Word: a36
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...Allied Air Force, in its new A36 fighter-bombers, sprang a particularly nasty surprise on the enemy during the pre-invasion cleanup. An adaptation of the North American Mustang (P-51) the A36 is a 400-mile-an-hour single seater, equipped with dive brakes and wing bomb racks. It functions as a dive or glide bomber or as a low level strafing ship, specializing in such small but worthwhile targets as truck convoys, trains and power stations...
Some of the new Navy fighters are being produced complete with bomb racks and diving brakes* so they can be used as new-day Stukas. The Army's newest dive-bomber, announced fortnight ago, is North American's A36, a modification of the famed Mustang fighter. With Mustang speed (about 400 m.p.h.) and armament, the A36 also has diving brakes and bomb racks, can pull out of a bombing attack to meet enemy fighters on equal or superior terms...
...R.A.F. should be proved right, planes like the A36 will still not be wasted. They are still good fighters. And the U.S. services are betting that the R.A.F. is wrong, as it was only a few years ago on heavy bombers. So there is more doing in the U.S. dive-bombing field than the conversion of fighters to double duty. To supersede the SBD, both Douglas and Curtiss are building specialized dive-bombring aircraft, with less speed than fighters, but more range, more load. And over areas where U.S. seamen or soldiers fight, dive-bombers will still come howling down...