Posted 13 years ago
filmnet
(476 items)
the right print maybe from China 1942, middle i do not know 1960s maybe but it is a color print, and the left one is Navy ? This are his print he loved and had in his box in hi room we found only 20 of them from the wars. Center picture my Dad is second from right the short guy. These must be all pilots.
Jason what era do you think this was?
Thanks must be some friends of his, he flew all around there in the early 60s also we all lived with him in Thailand, my mother and 5 kids, he would fly the generals around. We were there from 1960-63.
The gentlemen in picture #2 appear to be standing in front of a Beechcraft T-42 Baron. This is from the http://www.armytimes.com:
DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY: Many Army pilots trained in ‘honest’ T-42A Cochise
By Robert F. Dorr
Special to the Times
For a generation, Army aviators learned to fly in the Beech T-42 Cochise, a twin-engine aircraft that became a familiar sight at training bases.
During the Vietnam era, most pilots who earned a multi-engine rating cut their teeth on the T-42A. The plane is a military version of the popular Beech Model B55 Baron, widely used in general aviation and for civilian executive duties.
The Baron made its initial flight in February 1960 amid a sales boom for civilian twin-engine planes.
By the mid-1960s, Beech (also known as Beechcraft), the airplane company founded by Walter Beech in Wichita, Kan., had captured most of the light twin-engine market with the B55 Baron. The company manufactured 1,851 planes of this model, not counting those built for the Army. Beech eventually produced 5,000 civilian Barons of all models.
In February 1965, the Army ordered B55 Barons to serve as instrument and multi-engine trainers. The Army initially purchased 55 T-42A Cochise trainers, then raised the figure to 65.
The first five planes, painted white and olive drab, reached the Army on Sept. 2, 1965. Subsequent T-42As were painted olive drab.
The all-metal Cochise carried up to four passengers and the pilot, though in its instrument training role it carried two students and an instructor.
Two 260-horsepower Continental IO-470-L engines powered the Cochise. The plane had a wingspan of 37 feet 10 inches, a gross weight of 5,100 pounds and a cruising speed of 195 miles per hour.
“It was an honest airplane,” said Tom Inglima, 61, of Pembroke Pines, Fla. “It was a good trainer, a simple trainer. Like any aircraft, it had its peculiarities, but it performed well.”
Inglima logged 900 hours as an instructor in the T-42A at Cairns Field, Fort Rucker, Ala., he said during a recent interview.
He was employed by Ross Aviation, a now-defunct company that handled T-42A training of Army aviators on a contract basis from 1965 to 1970.
“We instructors were civilians, but we wore the same flight suit as active-duty soldiers. The only difference was, we wore an emblem we called the ‘Ross buzzard’ instead of Army aviator wings,” he said.
The T-42A training program gave student pilots destined for fixed-wing aircraft 60 hours of training, 52 of them under instrument conditions.
“These pilots typically arrived to begin the program with 110 flight hours in simpler aircraft in their logbooks,” Inglima said.
A slightly different program trained pilots who were converting from helicopters to fixed-wing aircraft.
At various times, maintenance of the Cochise was assigned to civilian contractors, government civilians and active-duty soldiers.
After 1970, Cochise flight instruction was given by government civilian instructors. Later in the 1970s, a new contract company took over the job.
Though intended initially solely as a trainer, the T-42A saw widespread service as a general light utility transport. Some remained in the Army Reserve and Army National Guard until the mid-1990s. Many now have been turned over to military flying clubs.
Beech also built 12 T-42A Cochise trainers for overseas military use, five for the Turkish army and seven for the Spanish air force.
At least one T-42A belongs to the Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker.
Robert F. Dorr, a military veteran, lives in Oakton, Va. His e-mail address is robertdorr@aol.com.