Boeing 247 variant
Boeing 247 247Y
Armed version of the 247: two aircraft with nose machine guns, one exported to China and the other used for trials. The Chinese example, owned by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, also carried a .50 in (12.7 mm) Colt on a flexible mount.
- 2
- Units built
History
An airliner with machine guns
The 247Y was a special modification: an aircraft appropriated from United by the US Army Air Corps as a test aircraft, fitted with two machine guns in the nose. The same installation was later fitted to a second 247Y owned by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, which additionally carried a .50 in (12.7 mm) Colt machine gun on a flexible mount.
These are the only armed 247s documented in the captured material, and the type's only combat-mission variant, even if it never went beyond testbed and personal aircraft status.
Census criterion
It is recorded as a variant — rather than an unlabelled conversion — because the material assigns it a designation of its own within the family. The two units censused are the two aircraft described: no further examples are recorded.