North
American XSN2J-1 121449(?)
I could not discern the BuNo. on this
aircraft, even on the original (poor) North American
print,
but it was almost certainly 121449.. Known by N.A. Aviation
as the NA-142, only
two
prototypes were built (the other was 121450). Oddly, it was the
Navy which encourag-
ed North
American to develop an "SNJ replacement". Although production of
this aircraft
did not occur
(the Navy stayed with the SNJ Texan until eventually they were replaced
with
the Beech T-34
Mentor) much of the XSN2J's design work went into a new trainer being
prepared for the USAF, namely the T-28. In fact, about the only
difference between the
aircraft seen above and the T-28 Trojan is that the XSN2J-1 was a
taildragger. Sadly, neither
of
the prototypes survived.