Seversky A8V

The A8V1 Type S Two Seat Fighter was an aircraft operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service.

Design and development
The origins of the Seversky P-35 single-seat fighter trace back to the Seversky SEV-3 amphibian, which was developed into the Seversky BT-8 basic trainer. Seversky's chief designer, Alexander Kartveli, also proposed a two-seat fighter derivative, the SEV-2XP. This was powered by a 735 hp Wright R-1670 radial engine. It had fixed landing gear in aerodynamic spats and was armed with one 0.50 in and one 0.30 in forward-firing machine guns plus an additional 0.30 in machine gun for rear defence.

When the USAAC announced a competition for a new single-seat fighter in 1935, Seversky sent the SEV-2XP, confident it would win despite being a two-seater. However, the aircraft was damaged on 18 June 1935 during its transit to the fly-offs at Wright Field. The Air Corps delayed the fly-off until March 1936, which allowed Seversky time to rework the fighter into the single-seat SEV-1XP with retractable landing gear and re-engined with the Wright R-1820 radial.

In what proved to be an unpopular move for Seversky, twenty 2PA-B3s were sold to the Japanese Navy, which briefly employed them in the Second Sino-Japanese War as Navy Type S Two-Seat Fighter or A8V1 (Allied codename "Dick").

Two demonstrators ended up in the USSR; although a manufacturing licence was also bought, the Soviets undertook no production.

Sweden ordered 52 2PAs (known as the B 6), but only two were delivered before the remaining 50 were impounded in 1940 and put into service with the USAAC as the AT-12 Guardsman advanced trainer. On 18 June 1940, United States declared an embargo against exporting weapons to any nation other than the United Kingdom.

Variants

 * 2PA
 * Two-seat version of Seversky P-35 with rear gunner.
 * 2PA-202 - European demonstrator (1)
 * 2PA-A - for USSR (1)
 * 2PA-B - European demonstrator (1)
 * 2PA-BX - European demonstrator (1)
 * 2PA-B3 - 20 production aircraft for Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service as Seversky A8V1.
 * 2PA-L - for USSR (1)


 * A8V1 "Dick"
 * Japanese designation for 2PA-B3 (and U.S. codename).


 * B 6
 * Swedish designation of the 2PA (only 2 delivered, see below).


 * AT-12 Guardsman
 * Two-seat advanced trainer for the USAAF (50 2PA ordered by Sweden, but impounded).

Operators

 * Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service
 * Swedish Air Force
 * 🇺🇸 United States
 * United States Army Air Corps
 * 🇺🇸 United States
 * United States Army Air Corps