Aviation History - March 2016 USA

6 AH march 2016

Cessna’s

Military Trainer

M

ost big-dollar

warbirds make

cramped, noisy,

expensive and

sometimes dan-

gerous cross-

country machines. Not so

this just-restored ex-Army

T-41B Mescalero, which is

based on the world’s most

popular GA airplane, the

Cessna Skyhawk. That’s one

reason Steve Dunn and his

wife, Donna, of Panama

City, Fla., chose to pour

$100,000 and 19 months

of their retirement into an

airplane that the Dunns res-

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in Jacksonville.

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rized Cessna 172Fs built for

the Air Force to use as pri-

mary trainers. When the

Army saw the utility of this

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it ordered a further 225 units

as T-41Bs, which had far less

in common with the 172 than

is popularly assumed.

“The only major structure

that is similar to the 172’s

is the tailcone,” says Steve

Dunn. The T-41B’s engine

is a 210-hp, fuel- injected

Continental six with a

constant-speed prop in place

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Laotian l-bird

Steve Dunn’s restored

T-41B Mescalero is painted

in Royal Laotian Air Force

livery. Inset: A view of the

210-hp Continental engine.

briefing