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1/72 Ryan PT-22 Recruit G-RLWG ( PT-20 kit with resin conversion )


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Prologue

The building of this model came about as the result of an experience I had in the Summer of 2016. Without that, I most likely wouldn't have chosen the Ryan to build, as I don't like rigging wires, and the Ryan has plenty! So before the build, I'm going to tell that story that put me on the path to build a Ryan PT-22 Recruit.


In mid July 2016, I had taken my "Follow Me" Jeep to the annual Summer 1940's Fly/Drive-In at Breighton airfield in Yorkshire. On Saturday evening, they hold a hangar party, with a live band, stand up comedian and a barbeque. My Jeep was on display outside the hangar, and a number of people there expressed an interest in having a drive or a ride. 13 miles later, having made numerous trips up and down the airfield, everyone who wanted to, had a go!

 

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The following day, one of the museum guys said how much fun everyone had behind the wheel and that it was kind to let so many strangers have a go. In return for the Jeep rides, he offered me a flight in any of the collection aircraft that took my fancy! In the collection was a 1942 Ryan PT-22 Recruit, and having long held an interest in the US 8th Air Force, it was a great opportunity to have a ride in this US primary trainer.
 

So late afternoon on Sunday July 17th, I was strapped into the front seat of the Ryan in near perfect flying conditions.

 

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Edited by Army_Air_Force
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The big five cylinder Kinner Radial was very loud, even at low power and with the headset on! Visibility past the large cylinders was very limited even when weaving down the taxiway, but I managed to shoot some video of the taxi and take off on my little compact camera.
 

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Climbing away to the West on a beautiful sunny afternoon. At climb out power, even when shouting down the intercom, it was very hard to hear my pilot Les, in the rear cockpit.
 

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In the distance, in line with the wing is the former RAF Breighton, a former Halifax heavy bomber base. The current runway is built parallel to one of the wartime perimeter tracks, while much of the rest of the airfield is covered by an industrial estate. 

 

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We climbed to the North of the airfield during the first few minutes of the flight, while I took in the sights and sounds of the Ryan, snapping a few pictures over the nose and wing to remind myself of the experience. That nose and big radial are still taking up a large part of the forward view.
 

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As Les throttled back to cruise power, we still had to shout down the intercom to be heard. I couldn't believe my luck!I We'd only been airborne for about four minutes when Les called if I was ready to take control. I wasn't expecing that!! The last time I'd flown any aircraft was 13 years previously, and oddly enough, it was another WW2 trainer - a Miles Magister! So for the next 15 minutes, I flew the Ryan, getting a taste of being a raw cadet in basic pilot training; an amazing experience. So of course, from the point I took over, my hands were too full to be taking pictures. The last shot I took before taking over was the airfield, showing the three runways and also the three large concrete pads of the post war Thor Ballistic Missile launch sites. The light green strip on the far side of the airfield is the current grass runway.

 

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Les directed me back towards the airfield, and told me I was going to do a run and break down the runway. As we turned base leg to finals, lost below our nose and port wing, and out of sight to us, a Bucker Jungmann lurked, also turning in for the runway! Les had called the tower of our run and break intentions, but the Jungmann didn't have radios so hadn't heard. He must have spotted us, and broke right away from the runway. The first we saw of him was when he popped out from under our starboard wing.

 

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Despite the proximity of the ground and the Jungmann, Les left me in control to bring the Ryan down over the stip, descending to about 30 feet AGL before putting on the power and breaking left into the circuit.
 

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That was a real thrill to buzz the strip like that and I waited for Les to call back that he had control; but he didn't. He just kept talking me around onto the down wind leg of the circuit!
 

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Les put the flaps down as I flew on, turning onto base leg and finals in one descending curve to keep the runway in view past that big nose. He told me to keep the speed at 75 knots, and reminded me the engine controlled height, the stick the speed. I was nicely lined up on the runway centre line, and just before Les called to flare, I was already easing the stick back to begin the hold off. My wife was taking pictures from the ground from the low pass, circuit and landing.
 

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The roll out speed continued to drop and Les called for a touch of brakes to slow in order to turn off to the refuelling point. Easing my toes forwards, I gently applied the brakes and then turned for the fuel point, and taxied up and stopped. Les told me to kill the engine, but there I failed as I couldn't see the ingition switch, lost at the bottom of the cockpit, hidden behind my bulky overalls and long legs! From the cockpit, it felt like I did a good landing, and the photos from the ground seem to back that up! ( thankfully!! ). Lynne wasn't aware I did the landing as she was taking the pictures, so it must have looked smooth from the crowdline too.
 

Les turned the mags off, and the clattering bag of hammers up front stopped, returning my world to silence. Then it was the seat harness unfastened, parachute unfastened and intercom unplugged. It was hard enough to climb in wearing the chute; I can't imagine how hard it would have been having to bail out. The last shot shows me climbing out after 20 minutes of time travel back to the 1940's. An amazing experience.


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Well after an experience like that, I had to build a Ryan in the same scheme, so I started searching the net for kits. There didn't seem to be any PT-22 kits, but there was an out of production Special Hobby PT-20, for which there was a resin conversion set to change the inline engine for the radial. I couldn't find any stores with one, so turned to the ARC forum for help, and luckily, someone in the States had one to sell! So a deal was done and the kit arrived in early 2017.

 

For various reasons, I didn't make a start until July, just over a year after my flight. There would be a number of changes needed for the conversion, and not all of them shown in the conversion instructions. I also planned to mount the model in a picture frame ( shown below ) and so would need to build in mounting points for that too.

 

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I'll leave the story there for now while I prepare the first few build pictures. I'm not far into the project, despite making a start in July. With the military vehicle show season over for the year, I hope to have a bit more time for modelling.

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The Build

 

The PT-20 kit and the PT-22 conversion set still had a number of differences to G-RLWG. The resin conversion set had a new nose for the radial engine, a new rudder and tailplanes, new faired landing gear, but without the spats of the original kit, prop and other small pieces. 

 

As can be seen from the kit instructions below, it has a straight wing, where as G-RLWG has a swept wing. The drawing also shows the landing gear faired over, but Whiskey Golf's landing gear is just the bare struts. It was obvious I was going to have to do a little more conversion than the resin conversion set originally planned for!

 

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The first task in the build was to cut the wing in half, sand the roots to accommodate the new sweep and dihedral angle. With the aid of a little jig, the wing was glued and left to fully cure.

 

pt22_02.jpg

Edited by Army_Air_Force
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The next step was to cut the inline nose and rudder off the fuselage. The fuselage was joined soon after. This was back in July and then the model was put to one side while life got in the way.

 

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A couple of days ago, I got the kit back out and attached the resin nose. I then offered up the wing to the wings seat, as with the new sweep, the top wing skin would need cutting to clear the wing fairings. It was difficult to hold the wing in the correct position to mark the cuts, so I ended up making a wooden jig to hold the wing and fuselage still while I scored the top wing skin. I was then able to separate the wing and properly cut the top skin away. This allowed the win to sit in the correct location.

 

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Because the model was to be mounted in a picture frame, I needed to fit some M3 nuts in the fuselage which would allow the completed model to be bolted to the backdrop. I wanted the bolt hidden from view as best as possible, which only left the space between the two cockpits for the nuts to be epoxied to the floor. The wing also had to be drilled for the bolt. Because of the way the floor and seats needed to fit into the fuselage, the floor couldn't be glued straight on top of the wing, but instead, after painting, was fitted in the fuselage. 

 

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The wing and fuselage went back into the jig again for gluing, and that's where the project is up to as of the end of today.

 

pt22_08.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Almost all of the recent progress has been filling and sanding. The resin nose had been attached with cyano and filled with Humbrol model filler, thinned with liquid acrylic solvent to get into the small gaps. In general, the nose was a good fit onto the chopped fuselage. 

 

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Because of the new wing sweep, the rear wing fairings were now too far in, leaving gaps behind the wing in the bottom of the fuselage. This was filled with dissolved styrene with a little Humbrol filler mixed in to make a nice paste to gap fill.

 

pt22_10.jpg

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It's beginning to look like a PT-22 now, but still a long way to go! It's also quite a small model, so I've spent quite a lot of my sanding time looking through a watch makers x15 magnifier to sand just the filled areas and not the surrounding detail which is quite subtle in places.

 

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A first sand of the rear fairing showed the area still a little low and needing more filler.

 

pt22_12.jpg

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It was then that I noticed when checking my reference photos that the Ryan I'm building doesn't have the small fin strake seen here.

 

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This was cut off with a scalpel and the fuselage sanded round over the top. The fin joint still needs some further work.

 

pt22_16.jpg

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Further reference photo checking showed the kit rear headrest was slightly wrong for this aircraft. The fairing is actually set back from the cockpit a little way, so the model need altering.

 

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I've made a start on the alterations, but this is as far as I got yesterday.

 

pt22_18.jpg

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I got a little further with the Ryan today. The rear of the fuselage is open structure, showing the fin post/tail wheel leg support, so I've opened up the hole in the rear of the model.

 

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Having removed some of the wood at the tail end of the jig, I made some new supports for the tailplanes to allow those to be attached. With the fragile resin tailplanes needing to be attached with cyano adhesive, I'd only get one go at the correct place.

 

pt22_20.jpg

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  • 6 months later...

I finally found a few minutes to try some different yellows and finally settled for Humbrol 24 for the Ryan. The photos above look more orange, but it's all to do with the camera settings and light it is photographed in. It got a few thin coats during the afternoon. I painted it over the grey primer rather than white, as I didn't want it too bright and fresh looking. The original aircraft has been in that scheme for many years. The final coat may yet get a tiny bit of orange or red in it. It all depends on how this looks once cured and in natural light. I think the scratch built landing gear will have to come next. The kit and resin modification only includes faired in legs, not open struts.

 

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  • 5 months later...

It's been a while, but after two days doing winter maintenance on my WW2 Jeep, I needed a more relaxing day. After the morning spent tinkering with my telescope mount, I spent the afternoon on the Ryan. It doesn't look much for four to five hours work, but it was a job I'd been putting off - the bird cage landing gear!

 

The original PT-20 kit gear had enclosed legs and spatted wheels. The resin conversion for the PT-22 was also wrong for me, still having enclosed legs but exposed wheels. As a result, I needed to scratch build some legs. I decided styrene wouldn't be strong enough as I'd also have to rig bracing wires to the legs. So I went for brass tube and the resin articulated link included in the conversion.

 

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Using the resin leg as a template, I made a jig to hold the tiny brass parts, each around 1/2 an inch long.

 

pt22_29.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...

Further progress yesterday and today. Yesterday, the over length mounting pins on the landing gear were trimmed and the gear test fitted.

 

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There were also five tiny blisters were added which streamline the rigging wire and strut fixings. The aircraft was then sprayed in its yellow top coat.

 

pt22_35.jpg

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