I have many fond (and a few frightening) memories of my 100 or so hours flying the T-38. After the Cessna T-37 it was like moving into Formula 1 from a small under powered truck. The Talon was built solely for speed and handling. The USAF felt if you could fly it you could be trained to fly anything. Touch down speed was 155-165 knots depending on remaining fuel. You didn't really move the stick- you just thought about it. Roll rate was claimed to be an unbelievable 720 degrees/sec if you could actually get the stick to the stop - but you couldn't.. Climb rate was far in excess of 6000 ft/minute at 280 KIAs. On the negative side, It didn't carry much fuel, so sorties were usually no more than 1.2-1.3 hours, and if you lit the burners for more than a few minutes you were "Bingo" fuel. Aerobatics took an huge amount of airspace - 5-6000 feet minimum for a loop and the J-85 engines were particularly unforgiving about ice ingestion. But all in all one of my greatest flying experiences. I spent the rest of my career flying C-130s thus going from Formula 1 to off-road trucking.
Calypso - When I went through (Viet Nam era), everyone flew the same year long program - T-41 (C-172), T-37 and T-38. Then on to more specialized training. Now there are separate paths to preserve the airframe life as the Talons are getting a little long in the tooth.
After 20 plus years around the Allisons I do have a bit of tinitus but shouting isn't required (yet). The Herc however is ageless! While off topic to the Talon discussion, here's an interesting link to humanitarian airlift with the Herc http://herkybird.info/africa/index.htm Theres also a link on the site to an unpublished book (PDF) about about Afghanistan operations.