A-24/SBD, Fort Sill, OK

[coastdef]

Post Field, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Date Unknown. Note the SBD on the tail!



Regards,

Andy

[John Dupre]

A friend has restored a Stearman N2S/PT-13 and in his research he found that when the Stearmans were delivered in overall silver they left the factory with both PT-13 and N2S painted on the vertical fin and whichever service received the aircraft painted over the opposing services designator. Would something similar have been done for other Navy types adopted by the Army? In other words could the "visiting" SBD actually be the "delivery" of an A-25?

(BTW my friend was going to paint the dual designators on his aircraft but decided not to. I thought it would be cool.)

[gilt]

The PT-13D/N2S-5 series were the only completely common aircraft procured during WWII. Even within the other PT-13/17 and N2S models there were Army/Navy differences.

Tom-

[jamesintucson]

BuNo 4518 is the first SBD-3. It was assigned to the USS Yorktown at Midway flown by Cmdr. Leslie and was lost when he ditched upon return to the fleet. Definitely not an A-24.

James

[ltdann]

It did not take much to change an A-24 into an SBD. the addition of bridle hooks, catapult holdback, tailhook and solid rubber tailwheel tire were most of the differences. A-24 may have also had a different throttle assembly, but I have not been able to verify that.

So, if you ask me, these were common airframes. they were built to the same stress loads and at least during -3 production shared the assembly line

Rich

[ltdann]

BTW, an SBD-3A was an aircraft destined for the Army that was taken on strength by the Navy.

Off topic, there were also photo variants, for instance SBD-1P and so on