Alright!!

[svcta]

Thanks for the new board, guys!

This should be in the spirit of the new board:

So we're working on a deal on a T-28 right now. The only down side is that we'll probably get rid of the T-6, maybe not right away(I hope, I can at least afford to taxi that one around!). Does anyone have any good advice for 3 newcomers to the T-28 world?

Thanks!

 

[Buckeye]

What year? A, B, or C? and where are you located? Where are going to get your LOA/Type from? A buddy of mine owns a B & C model, he loves it...just burns lots of gas. It is a blast to fly with him.

 

[pilotyip]

Great airplane, they let pilots who did not know how to fly solo in them at 9 hrs.

 

[svcta]

A "B" or "C" model would suit us. We're not interested in the "A" very much. Other than the arresting gear and some other structural mods are there any practical differences between the "B" and "C" that I'm unaware of? Personally, I wouldn't mind losing the extra hydraulics involved with the arresting hook, but it is pretty cool.

Here's something: The first two that we really got to climb around on(both C models) had wrinkles in the fuse. skin right in front of the wing root. Small area maybe 5 or 6 inches across. The word from the others in my group is that none of the ones they saw at Oshkosh had these. Anyone know about this?

 

[pilotyip]

Stuff

The B was faster at cruise power, because the prop on the C model had to be shortened in order to land on a carrier. C's had a problem back in 1967 when I was going through carrier quals at VT-5. After so many carrier traps the outer wing panels were flexing forward and binding the ailerons on the flaps, they lost couple pilots and planes to this problem. I think they grounded the entire T-28 C fleet for about 10 days in August of 1967 to inspect for this damage.

 

[Hung Start]

I own a B model, ask away!
By the way, they are built like a brick sh*thouse, a wrinkle here or there shouldn't scare you. But, get a good prebuy anyway.
And, make sure you have a pre-oiler.

Hung

 

[wmudriver]

Awesome thread.

Whats the story on insurance? Is it cheaper than owning say a T-6, because of the lack of tail-wheel? Spare parts easy to come by? Lets hear it!

I'm hoping to be a T-28 owner down the road sometime.

 

[rjcap]

T-28

About 10 years ago there was an outfit out of California that held a 2-3 day class on ownership of the 28. It was run by a retired Delta guy and another guy who sold the Darden pre-oiler kits and other accessories. Look into some of the aircraft magazines and you will probably see and add for it.

Also, not to long ago there was a 28 that had a catastrophic tail failure on a low fly by. Killed both pilots. You may want to do a search on that. There was something about structural fatigue on the tail structure. I don't remember the details. It should be on your pre buy inspection.

 

[svcta]

Awesome thread.

Whats the story on insurance? Is it cheaper than owning say a T-6, because of the lack of tail-wheel? Spare parts easy to come by? Lets hear it!

I'm hoping to be a T-28 owner down the road sometime.

Form what I've seen there is a great deal of support within the community. Finding parts, troubleshooting, etc. NATA(North American Trainers Ass'n) has been very helpful with the T-6, and I get the impression it centers more around the T-28s.

Insurance I don't know about yet, someone else can answer that. Up to this point my little group has been slowly stepping up our level of involvement with the warbirds and I haven't seen a real spike insurance yet. When I got in we were playing with Staggerwings, PT-19s and Stearmans. Then L-19, T-6. All conventional gear stuff that the insurance man only seemed to want to see a certain level of tailwheel experience to be made happy. The rates went up as the hull value increased, but not that much, and the T-28 has about the same value as our T-6, so I'm not expecting to see much jump. If anything the addition of the training wheel(nose gear) to the situation might sort of even everything out. I could, of course, be totally wrong. It happened once back in 1994, so I'm overdue.

 

[Hung Start]

Darton used to do a course in the T-28, I believe he sold the whole thing to Mark Clark at Courtesy.
Insurance, you need to talk to Angie at Cannon Insurance. My $150,000 hull cost me $3600 per year, the guy I WAS with (for 20 years!) jacked it up to $7K for no reason.
Parts are still ok to find, either Courtesy or T-28 Sales seem to have the know-how. The only thing that is getting VERY tough is a canopy.
There is a reinforcement mod for the tail, I have never heard of anybody getting hurt by a failure, at least not in the 5 years I have own mine.
NATA is a great resource, and there are at least one Yahoo group dedicated to the plane.
It really is the only thing I let my ego go crazy with, you certainly will get noticed and heard when you come and go. If you are serious, keep an eye on what the limitations are that go with the airframe. Just about all are experimental, and some have absolutely silly limitations, like no aerobatics, 200 mile limit, no pax, etc. It is just as important as a good prebuy.
Flys like a very big 172. On steroids. Better-than-Barry Bonds steroids.

Hung