For 30 years every Air Force pilot wanna-be had to prove his or her aviating mettle in the venerable Cessna 172, christened by the Air Force the T-41 Mescalero. The T-41 served the Air Force with the same stolid dependability the 172 served the civilian community, but the time came to find a replacement—a replacement capable of providing a more realistic introduction to military flying, better suited to screening out those unfit for its rigors, and better able to prepare fledgling aviators for their first jet experience in the T-37 primary jet trainer.
T-3A demonstrates
its aerobatic capability
To fill this role, in April 1991 the Air Force issued a Request for Proposals for an Enhanced Flight Screening aircraft. Several teams responded, including Mooney with an aerobatic, missionized M21 EFS—the only truly American design proposed. However, in its customarily inscrutable wisdom, the Air Force handed the lucrative contract, which could have been a much-needed stimulus for the flagging US lightplane industry, to an international team—long-time British glider manufacturer Slingsby Aviation Ltd. and their American partner, Northrop Worldwide Aircraft Services, Inc. (NWASI). The proven Slingsby T67 trainer was already in service with the Canadian, British, and Dutch armed forces.
To meet US Air Force performance requirements, Slingsby upgraded the original four-cylinder, 160-horsepower T67 with a 260-horsepower, six-cylinder Lycoming IOE-540-D4A5, with inverted fuel and oil systems, mated to a Hoffman three-bladed, constant-speed propeller.
The $39 million contract was awarded to Slingsby/NWASI on 29 April 1992, with 113 aircraft (designated the T-3A Firefly) to be purchased in four lots, the world's largest single trainer purchase in many years, and the largest for several years to come…at least until the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) contract is awarded to replace the Air Force's 40-year-old T-37s and the Navy's venerable T-34s. In April of this year, the Air Force authorized $9.2 million for procurement of the third lot of 33 T-3A Fireflies.
