Beechcraft T-6 Texan II

Oh.

I'm da- I was, I was T-34, so pre T-6.

Oh, I was gonna ask you that.

T-34s.

Hey Mike, great to be back on the channel.

So I went to Air Force pilot training, US Air Force pilot training in 2012 over at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, where started off in the T-6 Texan II for the primary phase.

And then I went on to the T-38C for the advanced phase.

And out of that, I was selected to fly adversary T-38A models over at Tyndall Air Force Base.

so pilot training itself is a little over a year and then there's a cap off course right at the end if you get a fighter slot it's about 10 weeks where you're doing more fighter pilot oriented stuff in that t-38 jet so i flew t-37s that was an old like cessna built jet and uh old school man looks like the apollo space capsule inside of it like you look at it and i remember looking at it being like wait you guys want me to fly that like there's no chance right that's what your brain tells you at the beginning So you got to fight through that.

But now they're flying the T-6, which is like a turboprop aerobatic aircraft.

And then the T-38 is the supersonic jet.

And now there's a replacement online called the T-7 that's going to replace the T-38.

Well, you go on it so you understand, like, initially what it feels like.

I was flying the Texan II, the T-6B, and— Don't quote me, but I feel like the max G's was seven on that that we were allowed to pull.

So I remember doing a couple of the flights and my instructor was showing me like kind of the limits because obviously that's like the limit on it and what the plane can take and showing me how that felt.

But we wore a G suit and everything.

17 pilots are in town from the 39th Flying Training Squadron out of San Antonio, Texas.

The squadron is also called the Cobras.

There will be four jets, known as T-6 Texan IIs, flying over Target Field for the Twins game tomorrow, Huntington Bank Stadium for the Gophers game on Saturday, and U.S. Bank Stadium for the Vikings game on Sunday.

And nearly every pilot we talked with involved in this weekend's flyover was motivated to join the Air Force because of 9-11.

I would say that event pretty much shaped my entire career.

Korean Aerospace Industries, or KI, has been aggressive in the trainer space with the T-50 Golden Eagle, a supersonic jet trainer that appeals to air forces who want to push students to higher performance sooner.

Textron's Beechcraft T-6 Texan II has decades of United States Air Force and Navy endorsement behind it.

The Leonardo M-346, an Italian advanced jet trainer, is competing hard for the upper end of the market.

Pilatus is essentially arguing with the MKX that you do not need to move to a jet to give students a modern avionics environment and realistic cockpit complexity.

They modified it a little bit.

When I was there, we didn't do, um, the aerobatics in the T-6, uh, when I was there 'cause they were trying to save a little bit of money, so they cut our program short a little bit and they're like, "Yeah, you're gonna be a Coast Guard helicopter pilot.

You don't really need to do loops in a T-6." Uh, so-

Sounds fun.

Yeah, it, it would be fun.

Uh, I think just the two, like, smaller branches just were really close-knit w- uh, with each other while I was there, which was pretty cool.

But yeah, I was, I was there for about a year and a half it took me to go through flight school.

Uh, and you start flying Cessnas, and then you roll into flying T-6s, the T-6 Texan, and then when I was there, the TH-57, but they just upgraded the helicopter.