Jetscream, I'm curious as to why the T67M260 would have the big rudder and the T-3A with the same engine + air conditioning have the small. Any insight?
Jetscream_32 said:
small fin big fin is related the C or M model - BONSO was a C model and had the smaller rudder = standard and nothing wrong with it. The M model 260 has a larger fin as per the photo you present... You cannot put a M rudder on a C model!
G-BNSO is being reported as a T67M MKII here:
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=186878
Is that incorrect?
[EDIT: And here:
http://www.airteamimages.com/slingsb...te_178534.html ]
The original T67A with the one piece canopy came with small rudders.
Does anyone know when and why Slingsby began building the large rudder Fireflies? From my photo search-->registration search, all the big rudder aircraft are T67M260's but some M260's have small rudders. It seems all the T67M MKII have the small T-3A style rudders.
I believe the real problem with the US Air Force T-3A's was that it was chosen as an initial trainer for student pilots with zero flight time.
The original plan was to allow students to solo in the pattern and to the training areas. I think most of us recognize how absurd that plan was for the T67M MKII/T-3A. Luckily the AF came to their senses before we started sending students with 14 hours of total flight time out to the areas solo in an aerobatic aircraft without parachutes.
The stall & spin characteristics of the T67M are not suitable for an initial trainer. All four of the T-3A's destroyed were stall and spin related. The first was an intentional spin without recovery. The second was a bounced landing stall at Hondo Airfield. The third was an engine out gliding stall into a spin. The fourth was a climbing engine failure to stall to spin.