The Appeal Of A WW2 Basic Trainer

More than a few times, people have asked me WHY I fly the BT-13 Valiant. It isn't something more glamorous like a fighter or bomber, and it never even flew against hostile fire. Both items are true. Heck, it can't even pull up it's own legs (landing gear) once in the air. Where's the appeal in such a seemingly unremarkable machine?

For the most part, they're confusion is understandable. When you reduce it to it's essentials, The BT-13 is nothing more than an oversized Piper Cub with a radial engine bolted to the nose. It is neither fast nor agile, and with once exceptional characteristic, there's nothing challenging about it's aerial manners. I'd be saving oodles of money if I stuck with Decathlons for my tail wheel pleasures, going just as fast, with WAY more agility, and a lot less wear and tear on my ears.

What the BT-13 does have on it's side, though, is the incredible ability to claim to be exactly what it is. Despite it's fairly diminutive horsepower (as compared to such legendary machines as the P-51 Mustang) and heavy handling, the Valiant IS a purpose built military aircraft. If you are able to not go looking for the machine guns or bomb rack, you'd see that she has almost everything else in common with a plane like the Battle Of Midway hero, the Douglas SBD. Seemingly big radial engine up front - check. Two wings, two horizontal stabilizers - it's there. A two place cockpit - yep.

Fire both up and it's a it's an initial clatter of multiple cylinders firing in an alternating sequence, sometimes lost in the visual spectacle of heavy smoke pouring from the exhaust. That engine tone takes on a new note once things are warmed up and the throttle is pushed up - she roars! Whether it's the P&W R985-AN1 in the BT-13 or the SBD's Wright R1820-60, that drawn out satisfying BLAT that gets the attention of anyone within a mile of the plane. If the audience is old enough, they might flash back to the carrier launch scene from Tora Tora Tora, where the flight deck was a crescendo of many a warbird taking flight.

Incidentally, several of the Japanese warplane recreations were cosmetically converted BT-13s. ;)

Once in the skies, the Valiant becomes just like any other plane I've flown, just with a much heavier feel that requires a lot more movement on the flight controls to make the plane do your bidding, and a fairly nasty stall characteristic (when compared to more modern GA planes anyways); otherwise, I may as well be flying a Decathlon (a very HEAVY Decathlon mind you...). Pull back on the stick and she'll go up. Push down on that right rudder and she'll yaw in that direction. Throttle up and she does faster. Pull up the gear and... oh wait, you can't do that in the BT.

Oh wait! You can't do it in the Decathlon either. :)








Where things differ in ambiance. With 450 round-nosed horses doing the pulling, it becomes impossible to draw a parallel to every other plane I've flown, and none possesses that built-like-a-tank quality of a military aircraft of that era. It's stout stuff, with little attention to aesthetics if all the green primer all over the interior is any indication. Peering out through all that greenhouse canopy framing gives you a sight picture impossible to experience in a Cessna, even if you're not looking at that early-era USAAC roundel out towards your wingtip.





And if you happen to be looking towards a spot where there's no other airplanes and very little civilization, you might suddenly be duped into thinking it's 1942 all over again.

The final gotcha of BT-flying is it's heritage. Every aviation nut knows of legendary figures such as Pappy Boyington, Butch O'Hare, and Paul Tibbets. They are always visualized next to the machines that they earned their fame in (if you didn't know, the F-4U Corsair, the F4F Wildcat, and the B-29 Superfortress respectively). But until December of 1944, the Valiant (and the few other Basic Trainers like it; the BT-13 was by far the most numerous though) was central to making pilots like them; each was required to garner 70 hours of BT-13 time in their logbooks during their flight training.
Just ask Chuck Yeager.




Yeah, THAT Chuck Yeager. ;)