B-rat

I can clear up this so called mystery. As a Lockheed loadmaster instructor at Hurlburt I am the governments loadmaster SME for the development of a fuselage trainer for the school house here at Hurlburt. 63-7823 is the donor aircraft for FuT #1. Flight Safety has the contract and has sub contracted the actual building of the trainer to Shen Te and Simair loacated in Broken Arrow, OK. The basic configuration will be a Talon II and it can be converted to a Talon I configuration as necessary. It will also have palletized modules that can be onloaded to simulate the basic configuration of the U model gunship. The trainer will be computer controlled and this will allow us to program airdrop emergencies, landing gear & flap malfunctions, and simulate ground and inflight modes of operation. It is scheduled for delivery Nov 09 and ready for training Jan 2010. The 2nd FuT on the Guns & Rescue contract will go to Cannon. The donor aircraft has been in Birmingham for a couple of years and they are trying to get it ready for a one time flight to DM. Thanks to all who have posted pictures. I hope to create a scrap book with pictures of this conversion. If anyone has any stories or pictures of this tail number while it was flying I would appreciate the info. The mystery is solved.