Curtiss A-3 Falcon

The Curtiss A-3 Falcon was a ground-attack biplane produced for the U.S. Army Air Corps by adapting the company's O-1 Falcon observation aircraft to the attack role. A two-seat, single-engine machine of aluminum-tube and fabric construction, it had a longer upper wing staggered forward of the lower wing. To the O-1's two synchronized forward-firing guns and flexible rear gun, the A-3 added two more fixed guns mounted in the lower wing outboard of the propeller arc, along with underwing bomb racks for the attack mission.

Power came from a 435 hp Curtiss V-1150 (D-12) liquid-cooled V-12. The first A-3 was ordered in late 1927 and delivered that October, with 76 A-3s built, followed by 78 improved A-3B models based on the O-1E from 1929. The Falcon family served as a mainstay of Army observation and attack aviation through the late 1920s and early 1930s.