It's early 1942 . . .

**Sakrison** · #1 11-23-2023, 10:10 PM

As America enters World War II, the US Navy is desperate for new pilots, but it lacks enough instructors and basic trainers to meet the demand.

Enter North American Aviation and good old American ingenuity. The AT-6½ "Texxxan" allows one instructor and one airplane to simultaneously train three student pilots and allows the Navy to meet the needs of its new carrier flight groups.

I started with the Air Nat'l Guard AT-6 kit from Dave's Card Creations (available at ecardmodels.com). It's a nice kit. I made the canopy frames with self-adhesive label stock, a technique that I think worked very well. The rest was built straight "out of the box." (Sort of)

The resulting aircraft is a bit tail-heavy and probably underpowered, and it offers convincing evidence that I'm not getting enough adult supervision.

**RyanShort1** · #2 11-23-2023, 10:14 PM

As an instructor, all I can say, is I'm glad that concept has never crossed my path!

**yukonjohn** · #3 11-23-2023, 11:10 PM

A wonderful build of a purposefully forgotten prototype! The next phase in development was to substitute the 600 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp engine with a 2,000 hp R-2800-21 Double Wasp to help offset the tail heavy condition. Fortunately, the Double Wasp was prioritized for P-47 production and the idea never made it past talk at the bar.

Regards,
John

**billmcc** · #4 11-24-2023, 12:18 AM

Nicely done!

**Thumb Dog** · #5 11-24-2023, 12:30 AM

Hi All,

And hi, Sakrison. Nice extension on your Longhorn Texan. I couldn’t resist posting the following bit of humor written by Brock Yates and illustrated by Bruce McCall. There are other aircraft to be found in this series, all carried out to their illogical conclusions. You can find them here:

http://discaircraft.greyfalcon.us/Ma...dy%20Bixby.htm

Funny stuff.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

**Sakrison** · #6 11-24-2023, 02:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thumb Dog

Hi All,

And hi, Sakrison. Nice extension on your Longhorn Texan. I couldn’t resist posting the following bit of humor written by Brock Yates and illustrated by Bruce McCall. There are other aircraft to be found in this series, all carried out to their illogical conclusions. You can find them here:

http://discaircraft.greyfalcon.us/Ma...dy%20Bixby.htm

Funny stuff.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

It was McCall's Harley-Fairfax trainer that gave me the idea.

**Siwi** · #7 11-24-2023, 03:12 AM

Instantly dubbed 'the banana boat' or 'quiet in the cheap seats!' by the service instructors.

The sticky label method works well for canopies.

**Mike1158** · #8 11-24-2023, 04:08 AM

A very fine build you have there.

**kiwi2** · #9 11-24-2023, 04:39 AM

I don't know.
If you shift the wing back slightly, and possibly lengthen the span.
It might just work.

**Siwi** · #10 11-24-2023, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiwi2

I don't know.
If you shift the wing back slightly, and possibly lengthen the span.
It might just work.

Actually yes, proportionally it's not that far off something like a Fairey Battle/Fulmar, Mitsubishi Ki-15, Nakajima B6N and other 3-man torpedo bombers and reconnaissance types.