What a difference seven decades can make! If you were learning to fly during World War II, you likely would have trained in an aircraft like this lovingly restored Ryan PT-22—or, perhaps, a PT-13 built by Boeing’s Stearman subsidiary, also an open-cockpit taildragger that featured an upper wing (biplane).
Since then, training airplanes have become smaller, lighter, and enclosed. They’ve also gained electrical systems, intercoms, and robust avionics—including reliable communications radios, transponders, and GPS navigators that often feature incredibly capable (and colorful) moving-map displays. Many of the remaining pilots who learned to fly in the military some 70 years ago are amazed by the technology available to student pilots today. Doesn’t it make you wonder what the flight-training experience will be like in another 70 years?
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