A T-38C of the USAF TPS in overall white paint scheme was spotted on the famous low level route in the U.S. West Coast recently.
A couple of weeks ago, some photographers caught a rare white T-38 Talon flying at low level from a remote hill in Death Valley. Among them, our friend Ian Recchio, who shot the photographs you can find in this story.
“Four of us photographers ventured out into Death Valley to try and capture low flying jets on the Sidewinder on Nov. 14, and this beauty appeared on the horizon, to our delight. The light was just right, and the jet flew a great angle to capture it along some spectacular Death Valley geology, in all its glory” Ian told us in an email.
The T-38C serial number 64-13197 is assigned to the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS). It sports the same overall white retro paint scheme of the old T-38A jets operated by the school until September 2013.
USAF TPS used the T-38 Talon, the world’s first supersonic trainer in its curriculum for decades. Nearly 1,200 Talons were produced between 1961 and 1972, and more than 500 were still operational with the Air Force and NASA in 2016.
The TPS’s last highly-modified A-model landed at Edwards AFB for the last time on Sept. 20, 2013 and the flight was designated a “heritage flight” because the A flew alongside a C model signifying old and new. Following the heritage flight, the last two T-38As departed Sept. 23, 2013, for Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, to undergo maintenance and have the data acquisition systems stripped off so that the Talons were restored to their traditional configuration.
Following the modifications, the T-38s were sent to Langley and Tyndall Air Force Base to be used as companion trainers for the F-22 Raptor and supplement combat practice training as simulated missile targets.
Since retiring the T-38A, the school has continued flying the T-38C which has the same airframe and engine, but uses a new “glass cockpit” with integrated avionics displays, head-up display and an electronic “no drop bomb” scoring system.
The T-38C serial number 64-13197 is the last retaining the original color scheme (the same once applied to the Talons of the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training – ENJJPT – at Sheppard AFB, Texas; and the 412th Test Wing, at Edwards AFB).
More from The Aviationist
While the retro T-38C jet itself can be spotted every now and then at Edwards AFB and across the U.S., its flight along the Sidewinder, a low flying route of over 450km, located inside the R-2508 Complex, in California, is a much rare occurrence.
Interestingly, this was the first time I have seen a white T-38 from Edwards on the Sidewinder low-level route, and I spend a lot of time out there, jet spotting. I know there is one that is white flown with NASA paint too, but I haven’t seen it since it escorted the Space Shuttle on the Boeing 747 several years ago.
According to the data in Flightradar24.com, on Nov. 14, 2024, the T-38C flew a 51-minute mission from Edwards AFB, taking off as SKULL 44 at 11.39 AM LT and landing back at its homebase at 12.30PM LT.
USAF TPS
The USAF TPS is the Air Force’s advanced flight training school that trains U.S. and allied experimental test pilots, flight test engineers, and flight test navigators to conduct tests and evaluations of new and existing weapons systems, including other aircraft of the U.S. Air Force.
The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School serves as the Air Force’s premier institution for advanced flight training, preparing experimental test pilots, engineers, and navigators to conduct evaluations of new aerospace weapons systems and other military aircraft. Originally founded on September 9, 1944, as the Flight Test Training Unit at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, the school relocated on February 4, 1951, to Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. Since its inception, the USAF TPS has produced some of the U.S. Air Force and allied air forces’ most influential leaders, including World War II aces, astronauts, and pioneers in aviation.
The school’s alumni continue to shape the future of flight testing and innovation, with over 3,260 graduates, including more than 325 international graduates from 24 countries. The school’s motto, “Knowledge is Power,” reflects its mission to continuously adapt its curriculum to meet the evolving demands of aerospace technology.
You can read some interesting anecdotes about the USAF TPS in the stories written for The Aviationist by former Italian Air Force test pilot Fabio Consoli, who attended the school when its curriculum aircraft were the T-38 Talon, the F-4 Phantom, in the RF-4C and F-4E versions, the A-7 Corsair, the “D” and the “K”, the F-16A Fighting Falcon. Those were the airplanes used by student pilots to be rated as solo pilots. The engine-out program was carried out on the DHC-6 Twin Otter, while the spin and departure program was based on gliders, on the A-37 Dragonfly and on the A-7D.
The course was divided in four phases: performances, flying qualities, systems and testing.
Fabio went through “Performances” on the T-38A and “Flying Qualities” on F-4. In the “Systems” phase the students would start to fly on different types of aircraft evaluating single systems as radar, inertial platform, infrared, air-to-air refueling, head-up display and so on. In the “Testing” phase thet would get a “real world” test. He also got a chance to conduct a test flight in a B-52.
