North American Harvard

The Harvard was the RAF’s principal advanced trainer of the war, the British name for North American’s AT-6/T-6, on which tens of thousands of Allied pilots learned to fly fast monoplanes before progressing to fighters and bombers. Supplied in huge numbers, it was a cornerstone of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, with schools across Canada, Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Its all-metal construction, retractable undercarriage and direct-drive propeller — whose tip speed gave the Harvard its distinctive harsh, rasping note — made it an ideal bridge between the gentle elementary trainers and front-line types. More than 15,000 were built, and the Harvard served the RAF for two decades after the war.