Northrop BT-1
This image is from a Northrop booklet,
circa 1947. There were actually three companies associated
with Jack
Northrop. The first, the Scion Corporation was absorbed by United
Aircraft back in 1929.
In 1931 Jack formed a
company with Donald Douglas known as the Northrop Aviation Corporation,
and which, in
1936, produced the aircraft seen above. This eventually
became the El Segundo Division
of Douglas (in
1937). Finally, in 1939 Northrop formed his Northrop
Corporation at the Hawthorne,
California
Municipal Airport. This company lasted until 1994 when it was
merged with Grumman.
Anyway, the BT-1 was a Navy dive bomber first
introduced in 1938, and 54 of them entered squadron
service. Although not a tremendous success in itself (it had
horrible slow speed attributes - not the sort
of thing one
wants in connection with carrier deck landings), much of the technology
gleaned from this
aircraft (dive
brakes, etc) went into the much more successful Douglas SBD
Dauntless.