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The North American Aviation NA-16 was the first trainer aircraft built by North American Aviation, Inc. and was the beginning of a line of closely related North American trainer aircraft that would eventually number more than 17,000 examples. ==Design and development== The NA-16 is a family of related single-engine, low-wing monoplanes with tandem seating.〔Hagedorn 1997, p. 4.〕 Variants could have an open cockpit (the prototype and the NA-22) or be under a glass greenhouse that covered both cockpits.〔Hagedorn 1997, pp. 20–21.〕 On some variants, the rear of the canopy could be opened for a gunner to fire to the rear.〔Hagedorn 1997, p. 21.〕 A variety of air-cooled radial engines, including the Wright Whirlwind, Pratt & Whitney Wasp and Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior of varying horsepowers, could be installed depending on customer preferences.〔Hagedorn 1997, pp. 6–7.〕 The fuselage was built up from steel tubes and normally fabric covered; however, later versions were provided with aluminium monocoque structures.〔Hagedorn 1997, p. 12.〕 During the development of the design, a six inch stretch was made by moving the rudder post aft.〔Hagedorn 1997, p. 53.〕 Many versions had a fixed landing gear, but later versions could have retractable gear, mounted in a widened wing center section (which could have either integral fuel tanks or not).〔Hagedorn 1997, p. 61.〕 Most had a straight trailing edge on the outer wing while again, some had the wing trailing edge swept forward slightly in an attempt to fix a problem with stalls and spins.〔Hagedorn 1997, pp. 14, 19.〕 Several different rudders were used, with early examples having a round outline, intermediate examples having a square bottom on the rudder (Harvard I) and late examples using the triangular rudder of the AT-6 series, due to a loss of control at high angles of attack with the early types.〔Hagedorn 1997, p. 19.〕 Horizontal and vertical tails were initially covered in corrugated aluminum, but later examples were smooth-skinned, and the horizontal stabilizer was increased in chord near its tips on later versions.〔Hagedorn 1997, pp. 14–15.〕 The NA-16 flew for the first time on 1 April 1935, and was submitted to the United States Army Air Corps for evaluation as a basic trainer.〔Hagedorn 1997, p. 8.〕 The Army accepted the trainer for production but with some detail changes. The modified NA-16 was redesignated by North American as the NA-18, with production examples entering Air Corps service as the North American BT-9 (NA-19). Similar aircraft continued to be sold outside the U.S. under the NA-16 designation.〔Hagedorn 1997, p. 15.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「North American NA-16」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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