Fairchild AT-21 Gunner
1943 trainer aircraft family
The Fairchild AT-21 is an American World War II specialized bomber crew trainer, intended to train crews in the use of power gun turrets or a gun on a flexible mount, as well as learn to function as a member of a crew. It had a brief career as a training aircraft before modified bombers took over this role.
Design and development
The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) issued a specification for a specialized bomber trainer, ordering two prototypes from Fairchild Aircraft. The XAT-13 powered by two 450 hp (340 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-1340-AN-1 radial engines, emerged as a "scaled down" bomber with a single machine gun in the glazed nose and a top turret with twin machine guns and fitted with tricycle landing gear. The concept was to have a single type that was able to duplicate the bomber crew positions from piloting, navigation, bomb aiming/dropping to aerial gunnery.
The second prototype, designated the XAT-14 was similar in layout but was powered by two 520 hp (388 kW) Ranger V-770 inline inverted 12-cylinder vee-type engines. It first flew in late 1942. A further refinement to suit the aircraft for bombardier training with the nose gun and turret removed, led to a new designation, the XAT-14A. Both prototypes featured an unusual construction, being built from "Duramold" plastic-bonded plywood. At the end of the testing period, the USAAC ordered the inline version as the AT-21 Gunner, specialized for gunnery training. The AT-21 had a crew of five, pilot, co-pilot/gunnery instructor and three pupils.
The public source identifies “Fairchild AT-21 Gunner” as 1943 trainer aircraft family. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Fairchild, AT-21 and Gunner.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fairchild AT-21 Gunner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.