British aircraft in USAAF service.

[Dr Jekyll]

The Avro Anson was the AT-20, the Mosquito was the F-8, although they only used a few dozen of each.

Yet the Spitfire was used by the hundred and never seems to have got a P-nn designation.


Anyone know why? And was the Beaufighter given a USAAF number?

[mebe]

B-57 Canberra

[twister]

mebe said:

B-57 Canberra

In US*A*AF service?

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

Airspeed Horsa
Airspeed Oxford
Avro Anson (Canadian built, known as the AT-20)
Bolton Paul Defiant (Target tug)
Bristol Beaufighter
deHavilland Mosquito (known as the F8)
Supermarine Spitfire
Westland Lysander

No idea why some were given American designations while others weren't.

[Dr Jekyll]

But my question is. Why did the Oxford and Mosquito get USAAF numbers, while the Spitfire, operated in much larger numbers, didn't?

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

After doing a little digging, it appears that the Ansons and the original Mosquitos supplied to the USAAF were Canadian built, so this may affect why they had a US designation.

The F8 was a recce bird but with a minimal camera suite and the single stage supercharged merlins. They were converted from 5 BVIIs and 55 BXXs. They did not provide the high level performance that the USAAF wanted so they were eventually replaced with 100 British built PRXVIs.

As far as I can find out, the USAAF PRXVIs were not referred to as F8 but by the British designation.

Edited by Ginetta G15 Girl on Saturday 16th June 17:46

[Dr Jekyll]

That would explain it, thanks. It might also explain why the Beaufighter didn't have a USAAF designation.

[Tango13]

twister said:

mebe said:

B-57 Canberra

In US*A*AF service?

The B-57 was licence/license built by Martin aircraft in the US so the 'B-57' designation ties in with what GG15 posted above.

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

I think the point being made is that the OP asked about British a/c in USAAF service (Uniyed States Army Airforce) and not USAF (United Staes Air Force).

[chunder27]

The Hawk as a navy trainer

[IanH755]

USAAF = US Army Air Force which was the name used during WW2 until the split into the USAF in 1947, so the OP is looking for WW2 aircraft and nothing newer.

[dr_gn]

Tiger Moth

[mebe]

twister said:

mebe said:

B-57 Canberra

In US*A*AF service?

It's a good point, I missed that.

[davepoth]

I've found an explanation for the oddness (I think). This was a link from the Wikipedia page about US army aircraft designations.

http://rwebs.net/avhistory/acdesig/usarmy.htm

It's near the bottom.

the website said:

Non-Standard Aircraft Designations

Just when you though this was somewhat straight forward, we find out our (the Confederate Air Force's) B-24 is really a LB-30, and an AT-19 painted in British Royal Navy markings is called a V-77! In a few cases, a design or variant was produced for a foreign country but not used by the U.S. These odd balls were often designed by their manufacturer’s company project number, sometimes mixed with official type codes.

I read that as saying that the USAAF designations are really for purchasing purposes so that it's clear what they were buying, more than to identify them in service. If they wanted a plane designed to a non-US specification they'd use the non-US code.