Manufacturer: Brewster

Model: BW-341

Name: Bison

Type: Fighter-bomber

Date: 1940

Status: Operational

Country: United States of America

Service: U.S. Navy

Designation: BFA-1

The Brewster Model 41 Bison was acquired by the US Navy in 1941 an effort to revive the Bomber-Fighter class that had produced Boeing and Curtiss aircraft a few years before. It was, in essence, a stretched Buffalo with a bomb bay installed underneath. The Bison proved obsolescent almost immediately after delivery, and the 40 examples built were to be transfered to the Philippines Air Force as of June 1942, but sadly were lost at sea when a Japanese torpedo destroyed the boat that was carrying them sometime late in May. The fuselage of this example shows the logo of Boris the Bison, the mascot of the sole BFA-1 squadron.

A further twist to the Bison story came when the French Aéronavale which was interested in the Bison, placed an order for 30 aircraft designated BW-341. These were of course canceled when the Vichy government took over, and that was the end of it. Seen on the left is what the French Bison might have looked like.

The Bison is a stretched and considerably reworked Buffalo (see last photo below right for comparison purposes).