Beech Aircraft Company YT-34 Mentor (USA)
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Museum Hours:
April 1- September 30
9:00am - 5:00pm
October 1 - March 31
10:00am - 4:00pm
The museum is open
daily year round (weather permitting),
except for the following days:
New Year's Day,
Easter,
Thanksgiving and
Christmas Day.
The T-34 Mentor is the military version of the Beech Bonanza aircraft. In civilian hands it is a popular low wing aerobatics aircraft. The Air Force received 450 Mentors and the Navy 420. The Mentor was also used by the military forces of at least 10 friendly foreign nations as a trainer. The "Y" designation indicates an aircraft procured for service testing prior to the award of a production contract.
Canadian Car and Foundry Company built 25 Beech T-34A Mentors that were acquired for the Air Training Command to replace some of the aging Harvards, but these were not found to offer any great improvement and were subsequently sold to Turkey.
The U.S. Air Force moved to all-jet training during the years from 1960 to 1964, when most of the civilian owned Mentors came on to the market. Curiously, after all-jet training was deemed a failure by the Air Force, it turned to Cessna's 172 Skyhawk, a slow, high-wing prop plane, for the first 30 hours of training.
The aircraft on display at Castle Air Museum was one of three procured in 1950 for testing and evaluation. It served at Randolph, Goodfellow, and James Connally Air Force Bases in Texas. In July 1953, it became a ground instructional airframe at Goodfellow AFB. Production contracts for the T-34 came in 1953. Many Navy T-34s were upgraded with turbo-prop engines.
On the web at: www.t-34.com
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The Castle Air Museum is chartered by the Department of Education and operated by the Castle Air Museum Foundation, Inc., a private not-for-profit corporation,
tax-exempt under IRS Code 501 (c)(3). The mission of the Museum is to preserve military aviation history for future generations.
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