Navy Trains Pilots on WWII B25

I troll the Federal Business Opportunities website daily and often come up with an interesting nugget that makes for a good yarn, such as this notice from Tuesday that the Navy wanted to lease a WWII B25 Mitchell bomber to help train pilots at its Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Md.

Doug Abbotts, a spokesman for the Naval Air Systems Command, says the Test Pilot School has been using the B25 since 2004 to expose pilots to flight characteristics different from those found in contemporary aircraft. The school has been leasing the B25 from Rags Wings and Radials, a Mardela Spring, Md., outfit that operates a fleet of vintage aircraft.

Abbots said the Test Pilot School trains pilots on a wide variety of old and foreign aircraft, including a former Soviet MiG 15 jet fighter, which was developed in 1948 and currently is parked at the school, ready for flight.