T-26 Trojan joy flight

**Glenn66** · 10-09-2012, 02:42 PM

As mentioned in frenchy's harvard flight thread I had the opportunity to take a joy flight in a Vietnam era T-26 Trojan 2 years ago.

My wonderful wife had bought me the flight as a birthday present so until we got to the airfield I had no idea what was in store for me. As my father had been a pilot and I had some experience I was comfortable to let the pilot have some fun and as we flew over the estuary area towards Moreton Bay and the Gold Coast he made some dummy dive bombing runs in the general area of some local pleasure boats (although not too close to cause alarm). It was easy to imagine we were over the Mekong Delta and the boats were all VC!

First the pilot would tip her over on one wing then as the nose came down we'd line up on some islet and hold the line for effect before peeling away and regaining height for the next run. Pretty exhilarting stuff I have to say and probably the fastest 45 minutes i've ever had!

I hope you enjoy the photos!

Glenn

**big ned** · 10-09-2012, 04:42 PM

Looks great Glenn!

Here's a bit of history concerning your bird, very interesting, especially it's covert use by the CIA in Laos.

Manufactured by North American at Downey, California, USA in 1954 as one of 744 T-28A-NA's that were produced under the batch number NA-174, it was delivered to the USAF with s/n 51-3722. It was struck off charge and shipped to the SMAAR unit, Air Force Logistic Command, McClellan AFB, Sacramento, where it was assigned to MAP on May 25, 1965. It was converted to an T-28D and transferred to the RThaiAF, and serialed in the JF-13 range it served with the RThaiAF till 1972.

In 1972 it was transferred to the RLaosAF, reportedly coded 51-3722, and subsequently operated over Laos by Air America/CIA personnel, while being maintained at Udorn RThaiAFB, Thailand. In 1974 it was transferred to the Philippine AF, serialed 13722, withdrawn from use it was sold to a Jose Mari Roa in 1988. Roa rebuilt the aircraft using parts of another T-28 (s/n 51-3782 c/n 174-320), and it came on the Philippine register as RP-R280 on May 2, 1989. However, it never received a CofA and the registration was cancelled the following year.

The aircraft was bought by Ian Kenny of Brisbane, Australia, and pending restoration was stored for a number of years. It was registered VH-TRO on June 15, 2001, and flown on August 5, 2001, by 2004 it was named Huff 'n' Puff. On February 15, 2006 it was reregistered to its present owner Malcolm Rolph-Smith of Brookfield, Queensland. The shown tail number 38364 and code TL-364 belonged to a T-28B, produced for the USN under BuNo. 138364, that was reportedly transferred to the USAF under serial 53-8364.

Regards, Ned.