Fleet 60P Fort Advanced Trainer
Fleet Aircraft of Fort Erie, Ontario, developed and built Reuben H. Fleet's line of biplane trainers until the end of WW2. But, Fleet also produced some original designs and you could rely upon them being odd looking! The Fleet 50K Freighter probably takes the cake but their 60K Fort trainer was another strange one.
Wiki compares the Fleet Fort to the Miles Master series. There is something in that - eg: both designs originally attempted to provide an adequate view for the instructor in the back seat. However, the British Masters all had more than double the horsepower.
The production Fort was powered by a rather pokey 330 hp Jacobs radial. By contrast, the Master Is had 720 hp Kestrels while the Master IIs had 870 hp Mercury radials. For me, that automatically raises the question of a more powerful Fort derivative ...
Since the Mercury was in short supply in Canada, I'm guessing that they would have all been reserved for Fairchild Bolingbroke IVT production. For our higher-powered Fleet Fort, that really leaves the R-1340 Wasp built by P&W at Longueuil, Quebec ... and, hey, the Wasp was good enough for the Harvard. So, I present the R-1340-powered Fleet 60P Fort - a whif advanced pilot trainer of WW2.
BTW, I haven't just re-engined the Fort. I also took the liberty of providing her with thicker, stronger wings (to eliminated the bracing struts). The rest remains unchanged. The Fort had a somewhat ridiculously oversized main gear (so prop clearance shouldn't be a problem).
The original image was a web find but it came from page 13 of AviaDossier 1 Canadian Aircraft of WWII by Carl Vincent. AFAIK, all of the illustrations in that volume were created by Terry Higgins.
