As you know, I've had the great fortune to visit with a number of WWII bomber pilots. Several of them were assigned to the schools that had AT-9s and every man said these were very unforgiving and treacherous little airplanes. If you lost an engine or the instructor shut one down they were very hard to keep airborne without a great amount of talent! One gentleman I knew was quite proud to have been in the last class of students at the advanced training base in Frederick, Oklahoma that could fly the AT-9 without an instructor. After his class, no solo student flying in the Jeep was allowed. This fellow was then assigned to B-26 Marauder training and he had no problem with it--his impression was that the B-26 was child's play after the AT-9!
It's a shame that only one has survived, at the USAF Museum. They also had parts of another that a private museum was hoping to restore but I don't know what has happened to this collection of pieces.
