T-37 Tweet A-37 Dragonfly Illustrated: Lou Drendel Paperback – March 21, 2026

Bill Lear, the designer of the Learjet, once said: “If it looks good, it will fly good”. That may be true of a lot of airplanes, but Lear should have looked over his shoulder before uttering his famous aviation maxim, since one of the best-flying airplanes of the era was already rolling out of a factory not too far from his company in Wichita, Kansas, and it sure flew good even though its looks were pretty mundane.The Cessna T-37 was the first jet primary trainer adopted by USAF, and it continued in that role for over half a century. No airplane can boast an operational career that long if it doesn’t “fly good”. The simplicity of design of that straight-winged, side-by-side wide fuselage also made the T-37 an honest fun-to-fly jet, perfect for introducing fledgling USAF pilots to the world of jet flying. It wasn’t just easy to fly, it was also easy to maintain, thanks to the squat landing gear and multiplicity of access panels.Those qualities also made it a light attack star when USAF went shopping for a “COIN” (COunter-INsurgency) airplane in the 1960s. The “Tweet” grew teeth when it became the A-37 “Dragonfly” with bigger engines, more fuel and a heavy weapons load that varied from miniguns to bombs and rockets. It went to war in Vietnam, first with USAF and then with VNAF. It served with several other air forces in regional wars, proving its COIN chops in the process.The long and colorful history of the T/A-37 is covered herein with the usual “Illustrated” drawings, flight manual illustrations and a multitude of photos of all versions of the original Cessna military jet, from the long-serving trainer to the very deadly effective attack jet. All versions of both the Tweet and the Dragonfly are covered. Read more