what is it?
The Northrop BT was an American two-seat, single-engine monoplane dive bomber built by the Northrop Corporation for the United States Navy. At the time, Northrop was a subsidiary of the Douglas Aircraft Company. While unsuccessful in its own right, the BT was subsequently redesigned into the Douglas SBD Dauntless, which would form the backbone of the Navy's dive bomber force.
How to recognise it: 1 piston engine with propeller · 12.7 m wingspan
base stats
Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).
fun facts
- First flew 91 years ago, in 1935.
- Top speed is 2.7× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- Wingspan of 12.7 m: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.
- Range of 1,852 km: 10× Amsterdam to Brussels.
piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.
spec sheet
- first flight
- 1935
- number built
- 55
- role
- dive bomber
- origin
- 🇺🇸 United States
- makers
- Northrop
- engines
- 1× Pratt & Whitney R-1535-94 Twin Wasp Jr.
- length
- 9.7 m
- wingspan
- 12.7 m
- height
- 3 m
- max take-off weight
- 3,271 kg
- top speed
- 357 km/h
- cruise speed
- 309 km/h
- range
- 1,852 km
- ceiling
- 7,710 m
Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q3941683, Wikipedia: Northrop BT (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.