First, please call me Steve...
The classic line is that everyone should have 10 hours in a… (insert favorite piston engine fighter here, today we’ll use a Bearcat)…”everyone should have 10 hours in a Bearcat before being allowed to fly the T-6”. You also hear, “start on the Bearcat, transition to the Mustang, then you’ll be ready for the T-6”. And you know what, there’s some truth to it.
I like to think of the T-6 as the FlightSafety simulator of the 1940s. I’ve never met anyone who thought a simulator flew as well as the real airplane. Know why? They’re not supposed to. Sims are supposed to be somewhat quirky and skittish, so that when you get in the actual airplane everything comes a little easier and a little smoother.
When I first started flying the Texan (in preparation for flying the Sea Fury) I would call my instructor in Texas on the phone and say “I hate flying this thing, it’s a pig.”, to which he would respond, “You’re supposed to hate it. It doesn’t have enough power, the controls are mushy and when on the runway it wants to go every direction except straight. Keep flying and call me in a few weeks”.
Well, he was right. The more I flew the T-6 the more I came to enjoy it. I had originally purchased the Texan just to build time to fly the Hawker, with the intention that I would sell it after a year. Well, it isn’t for sale.
So, why the bad wrap? Well, it boils down to a couple of items that make the T-6 an excellent trainer and that also command a pilot’s respect. The first is ground handling. Just get used to the fact that she’s going to swerve, and be ready for it. One big piece of advice is not to pick the tail up early on takeoff. Pick the tail “green” and she will really take you for a ride. Personally, I like to wheel land the Texan, but she also 3 points nicely.
The next area of attention in the T-6 is the stall, especially the accelerated stall. I had been doing a lot of formation and aerobatic flying in the L-39 (and the T-28 before that), so I thought that I was ready for the Texan. Only thing was, the T-6 was designed in the 1930s, as opposed to those other more modern military trainers I was familiar with. Anyway, we went up on that first flight and did a stall series. Lots of rudder needed to keep a wing from dropping, but not too bad. Power on, normal recovery. My instructor said, “now let’s do some accelerated stalls”. OK, no problem.
In the L-39 an accelerated stall goes something like this: 60 degree bank at say 250 knots, begin pulling…2G…3G…you start to feel the mice on the controls “tap tap tap”…pull harder, here come the horses…”thump thump thump”…harder still, and you get the elephants…”bang bang”…then bang, and the nose suddenly stops tracking in the turn. Let off the back pressure and she’ll just start tracking around the turn again. So, with this experience base I began my first accelerated stall in the T-6 (at altitude of course, with a qualified instructor). Up in the bank…level turn…ball centered…pulling harder
BANG
This was followed soon after by “Holy Sh*t!!!” from yours truly. The T-6 has departed, in a most spectacular flick roll to the outside. I’m now on my back, executing a recovery before we enter a spin. Of course the sound of laughter coming from the backseat is now ringing in my ears. “OK, let’s do that again” I say over the intercom. I’m now thinking to myself that I must have had some slip on for it to have gone over like that. Nope. Second time was just like the first. When this thing is tired of flying she just up and quits. I now begin to understand why people die in the T-6 every year. Get slow in the pattern…overshoot final…bank her up on a wing and pull and…BANG.
There’s an excellent article by Budd Davisson on flying the T-6 at
http://www.airbum.com/pireps/PirepT-6.html
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