page_title: Cessna AT-17 Bobcat
section_title: Design and development
hierarchical_section_title: Cessna AT-17 Bobcat / Design and development
caption_attribution_description: Over Martinez, CA on March 16, 1947.
context_page_description: The Cessna AT-17 Bobcat is a twin-engined advanced trainer aircraft designed and made in the United States, and used during World War II to bridge the gap between single-engined trainers and twin-engined combat aircraft. The AT-17 was powered by two Jacobs R-755-9 radial engines. The commercial version was the Model T-50, from which the AT-17 was developed.
context_section_description: The AT-17 was a military version of the commercial Cessna T-50 light transport. The Cessna Airplane Company first produced the wood and tubular steel, fabric-covered T-50 in 1939 for the civilian market, as a lightweight and low-cost twin for personal use where larger aircraft such as the Beech 18 would be too expensive. A low-wing cantilever monoplane, it featured retractable main landing gear and wing trailing edge flaps, both electrically actuated. The wing structure was built up of laminated spruce spar beams with spruce and plywood ribs. The fixed tailwheel is not steerable and full-swivelling. The prototype T-50 made its maiden flight on 26 March 1939.
  In 1940, the United States Army Air Corps ordered them under the designation AT-8 as twin-engined advanced trainers.
caption: A T-50 in flight
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