Manufacturer: Beechcraft

Model: 49

Name: Twin Mentor

Type: Tandem-seat primary trainer

Date: 1965

Status: Operational service

Country: United States of America

Service: U.S. Navy

Designation: YT-34F



Synopsis:
Elaboration:

What if Beechcraft had offered a twin-engined version of its popular T-34 Mentor trainer? This question is what inspired the creation of the YT-34F Twin Mentor, for which I also did an imaginary advertisement.

The YT-34F seems so natural and right it's hard to figure it was actually reworked from a real-life single-engine aircraft. That's partly because it is not so far from the real-life Model 50 Baron, from which I snatched the engines... (for the original photo of the single-engine Mentor, check the page for my XAT-34E Victor).

A member of the What If forum called Damian liked the Twin Mentor so much he decided to do a profile of it. Damian's work in turn inspired me to imagine company documents reusing actual Beechcraft templates. These can be seen below right, while Damian's great artwork appears just below them.


Viewers' comments:
  • Ok, this was fun! (Alejandro Irausquin)
  • I like this. Pretty. (David R. Townend)
  • Is it the perspective? It seems the left engine is right against the fuselage. (Kimberly Margosein)

My comments:

I know! It's annoying, isn't it? The engine nearest to us probably should be a little further from the fuselage. Perhaps one of my layers accidentally moved before saving the flattened image to JPEG? Sorry about that! I'll try and see what I can do...