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Navy Sabreliner Flying
- Thread starter HuggyU2
- Start date
There were only a handful of Navy guys who were T-39 pilots while the rest were contract as Brett noted, at least one squadron or wing type who was the 'stan' guy and a few of the wing staff (Commodore, CSO) if they were pilots. If I remember correctly it was mentioned by a pilot or two the Navy had an FAA waiver to operated it single-pilot, @ea6bflyr was an instructor at VT-86 and probably knows all the details better.
Flash has it right. The wing had an Active duty guy that would STAN check the contractors (I think it was call GFR). Since then, all the active duty guys I knew retired. Most of the contractors either went to the Navy T-45 sims or they walked across the street and started flying USAF T-1s as contractors in the AF CSO/WSO pipeline.
@huggyu2, PM sent.
I recall (admittedly from 1972) that the answer is yes. We had all AD aviators at Glynco at the time (Navy and Marine) and I recall the co-pilot seat was generally occupied by an instructor RIO most of the time, while the students all sat at either the radar repeaters in the back, or I seem to recall there were one or two stations configured as NAV stations. I seem to recall doing at least one L/L nav flight, and sitting in the co-pilot seat for that. We took turns, I guess, so 2-3 STUDS got a check in the box.
As a flight surgeon at NAMI in the early '90s, the T-39 flights were a great deal. I was "self-loading baggage" on a number of VT-86 flights. The low-level out and in hops were a way to log a month's worth of decent quality flight time in one sitting, and score a lunch in the bargain. All the pilots were contract by the time I was there, most of whom were Vietnam-era guys. There were a few Vigilante pilots, who had some great stories. One pilot, an instructor in the jump seat, and the two studs would trade out the right seat on each half of the out and in. I never suspected a T-39 could do a Split S.
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