North American NA-16 Combat Variants

There is little doubt that most fans of aviation history are familiar with the NA-16 family of training aircraft designed and built by North American Aviation. This group includes the BT-9, BT-14, AT-6, SNJ, Yale and Harvard, as well as many variations on these principal types, produced in the tens of thousands.

Less well known is a small group of family members that were designed and built for war, or were at least capable of protecting themselves and their territory. These light bombers and single seat fighters, principally designed on speculation and based on the needs of smaller, less affluent countries, provided such services to a reasonable degree and, perhaps more importantly, at a price the customer could afford.

All in all, this 'heavyweight' arm of the NA-16 family, eminently adaptable, filled a current need and was instrumental in advancing the state of aviation and construction techniques.

The current work presented by the authors is based on first-hand information pictures and drawings collected, gathered and created after several years of study of the different subtypes and derivatives, allowing -for the first time - to narrate in detail the interesting and nearly forgotten history of these aircraft and their service in various air forces around the world.