Edwards was referring to the T--6's less-then-spotless reputation for ground handling. And he's right. Many civilians transitioning into fighter aircraft are amazed at how much easier fighters are to handle (in most situations, anyway) then the old Texan, a supposedly easily-tamed "trainer." When I got my chance to fly Mustangs, I was amazed and relieved to find this was absolutely the case. If the P-51 had been the quantum jump up from the T-6 in ground handling difficulties that it was in aerial performance, my first Mustang hop would have culminated in a spectacular fire at the edge of the runway. Even if I kept control and survived the flight, I would have drowned in post-flight adrenaline flow. Obviously it didn't happen that way because the Mustang was such a pussy cat compared to the Texan.

I can't speak for others, but the Six had me so wired for abysmal ground handling that the Mustang was a breath of fresh air. There was nothing that big bird could do that would surprise me. Yes, "relieved" is definitely the right word.

My reaction to the Six was probably typical and definitively indicative of what the old school marm represents...the epitome of the higher-performance trainer. It wasn't supposed to be easy to fly. It was not, repeat not, supposed to take a student out and give him a good time. By the same token, the Texan wasn't supposed to present him with impossible tasks either. And it didn't. What the AT-6 (SNJ to you Navy types) represented, and still represents, was the finest combination of challenges ever built into a military trainer. The student had to fly the airplane, reading its every nuance. His proficiency benefited from this mental and physical exertion. He got better whether he wanted to or not!

A specialty industry has developed to support and sell the T-6/SNJ/Harvard. Part of this industry has worked to bring back as many Texans as possible from overseas where they are being retired. Ray Stutsman of Elkhart, Indiana brought back a herd or two of Spanish T-6s while others are working on bringing back the South African birds. Prices vary wildly, ranging from $20,000 to $60,000 with $30-$35,000 giving you a fairly clean airplane with lots of time left on the P&W R-1340. As is usually the case, you get what you pay for. (Editor's Note From the Year 2000: Budd, you dummy, you should have bought a couple dozen, when you could. Just quadruple those prices and you'll be close to today's prices)

I am not a high-time Texan driver. Without digging through logs and adding up all the numbers, I'd say my time spent in the cavernous cockpit would barely top 100 hours, all of it civilian. Of that time, at least half was in the back seat either receiving dual time (in preparation for bigger birds with longer noses) or giving dual to Texan owners who wanted to know how to land/spin/aerobat their airplane. I'm not the definitive authority on T-6 performance and handling. I am, however, pretty typical of the average civilian pilot who is lucky enough to find himself strapped into one of the biggest pieces of iron commonly available to us. My viewpoint is grassroots . . . and reasonably current.

Oddly enough, I'm not sure where I flew my first T-6. It may have been the D model operated by Flight Safety out of Vero Beach, Florida. But while I'm hazy where my first T-6 time came from, there's no doubt where I spent the most instructive time in the Texan: at Junior Burchinal's Warbird school in Paris, Texas, during the early 1970s. I've put a lot of time into T-6s since then and I've enjoyed all of them more than I enjoyed those with Junior. I can, however, guarantee I've never learned more than in those ten hours with Junior. He believes firmly in working your buns off for your own good. And it worked.

When you climb into the front hole of the T-6 it feels like a fighter. I've said this before, many times, but it's true. And one reason it feels like a fighter is because North American designed the Texan to give the student the feel and controls of a big bird with less speed and a more forgiving nature.

Describing the cockpit of a T-6 is like describing a cockpit of most World War Two fighters (especially North Americans), although it is quite a bit larger than something like a Bearcat. Beneath your left arm are all of the primary accessory controls, i.e. elevator, aileron, and rudder trims, as well as the landing gear and flap actuators. All of the electronic and radio goodies are on a console by your right arm.

You have to dig deep to find the visual differences between a T-6 and SNJ and to differentiate the models of Sixes, which the Air Force, adopted. One sure clue of a SNJ or an early T-6 is a tail wheel lock sticking out of the left side of the canopy rail. Later T-6s had steerable tail wheels similar to the Mustang, which unlocked when you pushed the stick forward. Supposedly this feature was on later Ds, all Gs and the Canadian-built Harvards IV's while earlier models and all SNJs had tail wheels that were either locked straight forward or free swivel depending on the position of the control in the cockpit. Another noticeable difference in the later airplanes is the lack of a large cutout in the upper right hand side of the instrument panel; In SNJs and earlier model Sixes, a provision was made to mount a .30 caliber machine gun and the receiver stuck through the instrument panel. The later airplanes also eliminated the inertia starter, so the energize and engage pedal between the rudders may or may not be there. SNJ's and early airplanes also have a separate hydraulic actuation lever by your left knee.

In actuality there were a ton of minor differences between all the models but only the steerable tailwheel and the late model servo-tabs on the ailerons (which really do make the airplane much nicer to fly) are noticeable.

Cranking up a round engine is one of the world's true sensual delights and it's made even more so if an inertia starter is being used. The whine of the starter winding up and the descending mechanical growl of engagement are right out of a late night movie sound track. And, of course, as the engine coughs into life, blowing smoke and noise past your elbows, which are sticking out over the canopy rails, the mechanical nostalgia gets even deeper.

One of the neatest things about the Texan is to be sitting there just chugging along at altitude, pretending the world is still at war. You are surrounded by a flat-black and zinc chromate green world that's awash in a sea of cryptic placards. You sit quite high in the airplane, well over the nose, and you are very conscious of protruding up into a greenhouse enclosure with cockpit framing everywhere you look. Your feet are stretched out to either side of the stick, resting in giant trays with equally giant rudder pedals at the forward end. Even the simplest task, like checking the fuel, reminds you that you are astride an anachronistic military animal . . . the fuel gauges are on the floor on either side of the seat. Often you have to shade your eyes to see down into the bowels of the airplane.

Every time I get ready to land a Six I can feel my mouth start to turn to dust, a trait experienced Six drivers say is good. At least I'm not over-confident (an understatement), since most of the Six's reputation for being cantankerous comes from the landing phase.

Throwing the gear out on downwind, you check the gear lights, but you also squint to see through little plexiglass windows on the top of each side of the wing center section. It's only by checking to see that the locking pins are secure that you know for sure the gear is locked down. Then you set up what is fairly normal approach planning to have 90 mph on final, by which time you'll have all 45 degrees of flap out. The flaps are split trailing edge affairs rather than true-hinged surfaces, so they generate as much drag as they do lift. This puts your nose down and gives you tremendous visibility on final.

The machine wheel lands quite easily, which is what most folks do these days. However, the swerving tendency is still there and you have to be wide awake as the tail settles because it just loves to meander as the wind goes out of the rudder.

I've always found G models and Harvard Mk. IVs easier to land, probably because of the steerable tail-wheel but that may be an illusion brought about by coincidence and luck.

A lot of folks think they'll never get a chance to fly a real Warbird. With the numbers of actual combat aircraft dwindling down to nothing, it's easy to overlook the fact that there are between 500 to 600 T-6s running around the country. That number is increasing everyday and the T-6 is just as much Warbird as anything that totes along a half dozen .50 calibres. More important, you can go a lifetime without finding a Mustang owner willing to give or sell you a ride. But the possibility of some free fuel and a couple of cool ones can tempt many a T-6 owner into letting rag legs like you and me into the backseat. There you aren't cooped up in a hot, sweaty, noisy, little box as you are in the back of a P-51 . . . strictly a passenger in a cement mixer. In the back of a T-6 you are still a pilot and can actually fly the airplane. You can put your hands on forty years of history and get a feel for the way it was.

One note of caution: like any Warbird the T-6 is a high-performance machine possessed of high-performance quirks and maintenance. So don't go up with just any T-6 driver since the law of averages says there's bound to be at least a few who don't get enough time to stay truly proficient. Don't be afraid to ask around before jumping in with someone who may or may not be as good as he or she thinks they are.

In a T-6 you get the same nostalgic rush most Warbirds give, only the raw edged performance is missing. Most of that performance, however, is measured only by numbers on a dial.