http://www.picturesphoto.info/cessna-t-37-tweet-6.htm
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. 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.

Origins

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.

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.

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. 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. 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 4.3 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. 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 (4.1 kN) thrust each. These were French Turbomeca Marboré engines built under license. The engines had thrust deflectors to allow the engines to remain spooled up (i.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 7.6 km (25,000 ft) by USAF regulations.

The initial prototype crashed during spin tests. The later prototypes had new features to improve handling, including long strakes along the nose, and an extensively redesigned and enlarged tail. 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.


Production

An ENJJPT student in the T-37

The production T-37A was similar to the XT-37 prototypes, except for minor changes to fix problems revealed by the flight test program. The first T-37A was completed in September 1955, executing its maiden flight that year.

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. 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 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.

T-37s in formation

A total of 552 newly-built T-37Bs were constructed through 1973. 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 12.5 mm (˝in) 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. 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.

The T-37A and T-37B had no built-in armament and no stores pylons for external armament. 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.

T-37B at airshow

The prototype T-37C was a modified T-37B. 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. The T-37C could also be fitted with a reconnaissance camera mounted inside the fuselage.

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 (2.75 in) folding-fin rockets; and four practice bombs. Other stores, such as folding-fin rocket pods or even Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, could be carried as well.

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.

[edit]
Concept aircraft

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.

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.

[edit]
Operational history

The T-37A was delivered to the U.S. Air Force beginning in June 1956. 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.

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).

Variants
XT-37A
T-37A
T-37B
T-37C
XAT-37D

]]> Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:52:54 GMT http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-cessnat-37-tweet-41.htm Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:45:48 GMT Total Time > 2800 hours
T-37 Instructor Pilot Del Rio, Texas 1973-1976]]> Cessna T-37 Tweet http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-cessnat-37-tweet-41.htm http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-cessna-t-37-tweet-pictures--photos-40.htm Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:45:03 GMT
The instructor and student sit side by side for more effective training. The cockpit has dual controls, ejection seats and a clamshell-type canopy that can be jettisoned. The T-37 has a hydraulically operated speed brakes, tricycle landing gear and a steerable nose wheel. Six rubber-cell, interconnected fuel tanks in each wing feed the main tank in the fuselage. The T-37B has improved radio navigational equipment, UHF radio and redesigned instrument panels. Many foreign air forces fly the T-37B, including those of Thailand, Greece, Chile, Jordan, Turkey and Pakistan. Students from 12 North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries train in T-37B's at Sheppard AFB, Texas. Flying the T-37C are the air forces of Portugal, Peru, Colombia and Greece, among others.

The T-37C is similar to the T-37B, but has provisions for both armament and wingtip fuel tanks. The plane can carry two, 250-pound (112.5 kilogram) bombs. Associated equipment includes computing gun sights and a 16mm gun camera. The aircraft can be fitted with cameras for reconnaissance missions. The T-37A made its first flight in 1955 and went into service with the Air Force in 1956. The T-37B became operational in 1959. All T-37A's have been modified to T-37B standards. A contract was awarded in August 1989 to Sabreliner Corp. for the T-37B Structural Life Extension Program. The contract included the design, testing and production of kits, installed by a U.S. Air Force contract field team, which modified or replaced critical structural components for the entire fleet, extending the capability of the T-37 into the next century. More than 1,000 T-37s were built, and 507 remain in the U.S. Air Force inventory. All have been repainted in a distinctive dark blue and white to help formation training and to ease maintenance.]]> Cessna T-37 Tweet http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-cessna-t-37-tweet-pictures--photos-40.htm http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-t-37-tweety-bird-cessna-aircraft-39.htm Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:43:38 GMT The XT-37 prototype made its initial flight on October 12, 1954, and the pre-production T-37A first flew on September 27, 1955. Following modifications, the T-37A entered operational USAF service in 1957. In 1959, the T-37B joined the USAF. Similar to the -A, it had more powerful engines, a redesigned instrument panel and improved radio communications and navigational equipment. In time, all -As were modified to -B standards.
The T-37C, with provisions for armament and extra fuel, was built for export. Both T-37Bs and -Cs serve the air forces of several Allied nations. In all, nearly 1,300 T-37As, -Bs and -Cs were built before production ended in the late 1970s. In addition, nearly 600 A-37s--attack modifications of the T-37--were built. The T-37B on display was flown to the Museum on October 8, 1991.]]> Cessna T-37 Tweet http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-t-37-tweety-bird-cessna-aircraft-39.htm http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-the-t-37-tweet-tweetie-bird-38.htm Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:43:08 GMT Image courtesy of the United States Department of Defense.]]> Cessna T-37 Tweet http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-the-t-37-tweet-tweetie-bird-38.htm http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-cessna-t-37-tweet-aka-tweety-bird-37.htm Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:41:52 GMT Cessna T-37 Tweet http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-cessna-t-37-tweet-aka-tweety-bird-37.htm http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-pirep%3A-cessna-t-373-36.htm Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:40:42 GMT
Another thing contributing to Vance's more relaxed posture is the fact that it is staffed and operated almost entirely by civilians. The only function of the base is to teach flying, so the only military personnel on base are directly involved with the operational aspects of the flight line and base administration. Otherwise, all the support functions, even the aircraft maintenance, are done by civilian contractors. The ground crews are not only civilians, but some of the local girls have signed on, perhaps in hopes of catching a Captain. So the guy giving you the thumbs up signal for taxi might be one of the cutest crew chiefs you've ever seen.

After a morning spent learning how to eject, climb and otherwise claw my way out of a disabled T-37 in the air or on the ground, I reported to the flight operations office and met the IP (instructor pilot) who was going to show me what the T-37 was all about. Again I was pleasantly surprised. Captam Ron Smith was far from being the ultra-military type I had expected. Captain Ron turned out to be my kind of people... an airplane freak through and through. Who else would spend all day screaming around the sky at the taxpayers' expense and then go home to rub and polish on his own C-172?

A few minutes was spent in the equipment room getting a flight suit and parachute as well as going through an elaborate fitting exercise aimed at equipping me with the most uncomfortable oxygen mask and helmet they had available. Then it was out to the flight line. I felt just a bit conspicuous in my super-genuine USAF flight gear with my much longer than GI locks flapping in the wind. Oh well, it just helped tone down my fighter pilot swagger a bit.

One additional piece of gear necessary for working around T-37s is a set of ear muffs. They don't call the T-37 a six thousand pound dog whistle for nothing! The little J-69 engine is of the old centrifugal flow design, rather than being axial flow, which means it is really nothing but a kerosene burning siren. The noise generated by one T-37 is unreal, but at Vance there were around 65 of them lined up. The prairie dogs for miles around must spend most of their time with their little fingers in their ears.

Walking up to the Tweety Bird confirmed my earliest recollections; it's the perfect size airplane for two people and a couple of jets. It is barely waist high at the canopy rails and Captain Smith repeated the usual Air Force joke, which can't be repeated in its entirety here. It has to do with the -37 being the only USAF airplane you can stand on the ground and do something obscene into the cockpit.]]> Cessna T-37 Tweet http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-pirep%3A-cessna-t-373-36.htm http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-pirep%3A-cessna-t-37-35.htm Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:40:16 GMT
Considering that I was a small town kid, brought up during the hey-day of fighter development, the '50's, I somehow wound up with different tastes than all my peers. While the rest of the neighborhood kids were gluing photos of F-lOOs and F-15's on their walls, I was busy ferreting out 8 x lOs of Hawk 75s or CW-21s. I still carry that same perversion... I just don't like jets. I can't get starry-eyed over F-14s or Phantoms. Somehow, I just don't seem to be able to identify with them. I put them in the same category as Gemini Capsules and Titan II's. They belong to another age, another way of thinking, another era of technology.

And then there's the T-37. Cessna's little dolphin nosed bird with the barn door wings has been tugging at my heart strings ever since I watched my first one grease it on somewhere in South Texas. The T-37 seems to be a combination of lines and numbers my archaic mind can handle. It looks like something the average rich guy could own and the average pilot could fly. Besides that, the T-37 gives the feeling that it "flies" rather than being propelled by an overbearing bottle of thrust and flame. It's an innocuous, unglamorous little toad, at best, but it still has a case of the tailpipe cutes that endears it to me, if nobody else.

Currently, the T-37 is the bottom rung of the USAF's training ladder. After a few hours in a T-41 (hopped up C-172) to eliminate the barf bag specialists, the USAF pops their boys right into the T-37 and makes them into jet pilots. They've been doing it that way for a long time, a hell of a long time. The T-37 first flew in 1954 and Cessna is still cranking them out today, a fact that tends to go unnoticed in an age that is seeing the F-4 already relegated to National Guard and static display duties.

It's been around such a long time that logic says that sooner or later bits and pieces of less fortunate T-37s are going to begin showing up in scrap and surplus yards. When that happens, the same thing that hap-pened to T-34s is going to come about. Somebody somewhere is going to start putting them together as toys for well heeled boys. Look what is happening to F-86s and T-33s. The precedent has been set, so even the mountain of certification obstacles certain to be part of the FAA's game plan will eventually be scaled. You can't keep a good plane down. But is the T-37 a good plane? It must be or the USAF wouldn't be so committed to it. There was an obvious way to answer that question, so I exercised my prerogative as a tax-paying aviation journalist and went wrangling my way into a training command T-37.

At first my requests were met with a certain amount of question. "Are you sure you mean T-37 and not T-38, our new hot one?" No, I wanted the -37. The next question was usually short. "Why?" The T-37 is apparently nowhere near the top of the list of airplanes used for impressing civilian types on PR flights.]]> Cessna T-37 Tweet http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-pirep%3A-cessna-t-37-35.htm http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-t-37-tweety-cabin-34.htm Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:39:10 GMT
Description: Cessna T-37B Tweety Bird

Source:USAF Museum]]> Cessna T-37 Tweet http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-t-37-tweety-cabin-34.htm http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-cessna-t-37b-tweety-bird-33.htm Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:38:26 GMT
Source:USAF Museum]]> Cessna T-37 Tweet http://www.picturesphoto.info/r-cessna-t-37b-tweety-bird-33.htm