They don't mentione the Northrop/Embraer entry, either. It ended up serving as the basis for the Super Tucano. Mind you, the winning entry ended up just having the lines of the PC-9 from the firewall aft, we had to do major redesign for bird-strike considerations as part of a required civil FAR Part.25 certification.
 
Sentinel Chicken said:
The Cessna JPATS candidate doesn't seem to be mentioned in that article.

Ch17.jpg

Cessna Citation wings with a wing root engines - if it had a V-tail it would look downright Fouga.

Oddly, I have never found a 3-view of the Cessna JPATS contender.
 
I will scan a 3-view of the Cessna 526 Citationjet Trainer over the weekend, and sent it to you via PM. It is from the book "Flugzeuge der Welt 1995" from Claudio Müller, the german issue of "The Observer's Book of Aircraft" from William Green.
 
Somehow I can't open or download that PDF-file. Could someone sent it to me via PM, please?

This is the list of the JPATS competition so far:
  • Grumman(later Northrop-Grumman)/Agusta S.211A
  • Vought (later part of Northrop-Grumman)/ FMA Pampa 2000
  • Northrop (later Northrop-Grumman)/ Embraer EMB-312HSuper Tucano
  • Rockwell/DASA Ranger 2000
  • Cessna 526 Citationjet Trainer
  • Lockheed/ Aermacchi MB.339A T-Bird II
  • Beech/Pilatus PC-9 Mk. II

Source: Flug-Revue 11/1994

AS we all know, the Beech/Pilatus PC-9 Mk. II won the JPATS competition and became later the Raytheon Beechcraft T-6 Texan II.
 
fightingirish said:
I will scan a 3-view of the Cessna 526 Citationjet Trainer over the weekend, and sent it to you via PM. It is from the book "Flugzeuge der Welt 1995" from Claudio Müller, the german issue of "The Observer's Book of Aircraft" from William Green.

I still miss "Observer's Aircraft."

Sadly, Penguin dropped the entire "Observer's" series in 1992 - although I don't think that they were even sold in the United States in later years.

The 2003 edition of "Flugzeuge der Welt" was translated into English, and was widely sold at the "bargain" price of only $6USD. I haven't seen it before or since.
 
Remember this? It was Cessna's offering for JPATS, the follow-on to NGT and the eventual replacement for the T-37 (won by the Beech/Pilatus PC-9 Mk2, aka the T-6A Texan II).

It was based on the CitationJet light business jet and called the Model 526 JPATS CitationJet
 

Attachments

  • Cessna 526-10001.JPG
    Cessna 526-10001.JPG
    111.8 KB · Views: 1,351
  • Cessna 526-20001.JPG
    Cessna 526-20001.JPG
    94.9 KB · Views: 523
  • Cessna 526-ga0001.JPG
    Cessna 526-ga0001.JPG
    87.5 KB · Views: 1,420
Rockwell Fan Ranger 2000
 

Attachments

  • AWST_1991_SEPT_16_JPATSROCKWELLs.jpg
    AWST_1991_SEPT_16_JPATSROCKWELLs.jpg
    139.8 KB · Views: 485
Bede proposed entry
 

Attachments

  • AWST_1991_SEPT_16_JPATSBEDEs.jpg
    AWST_1991_SEPT_16_JPATSBEDEs.jpg
    125.1 KB · Views: 393
TinWing said:
Oddly, I have never found a 3-view of the Cessna JPATS contender.

Check the existing thread "T-37 replacement proposals" for a 3-view and pictures of the Cessna JPATS CitationJet
 
I found this on one of my CDs and can't remember anythimg about it. Anyone?
 

Attachments

  • Unknown.JPG
    Unknown.JPG
    139.8 KB · Views: 508
I'm kicking myself over here, I know I've seen that before but just can't remember what the hell it was.
 
My personal favorite was the MB 339, mainly based on its aesthetic appeal. I'm guessing it would have been the fastest of the JPATS competitors, but fuel consumption would be problematic compared to the eventual T-6 Texan II. Does anybody have info on the mods that Lockheed would have performed to the basic MB 339 to make the "T-Bird II"?

I'm not too familiar with the T-6's deficiencies aside from general comments about its landing gear being poorly designed. Would anybody have some more insight into this?

I've heard the comment that the contractors picked airframes and then shoehorned them into meeting the JPATS requirement instead of coming up with a design that was optimally suited. I don't know if any of the existing aircraft that competed even came close to the original specs. It would seem that Cessna was the only firm to come up with a largely clean-sheet design aimed at meeting requirements, and I don't blame them for protesting when they didn't win the contract.
 
Remember that JPATS was a replacement for the Next Generation Trainer project, which resulted in the horrible Fairchild T-46A.
After that fell apart, the USAF - with the Navy in tow - took an entirely different track. The requirements people decided that JPATS should be non-developmental, since there were new high-performance basic trainers (like the PC-9 and Tucano) under development all over the place.
Logical, one might think.
However, the spec writers then added a stack of requirements. Speed at low level meant power and a heavier windshield. Zero-zero seats and pressurization. A 95th-percentile cockpit capable of accommodating the Academy's star quarterback or a fairly petite female...
The upshot was that the only aircraft that met the requirements without a lot of mods was the MB339 - and IIRC there were not a lot of changes planned by Lockheed to meet the spec. My view at the time was that the 339 was a non-starter because of its size and speed - a bit challenging for basic, and close to the Navy's Goshawk - and noise. Lockheed's argument was indeed that you could use the 339 to replace some T-38 and Goshawk sorties, but when you're reduced to "if you changed the requirement" you're already in trouble.
Other than the 339, the field comprised new or drastically modified aircraft. As it became apparent that nothing really met the requirement off-the-shelf, new designs like the Cessna and the Ranger 2000 entered the fray.
An interesting feature of the JPATS competition was that, while it was in progress, Northrop acquired both Grumman and Vought (which it later disposed of to Carlyle) and thereby accomplished the amazing feat of losing the same competition three times.
It was also the last pre-consolidation contest - Rockwell, Vought and Grumman would never compete again.
 
I also find it ironic that Grumman and Vought would have been Northrop's subs if they won the Advanced Tactical Aircraft contract. Lends some credence to conspiracy theories about Northrop building their ATA design in secret.
 
LowObservable said:
Remember that JPATS was a replacement for the Next Generation Trainer project, which resulted in the horrible Fairchild T-46A.
After that fell apart, the USAF - with the Navy in tow - took an entirely different track. The requirements people decided that JPATS should be non-developmental, since there were new high-performance basic trainers (like the PC-9 and Tucano) under development all over the place.
Logical, one might think.
However, the spec writers then added a stack of requirements. Speed at low level meant power and a heavier windshield. Zero-zero seats and pressurization. A 95th-percentile cockpit capable of accommodating the Academy's star quarterback or a fairly petite female...
The upshot was that the only aircraft that met the requirements without a lot of mods was the MB339 - and IIRC there were not a lot of changes planned by Lockheed to meet the spec. My view at the time was that the 339 was a non-starter because of its size and speed - a bit challenging for basic, and close to the Navy's Goshawk - and noise. Lockheed's argument was indeed that you could use the 339 to replace some T-38 and Goshawk sorties, but when you're reduced to "if you changed the requirement" you're already in trouble.
Other than the 339, the field comprised new or drastically modified aircraft. As it became apparent that nothing really met the requirement off-the-shelf, new designs like the Cessna and the Ranger 2000 entered the fray.

The production T-6 shares looks, but little else with the modified PC-9s used as prototypes. There was considerable redesign from the firewall aft and only the lines remain the same as the PC-9. Bird strike requirements forced major structural redesign all over the airframe and, of course, the engine installation and cowling were new (I was involved in the production powerplant and fuel system design).
 
the horrible Fairchild T-46A.

What's the problem ? To my knowledge, the plane itself was a sane machine.
Problems lied on Republic management of the program, which was disastrous (I agree on this fact).
 
Archibald said:
the horrible Fairchild T-46A.

What's the problem ? To my knowledge, the plane itself was a sane machine.
Problems lied on Republic management of the program, which was disastrous (I agree on this fact).

The basic overall design was good, but there were some truly excreable bits of detailed design and management refused to go back and fix those properly, spending money instead on "band-aid" fixes which didn't work. When that one got cancelled, we got some of their designers on the B-2 and I heard plenty of stories, none good.
 
Re - PC-9 is not a T-6...

Exactly... and now that Raytheon is competing with the all-new PC-21, they can't say enough about how the T-6 is NOT a PC-9.

T-46...

I heard horror stories after the cancellation and I think most of them were true. Drag was allegedly 50 per cent over the estimates... OEW was higher than the design MTOW... prototype could only reach design airspeed in a 40 degree dive... when they did the bird test, the canopy bow distorted, Foghorn Leghorn slipped through the gap and sent the standby compass ricocheting around the cockpit... test crew nicknamed it Eliminator... ASD commander refused to accept aircraft for WPAFB museum...

The core problem was the demand for side-by-side seats, high-bypass turbofan power and such things as spin recovery (which led to features such as very fat inlet lips, low distortion and high drag). The subscale test by Rutan also led to a false sense of security.
 
Hello everybody,

I am looking for all the original contenders of the JPATS program.

Indeed, the last 7 competitors were:
- Grumman (later Northrop-Grumman) / Agusta S.211A
- Vought (later part of Northrop-Grumman) / FMA Pampa 2000
- Northrop (later Northrop-Grumman) / Embraer EMB-312H Super Tucano
- Rockwell / DASA Ranger 2000
- Cessna 526 Citationjet Trainer
- Lockheed / Aermacchi MB.339A T-Bird II
- Beech (later Raytheon) / Pilatus PC-9 Mk. II => Winner as T-6 Texan II

But what were all the other original contenders, eliminated one after another?
So far, I have:
- Aerospatiale Omega
- FFA AS-202 Bravo => Eliminated in 1990 after demanding tandem configuration
- Valmet L-90 => Eliminated in 1990 after demanding tandem configuration
- Bede BD-10
- Saab 2060
- IAR 99 Soim
- Promavia Jetsqualus
- others?

Could you help me? Thank you
Regards
Alain
 
Cessna T-48 at the end of NGT competition (T-37B with Garret F109 turbofans and new avionics), but it was just before the JPATS .....
 
CFE said:
Out of curiosity, did any of the JPATS contenders consider the Hawk for their proposal? There must be a good reason why a Hawk wasn't considered when planes like the Pampa, Tucano, PC. 9 and MB-339 were.

The Hawk was too big, expensive and high-performance for NGT and JPATS - the biggest aircraft proposed for JPATS was the MB.339A, offered by Lockheed because it was the smallest off-the-shelf aircraft that met the requirements.
 
LowObservable said:
the biggest aircraft proposed for JPATS was the MB.339A, offered by Lockheed because it was the smallest off-the-shelf aircraft that met the requirements.

At the risk of straying O/T, are you saying that the MB-339 could meet requirements w/o any mods? I'm under the impression that the other "off the shelf" designs needed pretty drastic mods (including the eventual T-6, which is a very different beast from the original PC.9)
 
Yes. The original JPATS concept was "There are all these trainers out there... why do we need to design one?" But when you took speed, birdstrike, zero-zero seats and the 95th-percentile cockpit, nothing made it except the MB339A (and I never knew how they were going to handle the noise) and that was simply because the 339A was a small advanced trainer rather than a high-performance basic trainer. So the eventual solution was essentially a new aircraft, based on the PC-9.
 
fightingirish said:
I will scan a 3-view of the Cessna 526 Citationjet Trainer over the weekend, and sent it to you via PM. It is from the book "Flugzeuge der Welt 1995" from Claudio Müller, the german issue of "The Observer's Book of Aircraft" from William Green.

I know it has been a while, but is it still possible to get a copy of this drawing? Plus any other pics that may be of the Cessna 526 Citationjet Trainer - I recall seeing a good photo of the prototype flying in primer prior to painting. Unfortunately, I think this pic is buried in my library.

Regards,

greg
 
At the time of JPATS, there were quite a few pictures in Aviation Week & ST (that would be circa 1991 I think). I still have them somewhere, but... I don't have a scanner (which also explains why I can't contribute to this site more). I remember seeing the aircraft both unpainted and in white livery.
 
Here is what I have, I do not remember where I got those from, maybe a couple from other threads in this forum.
--Luc
 

Attachments

  • jpats.jpg
    jpats.jpg
    18.7 KB · Views: 264
  • N526JP_1.jpg
    N526JP_1.jpg
    128.8 KB · Views: 455
  • JPATSInfo.jpg
    JPATSInfo.jpg
    134.1 KB · Views: 533
  • N526JT_1.jpg
    N526JT_1.jpg
    111.7 KB · Views: 1,350
  • Cessna_526-20001.JPG
    Cessna_526-20001.JPG
    94.9 KB · Views: 423
  • Cessna_526-10001.JPG
    Cessna_526-10001.JPG
    111.8 KB · Views: 448
Cessna prototypes from Flug Revue May 1994
 

Attachments

  • Cessna JPATS.jpg
    Cessna JPATS.jpg
    775 KB · Views: 245
In the fall of 1991, Teledyne Ryan apparently considered offering a T-46A spin-off for the JPATS competition.

The idea was that it wasn't so much the T-46A design itself that had been at fault in the NGT program, as the program's mismanagement at Republic. How Teledyne Ryan got their hands on the T-46A design, I do not know, but following Burt Rutan's conviction that the design should always have been a tandem one, the company was interested in offering just that.

Perhaps the unimpressive record of the two YT-46A prototypes and the one production T-46A as has been previously described in this topic led them to consider that the design may not stand a chance against all the proven designs submitted by other contenders (Cessna had not joined in yet, then)? At any rate, I sure would love to know more about Ryan's take on the T-46 design (especially considering that the company's privileged work relationship with Rutan may have got him involved in the redesign).

Here is my source, an article from Aviation Week & Space Technology, cover date 28 Oct. 1991.
 

Attachments

  • T-46 spin-off small.jpg
    T-46 spin-off small.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 678
The Teledyne Ryan JPATS entry that I know about was not a T-46A spin-off but an all new design with a configuration similar to Cessna.

Maybe someone considered it for awhile but for the reason you state I don't believe that would have been a viable idea.

--Luc
 
I have saved virtually everything about the JPATS competition from Aviation Week & Space Technology in 1991-93 and if someone's interested I can upload articles and pics of the main contenders as well as the more exotic Hamilton T2 Texan and Bede BD-10J.

Here are 6 full page advertisements from the main competitors. I don't remember seeing one of the Rockwell FanRanger, but there probably was one I suppose.
 

Attachments

  • JPATS advertisement 1 small.jpg
    JPATS advertisement 1 small.jpg
    1.3 MB · Views: 209
  • JPATS advertisement small.jpg
    JPATS advertisement small.jpg
    515.2 KB · Views: 379
  • JPATS advertisement 2 small.jpg
    JPATS advertisement 2 small.jpg
    1.3 MB · Views: 388
  • JPATS advertisement small.jpg
    JPATS advertisement small.jpg
    1.4 MB · Views: 441
  • JPATS advertisement small.jpg
    JPATS advertisement small.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 517
  • advertisement1s.jpg
    advertisement1s.jpg
    1.3 MB · Views: 304
I believe there was a General Dynamics/Cessna YT-48, a proposed development of the T-37 to be in competition with the Fairchild T-46 design. This may have been the model General Dynamics M-210.
An existing T-37 was to be converted but the conversion did not take place.
Does anybody have any further details?
 
Jos Heyman said:
I believe there was a General Dynamics/Cessna YT-48, a proposed development of the T-37 to be in competition with the Fairchild T-46 design. This may have been the model General Dynamics M-210.
An existing T-37 was to be converted but the conversion did not take place.
Does anybody have any further details?

Not quite so. The Fairchild T-46 was the winner of the NGT (Next Generation Trainer) competition. The Cessna YT-48A, however, was offered for the UMFO MPATS competition (Undergraduate Military Flight Officer Multi-Place Aircraft Training System). This called for a multi-place aircraft to be used to train flight officers in fundamentals of aviation and communication, as a replacement for the T-39. The designation T-48A was reserved on 13 March 2003 but the program was called off pretty soon after that.

I am not aware of General Dynamics' participation in the YT-48A program; what I know about the M-210 design is that it was meant as contender for a replacement of T-37 (not necessarily a development of it) as part of NGT, not JPATS. Did that involve Cessna too? I couldn't say.
 
Oooh very nice the ad for Cessna, I don't remember ever seing it.
You can see the wooden "iron bird" of the 526 in the background, that is the kind of photo that normally never gets publicized.

--Luc
 
Back
Top Bottom