By Joel Langton
The 830 Times
Laughlin’s T-1, AF92-346, also known as the last T-1 assigned to the base, raced down the runway and gently lifted into the sky and turned to circle the base before it came back around Tuesday morning.
Seven minutes later, it zipped over the base operations building with two T-6 Texans and two T-38 Talons providing escort on its wings.
The quintet of aircraft then turned to the north before coming down the Laughlin runway one last time. As they broke the face’s northern fence, the four aircraft left the T-1’s wing, and the plane dipped its wings good-bye and peeled off into the sky, heading for Davis Monthan AFB, Az, where the Boneyard is located.
The aircraft flying out Tuesday is considered the FAIP aircraft. FAIP stands for First Assignment Instructor Pilot, and they are students
who graduate from Laughlin but are able to stay for an additional couple of years, serving as instructors. Number 346 has a painting of the FAIP logo on the aircraft’s tail.
The individuals who flew the plane were assigned to the 86th Flying Training Squadron, the students were assigned to the 47th Student Squadron and the maintenance personnel who kept the plane flying were members of the 47th Maintenance Directorate.
Meanwhile, the T-1’s new home, the Boneyard, is run by the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, an Air Force aircraft and missile storage and maintenance facility at Davis–Monthan, according to the agency’s website. The site estimates the area has 3,200 to 4,400 aircraft stored there.
The T-1 Jayhawk is a medium-range, twin-engine jet trainer used in the advanced phase of specialized undergraduate pilot training for students selected to fly airlift or tanker aircraft, according to the fact sheet produced by the U.S. Air Force.
At one point, there were 48 T-1s assigned to Laughlin. However, due to Air Force’s fiscal belt tightening and major changes to
pilot training, the Air Force is transitioning the aircraft’s mission to simulators, the T-7 Red Hawk and students will get time in the cockpit of their next aircraft sooner, officials said.
However, many of the plane’s trainees and instructors grew quite attached to the plane.
Capt. Carl Rindahl, one of the six instructor pilots flying the plane out, said it will be tough walking away from the aircraft for the last time.
“I’ll definitely have a tear in my eye,” he said. “Seeing this plane go away really makes me sad. I love this jet. It can fly through just about any weather and is so reliable.”
Number 346 has had 25,000 landings under its belt and 16,000 flying hours, according to the aircraft’s history.
Rindahl had personally used a number of those flying hours as he enjoyed flying it to open houses, even taking it to a show in Canada once.
“There were so many great experiences,” he said. “I’d have people tell me they were going to join the Air Force so they could fly this aircraft, and I’d have to tell them they weren’t going to be flying the T-1.”
While air crews loved the plane, the maintainers were just as attached.
“I told them if they retired this plane, I was retiring,” said Albert Rodriguez, who worked in T-1 avionics his entire 21 years as a civilian employee. Tuesday, the day the plane flew off the base was his last day at work, but his retirement won’t officially begin until Dec. 31.
Rodriguez also retired as a master sergeant before going to work as a civilian employee at Laughlin.
All 21 years of Rodriguez’s T-1 time at Laughlin was spent in the avionics section.
The most common term used by pilots and maintainers throughout the morning send off was bittersweet.
“It’s definitely bittersweet, the end of an era,” said Col. Jesse Caldwell, 47th Flying Training Wing deputy commander and the most senior person on base to fly the T-1. “This plane has trained two-thirds of the pilots in the Air Force today.”
