PBA Galleries

Gelatin silver cirkut camera photograph. Captioned Vultee Aircraft 1938 in negative in lower part of image. 25.5x96 cm (10x37¾").

Rare photograph of the employees of the Vultee Aircaft Company, founded by Gerard Vultee an Vance Breese in 1932. It's 6-passenger all-metal monoplane V-1 was coveted by early airlines, but twin-engine competition from Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s spurred the company to redesign the plane as a military trainer and light attack aircraft.

The plane pictured is apparently a Vultee YA-19 single engine light attack aircraft, only seven of which were built, the U.S. Army Air Corps preferring twin engine attack aircraft at the time, the Vultees being built primarily for comparison purposes. The Vultee company was better known for the V-11 and V-12 versions of the planes, which flew in China against the Japanese before the U.S. entered in World War II, and also was purchased by the air forces of Turkey, the Soviet Union, and Brazil.