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

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

[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.