| T-37 Tweet | |
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A T-37 Tweet from the 85th Flying Training Squadron, Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, flies over Amistad Reservoir during a training mission. The T-37 light amphibious tank was a Soviet amphibious Reconnaissance vehicle of the 1930s Amistad Reservoir is a reservoir on the Rio Grande at its confluence with the Devils River 12 miles (19 km northwest of Del Rio, Texas |
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| Type | Military trainer aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Cessna |
| Maiden flight | October 1954 |
| Introduced | 1957 |
| Status | 500 in active service |
| Primary users | United States Air Force Brazilian Air Force Pakistani Air Force Portuguese Air Force |
| Produced | 1955-???? |
| Number built | >1,000 |
| Variants | A-37 Dragonfly |
The Cessna T-37 Tweet[1] is one of the most prominent of the trainer-attack type aircraft. A trainer is an Aircraft used to develop piloting navigational or war-fighting skills in flight crew An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing building testing selling and maintaining Aircraft, Aircraft parts The Cessna Aircraft Company is an airplane manufacturing corporation headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. The maiden flight of an Aircraft is the first occasion on which an aircraft leaves the ground of its own accord This is a list of Aviation -related events from 1954: Events January January 10 - BOAC Flight 781, a De This is a list of Aviation -related events from 1957: Events January January 18 - Three Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses The Brazilian Air Force ( Portuguese: Força Aérea Brasileira, FAB) is the air branch of the Brazilian armed forces and one of the three national Pakistan Air Force ( Urdu: پاک فضائیہ, Pak Faza'ya) ( PAF) is the Aviation branch of the Pakistan armed forces The Portuguese Air Force ( PoAF) (Força Aérea Portuguesa FAP) is the Air force of Portugal. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout The Cessna Aircraft Company is an airplane manufacturing corporation headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. This small, economical twin-engine jet aircraft flew for decades as a primary trainer for the United States Air Force, and in the air forces of several other nations. A jet aircraft is an Aircraft propelled by Jet engines Jet aircraft fly much faster than Propeller -powered aircraft and at higher altitudes -- as high as The A-37 Dragonfly variant served with distinction in the light attack role during the Vietnam War. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
Fifty-two years after its first flight, the T-37 is still serving the U. S. military, giving the Air Force's primary pilot training students the experience needed before moving on to the Northrop T-38 Talon, Beechcraft T-1A Jayhawk, Bell UH-1 Huey, United States Navy Beechcraft T-44 Pegasus, or other advanced Navy, Marine Corps or Allied trainers. The Northrop Corporation was a leading Aircraft manufacturer of the United States from its formation in 1939 until its merger with Grumman to form Northrop Grumman WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout Hawker Beechcraft The Beech Aircraft Corporation, previously the Beechcraft Division of Raytheon and now a unit of Hawker Beechcraft, is a United WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout Bell Helicopter Textron is an American Helicopter and Tiltrotor manufacturer headquartered in Fort Worth Texas. For an overview of the whole Huey family of aircraft see Bell Huey WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. This article is about 90 and 100 Series King Airs For 200 and 300 Series King Airs see the Beechcraft Super King Air article Marines (from the English adjective marine, meaning of the sea, from Latin language mare, meaning sea via French adjective Over 1,000 Cessna T-37s were built, with more than 100 still serving in the United States Air Force. In 2001, the United States Air Force began replacing the T-37 with the T-6 Texan II. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout
Contents |
The Cessna Aircraft Company of Wichita, Kansas earned a good reputation with the United States Army during World War II and the Korean War with the company's highly-regarded utility, light transport, and observation aircraft, particularly the "O-1 Bird Dog" series. Wichita (ˈwɪtʃɪtaː is the most populous City in the US state of Kansas, and the county seat of Sedgwick County. The United States Army is a military organization whose primary mission is to "provide necessary forces and capabilities. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korean and South Korean regimes with major hostilities lasting from June 25 1950 until the Bird Dog redirects here For other uses see Bird dog WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft.
In the spring of 1952, the United States Air Force (USAF) issued a request for proposals for a "Trainer Experimental (TX)" program, specifying a lightweight two-seat basic trainer for introducing USAF cadets to jet aircraft. Year 1952 ( MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
Cessna responded to the TX request with a twin-jet design that featured side-by-side seating. The USAF liked the Cessna design, which was given the company designation of "Model 318", and particularly liked the side-by-side seating since it let the student and instructor interact more closely than with tandem seating. Tandem is a Latin Adverb meaning "at length" or "finally" In the spring of 1954, the USAF awarded Cessna a contract for three prototypes of the Model 318, and a contract for a single static test aircraft. Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar) A prototype is an original type form or instance of something serving as a typical example basis or standard for other things of the same category The Air Force designated the type as XT-37.
The first XT-37 first flew in October 1954. It had a low straight wing, with the engines buried in the wing roots; a clamshell-type canopy, hinged to open vertically to the rear; a control layout similar to that of contemporary operational USAF aircraft; ejection seats; and tricycle landing gear with a wide track of 4. An aircraft canopy is the transparent enclosure over the cockpit of some types of Aircraft. In Aircraft, an ejection seat is a system designed to rescue the pilot or other crew of an aircraft (usually military in an emergency Tricycle gear describes an Aircraft Undercarriage, or landing gear, arranged in a Tricycle fashion 3 m (14 ft).
The wide track and a steerable nosewheel made the aircraft easy to handle on the ground, and the short landing gear avoided need for access ladders and service stands. The aircraft was designed to be simple to maintain, with more than a hundred access panels and doors. An experienced ground crew could change an engine in about a half hour.
The XT-37 was aerodynamically clean, and so an air brake was fitted behind the nosewheel door to reduce landing speed. A dive bomber is a Bomber aircraft that Dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy and limit the exposure to and effectiveness of Since the short landing gear placed the engine air intakes close to the ground, screens pivoted over the intakes from underneath when the landing gear was extended, to prevent foreign object damage.
The XT-37 was fitted with two Continental-Teledyne J69-T-9 turbojet engines with 920 lbf (4. The Marboré was a small Turbojet engine produced by Turbomeca from the 1950s into the 1970s TurboJET (噴射飛航 is the brand name for the operations of the Hong Kong -based Shun Tak-China Travel Ship Management Limited (信德中旅船務管理有限公司 This article deals with the unit of force For the unit of mass see Pound (mass. 1 kN) thrust each. The newton (symbol N) is the SI derived unit of Force, named after Isaac Newton in recognition of his work on Classical Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton 's Second and Third Laws. These were French Turbomeca Marboré engines built under license. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. The Marboré was a small Turbojet engine produced by Turbomeca from the 1950s into the 1970s The verb license or grant license means to give permission The noun license is the document demonstrating that permission The engines had thrust deflectors to allow the engines to remain spooled up (i. Thrust reversal, also called reverse thrust, is the temporary diversion of an Aircraft engine 's exhaust or changing of propeller pitch so that the thrust produced e. rotating at speeds above idle) during landing approach, permitting shorter landings while still allowing the aircraft to easily make another "go-round" in case something went wrong. Empty weight of the XT-37 was 2. 27 tonnes (5,000 lb).
Tests showed the XT-37 had a maximum speed of 628 km/h (390 mph) at altitude, with a range of 1,505 km (935 mi). The aircraft was unpressurized, and so limited to a ceiling of 7. Cabin pressurization is the active pumping of compressed Air into an Aircraft cabin when flying at altitude to maintain a safe and comfortable environment for crew 6 km (25,000 ft) by USAF regulations.
The initial prototype crashed during spin tests. In aviation a spin is an aggravated stall resulting in rotation about the center of gravity wherein the aircraft follows a downward corkscrew path The later prototypes had new features to improve handling, including long strakes along the nose, and an extensively redesigned and enlarged tail. A strake is part of a Boat or Ship. It is a horizontal strip of wooden planking or steel plating on the exterior hull of a vessel running longitudinally Empennage émpənij is an Aviation term used to describe the Tail portion of an Aircraft. After these modifications, the USAF found the aircraft acceptable to their needs, and ordered it into production as the T-37A. Even so, the aircraft remained tricky in recovering from a spin; the recovery procedure was complex compared with most aircraft.
The production T-37A was similar to the XT-37 prototypes, except for minor changes to fix problems revealed by the flight test program. Sheppard Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located five miles (8 km) north of the Central business district of Wichita Falls The North Atlantic Treaty The first T-37A was completed in September 1955, executing its maiden flight that year. Year 1955 ( MCMLV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar)
The T-37A had one noticeable drawback: it was very noisy, even by the standards of a jet aircraft. The intake of air into its small turbojets emitted a high-pitched shriek that led some to describe the trainer as a "Screaming Mimi", and it was referred to as the "6,000 pound dog whistle" or "Converter" (converts fuel and air into noise and smoke). The piercing whistle quickly gave the T-37 its name: "Tweety Bird", or just "Tweet". The Air Force spent a lot of time and money sound-proofing buildings at bases where the T-37 was stationed, and ear protection remains mandatory for all personnel when near an operating aircraft.
The Air Force ordered 444 T-37As, with the last produced in 1959. The year 1959 ( MCMLIX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. During 1957, the US Army evaluated three T-37As for battlefield observation and other combat support roles, but eventually procured the Grumman OV-1 Mohawk for the mission instead. The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a leading 20th century U WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout
The Air Force liked the T-37A, but felt it was underpowered. As a result, the service ordered an improved version, the T-37B, with uprated J-69-T-25 engines. The new engines provided about ten percent more thrust and better reliability. Improved avionics were also specified for the new variant. Avionics means "aviation electronics" It comprises electronic systems for use on aircraft artificial satellites and spacecraft comprising Communications
A total of 552 newly-built T-37Bs were constructed through 1973. Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. All surviving T-37As were eventually upgraded to the T-37B standard as well.
Due to a series of accidents caused by bird strikes between 1965 and 1970, all T-37s were later retrofitted with a new windscreen made of Lexan polycarbonate plastic 12. A bird strike (sometimes birdstrike, bird hit, or BASH (Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard in Aviation is a collision between an airborne animal (usually For similar products offered by other companies see Polycarbonates Lexan ( LEXAN) is a registered trademark for SABIC Innovative 5 mm (½in) thick, which could tolerate the impact of a 1. 8 kg (4 lb) bird at a relative speed of 460 km/h (288 mph).
In 1962, Cessna suggested the T-37B as a replacement for the North American F-100 Super Sabre as the primary aircraft for the USAF aerobatic demonstration team, the Thunderbirds. North American Aviation was a major US Aircraft manufacturer, responsible for a number of historic aircraft including the T-6 Texan trainer the The Thunderbirds are the Air Demonstration Squadron of the US The T-37B was proven as an aerobatic aircraft, was economical to operate and support, and could be flown from small airports. However, the USAF was satisfied with the F-100 and were not interested in trading it in for the Tweet. Its later decision to switch to the F-105 Thunderchief caused several problems, though the supersonic T-38 trainer would later be selected as an economical alternative to front-line fighters. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see Wikipe diaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout
The T-37A and T-37B had no built-in armament and no stores pylons for external armament. A hardpoint is any part of an Airframe designed to carry an external load In 1961, Cessna began developing a modest enhancement of the T-37 for use as a weapons trainer. The new variant, the T-37C, was intended for export and could be used for light attack duties in a pinch. In Economics, an export is any good or Commodity, Transported from one country to another country in a Legitimate fashion
The prototype T-37C was a modified T-37B. A prototype is an original type form or instance of something serving as a typical example basis or standard for other things of the same category The primary changes included stronger wings, with a stores pylon under each wing outboard of the main landing gear well. The T-37C could also be fitted with wingtip fuel tanks, each with a capacity of 245 l (65 US gallons), that could be dropped in an emergency.
A computing gunsight and gun camera were added. "Sights" redirects here For the rock band see The Sights. Gun cameras are Cameras used in Military vehicles to help measure tactical effectiveness The T-37C could also be fitted with a reconnaissance camera mounted inside the fuselage. Reconnaissance (also scouting) is a military and medical term denoting exploration conducted to gain information A camera is a device used to capture images either as still Photographs or as sequences of moving images ( Movies or Videos. The fuselage (from the French fuselé "spindle-shaped" is an Aircraft 's main body section that holds crew and passengers or Cargo
The primary armament of the T-37C was the General Electric "multi-purpose pod", which carried a 12. 7 mm (0. 50 caliber) machine gun with 200 rounds; two 70 mm (2. For other uses of the phrase see Machine Gun (disambiguation. 75 in) folding-fin rockets; and four practice bombs. A rocket or rocket vehicle is a Missile, Aircraft or other Vehicle which obtains Thrust by the reaction of the A bomb is any of a range of devices that typically rely on the Exothermic Chemical reaction of an Explosive material to produce an extremely Other stores, such as folding-fin rocket pods or even Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, could be carried as well. fin is a surface used to produce lift and Thrust or to steer while traveling in Water, air or other Fluid media The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a heat-seeking, short-range Air-to-air missile carried by Fighter aircraft and recently certain gunship helicopters
The changes increased the weight of the T-37C by 650 kg (1,430 lb). As the engines were not upgraded, this reduced top speed to 595 km/h (370 mph), though the wingtip tanks increased maximum range to 1,770 km (1,100 mi).
T-37 production ended in 1975. The list of exports above amounts to 273 T-37Cs. Adding this to the 444 T-37As and 552 T-37Bs gives a total of 1,269 aircraft built.
Cessna proposed a number of innovative variants of the Tweet that never went into production. In 1959, Cessna built a prototype of a light jet transport version of the T-37, designated the Cessna Model 407, which was stretched 61 cm (2 ft) to accommodate a four-place pressurized cockpit with an automobile-type configuration. Only a wooden mockup of the "Model 407" was constructed. The project was cancelled due to insufficient customer interest. The company also proposed a similar four-place military light transport, the "Model 405", with a big clamshell canopy, but it was never built either.
In response to a United States Navy "Tandem Navy Trainer" (TNT) requirement, Cessna proposed a T-37 with a modified fuselage featuring a tandem cockpit. The Navy selected the North American T-2 Buckeye instead, and the Cessna concept never got off the drawing board. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout
Cessna proposed various other trainer derivatives for the US Navy and Air Force, including a vertical takeoff version based on the TNT configuration and incorporating lift-jet pods in the wings, but none of them got to the prototype stage. VTOL is an abbreviation for Vertical Take-Off and Landing. VTOL describes Fixed-wing aircraft that can lift off vertically
The T-37A was delivered to the U. S. Air Force beginning in June 1956. Year 1956 ( MCMLVI) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The USAF began cadet training in the T-37A during 1957. The first T-37B was delivered in 1959. Instructors and students considered the T-37A a pleasant aircraft to fly. It handled well and was agile and responsive, though it was definitely not overpowered. It was capable of all traditional aerobatic maneuvers. Aerobatics is the demonstration of flying maneuvers for Training, Recreation or Entertainment.
The type remained in service with the USAF into the 21st century, having survived various attempts to find a replacement. However, the Tweet is now being phased out in favor of the turboprop-powered Beechcraft T-6A Texan II (a turboprop aircraft with more power and modern avionics). Hawker Beechcraft The Beech Aircraft Corporation, previously the Beechcraft Division of Raytheon and now a unit of Hawker Beechcraft, is a United WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout A turboprop engine is a type of aircraft powerplant that uses a Gas turbine engine to drive a Propeller. Avionics means "aviation electronics" It comprises electronic systems for use on aircraft artificial satellites and spacecraft comprising Communications
T-37s, including both new-build and ex-USAF aircraft, were supplied to a number of foreign operators, including:
General characteristics
Performance
Armament
Related development
Comparable aircraft
Related lists
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