T-34 tips wanted

[rumpletumbler]

I'm getting checked out in a T-34 soon and don't have any info on the a/c yet. Just looking for any information I can get from those who have flown them. It should be cool! It will be my first stick and first canopy.

RT

 

[treetop flyer]

Have fun! I flew a T-34 a few years ago and had a great time! Great visibility with canopy!

TF

 

[~~~^~~~]

NATOPS manuals are widely available and will give you more information than you ever wanted to know.

It is an easy airplane to fly. Just like a Bonanza with a good bit more drag.

Have fun - has yours been upgraded from the original IO-470?

 

[rumpletumbler]

I have no idea. I'm being hired as an instructor at a Navy Flying Club. I don't know anything about the airplane yet except I think they are pretty cool to look at and I'm sure it will be fun to fly.

RT

 

[Kaman]

Hello,
I used to fly the T-34B at the NAS Barbers Pt. and NAS North Island Navy Flying Clubs. I think that you'll have a great time flying the T-34, it is a very easy and forgiving airplane to fly. Of course, they are getting a little long in the tooth. However, it has a very roomy cockpit, if not a little noisy. We wore helmets when we flew them if you desired or of course a headset. Very easy airplane in the pattern, and will reward you with very soft landings just about every time. I'd be wary of pulling too many G's in them though. They had an AD out on the wing spars to be NDI(eddy current) checked for cracks and one of the ones at BARPT had a cracked spar. Of the three different ones I flew they all had their own "personality" for lack of a better term. One had a chronically leaking prop governor that put a film of oil on the windscreen after about a .5 or so. Stuff like that. I'm thinking that most of the ones left are former TRACOM aircraft flown by Naval officer recruiters before that program went away in the mid-to-late 80's. So, hopefully they are in better condition. Maybe someday we'll see T-34Cs in the Flying Club!!!! Doubt it, but one can dream, right?

regards,

Ex-Navy Rotorhead

 

[pilotyip]

Watch out

I dare near killed myself in one of those things 35 years ago in primary flight training, if you do acro, get some good instruction.
As a kid with 20 hours totlal flight time I put it into a nasty split S and lost about 3000 feet, thank goodness I started at 5500 feet.
I guess that was the reason al prescison acro we got in instruction started going up, loops, immelmans, barrell rolls.

 

[bobbysamd]

T-34

I envy you, my friend. The T-34 is an airplane I've always wanted to fly.

See if you can get some Bonanza time beforehand and you should be fine.

Have fun!

 

[ILLINI]

I heard aerobatic maneuvers were prohibited in the T-34 due to the spar AD. Is this true?

 

[rumpletumbler]

That is true.

RT

 

[Huck]

Many moons ago I was a 23 year old brand new flight test engineer at Edwards, and there was an old A model in the flying club.

I would ride my VFR750 over to the south side of the base, where you could see the footings from the original quonset huts used during and after WWII by Yeager and all them. I'd hop in that thing and go banging around the Antelope Valley, canopy slid back, Ray Bans on my head.

The best part was the VFR corridor to get in and out of the base - 500' above the lakebeds, follow the road in until the bend, then straight over the ruins of Pancho's Ranch, tipping up on a wing to look down at the old pool and the Stearman wrecks. And, yes, it was "500' or below", sometimes WAY below! Just don't get too close to the firing range.

It was so much fun that I visualize those flights sometimes when I'm feeling stressed.... I hope to pick up an old T-34 project one day.

 

[davessn763]

I was checked out at the Groton Conneticut Navy Fluing Club in 1996. The T-34 is the easiest plane to land I've flown. The flying club should give you a copy of the NATOPS manual to study and a short test before you fly. I'd love to give instruction in a T-34 how did you get that job?

 

[jsoceanlord]

i used to fly one in the CAP.

canopy open in the pattern gives a stearman biplane effect.

apparently the ex navy planes might have a rudder/aileron coupling, unlike the ex air force planes (some kind of bungee thing)

the old air force manulal was about an inch thick.

i tried a loop, thinking the only way i could go wrong was to not pull back hard enough and then stall out. i pulled too hard and went into an accelerated stall on top and fell upside down a few hundred feet with an unresponsive stick. finally the nose dropped