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Fairchild / Fleet PT-26 Cornell II - Planes that I have flown


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I think I'm pretty lucky.  I earned by glider and power pilot wings through the most excellent Royal Canadian Air Cadet program. Went on to get my commercial, multi-engine and instructors rating all before 20 years of age.  I had two airline jobs lined up in 1981 but due to a recession at that time they never came to be.  No worries, I ended up having a great career at Honda Canada, where I had multiple jobs that took me coast to coast and even to Japan. I have a terricfic wife and two grown successful sons.  I retired at a not too old age some years ago and in 2018 I couldn't resist the "Flying Bug" anymore, renewed my license and joined a small flying museum 15 minutes from the house.  Edenvale Classic Aircraft Foundation (www.classicaircraft.ca and on FaceBook) has a small group of volunteers and we look after a number of RCAF artifacts and four flying aircraft.  We have a 1943 DH82a RAF Tiger Moth and a 1943 Fleet PT-26 Cornell both of which we use for public rides.  We also have a 1947 (1963 rebuilt) Fleet Canuck and a 1947 Auster A.O.P. VII ex RCAF and these are used for pilot training.  I am lucky enough to have flown them all and will be doing my check out on the Tiger Moth this summer.  Lucky guy for sure!

 

Any way this brings me to this subject, the 1/48 Planet Models Fairchild PT-26 Cornell.   This is the only option (I believe) for a kit of our Cornell.  I have decided to model it after our own since I have all the reference I need and I really want to have one on the shelf.  I have a Silver Wings 1/32 Tiger Moth to do after that check out.

 

The kit is resin and requires some skills to bring together. Typically the parts have a few issues such as slightly warped fuselage halves, some parts are a bit crude and details that do not match our aircraft.  In addition to building with superglue I will be correcting some details and (gasp) scratchbuilding the two cockpit interiors.  I have not done very much scratch work and this will push my comfort level.  It will also give me practice for another Tiger Moth, this one a Matchbox, that I am building for one of our members who restored our museum Tiger.

 

First off her is our handsome pilot and model builder with our Fleet PT-26 (Fleet built PT-26s under license in Fort Erie Ontario). She was RCAF FV720 built in late 1943, delivered to RCAF in Sept 1944 to No. 1 Air Traning Command in Brandon Manitoba, she was actually kept in Reserve and sold in 1946.  More history is available if anyone wants to know.

 

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The kit in its flimsy box

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Which provided all of the parts safely EXCEPT for the one-piece wing which is no longer "at one with itself".

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Oh well it will be fixed.  Here is a typical part, the right wing tip.  Some flash but very few pinholes or short molds.  Overall the quality of casting, outline and detail is very good.

THE NOTCH in the wing tip is supposed to be there but it is a hand-hold and so I will need to add the outer portion, essentially a bar that continues the wing outline.

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Like this...

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Well time to start dry-fitting and see how it is going to come together.

Thanks for looking.

Edited by Bill Bunting
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So I have cleaned up the parts, most are looking pretty good for a resin kit.  A little warp in the fuselage sides. the tip of one fin is short shot, again just a tiny bit and a pinhole here and there.  All joints are "butt" joints with no locating tabs.  The interior framing is inaccurate and there are no sidewall controls.  The control sticks have out of scale grips and the instrument panels are of the correct shape but the instrument location is off a little but not enough to keep me awake at night.

 

The wing will be repaired by drilling holes in the two parts and using brass rod to align and stregnthen their joining.  I have drilled the holes and placed the rods in without glue at this point using tape to hold it together.  I glued the seats to the cockpit floor with minimal amount of CA (in case they need to be re-located), added new control sticks of plastic rod and dry fitted the cockpit floor, fuselage halves and wing together.  The kit has a seperate front and rear upper fuselage pieces and these were taped on as well. The fit of the rear deck was good side to side but it is too long as provided since it sits over the rear seat. The front piece is fine.  The seats were mounted centred on their posts but the front one will need to be remounted as far forward on the posts as practical along with the control stick. There is a third upper fuselage piece that is the rear cockpit panel coaming.  It fit as well but it was not clear at first if it rests on top of the fuselage side or on the interior rails / longerons. I will need to fit the canopy to determine this and it's correct position fore to aft.  The big news is there are pretty significant gaps at the fuselage and upper wing.  This is a moulding/fuselage warp/not enough diehedral and broken wing issue.  The fuselage does warp inwards in the cockpit area and this will need to be corrected.  The wing will need to be carefully assembled and perhaps bent a little to get the correct diehdral, the Cornell has quite a bit.  

 

In this picture you can see the fuselage gap at the back (warping), the seats and sticks are a little too far back (from my references) the wing gaps (the left wing, right side of this picture, is the broken one) and the too long rear fuselage deck. The nose/engine cowling fits fine but has another issue we shall need to fix later on. The centre cockpit coaming is not shown here.

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This is the underside of the rear fuselage deck.  The thicker portion is the forward end and after checking the canopy and references, I determined that it needs to be cut off to be the right length. I guess it is leftover from the moulding.

 

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That's all for now.  Interior research and planning next...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some progress shots on the interior.  After removing the rudimentary sidewall detail (ribs and stringer only) I built up new details using plastic rod and sheet. The upper piece is the left fuselage with round trim controls and the throttle quadrants.  There is also an ignition switch in the rear cockpit section.  The front ignition plus front and rear fuel selectors are still to be added. Throttle arms are wire and will have handles added made of white glue. The lower piece is the right side with a small square circuit breaker panel a rectangular box that holds the radios.  This latter is not original 1943 stuff but is present on our aircraft. Still to come on here is the parking brake control.

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I hope to simulate this...

Front left sidewall

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The rear left console.  This is where the Instructor would be for most of the training.  Interestingly there are no secondary controls back here.  The Master electrics, fuel primer, starter switch, carb heat, oil cooler and radio controls are only available in the front.  As a result we can only fly solo and passenger carrying flights are only flown from the front seat. Clearly seen here are the ignition switch - the silver loop lever and below that the fuel selector - left or right or both off or both off. The black throttle and red fuel mixture levers.  At that time standard RAF/RCAF practice was mixture controls to be Full RIch (Full Power) at the back and Full Lean/Idle Cut Off (engine will stop) when full forward.  This is opposite to throttle operation (forward is full power back is idle) and more interestingly opposite to USAF.  Many USAF pilot flying RAF/RCAF aircraft cut the engine when looking for full rich fuel and the RAF/RCAF would screw up on USAF aircraft.  Crazy times.  Incidentally the standard practicce today is the USAF way - both levers forward for full power - so when we fly the Cornell we always make a concious decision and oftne say aloud "full rich - AFT".  Note to self - someone has moved the red lever aft - it should be forward (Idle Cut Off) when parked, it certainly was when I left the airplane....

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This is the front cockpit right side. The green box is the original circuit breaker panel - not many on this simple airplane. Behind it is the custom made radio box with the VHF radio, some more circuit breakers and hole where the transponder used to be(removed for repair).  Behind that is a small storage box perfect for the checklist and a map.  This plywood box is not orginal and was added sometime during its civilian life.

The red handle on the right is the parking brake set lever.   The red handle under the instrument panel is the control lock (joystick and rudder/tailwheel castor) release. The rear cockpit right side has only the red parking brake handle so no pic of that today.

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Hi Bill. (and others) thought you might like to see my 1/72nd Cornell. I built it some years ago now from the Special Hobby kit. Finished it as the one that flies with the Canadian Warplane Heritage at Hamilton.   

 

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Here in company with my Airix Harvard. I built the Harvard a "couple years ago."... about 55years ago now!!!!
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The Harvard is one of my earliest kits I built, if not the very first!! It has lasted all this time but has had a makeover by way of new canopy, some interior detail and partial new decals.
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The national insignia are the original decals I manage to save but the codes and serial are modern ones from Microscale generic sets I think.  I tried to get the same number but this is the nearest I got.

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This is the SH Cornell....

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The above few pics are of the SH Cornell.

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Those are really nice Paul!  I'm building a couple of Italeri (Occidental) Harvards soon after this project.  I didn't know SH did a 1/72 Cornell, may have to get one.   So hard to believe you have a 55 yr old model in such great shape.   The first model I remember making on my own was a (long gone to the bin)  Airfix Harrier in maybe 1970???? I built it on my dinner tray while flying back to Canada after a visit to England.  Can you imagine tube glue on a plane these days?  I guess it just blended in with the cigarette smoke.  The oldest I have in my cabinet is probably 30 yrs old, an Otaki 1/48 Bf109G.  Thanks for dropping by.

 

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Got some more details and paint on the sidewalls.  This should do the trick once closed up and looking from the top.  It was important to constantly check fit and position versus the seats.  As I said this is my first attempt at scratchbuilding and I am quite happy, I never should have worried about it. 

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Next step is to slap the fuselage together and then attach the broken wing....

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The fuselage was joined and required some clamping and tape to hold in place while the CA glue dried. The wing is there just to double check alignment and is not attached yet.

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Wings attached.  The broken wing pieces were brought together with two brass rod re-enforcements. This was brought up to the fuselage, checked for alignment and glued in place, again tape was used to keep it aligned until set.

 

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There are significant gaps at the roots that will be filled with Tamiya "Easy sanding" CA glue and "Perfecr Putty" to finish.

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This kit has proven generally accurate in external details.  There are a few differences from the PT-26 in our museum one is there is a large panel represented on the left upper fuselage. I expect this is for access to a baggage/storage compartment located in the upper fuselage behind the rear seat.  Our Cornell has no external hatch and the compartment can only be accessed from the rear cockpit.  Given that the compartment is nearly a meter deep and it is a tail dragger, you can imagine the cursing when something slides to the very back of the compartment.  It usually comes to me to be retrieved since I am the tallest member and have the longest reach!  Anyway, I simply sanded off the detail.

The rear lower portion of the engine cowling is open to allow cooling airflow to exit the engine area.  There is a raisded 'lip' or air dam around the opening.  On the kit, the air dam is there but the opening is not.  The result is what appears to be a bump on the bottom of the cowling.  To open it up, I chain-drilled the perimeter of the opening and then filed and sanded it to a better representation.

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During wartime use some PT-26's suffered wing spar failure.  There is a wreck not far from where I live where two Norwegian pilots lost their lives in such an accident.  At some time a reinforcement was fitted to the lower main spar on the external surface of the wing on our Cornell.  This was replicated with card stock.

 

 

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Lastly, the grab handles on the wing tips were fixed by cutting the notch a little deeper, bridging the gap with platic rod and sanding to shape.

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