Flash back to 1955 or so and put a Beech T-34 Mentor next to a Nanchang CJ-6-Yak-whatever you want to call it, and you could pretty well predict who was going to win the Cold War. Hey, Ronald Reagan, who needs the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative to scare the Communists into submission when you have this match-up? Just as the Bonanza, upon which the T-34 is based, looked like something from the future compared to the Cessna 195-Cessna's comparative "new" offering at the time, the T-34 outpaces the CJ-6 in every way-performance, training capabilities for next step up the performance ladder, and certainly looks. Dave Hirschman tries to make a silk purse from the CJ-6's sow's ear by pointing out the East Bloc airplane's "simple" (prehistoric) systems and ruggedness. As it turns out the T-34, like the Bonanza, is an amazingly rugged airplane in its own right with proven reliable systems, just fine for rough strips, but really, when training to fly high-performance airplanes-the role for these airplanes-how often will you be faced with such fields anyhow? When's the last time you had your F-16 on a grass strip?
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