- Yes
- No
TL;DR:
Strike Aircraft, extremely early ground attack plane with armour and a 37 mm gun.
Overview:
In the aftermath of the Great War, general Billy Mitchell and his clique became enamoured with the concept of armoured ground attack aircraft (flying tanks, if you will). After they failed to garner interest among aircraft manufacturers, they ordered the Army Air Service’s Engineering Division to design one themselves. This resulted in the GA-X, of which a prototype was built nicknamed the “Sawmill”. It was the last combat triplane, with 2 engines in a pusher configuration and the front of the cockpit and engine nacelles covered in armour. Armament was very extensive for the time. The main gun being a semi-automatic 37mm 1pdr gun in a flexible mount at the nose, which had a very impressive depression of 60 degrees. Additionally, 4 Lewis MGs were fixed downwards as a strafing weapon, and 4 more as defensive armament.
Flight testing was disappointing, being extremely slow (about the same as the Po-2), hard to fly and take off, and having short range. Nevertheless, it made it into production, with Boeing winning a contract to produce 20, then cut to 10, GA-Xs, designated the GA-1. The aircraft were delivered to the 3rd Attack Group in Texas, where it was extremely unpopular with pilots. So unpopular that rowdy pilots were threatened with being assigned to the GA-1s to keep them in line. By 1926 all the GA-1 would be retired and scrapped, and the whole concept shelved. The GA-X also spawned a bunch of other utterly insane aircraft, such as the Junkers JL-12 armed with 28 Thompson SMGs, or a Martin MB-1 refitted with a nose 37mm, while still having exposed puller engines.
Specifications:
Weight:
Empty: 3553kg
Maximum: 4729kgDimensions:
Length: 10.25m
Wing Span: 19.97m
Wing Area: 94.39m²
Height: 4.34mEngine:
2x Liberty 12A Inline V-12 piston engines
435hp each
Max Fuel: unknown
Liquid-cooledPerformance:
Max Speed:
169km/h
Ceiling: 3505m
Range: 563km
Rate of Climb: 183m/minCrew: 3 - pilot + 2 gunners
Armament:
1x1 37mm 1-pdr Baldwin in semiflexible mount (45° sides, 60° depression, 15° elevation)
1x4 7.62mm Lewis M1918 fixed firing down
1x1 7.62mm Lewis M1918 fixed firing aft
3x1 7.62mm Lewis M1918 in defensive turretsArmour
4.75mm armour plating around nose and engines
Images:
Sources:
Bowers, P. M. (1989). Boeing Aircraft since 1916 (pp. 59-61). Naval Institute Press.
Engineering Division, Air Service. (1920). Ground Test of Cannon Turret Mount. Government Printing Office.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/its-a-miracle-the-boeing-ga-1-triplane-could-fly
https://americancombatplanes.com/gax_1.html
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Images: