Warbird Information Exchange

One of the unusual features of the Douglas SBD was that standard equipment included an autopilot. Some say that it was the only single-engine U. S. combat aircraft of WWII to have an autopilot. Does anyone know if this is true? (Obviously B-17s and other Norden-equipped heavy bombers had autopilots of a sort so that the bombardier could fly the airplane through the bombsight, but I'm think here of single- and twin-engine fighters and attack types, not heavy multis.)

Single engine off the top of my head...

SBD, TBM, and P-47N (maybe SB2C as well) were used in combat and had autopilots.

TBY had autopilot installed as well, but didn't make it to the combat zone by August 1945.

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

If I recall correctly from Ted Lawson's book "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo", the Doolittle B-25B's, despite having everything not required for the raid stripped out of them to save weight, retained their autopilots.

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Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.