Vultee BT-13 Valiant
family of military training aircraft
The Vultee BT-13 Valiant is an American World War II-era basic (a category between primary and advanced) trainer aircraft built by Vultee Aircraft for the United States Army Air Corps, and later US Army Air Forces. A subsequent variant of the BT-13 in USAAC/USAAF service was known as the BT-15 Valiant, while an identical version for the US Navy was known as the SNV and was used to train naval aviators for the US Navy and its sister services, the US Marine Corps and US Coast Guard.
Design and development
According to Jonathan Thompson, "The three trainer designs that shared their basic engineering with the Vanguard fighter were all promoted under the same name, Valiant. The prototypes had consecutive serial numbers 139, 140 and 141 and made their first flights in the Spring and Summer of 1939. While similar in appearance, they were distinct in purpose and performance, and only one of them succeeded in winning a production contract. This turned out to be six AC contracts with three supplements, eventually amounting to 11,526 aircraft, plus twelve ordered by Peru, for a total of 11,538."
On 24 March, the Vultee BC-51 advanced trainer first flew, but lost out in competition to the North American AT-6. The Air Corps did accept the Vultee BC-51 though, designating it as the BC-3 after some upgrades in the Spring of 1940. On 9 June, Vultee model 54 advanced trainer first flew. Its original 450-hp Wright Whirlwind was eventually replaced with a R-1340. On 28 July, the Vultee model 54A first flew.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Vultee BT-13 Valiant” as family of military training aircraft. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as family of military training aircraft. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28055. The Library of Congress control number is sh2023000914. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1939, 1940 and 1340.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vultee BT-13 Valiant” 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.