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By Bill Goldston |
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December 15, 2010 - Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (HBC) on Monday announced it has delivered a specially painted T-6B Texan II trainer aircraft to the United States Navy as part of the commemoration of the Centennial of Naval Aviation. The Beechcraft T-6 Texan II is a single-engined turboprop aircraft built by the Raytheon Aircraft Company (now Hawker Beechcraft). The T-6 is used by the United States Air Force for basic pilot training and by the United States Navy for Primary and Intermediate Joint Naval Flight Officer (NFO) and Air Force Combat Systems Officer (CSO) training. It has replaced the Air Force's T-37B Tweet and is replacing the Navy's T-34C Turbo Mentor. The T-6A is also used as a basic trainer by the Canadian Forces (CT-156 Harvard II), the Luftwaffe of Germany, the Greek Air Force, the Israeli Air Force (Efroni), and the Iraqi Air Force. |
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An original T-6A Texan aircraft, right, with the new T-6 Texan II at Randolph Air Force Base (AFB), Texas, in 2007 | ||||
The
milestone aircraft, which will be based at Naval Air Station
Whiting Field in ?I am extremely honored to accept this beautiful T-6B Texan II on behalf of the Navy and put it to work in our training fleet,? said Sizemore. ?Throughout the next year, the aircraft will be proudly and widely used and displayed to train student naval aviators, as well as enable the Navy and Naval Aviation to properly recognize and celebrate the Centennial of Naval Aviation.? Beginning January 2011, the Navy will hold a year-long celebration of the men and women whose tremendous achievements have contributed to a century of progress in aviation. As part of this celebration, the U.S. Navy is having special heritage paint schemes applied to one of each of the aircraft in its current fleet. |