The Vultee V-11 was a military version of Gerard Vultee's single-engine passenger transport V-1A, with which it shared the wing, the tail surfaces and the undercarriage. Designed as an attack bomber, it was a low-wing, all-metal design with an elongated, four-section canopy covering its two tandem-seated crew members. It could carry up to 1,100 lbs. of bombs internally and externally, and was armed with one forward-firing, fixed .30-inch machine gun mounted on each wing and one flexible .30-inch gun operated by the rear crewman. The prototype and the initial batch of production models were powered by a 750 hp Wright SR-1820-F53 Cyclone radial engine driving a two-bladed Hamilton Standard propeller. A second version, the V-11A, got instead a three-bladed airscrew.
Offered for the export market, the V-11A first piqued the interest of the Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist government. They purchased a total of thirty V-11As in various states of completion, some as kits that were assembled in Shanghai and nearby Hangzhou. A number of 850 hp R-1820-G2 Cyclone engines were acquired separately by the Chinese and installed in the Vultee attack planes, whose designation was then changed to V-11G. They ended up manned by the international mercenary pilots of the Fourteenth Squadron, based in Hangzhou, in skirmishes against the Japanese in 1938.
A dedicated attack bomber version was developed as V-11GB, and provided room for a third crew member-a cameraman cum bomb aimer who would also operate an additional retractable .30-inch machine gun placed on a trapdoor on the bottom of the aft fuselage. The wings now had a pair of .30-inch guns on each side. The estimated bombload was of 1,000 lbs. on internal racks over a range of 2,400 miles.
In 1936, the Soviet Union purchased a manufacturing license for the V-11GB so as to provide experience in modern aeronautical technology to Russian industry. The Vultee factory delivered four airframes, two complete with a Cyclone engine and the others without powerplants. In the following two years, 31 Soviet renditions of the V-11GB, modified by Sergei Kocherigin to accomodate a 750 hp M-62IR radial engine, were built in Moscow and called BSh-1 (for Bronirovanniy Shturmovik-1, or Armored Attack Plane-1). Their poor performance removed them from the attack bomber role and they were transferred to Aeroflot under the new name PS-43 (for Poschtoviy Samolyot-43, or Postal Airplane-43) as long distance mail carriers for the Moscow-Kiev and Moscow-Tashkent routes. They were employed in liaison duties by the VVS throughout the Great Patriotic War, and the survivors were retired in 1947.
A European demonstrator V-11GB ended up being part of a group of forty units ordered by Turkey. Designated V-11GBTs, they served in the Second Air Regiment at Diyarbakir, in the southeast of the country, not far from the Syrian border. They added to the mind-bogglingly motley nature of the Turkish Air Force, which by the early 1940s also had aircraft of British, German, French, Polish and Soviet origin.
In 1938, the Brazilian Army Aviation placed an order for 25 aircraft, which were designated V-11GB2 and had a single gun instead of a pair on each wing. A 26th example was modified as a floatplane and offered to the Brazilian Navy, but it was turned down. The army aircraft equipped the First Aviation Regiment and the School of Military Aviation, in Rio, and also the Third Aviation Regiment, at Canoas, southern Brazil. They served throughout World War II in coastal patrol duties, and on 26 February 1942 a V-11GB2 attacked a German submarine off Ararangu· (about 29 degrees S). They started to be decommissioned after the end of the war, and many ended their days as ground trainers.
Although the airliner V-1 did indeed see action in the Spanish Civil War, in spite of a number of reports on the contrary, no V-11s were involved in that Iberian conflict.
Ironically, the USAAC was the last military service in the world to order this U.S.-made bomber, some six months after Gerald Vultee died in an accident while returning from a sales pitch to Army authorities. Seven airframes were ordered as service test aircraft and designated YA-19. Those were modified from the regular V-11GBs, with a different cowling housing a 1200 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830-17 Twin Wasp powerplant. Other features that distinguished the YA-19 from the export V-11GBs were a loop antenna instead of the “football” type on the aft fuselage, a carburetor intake placed above and behind the cowling and a 1080-pound bombload. All YA-19s were stationed at March Field, California, and later transferred to the Panama Canal Zone, where they carried military attachés on duty throughout Central and South America. None of them were involved in any offensive military operation, and by the late ’30s, with the advent of multiple-engine attack bombers, the obsolete YA-19 slowly faded into oblivion.
судя по этому стандартным был все-таки 750 л.с. 850 л.с. - это уже версия V-11G. и тут же утверждается, что русский мотор М-62ИР имел 750 л.с. обратите внимание на YA-19 c 1200 cильниками. но, как я уже отмечал, все это та еще информация. не удивлюсь, если тут ошибки. например, на сайте Бразильских ВВС написано, что их Вулти имели 4х7.62 и 2х12.7 пулеметов в передних крыльях и 2 пулемета сзади. а тут написано про всего по одному пулемету в крыльях у бразильцев. эх, может еще кто что знает, все таки претендуем на звание самого крутого русскоязычного авиасайта?
Помните, что война с арабами - это война ловушек, засад и убийств из-за угла. (с) Атос, граф де ла Фер ( с помощью А. Дюма)