The Curtiss YA-10 Shrike (Model 59B) was a 1930s United States test and development version of the A-8 Shrike ground-attack aircraft using various radial engines in place of the inline Vee.

Development

The Curtiss YA-10 Shrike was the first YA-8 fitted with a Pratt & Whitney R-1690-9 (R-1690D) Hornet radial engine. The conversion was carried out in September 1932, and it was found that the aircraft's performance was not degraded by the change of engine, and low-level maneuverability was improved due to the lower mass moment of inertia with the short radial engine. The USAAC preferred radials to inline engines for the ground attack role, due to the vulnerability of the latter's cooling system to anti-aircraft fire. The US Navy also preferred radials for carrier-borne operations."The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the 20th Century Weapons and Warfare" Editor: Bernard Fitzsimons (Purnell & Sons Ltd., ) 1967/1969, Vol. 21 Upon completion of testing the Army changed an order for 46 A-8B aircraft to the production version of the YA-10, the

A-12 Shrike The Curtiss A-12 Shrike was the United States Army Air Corps' second monoplane ground-attack aircraft, and its main attack aircraft through most of the 1930s. It was based on the A-8, but had a radial engine instead of the A-8's inline, water ...

Operational history

Following completion of testing, the YA-10 was assigned to the

3rd Attack Group Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * Hig ...

for operational service, then in 1934 it was assigned to the Command and General Staff School. The YA-10 was scrapped in early 1939. The XS2C-1 was the Navy's first two-seat warplane. Since it was not equipped for carrier operations, it remained a

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

Variants

;YA-10: Model 59B, one U.S. Army Air Corps prototype ;XS2C-1: Model 69, one U.S. Navy prototype with a 625 hp (466 kW)

Wright R-1510 The Wright Whirlwind was a family of air-cooled radial aircraft engines built by Wright Aeronautical (originally an independent company, later a division of Curtiss-Wright). The family began with nine-cylinder engines, and later expanded to inc ...

-28 Whirlwind engine, delivered December 1932"The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft
cover
Editors: Paul Eden & Soph Moeng, (Amber Books Ltd. Bradley's Close, 74-77 White Lion Street, London, NI 9PF, 2002, ), 1152 pp.

Operators

; * United States Army Air Corps

Specifications (YA-10)

References