Follow Maj Johnathan Leech, call sign: Linc, for an in-depth walk around of the T-6 Texan II and for a training mission. The T-6 Texan II is the primary training aircraft for the United States Air Force (USAF), and is used to introduce students to military flying. Some students will have zero flight hours (FH) while others will already have gained a private pilot pilots licence (PPL) beforehand.
After an initial pilot briefing Maj Leech identifies a number of key points during the pre-flight inspection, including checking for foreign object debris (FOD). The USAF training syllabus includes an intensive formation flying programme, and the Texan II has a stick shaker instead of the typical stall warning ‘horn’ on found on most general aviation (GA) training aircraft.
The Texan II’s base leg to down wind turn is flown at about 116kts and the final approach is flown at about 105kts. The USAF trainer has a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-68 turbo-prop engine that delivers 1,100 horsepower. The military trainer has excellent thrust-to-weight ratio, and can perform an initial climb of 3,100 feet per minute and can reach 18,000 feet in less than six minutes.
The Beechcraft T-6 Texan II is built by the Raytheon Aircraft Company and formally Textron Aviation. A trainer aircraft based on the Pilatus PC-9, the T-6 replaced the United States Air Force’s Cessna T-37B Tweet and the United States Navy’s T-34C Turbo Mentor during the 2010s.
