First off, a real-life prototype, the
North American NA-148 Executive Transport. I had trouble finding good reference for this aircraft as there are few
Mitchell resources actually dealing with the subject.
And now, let's take a walk on the whif side... When Japan declared war to the U.S. in December 1941, North American Aviation figured it would be good to develop a medium-size, single-tail transport using the NA-40
Mitchell as a basis. They built a single prototype of the
NA-86 Battlewagon and sent it to U.S.A.A.F. for trials. However, there were already plenty of Douglas DC-3s, and NAA's production capacity was needed elsewhere, with the
Mustang and
Mitchell. The
Battlewagon was therefore rejected and returned to NAA, which cannibalized the airframe for
Mitchell spare parts.
NOTE: the real-life NA-86 is unknown, one in a handful of so-called "charge numbers" that has not been identified by researchers; that's why I chose to use it for this imaginary aircraft, even though the number most certainly corresponded to a real project at the time.Finally, the
North American XB-25T Twin Mitchellwas done more for the laughs, really, as a gift to Tophe.