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AT-11 Kansas
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Photo: Robert Deering 1985 National Museum of the USAF Wright-Patterson AFB (FFO) Dayton, Ohio |
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The AT-11 was the
standard U.S. Army Air Forces World War II
bombing trainer; about 90 percent of the
more than 45,000 USAAF bombardiers trained
in AT-11s. Like the C-45 transport and the
AT-7 navigation trainer, the Kansan was a
military version of the Beechcraft Model 18
commercial transport. Modifications included
a transparent nose, a bomb bay, internal
bomb racks and provisions for flexible guns
for gunnery training.
Student bombardiers normally dropped 100-pound sand-filled practice bombs. In 1943 the USAAF established a minimum proficiency standard of 22 percent hits on target for trainees. Typical combat training missions took continuous evasive action within a 10-mile radius of the target with straight and level final target approaches that lasted no longer than 60 seconds. After Sept. 30, 1943, the AT-11 usually carried a Norden Bombsight and a C-1 automatic pilot, which allowed the bombardier student to guide the aircraft during the bombing run. The AT-11 on display is one of 1,582 ordered by the USAAF between 1941 and 1945, 36 of which were modified as AT-11A navigation trainers. It was donated to the museum by the Abrams Aerial Survey Corp., Lansing, Mich., in 1969, and is painted to represent a trainer in service during the autumn of 1943. |
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