Beechcraft T-34 Mentor

The Beechcraft T-34 Mentor is an American propeller-driven, single-engined military trainer aircraft derived from the Beechcraft Model 35 Bonanza. Walter Beech developed it as the Beechcraft Model 45 private venture at a time when there was no defense budget for a new trainer, hoping to sell it as an economical alternative to the North American T-6 Texan then in use by all services of the U.S. military. The Bonanza fuselage with its four-passenger cabin was replaced by a narrower two-seat tandem cockpit under a bubble canopy, and the structure was made much stronger than the Bonanza. Production did not begin until 1953, and the Continental-engined versions totaled 1,904 aircraft in the US and abroad. After a production hiatus of almost 15 years the turboprop T-34C Turbo-Mentor followed, and the type remains in service more than seven decades after it was first designed.