T3A Firefly -- a dinky little bird with all-wood wings...
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AT6 Texan II -- a screaming turboprop that probably outperforms a P-51...
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Who needs the "firefly"?
Posted on 09/11/2006 5:21:33 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
On Sept. 8 the Air Force announced it's scrapping $32 million worth of airplanes, planes that taxpayers have been paying to keep at Hondo's' airport.
Most of the past decade taxpayers have paid about $12,000 a month to let those airplanes deteriorate.
When the Slingsby T-3A Firefly was brought into the Air Force pilot training program in 1994 it was a big deal — a $32 million deal.
Roughly $60 million worth of airplanes and parts, are sitting in storage at the taxpayers expense.
"Unfortunately, that's the way it is," Maintenance director for the Air Education Training Command, Bob Hemp said.
The Air Force Education Training Program took aspiring pilots and put them in those T-3A's now parked at Hondo and taught them to fly. So why, now do the planes sit covered in dust with flat tires?
"That's a real good question. I wish I had a real good answer," Greg Baldasarri then head civilian flight instructor in the Hondo program, said.
Baldasarri also says during the little more than three years the T-3A's were used and about 5,000 pilots were trained, then three crashes at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, 3 cadets and three instructor pilots died.
"Every accident in that airplane was because of pilot error. It had nothing to do with the capability of the airplane," he said.
According to the Air Forces’ own investigation the crashes were caused by pilot error.
But a number of the planes began experiencing fuel problems, which caused the engines to shutdown.
Every incident, according to Baldasarri, happened on the ground.
After the crashes though, the planes were grounded and following an extensive review, the Air Force spent $8 million to correct the fuel problems.
Then almost a year of testing hundreds of flights at Edwards Air Force Base, in which Baldasarri says he took part, proved the plane safe.
Baldasarri says the report on the Edwards tests was given to Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Mike Ryan. Shortly afterwards the training program was scrapped and the remaining 107 Fireflies mothballed.
"There is no reason those airplanes should be grounded. None! Zero!" Baldasarri said.
Baldasarri believed so much in the planes, that he offered to buy them. There were also offers from foreign countries and a deal to send them back to Slingsby. Air Force attorney's quashed the deals every time. The reason given was liability.
"That's ridiculous! That's just not the law!" Ron Sprague an attorney specializing in aviation law said.
"There's something called sovereign immunity, that you can't sue the government unless the government gives you permission."
Air Force attorneys say the Air Force would be liable because they ordered a bigger engine and altered the fuel systems. Another reason they won't sell is 'negligent maintenance,' allowing the planes to gather dust for 9 years.
"That's all immune from liability, because it was the government that did it in the name of national defense," Sprague said. "There's absolutely no reason they couldn't contract themselves completely immune. I can't fathom a reason they couldn't do it."
The Air Force has made the decision to scrap the aircraft within nine days.
An online search for the same model of the airplane shows they sell anywhere from $49,000 to $120,000 a piece.
There is no excuse for this shameful waste of valuable assets.
Here is a little more info and interesting comments at this site:
http://aeroweb.brooklyn.cuny.edu/specs/slingsby/t-3a.htm
T3A Firefly -- a dinky little bird with all-wood wings...
~~~~~~~~~~~
AT6 Texan II -- a screaming turboprop that probably outperforms a P-51...
~~~~~~~~~~~
Who needs the "firefly"?
The engine would be repeatedly started and stopped (they are trainers). During the summer, the engine would vapor lock. The T-3's engine had failed 66 times at takeoff or landing (pressure and temp differential and changes in manifold pressure possible exacerbated by altitude).
What would prevent it from happening in the air? It probably did during the three fatal crashes although two were attributed to pilot error and one to an "out of envelope" excursion.
The predecessor T-41 had no fatal accidents in 30 years of flight, it just wasn't as aerobatic.
Good riddance - who wants a plane so small you have to sit in the instructor's lap?
Of course, we're talking about the same bunch of AETC clowns that took a great fleet of T-38s and nickel-and-dimed them into something downright dangerous.
Sell 'em. Then someone will get injured and sue. This just just another bunch of lawyers looking for income.
Flight screening does a good job of weeding out folks who have no business going to Air Force pilot training. Back then, everyone went to the T-37 and then the T-38. It is expensive to send a student pilot through that program, only to learn you have to wash them out after weeks or even months.
The C-172 did a good job, but some people complained that you needed an aerobatic trainer in order to separate out folks who would get airsick, or who just couldn't handle the demanding regiment of AF pilot training. Acrobatics is hard work - energy management isn't easy, and thinking in 3-D while flying a jet isn't for everyone.
The problem was the T-3 was, and is, a pig. And a dangerous one.
They should have just purchased more C-172s and left it up to instructors in the T-37 to "make the call" early if students couldn't handle Air Force flying.
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