....I'm all-right -
         no-body worry 'bout me.
         Why you got to give me a fight?
         Why don'cha just let me be?

The T-28 Trojan was a training plane produced by the North American corporation from the late 1940s through the late 1950s. The original 'A' model, powered by an 800 horsepower Wright 'Cyclone' engine, was used by the Air Force. The Navy needed more power. The 'B' version of the T-28 had an engine of 1425 hp. The 'C' version was a 'B' model modified for aircraft carrier landings...so it featured a tailhook, beefed-up landing gear, and six inches chopped off each prop blade.

Now, 1425 horsepower is an awful lot of power. If you take civilian flying lessons in, say, a Cessna 152, it'll have maybe 150 horsepower. The P-40s, Messerschmitt Bf-109s, and Supermarine Spitfires that began WWII all had V-12 engines of around 1000 hp or a little more. So the T-28 was not a kid's toy. And the Navy was using it for primary flight instruction; in other words, your first flying lessons were in this beast. We heard rumors that if you jammed full throttle too abruptly, you could instantly flip the plane over on its back from the engine torque.

The North American corporation, of course, was the source of the famous P-51 Mustang fighter of WW II. The lineage showed in the T-28...I've never flown or even sat in a P-51, but the cockpit pictures I've seen match dial for dial, lever for lever with the T-28.

It was a hulking great mass of an airplane. You walked up to it on the ramp, and the wing was at shoulder height. The massive radial engine, with its huge cylinders radiating outwards from the crankcase like the spokes of a wheel, was enclosed in a cowling that towered overhead. All of the access panels and hatches were opened and closed with a special fastener called a dzus fitting. T-28 pilots therefore all wore a "dzus key", a sort of screw-driver like tool mounted in a pocket-knife grip, with which you could open the dzus fittings by rotating the slotted head 90 degrees. The dzus-key was the badge of distinction for T-28 pilots. That, and an oil-stained flight suit. Because the T-28 was an infamously oily aircraft...the oil-tank, which you checked during your pre-flight inspection before every flight, had a capacity measured in gallons, not quarts or liters, and if the plane wasn't leaking oil onto the ramp as you walked up, you didn't fly, because that meant it didn't have any oil.

To climb into the cockpit of the plane, you first had to mount a hinged footstep mounted in the wing-flap, about 4 feet off the ground. The T-28 was not an airplane adapted for short people. From the first step, you could then heave yourself up onto the wing-shoulder. You then had another 4-foot step over the cockpit sill into either the front or back seat.

By 1980, the Navy was in the process of slowly phasing out the old Trojan. The follow-on aircraft, the Beechcraft T-34C, was already in service in some training squadrons. This was a much smaller, lighter airplane with a much more economical turbo-prop engine. We called the T-34 the "Turbo Weenie" because of this...and, at least in our own minds, as T-28 pilots we always maintained a more macho mystique. The T-28 was just viewed as more difficult to master.

At least in terms of engine controls, this was demonstrably true. Whereas a turboprop pilot only has to manage the throttle lever, in the T-28 you had throttle, fuel mixture, and prop-pitch controls, and you also had cowl-flaps for engine cooling, and at higher altitude you had to operate the two-stage supercharger, which was complicated enough to flummox every student the first time they tried to engage it.

Starting the engine required a bit of dexterity, and the controls you had to manipulate to accomplish this were awkwardly placed. Throttle closed, mixture full-rich, prop pitch set at full increase. With your right hand, middle finger, hold down the 'choke' button, which squirts raw fuel into the engine cylinders. With your right index finger, depress the start button. The prop begins ticking over. The crankshaft now has to make four complete revolutions...so you count 12 prop blades as they flip over. Not 11, not 13, 12. At precisely the moment of the 12th blade flipping past, with your left hand reaching completely across to the right side of the cockpit (awkward in your parachute and harness) you flip the magneto(which is the ignition) switch to 'both'. The engine now ROARS to life, and belches a HUGE cloud of white smoke as the oil that had pooled in the bottom cylinders burns off. As it does this, with your right hand, immediately release the start button but continue holding the fuel choke. With your left hand, reach back to the left side of the cockpit and advance the throttle about 3/4 of an inch 'open'. Congratulations, you've now started the engine, and only now can you release the 'choke' button. Watch the oil pressure, it should come up within 10 seconds or you've got to shut down immediately. You can now begin activating the myriad of switches for things like generators, radios, navaids. Complete your after-start checklist. Dial up ATIS on the radio, get the winds, altimeter setting, active runway. Signal the ground crew to remove the wheel chocks. Call Ground Control to activate your flight plan, and get clearance to taxi to the runway. Don't dawdle, there's NO slack in naval aviation, but you'd better not forget a single detail, either. Your instructor is under NO obligation to coddle you. If you're not suitable material for this line of work, better the Navy find out now than later.

Navy primary flight instruction has historically been done in the southeastern tier of states in the US. By 1980, this meant either Pensacola, Florida or Corpus Christi, Texas, where I found myself going through the program. The summer temperatures here were augmented by the tremendous heat source that was the engine. As you taxi along the taxiway, heat pours through the firewall into the front cockpit, where it's soon 130 degrees Farenheit. You leave the huge bubble canopy open while taxiing, or you'll be broiled. The T-28 steers on the ground with differential braking...you have a brake on each rudder pedal, which operates independently. Push your toe down on the left pedal to steer left. Takes some getting used to.

Just short of the runway, you perform an ancient, honored ritual in piston powered aircraft: the mag-drop. See, you have dual redundant ignition systems for safety, and you need to make a final check that both of them are firing full force before you take off. You do this by stopping the plane, jamming down as hard as you can on both brake pedals, and running the throttle up to about 40 inches of manifold pressure. You then toggle your magneto switch from 'both' to 'left'. The engine RPM should drop, but by no more than about 300 RPM. Mag switch back to 'both', then to 'right'. Same check, RPM drop witin limits. Mag switch back to 'both'.

You now run through the 'C's: Canopy closed. Cowl flaps almost, but not all the way closed. Call the tower and get your Clearance. Check the traffic to make sure there's not another plane on final. When the tower clears you for takeoff, taxi out to runway center line, stop the plane, and once more jam down on the brakes for all you're worth. Run the throttle up to 48 inches manifold pressure. The engine makes a terrifying roar, the whole plane shakes alarmingly, your legs begin trembling with the effort of holding the plane in place with the brakes. Scan the engine dials, temperature, oil pressure, fuel pressure. Sweep the control stick around to all four corners one last time to make sure they're not binding. Only then release the brakes.

The acceleration pushes you back in your seat. The nose of the plane rears up, and immediately begins to swerve over to the left from the engine torque they told you about...you must immediately catch this with a judicious bootful of right rudder to keep the plane tracking down the runway centerline. Steer it straight to about 60 knots, then a little back pressure on the stick...the nose wheel should smoothly come up off the runway, and a couple of seconds later, you're off.

...I was the victim of some inadequate planning by the operation staff of the training wing...they'd found themselves approaching the end of the fiscal year and they'd not yet met their quota of student pilots finished with the primary phase of training. And, oh yes, it was 1980, and all sorts of things were happening in the world, and so they were pretty sure they were going to NEED a large number of pilots. So they'd gone into "push" mode. Which meant that they identified a group of students far enough along to potentially be able to finish before the deadline, and prioritized all the training resources (instructors, aircraft) on those guys to "push" them out by the end of the fiscal year. Lucky me, I was in that group. Two flights, sometimes three a day, when normally it's maybe two flights in a week. I was more than a little bit frazzled, but I was still doing well enough to be selected for the jet pipeline...

...If only I could make it down alive from this infernal night formation hop. The automatic direction finder, or ADF, was a 1940's technology directional receiver...it had a needle that pointed towards whatever beacon you'd dialled in. And it also had an audio channel, which was intended to let you hear the Morse-code identification of the beacon. But, as it happened, it would also pick up AM radio...

           Oh-oh-oh girls, they wanna have fun,
           Oh-oh-oh girls just wanna have fun.
           {...girls just want...they wanna have fun...fun...}

Although I've never done it, I understand that, in a straight up, nose-to-nose dogfight between a P-51 and a T-28, the T-28 just eats the Mustang alive, every time. Which is surprising, until you itemize all the heavy items the P-51 carries that the T-28 doesn't. Six 50-caliber machine guns. An armor-plated cockpit. Enough gas to get to Berlin and back. The T-28 therefore has a significantly higher power to weight ratio, which translates to a huge advantage in a hassle. And, for an airplane with such a nasty reputation, the plane was really quite a joy to fly. Light, responsive, balanced controls. A stall that was abrupt, but predictable. Wonderful, wonderful aerobatics - the only difficulty being that the engine torque required extra attention so that you'd track straight during loops. The visibility through the bubble canopy, perched so high on the fuselage, was never less than awe-inspiring. Landings, once you got the hang of them, were easy too. (Although the T-28C was equipped for carrier landings, the Navy had quit using the Trojan for carrier training by 1980 in order to extend the life of the aging airframes). The plane was also quite stable in instrument conditions, although the actual instrumentation was pretty primitive, even in 1980. Just a wonderful, wonderful machine that I'm proud to have logged time in.

References:

Final Tour of Duty: North American's T-28 Trojans Robert Genat, SpecialtyPress, ISBN 0-933424-61-2

My Logbook, stained and faded.