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Naval Aircraft Factory N3N

5,765 GabrielFangster70  2.5 years ago

The Naval Aircraft Factory N3N was an American tandem-seat, open cockpit, primary training biplane aircraft built by the Naval Aircraft Factory (NAF) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the 1930s and early 1940s.

Development and design
Built to replace the Consolidated NY-2 and NY-3, the N3N was successfully tested as both a conventional airplane and a seaplane.[1] The seaplane used a single float under the fuselage and floats under the outer tips of the lower wing. The conventional airplane used a fixed landing gear. The prototype XN3N-1 was powered by a Wright J-5 radial engine. An order for 179 production aircraft was received.[1] Near the end of the first production run the engine was replaced with the Wright R-760-2 Whirlwind radial. The aircraft is constructed using Alcoas's extruded aluminum, with bolts and rivets, rather than the more common welded steel tubing fuselages. Early production models used aluminum stringers formed for cancelled airship construction orders

Operational history

The N.A.F. built 997 N3N aircraft beginning in 1935. They included 179 N3N-1s and 816 N3N-3s, plus their prototypes. Production ended in 1942, but the type remained in use through the rest of World War II. The N3N was the last biplane in US military service - the last (used by the U.S. Naval Academy for aviation familiarization) were retired in 1959. The N3N was also unique in that it was an aircraft designed and manufactured by an aviation firm wholly owned and operated by the U.S. government (the Navy, in this case) as opposed to private industry. For this purpose, the U.S. Navy bought the rights and the tooling for the Wright R-760 series engine and produced their own engines. These Navy-built engines were installed on Navy-built airframes.[3]

According to Trimble, "The N3N-3, sometimes known as the Yellow Bird for its distinctive, high-visibility paint scheme, or less kindly, Yellow Peril for the jeopardy in which student aviators often found themselves, showed itself to be rugged, reliable, and generally forgiving to student pilots."[3]

Four N3N-3s were delivered to the United States Coast Guard in 1941. Postwar, many surviving aircraft were sold on the US civil aircraft market and bought for operation by agricultural aerial spraying firms and private pilot owners. A number are still (as of 2014) active in the USA.

(all of the text were sourced from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact
This airplane is also known for being the crop duster that chased Cary Grant in the crop duster scene from Alfred Hitchcock‘s North by Northwest
(cording to research made by me, The livery and paintings on the crop duster is way different than the one on this one so I’m going to release the version with the north by northwest liveries pretty soon, or maybe even now)

Accessible to spvr

This aircraft was uploaded to SimplePlanes on october 29, 2021

Note: out of all of the Airplanes that I’ve made with my own hands and upload it to you, This one was the most hardest one I’ve ever done yet the hardest part was trying to make it fly properly, so hard in fact that I had to find and use example seen on other airplanes that I have in my files and use them to make this one, song try getting this one some love and appreciation just from once.

General Characteristics

  • Created On iOS
  • Wingspan 51.0ft (15.5m)
  • Length 38.0ft (11.6m)
  • Height 14.5ft (4.4m)
  • Empty Weight 19,263lbs (8,737kg)
  • Loaded Weight 28,523lbs (12,938kg)

Performance

  • Power/Weight Ratio 0.472
  • Horse Power/Weight Ratio 0.07
  • Wing Loading 39.7lbs/ft2 (193.9kg/m2)
  • Wing Area 718.3ft2 (66.7m2)
  • Drag Points 7174

Parts

  • Number of Parts 209
  • Control Surfaces 14
  • Performance Cost 821