wForgotten in my collection of aircraft I have "flown" is the NAAS Corry Field SNJ-5 Taxi Trainer. I say "fly" with tongue in cheek, as it is incapable of getting airborne.
The SNJ was somewhat of a tricky beast and could not be trusted until safely tied down and chocked. It was a conventional gear configuration and very prone to ground loop. Also if the brakes were applied to harshly, it would tip up on its nose. Pilots arriving for basic in the SNJ were in for a shock after flying the sweet handling tricycle-geared T-34 at NAAS Saufley Field. The Navy fixed that by creating a taxi trainer where senior students would try to educate newly arrived students. It had a chin-mounted nose "training wheel", the propeller blades were chopped short, the wings were clipped short and had skid bars at the tip in case of ground loop. I was selected to take out classmate Chuck Moorehead on his initial foray in the trainer - lots of fun. |
Convair C-131A
Bob Wehr and I had the good fortune to outflank the Air Force proficiency pilots at WPAFB when then grounded all 432 of them during the Vietnam war. T-33s went to gunnery school and the C-47s off to become AC-47s. They did not want to ground us as we did a lot of their weekend flying in the C-131. Many a general came aboard and did a double take when he saw Coast Guard pilots flying.
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