Isn’t the T-38 the same as the F-5? And doesn’t Iran make them indigenously now? Or maybe NASA could buy some back from Vietnam.
Ping.
It’s one of the best looking aircraft you’ll ever see, especially considering how long ago it was designed. I believe some are in private hands.
I was an IP in this at the AF Flight Test Center years ago. Magnificent machine. 720 degree per second roll rate at full stick deflection. Loved every minute of it.
Well, if you’re:
(A) going to have astronaut pilots, and
(B) expect them to fly anything, then:
(C) you’ve got to keep them current in something.
TC
If they want to restore t models that is fine as long as they do it with their money. Rockets don’t have manual controls. The jet boys wants the sucker tax payer to pay for their joy rides.
The fuel crisis of the early 1970s resulted selection of the Northrop T-38A Talon, a supersonic trainer. Five T-38s used the same amount of fuel needed for one F-4 Phantom, and fewer people and equipment were required to maintain the aircraft. Although it met the criteria of demonstrating the capabilities of a prominent Air Force aircraft, the Talon did not fulfil [sic] the Thunderbird tradition of flying front-line jet fighters. The team flew the Talon from 1974–1981.It is one good-looking bird.
Dang, that’s a beautiful airplane!
There were a bunch of them at Williams AFB. I loved watching the trainees zoom overhead in formation. A couple times I stopped on Ellsworth Road to watch their touch and go training. They’d come in so low at about 150 mph that I thought they’ strike the fence!
That T-38 doesn’t have the updated inlet duct lip.
“Whitson, a biochemist, told committee members that without her training as a T-38 “back seater” she would have been ill-prepared to command the station during a 192-day mission that included five spacewalks.”
I’m all for keeping the T-38, but I’d really pay to see someone train for a spacewalk from the backseat of one.