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February

Exhibits & Collections > History Up Close > February

It was the height of the Great Depression and the U.S. military services were not immune from the effects of the trying economic times that touched all elements of American society. Yet, for service secretaries, generals, and admirals, there remained the ever present need to prepare for war, one that seemed imminent with each passing month as dictators in Germany, Italy, and Japan became increasingly bold and powerful. To this end, the year 1935 would prove a watershed one for naval aviation, with the passage of the Aviation Cadet Act, establishing a program that would swell the aviator ranks of the Navy and Marine Corps. The airplane on which many of these new aviation cadets would eventually cut their teeth reached a milestone two months earlier on February 9, 1935, when the Navy ordered the prototype for a new primary trainer from the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This first prototype was the XN3N-1, which laid the foundation for one of the longest serving aircraft in U.S. Navy history, one known universally as the “Yellow Peril.”

Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics Rear Admiral Ernest J. King called for a trainer of “maximum ruggedness and ease of maintenance consistent with general stability for primary training purposes and meeting the specified performance” when he signed the directive outlining the desires for what became the XN3N-1. With 1920s era Consolidated NY seaplanes badly in need of replacement, King gave the project top priority. The Naval Aircraft Factory responded with a two-seat design that could be fitted with either wheels or floats for both land and water operations. Riveted aluminum formed the airplane’s structure, giving it the ruggedness the Navy demanded. In addition, removable fuselage panels on the ports side of the fuselage for inspection and a tail assembly that was connected to the fuselage by just four bolts to allow for quick replacement met the “ease of maintenance” provision. Subsequent flight trials concluded that the aircraft was stable and controllable in the air in both landplane and seaplane configurations, but an enlargement of the rudder area became necessary to improve spin handling characteristics, particularly with inexperienced students in the cockpit. One of the difficulties noted had nothing to do with performance in the air, test pilots noting that the pontoon float was sleek and made for fast beach approaches that even experienced pilots had to be wary of lest the pontoon strike the shore “with considerable shock.”

By October 1936, the first production N3N-1s had arrived at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola, with instructors and students alike enthusiastic about the type, particularly with the complete instrumentation in each cockpit. Painted bright yellow for visibility purposes (the color inspired part of the name “Yellow Peril,” the peril alluding to the fact that the airplane was prone to ground loop and students flying it in the first stage of training were mindful of the peril of washing out if they did not perform), more and more N3N-1s lined the shore at the “Cradle of Naval Aviation” in ensuing months, their numbers prompting one officer at Pensacola to call the 0800 launching of training flights the “gold rush.”

After spending weeks in ground school, cadets received their first taste of flying at Pensacola in seaplane and landplane versions of the Yellow Peril, depending on the era in which they trained. In the curriculum they advanced to flipper turns, spirals, and spin recovery. First flights in the open cockpit planes were made with an instructor, with communication through a device called a “Gosport,” which consisted of a voice tube through which the instructor shouted directions to the student, who wore only earpieces and could not talk back. A joyous moment came when the student went up by himself; the first solo in an N3N remembered by many a naval aviator. “I liked flying the N3N and believe it created confidence since it handled so easily,” recalled naval aviator Ed McCarten. “On my first solo flight at Corpus Christi…I climbed to 5000+ feet so I could feel the experience of being a mile above ground. I remember that flight to this day as being one of [my] great pleasures.” For those completing their first solo in seaplanes, by tradition the last man in each class to solo emerged from his N3N only to be grabbed by his classmates and thrown into the waters of Pensacola Bay. Not even William F. Halsey, Jr., who underwent flight training as captain, avoided getting wet at the hands of considerably younger and more junior flight students.

On the heels of the successful introduction of the N3N-1, the Naval Aircraft Factory developed the advanced N3N-3 with modifications that improved upon the original
N3N-1 design in climb characteristics and visibility and retained the ruggedness for which the aircraft was known. By the time of Pearl Harbor, the Navy boasted 943 N3Ns in its inventory, assigned to primary training duties at Naval Reserve Air Bases scattered throughout the country as well as the major air stations at Pensacola, Corpus Christi, and Jacksonville. They served throughout the war to meet the vastly expanding pilot training program, though their numbers dwindled as more Stearman N2S Kaydets were procured as primary trainers. However, a number of seaplane versions received new leases on life at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where they provided aviation indoctrination to midshipmen until retired in 1961, the last biplanes in service in the U.S. military.

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