I flew it in training and did my first CQ in it. It was an absolute blast to fly. It is very forgiving and easy to fly too. During the OCF (Out of Control Flights) hops, you could do just about anything to the airplane and to recover was simply neutalizing the controls BUT you needed plenty of altitude to allow the plane to recover. It was pretty fast and of course subsonic. Mechanically it was ancient. It broke a lot and the low motors made it prone to FOD damage. It was very short range too.
I did a tour instructing in it. Very basic jet trainer with a straight wing which is why it was used for out of control flight training. With a swept wing jet you don't really know if it'll recover when you're ready. The wing of the T-2 was basically a prop wing on a jet so the stall characteristics were predictable. Easy airplane to fly but difficult to fly precisely due the below centerline thrust which made the nose pitch up or down slightly every time you changed power. It made the students work harder when flying formation or flying the ball (glideslope) at the carrier. That made it a good trainer, it taught them the relationship between pitch/power/trim.
I flew all three versions of the T-2. The A was single engine with a centrifugal flow engine with a really slow acceleration from idle to “military” or full power. I only had a few flights in it.
With two engines, T-2B was quite a step up in power and response time. The T-2C was pretty the same.
I had over 1000 hours between the three versions as a student Naval Aviator and later as an instructor pilot. With the engines being below the center of gravity it was really a nice jet when flying the ball for FCLPs and at the ship. A big, fat, straight wing was an excellent platform to transition guys from the T-34 to jets.
After flying the T-2A for several hours, we switched to the “B”. Until you got used to it, when executing a missed approach it was almost like you ere hanging onto the tailhook trying to catch up with the jet.
I performed lots of spins and recoveries of each type in the Basic jet syllabus as well as spins for Advanced jet syllabus where the students performed spins but used the A-4 recovery techniques. Lots of fun 😁
NRA Life,Endowment,Patron or Benefactor since '72.
"Sep 12, 2014 - The Warbird Heritage Foundation's T-2 Buckeye taxies out, takes off, and performs a flyby after the 2014 Wings Over Waukegan airshow in Waukegan, IL."
The T-37 had two of 'em, but they were fairly small diameter. Spin-up was slow, but not as slow as a larger engine would have been. It also made that horrendous screeching noise.
The AT-33 was basically a two-seat F-80. Its centrifugal flow engine was huge and VERY slow. It could take up to 15 seconds to go from idle to full power. That's an eternity in flight, and it will put you in eternity if you chop to idle in the landing approach. Because you cannot recover from there and the ejection seat required positive climb at that altitude. Which is what you just gave up. We never went below 80% power in the pattern, and 85% was preferred.
The T-2C model has GE J85 engines which are axial flow. It's the same basic engine that powers the T-38 and F-5 but the T-2 version doesn't have afterburners.
The one in the video is a T-2B which has P&W T73's, axial flows also.
