Cessna T-41 Mescalero

The Cessna T-41 Mescalero is the military version of the Cessna 172, flown by the United States Air Force and Army and by other air forces as a pilot-training aircraft. In 1964 the Air Force decided to use the off-the-shelf Cessna 172F as a lead-in aircraft for student pilots rather than starting them in the T-37 jet, and it ordered 237 T-41As from Cessna. The T-41A was a commercial 172 with few modifications, while the T-41B for the Army, the T-41C for the Air Force Academy and the T-41D for the Military Aid Program were based on the more powerful Cessna R172. The T-41C has a 210 horsepower Continental IO-360-D engine. The single-engine piston T-41 entered service in the 1960s and was mostly withdrawn by the Air Force by 1995, and some military surplus examples are flown by civil owners.