10/31/2017. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "North American's NA-16 basic trainer, built as a private venture in 1935, proved to be the progenitor of a long series of similar aircraft which remained in production for a decade and achieved wide fame and popularity as the AT-6 Texan and Harvard. By the time production of the series ended, North American had produced well over 16,000 examples of the same basic design and many hundreds more had been built in Canada, Australia, Sweden and elsewhere.

The USN first ordered a version of the North American trainer on December 14, 1936, with a contract for 40 NJ-1s (BuNo 0910 to 0949, c/n 28-313 to 28-352). Designated NA-28 by the manufacturer, these were similar in most respects to the USAAC BT-9s with fixed landing gear but had the 500 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp engine in place of the BT-9's 400 hp R-975. The final aircraft on the order was temporarily fitted with a Ranger XV-770-4 inverted V-12 engine as NJ-2 but was reconverted to NJ-1 standard. As well as serving as trainers at NAS Pensacola, Florida, USA, the NJ-1s were used as command and staff transports."