Page 30 - Volume 10 Number 12

At the behest of the Navy, in 1972 Beech Aircraft Corporation engineers redesigned the T-34B to accept
a PT6A-25 turboprop engine built by Pratt & Whitney Canada. Rated at 400 shaft horsepower, the engine breathed new life into the aging Mentor airframe. More than 300 of the more powerful Mentors were produced from 1975-1990. An export version designated T-34C-1 proved popular as basic trainers and light ground attack aircraft with air forces in Peru, Morocco, Argentina, Mexico and Ecuador.
a respectable rate of climb at sea level of 1,280 feet per minute. During a 10-year period spanning 1948-1958, Beechcraft employees eventually built 1,904 examples of the Model 45.5
Much to the Navy’s delight, the T-34B’s record as a primary trainer allowed the service to reduce the number of flying hours to 36 from 74 because students learned more quickly in the Beechcraft than in the SNJ with its conventional landing gear configuration. The Mentor also slashed the time required to solo by more than 50 percent, and the overall accident rate decreased as well compared with the SNJ. In short, the T-34B taught fledgling naval aviators better and more quickly while drastically reducing operating costs.
It is interesting to note that in 1961 the Navy reported that since flight operations began in 1956 at Pensacola, more than 9,000 naval aviators had been trained in the T-34B. These airplanes had flown more than 445,000 hours and boasted a safety record five times better than their predecessors. Navy training squadron VT-1, operating from Saufley Field in Pensacola, reported a record 75,000 consecutive accident-free flying hours surpassed only by VT-3’s 80,000-hour record.
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One T-34B, the 39th to roll off the Wichita assembly line, earned a “gold seal of approval” from Naval Air Training Command after completing more than 5,000 hours and traveling 700,000 miles in the air. More than 100 Navy and Marine Corps pilots had been trained in the aircraft, which records showed had made 16,459 landings, 4,604 loops, 3,401 spins and 17,904 stalls, and was refueled 3,325 times.6
During the early 1960s, the U.S. Air Force began phasing out its fleet of T-34A trainers in favor of jet- powered basic training aircraft. A competition was won by Cessna Aircraft Company’s twin-jet T-37 that featured side-by-side seating for the instructor pilot and the student. In the mid-1950s, Beech Aircraft Corporation did build its own version of a jet trainer designated as the Model 73. It was powered by a single turbojet engine and its airframe borrowed heavily from the Model 45. Although the airplane flew well and made many demonstration flights, it failed to win any orders from military forces.
As for the Navy’s fleet of Mentors, they soldiered on faithfully for more than 35 years until 1975 when deliveries began of the much improved T34C. In 1973, the Navy awarded Beech Aircraft a contract to develop a turboprop version of the T-34B, and the first of two YT- 34C prototypes flew in 1974. Beech engineers modified the T-34B airframe to accept a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-25 turboprop engine rated at 400 shaft horsepower. The engine and other systems upgrades would extend the life of the venerable Mentor for another 25 years until being replaced by the Beechcraft T-6A “Texan II” – another PT6A-powered airplane that is currently
DECEMBER 2016