First Flight:
The YT-34C prototype aircraft made its maiden flight on September 21, 1973.

Training Evolution:
In the early 1970s, the Navy adopted a Long-Range Pilot Training Syllabus (LRPTS), one of its main objectives being replacing the piston-engine T-34B Mentor and the T-28B/C Trojan used in the early stages of training with a single airplane. With the success of the T-34B, it was no surprise that Beech Aircraft Corporation submitted the winning proposal, an advanced version with a turboprop engine. 

Changes:
The T-34C featured a longer nose than its predecessor and a included a slightly longer wingspan and larger dorsal fin. Top speed was 322 M.P.H. The flying qualities and instruments closely duplicated small jets at a quarter of the operating cost, providing excellent preparation in the primary training of Naval Aviators.  Where it did not mirror modern combat aircraft was in its lack of an ejection seat, with bailout procedures part of ground training.

Path to Wings:                                 

Aspiring Naval Aviators – Naval Flight Officers also spent time in the T-34C – spent some 70 hours in the cockpit of the Turbo Mentor, with primary training flights covering aerobatics, instrument, and formation flying. Students also logged their milestone first solo flights in the T-34C. “If only these aircraft could talk and tell us about the thousands of pilots who took their first flights in the T-34C : the anxiety, fear, fright, and excitement,” said Marine Colonel James Grace on the occasion of the airplane’s retirement in 2012.

End of an Era:
The T-34C served in the Naval Air Training Command between 1977 and 2012, one Cold War veteran remembering upward of 250 Turbo Mentors at a time in the air over Pensacola and the surrounding area on any given day at the height the airplane’s service. Instructor CDR John Hensel and Marine 1stLt Sarah Horn made the final instructional flight in a T-34C at NAS Whiting Field on April 19, 2012. The museum’s example, Bureau Number 161842, also flew from that air station before it entered the collection in 2011.