Canadair CT-114 Tutor CL-41G-5 Tebuan

The CL-41G was the armed variant of Canadair's CL-41 jet trainer and the only version of the aircraft to be exported. Canadair developed it as an armament training and light attack version of the two-seat airframe that the Royal Canadian Air Force had ordered as the CL-41A. It differed from the training model in two respects: an uprated engine and hardpoints under the wing. The French and German Wikipedias put the number of underwing stations at six; the English Wikipedia states that they allowed the carriage of various external stores, up to 4,000 pounds, that is 1,814 kg, of weapons and drop tanks. The Canadian CL-41A flew with an Orenda J85-CAN-40 turbojet of 2,650 pounds of thrust, about 11.8 kN; for the Malaysian version the sources in hand only say that its engine was more powerful, without giving the model or the figure.

The customer was Malaysia. In March 1966 the Royal Malaysian Air Force (Tentera Udara Diraja Malaysia, TUDM) ordered a batch of twenty examples of the CL-41G-5, armed and configured for the light ground attack and counter-insurgency (COIN) role. The English Wikipedia gives the batch serials M-22-01 to M22-11, a range too short for twenty aircraft; the two examples preserved in Malaysia carry the registrations M22-01 and M22-04. In service the aircraft was named Tebuan, the Malay word for wasp; one of the sources consulted translates it instead as hornet.

The Tebuan entered service in Malaysia in 1967. The operators list of the English Wikipedia places it with two units, No. 6 and No. 9 Squadrons, from 1967 to 1985, and with the Training Division of the flying training command from 1966 or 1967. That split reflects the dual role the sources assign to it: the French and German Wikipedias describe it as both a trainer and a ground-attack aircraft, used according to the French article against the communist guerrillas, while another source speaks of ground-attack and fighter-bomber duties between 1967 and 1986. Detail & Scale sums it up as an aircraft armed and configured for the light ground attack or counter-insurgency role.

The fleet served for some twenty years. The last Tebuan was withdrawn from service in June 1986. The sources disagree on its successor: the main text of the English Wikipedia and Detail & Scale say it was replaced by the Italian Aermacchi MB-339A, while the operators list of the same Wikipedia states that No. 6 and No. 9 Squadrons replaced it with Douglas A-4PTM Skyhawks.

Following their retirement, the majority of the fleet was retained and placed into storage in Malaysia. Two examples are displayed at the air force museum (Muzium TUDM) at Simpang Base, Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur: M22-01, construction number 2194, painted as FM-2201, and M22-04, construction number 2200, painted as FM-1125.

Other airframes left the country and passed into private hands. As of August 2011 there were three CL-41Gs on the United States civil registry, while none were registered in Canada. In 2001 the actor John Travolta gave a CL-41G to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.

With twenty units, the Tebuan was a short run within CL-41 production, which was dominated by Canada's 190 CL-41A trainers. Its operational history was written entirely in Malaysia, far from the flying schools and display teams that made the Canadian Tutor famous.