Beechcraft AT-11 Kansan: What Made America's B-29 Bombers So Powerful

Peter Suciu

Security, Americas

After the war, many were converted for use in an aerial photography role while others were converted into miniature airliners. One of the few surviving AT-11 Kansans is now in the collection of the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

The importance of the United States military’s B-17 and B-24 bombers during World War II cannot be overstated, but while those aircraft delivered devastation to the enemy, it wouldn’t have been possible were it not for the Beechcraft AT-11 Kansan.

This military model of the Beechcraft Model 18 commercial transport, the AT-11 was used as the standard U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) bombing training and about 90 percent of the more than forty-five thousand USAAF bombardiers trained in the aircraft. The aircraft were set up to closely resemble a miniature version of the B-17 Flying Fortress or B-24 Liberator, and modifications included a transparent nose, a bomb bay, internal bomb racks and even provisions for flexible guns for gunnery training.

In its bombing training mode, the AT-11 Kansan carried ten one-hundred-pound M38A2 practice bombers or ten one-hundred-pound general purpose high explosive bombs. During the training, a typical crew consisted of the pilot, instructor and two students—each of whom would take a turn in the nose behind the Norden or Sperry bombsight while the instructor sat to the bombardier’s right side. Each student would drop one bomb per run for five separate bombing runs, before trading places with the other trainee.

The student who wasn’t seated at the bombsight used a thirty-five-millimeter motion picture camera to film each bomb run through a hole in the floor, and the footage was used to help determine each bombardier trainee’s bombing scores. Beginning in 1943, the USAAF established a minimum proficiency standard of 22 percent hits on targets for all trainees.

The typical combat training missions took continuous evasive action within a ten-mile radius of the target with straight and level final target approaches that lasted no longer than sixty seconds. Beginning in October 1943, the AT-11 also carried a Norden bombsight and the C-1 automatic pilot, which allowed the bombardier trainee to fly the aircraft via the bombsight.

The AT-11 was also used in a gunnery training mode with either a single .30 caliber machine gun motor-driven turret or a twin .30 caliber machine guns electrically powered turret at the top of the rear fuselage. Additionally, flexible tunnel machine guns were mounted in the lower rear fuselage and two student gunners who could the turret or tunnel guns as an instructor watched over them.

Of the more than 1,500 AT-11s built, thirty-six of the aircraft were converted to AT-11A advanced navigator trainer models.

The aircraft was also equipped with an oxygen system, which allowed it to be used for high altitude missions. It was powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-985 engines, which provided 450 horsepower each. The AT-11 had a maximum speed of 215 miles per hour, a cruising speed of 150 miles per hour and a range of 745 miles.

While the USAAF didn’t use the AT-11 as an actual bomber, it proved so successful that it was used by the Chinese Air Force during the war in combat. After the war, many were converted for use in an aerial photography role while others were converted into miniature airliners. One of the few surviving AT-11 Kansans is now in the collection of the National Museum of the United States Air Force, and it has been painted to represent a trainer as it would have looked during World War II—a testament to the importance of this lesser-known aircraft.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons