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The rugged and robust Chinese-built Nanchang CJ-7 has been built in larger numbers than any other post-Second World War-piston engine basic trainer and remains in service with the PLAAF; in addition, the aircraft has won civilian customers around the world © David Oliver
PC-9 powered by a 1708hp (1274kW) Pratt and Whitney Canada PT6A-68 engine modified by Beechcraft to compete for the USAF/US Navy Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) contract for 747 aircraft which it won in 1995. The RNZAF’s eleven T-6Cs were delivered to Ohakea airbase on the west coast of the North Island by mid-2015. At the initial handover, Air Vice-Marshal Mike Yardley, chief of the air force, said: “The T-6C Texans are specialist military aircraft built for the purpose of training military pilots how to fly. The T-6C will allow us to train our pilots more efficiently as they’ll use the same aircraft for their Wings course, compared to the two types of aircraft currently used. We’ll begin the first trainee pilot Wings course on the T-6C at the start of 2016 and these trainees will graduate at the end of that year.” The only indigenous basic turboprop trainer competing with Pilatus and its diverse variants in the Asia-Pacific region is the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) KT-1 Woong-Bee which was developed in conjunction with Dirgantara of Indonesia. Closely resembling the PC-7 Mk.II (see above), and powered by a 950hp (708kW) Pratt and Whitney Canada PT6A-62 turboprop, 105 KT-1s are being delivered to the RoKAF while only twelve KT-1Bs were ordered by the TNI-ND to equip its 202 Training Squadron.
German Engineering For many countries, replacing ageing fleets of piston-engine primary and basic
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training aircraft with analogue cockpits is becoming more urgent as they acquire ever-more advanced MRCA. Confident that it will be able to provide a lowcost, but highly efficient, platform for the future is the German company Grob Aircraft AG. Developed from its G 120A pistonengine elementary trainer, the G 120TP is powered by a 456hp (340 kW) RollsRoyce 250-B17F turboprop driving a five-blade propeller and equipped with Martin-Baker Mk.15B ejection seats and Hands On Throttle and Stick (HOTAS) dual controls. The glass cockpit has three Elbit EFIS (Electronic Flight Instrument System) screens with training displays that include a virtual radar, a virtual
radar warning receiver, the tactical situation and stores management and debrief notes. Grob claim that the G 120TP is a highly effective and low cost way to train flight students in the use of today’s MRCAs, helicopters and multi-engine aircraft mission avionics without the use of more expensive training platforms. Budget constraints are forcing air forces to rethink how they train pilots, according to Grob Aircraft AG chief executive officer Andre Hiebeler: “one hour on a jet buys 30 hours on a turboprop like ours.” With the G 120TP’s basic price of around $3.5 million, Grob is confident it will attract more sales in the Asia-Pacific region against faster, but higher-priced, competitors such as the T-6C, KT-1 and PC-21. Grob has already attracted orders for the G 120TP from two Asia-Pacific air arms and is in negotiations with several more. The first was Indonesia which is taking delivery of 24 G 120TP basic trainers at Adisutjipto airbase in Java with the 102 Training Squadron that will use the new trainer to replace the TNI-AD’s diverse fleet of FFA AS-202 Bravo and SIAI-Marchetti/Alenia Aermacchi SF-260W piston engine trainers, and the last of its T-34C Turbo Mentors that retired in August 2015. The second customer in the region is Burma which ordered 20 G 120TP turboprop trainers in October 2014 to replace the air force’s Nanchang CJ-6 aircraft. During a formal commissioning ceremony of the type at the Burmese Air Force Flying Training School at Shante airbase in Meikhtilla, in central Burma, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-inchief of Burma’s Defence Services, noted that the delivery of the new Grob G 120TP basic trainer aircraft, which commenced
The innovative Grob G 120TP turboprop basic trainer has broken into the Asia-Pacific market with exports to Indonesia and, as shown here, Burma, with deliveries of the aircraft commencing this July © Grob Aircraft AG
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