Photo: Textron
Whenever you think of a military aircraft these days, you always imagine machines powered by jet engines in some form or another. Sure, there are still some propeller-powered beasts still around, leftovers from years ago, but very few countries still use them, and rarely for actual combat. And no one is still making turboprop military aircraft these days, right? Well, wrong.
For about half a decade, one of the most high-profile civilian single-engine turboprops in existence, the Beechcraft T-6 Texan II, got a military variant. It’s called AT-6 Wolverine and will soon be deployed to serve the needs of the American and allied militaries.
What could a modern-day military use a turboprop for, you ask? Well, this thing has been designed, as per its maker, Textron Aviation Defense, as a purpose-built machine for light attack, counter-insurgency, and peacekeeping. Meaning you don’t get to use it in a full blown war (although, chances are you could), but you send it out to take care of business that would require much more finesse than a jet could provide.
The plane has a 1,600 shaft horsepower engine that can take it to speeds of Mach .67. It carries a total of seven hardpoints (six of them at NATO standards) that can house either external fuel tanks or weapons, including machine guns and missiles.
Back in 2020, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) became the launch customer for the AT-6E variant of the Wolverine, as it ordered two of them, and the Royal Thai Air Force became the first foreign ally to get it, as it ordered eight such planes last year.
This week, Textron announced the plane got Military Type Certification (MTC) from the USAF, and that means we’ll get to see a lot more of them being rolled out for military duty in the near future.
What could a modern-day military use a turboprop for, you ask? Well, this thing has been designed, as per its maker, Textron Aviation Defense, as a purpose-built machine for light attack, counter-insurgency, and peacekeeping. Meaning you don’t get to use it in a full blown war (although, chances are you could), but you send it out to take care of business that would require much more finesse than a jet could provide.
The plane has a 1,600 shaft horsepower engine that can take it to speeds of Mach .67. It carries a total of seven hardpoints (six of them at NATO standards) that can house either external fuel tanks or weapons, including machine guns and missiles.
Back in 2020, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) became the launch customer for the AT-6E variant of the Wolverine, as it ordered two of them, and the Royal Thai Air Force became the first foreign ally to get it, as it ordered eight such planes last year.
This week, Textron announced the plane got Military Type Certification (MTC) from the USAF, and that means we’ll get to see a lot more of them being rolled out for military duty in the near future.
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