 15kt headwind, and 700lbs of gas using the min approach speed for a given weight chart in the appendix of the dash-1, I won't even attempt that in the T-6. I made it to 1100 hours before blowing a tire, and the student I was with did it by jumping on the brakes doing a mere 60 knots 4000' down the runway with 2000 feet to go.

Ferd, we are mixing straight ins and ELPs and it really gums up the pattern. Basically a guy on initial requesting to go to high key is treated just like a straight in at 5 miles, and until he gets to low key, no one gets closed or a break from initial. We have relaxed the rules a little, but that is the nutshell. It just complicates midphase a bit more, because now you need weather that permits a low key (1500 AGL) to launch a midphase, so in the winter it can cause headaches when we are restricted patterns most of the day. You can also get to low key just to fly the final turn portion of it by pulling closed to a 1500 AGL pattern or doing a wide break and climbing to the low key from initial. We are supposedly just grading the set up, but woe to the poor kid who can't get it all just right to have the gear, flaps at takeoff (50%) and torque set at 4-6% for simulated zero thrust feathered prop by the low key point to turn base.

I cannot get a double immelman out of it. Maybe one of our previous RAAF exchange pilots could have, but carrying the airconditioner and pressurization we have eats that extra 200HP from the PC-9 up and then some. I could get a Tweet to do a loop at 160 KIAS, but that was a lot of finese and basically getting it to fall on its back after getting vertical. I think if I got a T-6 slower than 200 and tried to go over the top, that torque would take over and roll it somewhere less than 90knots when I tried to pull it through to complete the loop.

OK I will quit thread jacking and ask does anyone know when the retirement ceremony is a SPS? A friend of mine and I are thinking of trying to get an out and back or jumpseat to DFW and drive up for the thing.