The Golden Gate Wing maintains and regularly flies a U.S. Navy SNJ-5. This aircraft, Bureau #51697, began service with the U.S. Navy in August 1943 as an advanced trainer at NAAS Kingsville. Retired at the end of WW II, the SNJ served with the Coast Guard until returning to U.S. Navy duty during the Korean War. She was again stored at the end of her military career (1957). SNJ-5 Bureau #51697 had been flown a total of 4,772 hours. The restoration process was from 1994 to 1996 including installation of a new radial engine and an authentic paint scheme of training aircraft based at Oakland Naval Air Station in 1943.

The Army Air Force also used this type of aircraft for training, calling it an AT-6 (Advanced Trainer). The AT-6 was one of the most widely used aircraft in history. Evolving from the BC-1 basic combat trainer ordered in 1937, 15,495 Texans were built between 1938 and 1945. The USAAF procured 10,057 AT-6s; others went to the Navy as SNJs and to more than 30 Allied nations. Virtually every American fighter pilot trained in the AT-6 or SNJ before graduating to combat planes. Many of the "Spitfire" and "Hurricane" pilots in the Battle of Britain trained in Canada in "Harvards", the British version of the AT-6. To comply with neutrality laws, U.S. built Harvards were flown north to the border and were pushed across. Another variant the A-27 light bomber, flew with live .30 caliber machine guns and had a maximum bomb load of 400 lbs.

In 1948, Texans still in USAF service were redesignated as T-6s when the AT, BT and PT aircraft designations were abandoned. To meet an urgent need for close air support of ground forces in the Korean Conflict, T-6s flew "mosquito missions" spotting enemy troops and guns and marking them with smoke rockets for attack by fighter-bombers.