By:                   Norm Goyer

Why was the original Texan so successful in training fighter pilots for Allied nations during World War II? The answer is related to the aircraft that were contemporary and the types of mission they were expected to fly. When the T-6 became available in late 1937, the Curtiss P-36 was one our main line fighters; the Navy used the Grumman biplane, forerunners of the F4F Wildcat. The growing number of flight training centers needed to train thousands of pilots to fly these aircraft and others still in design stages.. The P-36 used a radial engine while the P-40 had an Allison V-12 engine, enclosed in a long cowling. The conventional retractable landing gear was close-spaced with its associated landing problems. The new fighter aircraft all had Hamilton Standard constant-speed propellers or Curtiss electric variable-pitch propellers.  They all had sliding canopies along with machine guns in the cowling and/or in the wings. The new aircraft were heavy with ample horsepower for rapid climbs and fast cruise-speeds.

The new Beechcraft T-6 Texan II is related to the Swiss Pilatus PC-9.

Prior to 1937, the training fleet had no aircraft dedicated to fighter pilot training. The early Stearmans, WACOs and Fleets were all very good trainers for primary flight training, but sadly lacked the ability to properly train for the higher-performance much, heavier aircraft. At the time, North American Aviation was producing the BT-9 which was adequate for transition into some early fighters, but was lacking the weight, horsepower, retractable landing gear and needed flight characteristics; but it was close. The T-6 Texan/SNJ, Harvard evolved from this BT-9. The Texan was an ideal advanced trainer for all current fighters and many yet to come.

This Texan II is flown by the Hellenic (Greece) Air Force.

After World War II ended, the military knew that fighter aircraft would evolve once again. Radial engine tail dragger advanced trainers were not the right vehicle for the emerging jet age with its tricycle landing gears. After the bids, Beechcraft’s very popular T-34 won the contract for a new all-purpose primary trainer. What started as a tandem two place straight tail Bonanza, ended with the Navy’s T-34C, which used a prop jet engine to help cadets ease into turbine and jet powered aircraft. The military then decided that the T-34 was indeed excellent but was still too small. North American responded with the T-28 Trojan which had a large Wright Cyclone radial engine, a large robust airframe, two-place tandem cockpit and a tricycle landing gear. The Navy’s version did call for a larger engine, a more robust nose gear and a tail hook. The Navy’s T-28 turned   out to be an ideal advanced trainer for the jet age. Several vendors even retrofitted some T-28s with a prop jet engine. The military was indeed  getting very close to the ideal advanced trainer for all services. Previously pure jet training was conducted using the small Cessna T-37 Tweet which successfully trained hundreds of future jet pilots for the US Air Force. But the airframe and the engines were obsolete, and needed to be upgraded.

Canada, in keeping with the Texan theme, named the Texan II the  Harvard II. The engine in all Texan IIs is a Pratt & Whitney of Canada  PT-6 turboprop.

The military once again turned to Beechcraft for their next advanced trainer. In an attempt to honor the tremendous job the original T-6 had done for so many years, the new aircraft was named  the “T-6 Texan II.” The new aircraft was basically a Pilatus PC-9, designed in Switzerland. Hawker Beechcraft purchased the rights to the   basic aircraft and redesigned it from the groundup into a considerably more sophisticated and powerful all-purpose modern military trainer.

The Texan II first flew in 2001 and 2002 at Moody Air Force Base and Randolph Air Force Base, replacing the  Cessna T-37. In 2005, the T-6Bs replaced all of the T-34Cs at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. Some Navy bases are still using the T-34C (prop-jet) until their new Texan IIs arrive in 2012. One Texan II costs approximately six million dollars with a large amount of this for the highly-reliable Martin-Baker zero-zero ejection seats. Currently the new Texans are being used by the United States, Canada, Israel, Greece, Iraq and Morocco. Long live the Texans.

General characteristics

· Crew: 2, tandem seating

· Length: 33 ft 4 in (10.2 m)

· Wingspan: 33 ft 5 in (10.2 m)

· Height: 10 ft 8 in (3.3 m)

· Empty weight: 4,900 lb (2,087 kg)

· Loaded weight: 6,550 lb (2,971 kg)

· Max takeoff weight: 6,500 lb (2,958 kg)

· Powerplant: 1× Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-68 turboprop, 1,100 shp (820 kW)

Performance

• Maximum speed: 316 knots IAS (Mach 0.67 at high altitude, 585 km/h)

• Range: 850 nm (1,575 km)

• Service ceiling: 31,000 ft (9,448 m)

• Rate of climb: 4,500 ft/min (1,372 m/min)

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