Photos

Another old warbird.

This is a photo of a Beech AT-11 Kansas (subsequently renamed "Kansan"), on display at the USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio. It was the standard World War II advanced bombing trainer ("AT") plane; nearly 90 percent of the more than 45,000 Army Air Force bombardiers trained in AT-11s. Student bombardiers normally dropped 100-pound sand-filled practice bombs. Like the C-45 transport and the AT-7 navigation trainer, the Kansan was a military version of the Beechcraft Model 18 commercial transport. Modifications included a transparent bombardier’s nose section, a bomb bay, internal bomb racks and provisions for flexible guns for gunnery training. The AT-11 at the Museum is raised overhead and with the bomb bay doors open, so that one can look into the airplane. It is one of 1,582 ordered by the AAF between 1941 and 1945, and is painted to represent a trainer in service during the autumn of 1943.

Photo taken at the National Museum of the US Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB (in the area that was previously historic Wright Field). The museum is purportedly the world’s largest and oldest military aviation museum. It has a wide-ranging collection of aircraft and other artifacts from the beginning of controlled, powered flight (the Wright brothers lived and worked in Dayton) through the Cold War to present-day, in four large hangars (one of which is on a secure part of the base’s grounds and requires reservations, first-come-first-served on day of attendance, so go there when you first arrive to sign up) and a missile gallery.

Technical: Cropped to center the plane in the frame, some distracting overhead lights in background cloned out, sharpened and noise reduced.