Aircraft history
The US Air Force made history when it specified the requirement for a replacement to the T-33 trainer. As often happens in aviation, a design struggling to fill its original role morphs into a swan, envied and treasured as an immortal classic. Northrop Aviation was struggling with the overweight and underpowered N-102 'Fang' light fighter, when the USAF approached with the historic requirement for a supersonic dual trainer. From this a superstar was born, and a five-decade-long love affair began, with over 50,000 military pilots testifying to the jet’s beauty!
Originally intended to mimic flight characteristics similar to the Century Series fighters such as the F-102, F-104, and F-106, the T-38A was initially deemed insufficiently demanding! Unlike these Century Series designs, the T-38A featured a very pronounced series of wing buffet sounds and vibrations as the jet came close to stall under any configuration. That faithful communication meant that long after the Century Series fighters were retired, and their surviving pilots had breathed a sigh of relief, the T-38 continued in its role as the world’s only supersonic trainer.
Features
The T-38A model depicted in this package is a highly detailed replica of its real-life counterpart.
Even the translucent gear handle operates and looks like the real thing. If the gear fails to extend normally, simply pull the alternate gear handle just like in the real jet and let gravity do its job!
The outstanding features of this aircraft are:
- High quality 3D VC
- 5 different liveries and more in free packs
- High resolution paint kit
- High quality sound set including start-ups with two types of ‘huffers’ and shutdown
- Extremely realistic night lighting, landing lights and custom effects
- Flight dynamics tested and tuned by real T-38A pilots. The aircraft flies just like its real world counterpart!
- Aircraft features an exterior model manager that enables you to install/remove the huffers, chocks, and show/hide the pilots (from external view only).
Flight model
The aircraft is complete with the accurate replication of those same buffet sounds and vibrations that many thousands of pilots around the world came to regard as the jet speaking to them. Military Visualizations has spared no effort or expense to tune the flight model to extract every possible element of reality. How realistic is it? Two real-world T-38 pilots have given it their personal seals of approval, devoting hundreds of hours to fine-tuning the design!
Manuals
Two flight manuals are included - a quick start version for those who just want to “kick the tires and light the fires,” and the other a comprehensive Pilot’s Operating Handbook which is over 240 pages in length and almost a reproduction of the real-world T-38A manual. It is complete with actual performance charts, real-world normal and emergency procedures, plus exhaustive descriptions and operations of the cockpit avionics and equipment. It even provides the latest in actual USAF flight tests to help you obtain those picture-perfect landings that all pilots crave!