AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 180 / 264

Plate 180 of 264 · Early jet age · Carrier trainer

North American T-28C Trojan

T-28C Trojan, BuNo 140481 ‘2P-270’, painted as BuNo 140481, a North American T-28C Trojan built for the US Navy’s training command and displayed at the Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, Arizona, since March 1977: the carrier-qualification version of North American’s tandem two-seat trainer, with a 1,425 hp Wright R-1820 Cyclone radial driving a three-bladed propeller cut down for deck clearance, a strengthened airframe, an arrester hook under the tail and a tricycle undercarriage, shown standing on its wheels with its flaps lowered as displayed: gloss white overall with international orange nose, fin and outer wing panels, a black anti-glare panel and black exhaust panels along the cowling, black ‘270’ on the cowling, ‘NAVY’ over ‘VT-6’ and ‘T-28C 140481’ on the rear fuselage, ‘2P’ over ‘270’ across the fin and rudder, the star-and-bar on both fuselage sides and under the starboard wing, ‘270’ under the flaps, and a black propeller with white and red tips (shape from the T-28C three-view on Wikimedia Commons; paint and markings following photographs of 140481 at Pima; no insignia is painted above the port wing, since no photograph shows that surface); the only T-28C in a British museum, 146289 at the Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum, Flixton, is a fuselage alone, painted in US Navy markings on one side and Zaire Air Force markings on the other.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as BuNo 140481, a North American T-28C Trojan built for the US Navy’s training command and displayed at the Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, Arizona, since March 1977: the carrier-qualification version of North American’s tandem two-seat trainer, with a 1,425 hp Wright R-1820 Cyclone radial driving a three-bladed propeller cut down for deck clearance, a strengthened airframe, an arrester hook under the tail and a tricycle undercarriage, shown standing on its wheels with its flaps lowered as displayed: gloss white overall with international orange nose, fin and outer wing panels, a black anti-glare panel and black exhaust panels along the cowling, black ‘270’ on the cowling, ‘NAVY’ over ‘VT-6’ and ‘T-28C 140481’ on the rear fuselage, ‘2P’ over ‘270’ across the fin and rudder, the star-and-bar on both fuselage sides and under the starboard wing, ‘270’ under the flaps, and a black propeller with white and red tips (shape from the T-28C three-view on Wikimedia Commons; paint and markings following photographs of 140481 at Pima; no insignia is painted above the port wing, since no photograph shows that surface); the only T-28C in a British museum, 146289 at the Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum, Flixton, is a fuselage alone, painted in US Navy markings on one side and Zaire Air Force markings on the other. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.3 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (T-28C); engine, crew and dimensions are for the T-28C Trojan, BuNo 140481 ‘2P-270’ modelled here.

History

The Trojan

After the Second World War the US Air Force wanted a successor to North American’s own T-6 Texan, known in Britain as the Harvard: a trainer that would bridge the gap between the piston fighters its instructors had flown and the jets its students would fly. North American answered with the NA-159, a tandem two-seater with a sliding canopy and a tricycle undercarriage, so that students learnt from the start to handle an aircraft that sat level on the ground, as jets did. The first XT-28 flew on 24 September 1949, and the Air Force ordered it as the T-28A, with an 800 hp Wright R-1300 engine and a two-bladed propeller.

The US Navy saw the T-28 as a trainer for its own pilots but wanted more power. Its T-28B had a 1,425 hp Wright R-1820 Cyclone radial driving a three-bladed propeller, and nearly doubled the A’s horsepower. The T-28C followed for carrier qualification: it had a strengthened airframe, an arrester hook under the tail, and propeller blades shortened to keep them clear of the deck as the nose pitched down in an arrested landing. 299 were built, and student naval aviators flew them to make their first landings on a carrier. The last T-28 left the Naval Air Training Command in the spring of 1984, replaced by the turboprop T-34C Turbo Mentor.

The T-28 also went to war. With guns, rockets and bombs under its wings it made a cheap counter-insurgency aircraft for small air forces. Rebuilt as the T-28D Nomad, it was flown by the US Air Force’s Farm Gate unit in South Vietnam from 1961, by the Royal Lao Air Force throughout the war in Laos, by Thailand, and in the Congo, where Cuban exile pilots hired by the CIA flew T-28s against the Simba rebels in 1964. France converted 148 ex-USAF T-28As into Fennecs for ground attack in Algeria. Of 1,948 T-28s built, many were sold on to private owners, and the type remains a popular warbird.

This airframe

T-28C BuNo 140481 ‘2P-270’

140481The airframe modelled

The only T-28C in a British museum is BuNo 146289 at the Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum at Flixton, near Bungay. It served with the US Navy and later with the air force of the Congo and Zaire as FG-289, and it survives only as a fuselage, without wings, engine or undercarriage, painted in US Navy markings on one side and Zaire Air Force markings on the other. A complete model of it would mean inventing most of the aircraft, so the model shows a complete T-28C instead. BuNo 140481 was built for the US Navy’s training command and has been on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, since March 1977. The model shows it as photographed in its current paint, standing on its wheels with its flaps lowered: gloss white overall with an international orange nose, fin and outer wing panels, a black anti-glare panel on top of the cowling and black exhaust panels along its sides, black ‘270’ on the cowling, ‘NAVY’ over ‘VT-6’ and ‘T-28C 140481’ on the rear fuselage, ‘2P’ over ‘270’ across the fin and rudder, the star-and-bar on both fuselage sides and under the starboard wing, ‘270’ under the flaps, and a black propeller with white and red tips. No photograph shows the upper surface of the port wing, so no insignia is painted there. The shape follows the T-28C three-view on Wikimedia Commons.

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Trojan in one UK collection.

Every airframe and serial All 264 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.