Old Veteran Retires, Unacknowledged and Unapprecitated

[davparlr]

An Old friend is retiring.

Vance bids farewell to T-37 ‘Tweet’

By Jeff Mullin Senior Writer

An aviation era came to an end Friday afternoon at Vance Air Force Base, as the T-37 Tweet made its final flight over Enid.

At the conclusion of a retirement ceremony at Vance Club, the base’s last T-37 — piloted by Capt. Bryan Yeargin of the 33rd Flying Training Squadron — peeled away from a four-ship formation featuring Vance’s other three aircraft — a T-38, T-1 and T-6 — and headed west to Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center adjacent to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz., more commonly known as “The Boneyard.”


Some thoughts and memories.

Noisy! Had to wear both earplugs and ear muffs.

Underpowered. After training in the T-37 in the winter, we wondered if it would ever take off in the summer. Luckily we had graduated to the T-38 by summer.

Slow response. When accerating from idle, you had to wait while the engine wound up with increasing noise, then finally a gentle push in the back as a massive 2000 lbs of thrust struggled to come out.

Rugged, easy to fly, forgiving, indestructable, predictable. Traits of a great training plane.

Introduction to rolls, loops, and spins. Memories of finding myself upside down with no airspeed then realizing that I entered a loop with a barrel roll entry speed. The T-37 fell through with no complaints.

Fun to fly. My instructor once said that flying a T-37 was like screwing a sheep. A lot of fun when you were doing it, but you don't want to talk about it afterward. I am not quite sure how he knew that. I didn't ask.

50 years of service!

Goodbye, faithful friend, you served well.

[FLYBOYJ]

Pretty cool Dave. Flying it sounds similar to flying an L-29. BTW one of my L-29 buddies flew the AT in Nam - he has nothing but great things to say about the Tweet...

[mkloby]

I have some buddies that requested taking primary flight training w/ the air force at Vance Ok solely to be able to fly the 37!

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by mkloby

I have some buddies that requested taking primary flight training w/ the air force at Vance Ok solely to be able to fly the 37!

I'm surprised that anyone will go to a base to fly the T-37 as fun as it is. The T-38, most definitely! Will your buddies fly the T-38? That's a plane to fly!

Oklahoma is a good place to learn to fly. The weather, although somewhat extreme hot and cold, is usually clear and a million. The place is one forced landing field and is laid out in square miles with roads, half miles with fences. Just watch out for the cows. And pilotage is a cinch, just count the silos to the town you want. And, in the Spring, you can get into your car and chase tornadoes around, if you want. Humongeous storms. I remember once I went to my area in the T-38. These areas were between 10,000 ft to 20,000 ft. I was over the bottem part of a storm and below the anvil. The main part of the storm was still some 10 to 15 mile away. The tops were above 40-50K. Pensacola doesn't usually get storms like that.

[mkloby]

Originally Posted by davparlr

I'm surprised that anyone will go to a base to fly the T-37 as fun as it is. The T-38, most definitely! Will your buddies fly the T-38? That's a plane to fly!

Oklahoma is a good place to learn to fly. The weather, although somewhat extreme hot and cold, is usually clear and a million. The place is one forced landing field and is laid out in square miles with roads, half miles with fences. Just watch out for the cows. And pilotage is a cinch, just count the silos to the town you want. And, in the Spring, you can get into your car and chase tornadoes around, if you want. Humongeous storms. I remember once I went to my area in the T-38. These areas were between 10,000 ft to 20,000 ft. I was over the bottem part of a storm and below the anvil. The main part of the storm was still some 10 to 15 mile away. The tops were above 40-50K. Pensacola doesn't usually get storms like that.

I'm not fond of flying through storms! Why were you flying underneath the anvil??? Marines don't train on 38s - only AF does. Marines that get jets head out to kingsville or meridian to fly the 45.

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by mkloby

I'm not fond of flying through storms! Why were you flying underneath the anvil??? Marines don't train on 38s - only AF does. Marines that get jets head out to kingsville or meridian to fly the 45.

I didn't for long, I split. Is that true with the Navy too, that they don't get to fly the T-38? That's sad. It will be one of the classics.

I flew the T-38 home to Pensacola on my cross country. Can you imagine the ego trip of taxiing the T-38 between the pregnant Navy T-2As? What a trip. Especially demonstrating a rather high performance takeoff. I was so excited going in, I forgot to get my approach plate out, which was quite verbally communicated to me as wrong by my instructor.

Attached is a picture of my T-38 taxiing to NAS Pensacola ramp. You will have to look hard.

[mkloby]

Nice pic dave. I think the navy still uses those T-2s to train FOs - those buckeyes may be the ugliest thinks to ever take to the air. yeah that is true - USN/USMC types go to kingsville/meridian to fly T-45s. That's definitely a sweet trainer too - albeit not as sexy as 38s. I'm destined to not touch such things - in for TC-12s then TH-57s then MV-22s...

Sweet deal on setting up for the approach w/ no app plates! You shoulda just said you had that TACAN 7R or whatever it was memorized!

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by mkloby

Nice pic dave. I think the navy still uses those T-2s to train FOs - those buckeyes may be the ugliest thinks to ever take to the air. yeah that is true - USN/USMC types go to kingsville/meridian to fly T-45s. That's definitely a sweet trainer too - albeit not as sexy as 38s. I'm destined to not touch such things - in for TC-12s then TH-57s then MV-22s...

Sweet deal on setting up for the approach w/ no app plates! You shoulda just said you had that TACAN 7R or whatever it was memorized!

Somehow I don't think that would have worked. We were there a couple of days and we took my instructor skiing where he fell into a stinging nettle (jellyfish). The trip got better after that. I remember that when I popped my canopy in Pensacola (right after the picture was taken), I was met with 90 degree temp and over 90 % humdity. I could only take half a breath and said to myself "I'M HOME!".

[twoeagles]

How 'bout we take up a collection and pick one up surplus for weekend fun?

[evangilder]

I remember the Tweets at Keesler those many years ago. Hard to believe they are finally going to AMARC.