I believe the first, & may be the only T-34C sold directly from Beech to a civilian was a T-34C1, N6922S, S/N: GM-89. I was Chief Inspector at the Beechcraft shop at KPDK, & through special arrangement by our aircraft salesman, whom was also the location manager; the aircraft was sold to Marshall Haas/Haas Publishing.
Haas had a flight department based with us at the time with several aircraft. I don’t think Marshall was a pilot as he always had his pilots flying him around. Each time the T-34C went up his Chief Pilot was up front. The aircraft had been a demonstrator, & flight test aircraft for Beech, in fact I had another corporate pilot customer that had accumulated many hours in the aircraft when he worked for Beech in Flight Test.
IIRC, Haas publishing became distressed, & the T-34C was sold to another customer of mine Dallas Shelton. Dallas always seemed to be a real sharp pilot, a successful businessman, he had owned a Beech Duke for many years, & then had bought a new King Air C-90A from us. I never flew with Dallas in the T-34C, but he seemed to know what he was doing in the other aircraft.
In 1995, Dallas decided to take the T-34C to Oshkosh for Air Venture. The day before he planned to leave, he came & asked me if I wanted to go. Our shop was busy at the time, & on that short of notice, I couldn’t take off. I think he asked the line guy that topped off the airplane later that day, & he could not go either. Dallas finally got in touch with a pilot buddy of his, & he was able to go. The next day August 1, 1995 at 1040 CDT the aircraft crashed killing both men in route to Oshkosh. They were in IMC, & flamed out. The NTSB listed probable cause as, “the pilot's failure to maintain an adequate fuel supply, and his failure to maintain airspeed”.
D-amn shame, two good men lost, one of whom I had known for a long time. I have always wondered, had I been on board what I may have done that would have changed that outcome?
Robbie
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