T-6 Texan to replace T-34 [NAS Corpus Christi]

Corpus Christi Caller-Times ^ | December 4, 2006 | Fanny S. Chirinos

[SwinneySwitch]

Local Navy student pilots will learn the craft's digital cockpit

Student pilots at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi will begin training for more advanced aircraft when the T-6 Texan II replaces the T-34 Turbomentor. The change will occur in 2012.

The single-engine, two-seat T-6 that will replace the single-engine, two-seat T-34 will have a digital cockpit instead of a dial-instrumentation cockpit.

The change allows the students to learn a digital cockpit from the beginning, instead of learning a dial cockpit and then a digital cockpit in advanced training, said Lt. Sean Robertson, a spokesman for the Chief of Naval Air Training.

The cockpit has several levels of complexity that can be changed to teach students different scenarios.

The aircraft was tested at Naval Air Station Kingsville last month by Navy and Marine Corps squadron leaders, who praised the T-6 as "just what the Navy needs."

The T-6 is the primary trainer for Marine Corps and Air Force pilots. The Navy's Training Wing 6 in Pensacola, Fla., uses 40 T-6 trainers.

"One of the pluses is that all our aviators will have similar backgrounds in aviation," Robertson said. "It opens up possibilities because it's the same basic equipment. It gives U.S. military aviation more flexibility."

Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio has been using the T-6 since 2001 and is still phasing out its T-37s, said David Smith, the Air Force's Air Education and Training Command chief of news division.

"What the T-6 has done is taken out the old technology of the mid-1950s and brought in modern, digital technology," Smith said. "The glass (digital) cockpit allows more efficient training. The aircraft's not faster, but it has more maneuverability. If pilots are doing touch-and-go landings on a strip and they have to do four of them in a row, the T-6 will do it quicker than the T-37."

With twice the output engine power than the T-34, the T-6 is capable of more than 7-Gs, which makes it more dynamic and able to do more aerobatics. It's also the first Navy primary trainer to feature ejection seats.

Along with newer technology comes a new cost. The T-34 used at the Corpus Christi base costs about $1 million. The T-6 is about a $4.3 million aircraft. Congress has funded the Navy's replacement processes, Robertson said. Raytheon builds both aircraft.

"This will bring upper-level flight training to the primary syllabus," Robertson said. "When given the opportunity to do joint training, you have to take it."

Contact Fanny S. Chirinos at 886-3759 or chirinosf'@caller.com

[RedQuill]

Bite your tongue.

There will never be another P-51 Mustang.

That said, I envy the stus that get to fly the new Texan. The T-34C was the envy of the GA pilots I knew, but this new trainer is truly drool-inducing.

[Pentagon Leatherneck]

Middle said it exactly right. Think of it as grad school for the gifted and talented. You want to get them up to speed as quickly as possible, and keep the pressure on them by challenging them.

And, while IPs are ALWAYS able to induce stress (*snort*), the airplane has to have the capabilities in the first place to enable mission-skill building.

And every danged thing we're buying today seems to cost too much to this old bird.

TC

[Tallguy]

So it's a $3 million avionics package?

I wouldn't doubt it. Traditional aircraft instruments & gauges are really simple & rugged. In order to get similar performance from a digital system you'd need to design a lot of redundancy -- that & the system would necessariy be a lot more integrated.