Talk:T-6 Texan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MILHIST This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
AVIATION This article is within the scope of the Aviation WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Aviation Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.

Contents

[edit] Pic question

You may want to change the picture on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-6_Texan . It is of a BT-13 not an AT-6.

The BT-13 is fixed gear. The photo is of a retactalbe gear plane. I believe the photo is correct. Mike Bradford

Mike's right; that's definitely a T-6 (the photo, in fact looks much like the one appearing on the cover of the official USAF Pilot Operating Intruction for the type issued in the mid-1950s--my copy is buried in a box somewhere, so I can't confirm, but I'd bet a beer that that's it)71.228.225.234 (talk) 04:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)CBsHellcat

I don't know where the designation "T-6 Texan" comes from; my understanding is that it was always "AT-6 Texan". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.78.71.98 (talk • contribs) 17:45, March 24, 2006 (UTC)

BT meant "basic trainer" and AT meant "advanced trainer". At some point, they quit making differentiation and just called all trainers "T" --rogerd 23:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
USAAF diveded trainers into PT "primary trainer", BT "basic trainer", and AT "advanced trainer". In 1947 when USAAF became USAF, all trainers became T only. Same times as P "pursuit" became F "fighter", and A "attack" became B "bomber". AT-16 by the way was the USAAF designation on Harvards. Most of the "Japanese" airplanes in the Tora! movie were actually converted Canadian built AT-16 Harvards, not T-6 Texans! I'm thinking of changing that in the article if no one else does.--Towpilot 18:39, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] seems a bit odd

It seems a bit odd that the "Service Record" section mentions the one fatal accident of the Skytypers' SNJ-2. The T-6/SNJ/Harvard has been a very available & heavily used airplane since WWII for training, by sportsman & in air show work, & consequently has a substantial accident history as a type (mostly through no real fault of the design). A cursory query into the NTSB's Accident/Incident Database [1] using "North American" under Make/Model & searching only fatal Injury Severity for a time period from 12/24/2007 (the date of this posting) back to 1/1/1980 returns no less than 43 fatal accidents for the type (mixed in with many for the P-51 & a mixed bag of other North American types). If one single accident deserves a mention, it seems it should be "NTSB Identification: ATL05FA079" [2] which shook the T-6 community tremendously by revealing a hitherto undiscovered structural fatigue issue with the airframe. Only 6 years before this accident, a respected T-6 pilot/mechanic I worked with very confidently made the comment "You'll never pull the wings off a T-6," & I think we all felt that way about the airplane until this accident. Many a time I remember looking out past those wingtips to check some horizon or ground reference during aerobatic demonstrations (many times with paying student aboard!) pulling Gs with unquestioning confidence in the wing underneath me. When the Kissimmee accident happened it really took everyone by suprise, not only claiming a widely recognized pilot in the community & passenger, but it threw the brakes on all aerobatic/air combat activity while everyone wondered if the T-6 would find itself a victim of the same structural issues that have plagued the T-34 Mentor in recent years.71.228.225.234 (talk) 09:47, 24 December 2007 (UTC)CBsHellcat

[edit] Very long service in the SAAF

How does this page manage to not mention that the South African Air Force operated more than 100 of these aircraft from WW2 until the mid 1990's when they were replaced with Pilatus PC7MkII trainers? Roger (talk) 12:51, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Simple reason: No one has added it yet. If you have a reliable source (it should be easy to prove the SAAF used them, but the details need to be sourced), feel free to do so. Also, you can just give a source here, and I or someone else will check it out and try to add it. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 19:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Operators

It seems this list of countries should only contain sublists of forces within the country if there are more than one. Could someone please confirm this. If correct, sublists of one should be deleted. GrahamBould (talk) 09:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

There's no such guideline in the WP:AIR page content guidelines. Perhaps there is one in WP:MILHIST's Style guide, but I don't know. Besides, why should sublists of one be deleted? Because some of the others don't have them? Wikipedia is a work in progress - given time and research, the other can be added. One sublist is useful because it tells which service the aircraft served with. Not all nations which used them had independent air arms/forces. - BillCJ (talk) 09:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Just to support BillCJ comments not something I have heard of before, I cant see any reason why one operator cant be allowed. This list is missing operators, because as has been said, it is work in progress - just waiting for somebody to get round to it. MilborneOne (talk) 12:49, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. I have added the missing organisations. Question raised about Argentina - were their aircraft actually T-6s? See hidden text in the article. GrahamBould (talk) 15:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)