Though the T-2 has been replaced as a trainer, a few are still in service as chase aircraft. VX-20 has three.
I got to fly T-2s going through TPS. Nice airplane – once you got into the thing. Clambering into the rear cockpit was quite a climb. You had to be a decent alpinist to do it. Once you strapped in, though, the cockpit was roomy, a far cry from the wretchedly cramped TA-4. You almost felt like you could bring a cooler along for the flight. It handled nicely, too. And was, when I went through, one of the few aircraft in the TPS stable that was cleared for spins.
Which meant that it was the spin demo platform. Erect spins, of course. Then inverted spins. And TPS had an inertia coupling demonstration…you put the airplane inverted, started an inverted spin – and applied full aileron. The airplane flips in all three axes. You’d throw up, if you could figure out which way up was. Disorienting from the back seat, and good for about -4 G in the front. I wish I had a video of it. I know one exists, but don’t think it ever made its way to YouTube.
Ah, the Buckeye. My daughter, the WSO, was in one of the very last classes to go through NFO training in the T-2. Shortly after she got her wings, they retired the Buckeye at Pensacola.
Started my jet flying in the T-2A, the single engine. When cleared for takeoff you could firewall the throttle and then write a letter to mom while the engine was busy accelerating. Knowing nothing else as a fledgling student nasal radiator, this became my concept of normal acceleration. At some point I was assigned a T-2B or C, with not one but two jet engines, just about double the total thrust. Got on the runway, firewalled the throttles, and the almost instant acceleration of the axial flow engines left my student brain on the numbers while the rest of me took off. Quite a difference.
Had the distinct (and unusual as a Zoomie) pleasure of flying backseat in the T-2 during the JPATS op-eval. As a joint project, the Navy and the Air Force agreed that the best available chase plane for the range of aircraft to be evaluated was the T-2. You’re not kidding about the climb into the rear cockpit! Quite a difference from the A-37′s at Edwards. Not being a pilot myself, I really appreciated the Navy frontseater giving me the opportunity to handle the stick a bit and even shoot a couple Navy-style touch-and-go’s (with a little help on the throttle!). Visibility forward from that back seat was limited to say the least. Since I have a slight depth-perception problem (see above “not-a-pilot” statement) I found the Navy’s approach to landing far easier than the Air Force’s. No need to tell how far above the runway you are so you can begin the flare, just set the AOA, Rate of Descent, and glide path and HANG ON for impact! Quite the thrill and no, I can’t imagine trying it onto the carrier myself.
That type of approach is also why so many Nasal Radiators have back problems. Lex and I talked about ours (mine acquired through a work accident) and avoiding surgery. I’ve avoided it since ’98, but wonder how much longer that will last.
A retired Army Warrant Pilot who attends my church also has back problems. Huebert, Cayuse and Kiowas don’t have struts and he said he thinks the seats were designed by 80 year old spinsters who hate men. He has a ruptured disk which, fortunately, ruptured to the outside. Mine alas is herniated to the inside.
Dang, Qm, I (figuratively and virtually) feel yer pain. I have had some rather ouchy back problems, m’self.
I mind stories of ejection-seat injuries. Well, I reckon that’s better than being a crispy critter found among the wreckage. There is a reason the AF takes footprints as well as fingerprints; they might find part of a foot in part of a boot.
Ah, the mighty Thunder-Guppy! By the time I went through VT-10, they’d received the T-2C’s with the “big” J-85′s. You’re right about the climb-up-bend-in-half-climb-in routine for the back seat. I laughed, I cried, I hurled. (a lot) Glad to see that like the War Hoover, thre are still a handful still out there.
A number of test pilots died out at Edwards because of inertial coupling. Yeager had a close shave and was high enough (around 80K feet as I recall) when he ejected from a modified F-104. Appling and a couple others were killed, being unable to eject from the AC they were in. When I was young, I saw a clip taken by a camera in Appling’s AC that was mounted behind him. Somehow the Camera survived the crash. It shows him being moved around by the forces as the AC tumbled. You could see the sky, horizon and the earth change places as he tumbled. Sobering when you suddenly realized that you are watching the run up to a fatal crash when the pic suddenly goes black.
The F-100 had a BIG problem with that until they enlarged the vertical fin. Killed a famous test pilot, it did, along with some ordinary squadron types. Read “Early Supersonic Fighters of the West” by Bill Gunston. It is one of my favorite books.