Fairchild PT-19 (oz1603)

About this Plan

Fairchild PT-19. Radio control scale 2 seat primary trainer. For full house RC and .35 - .60 engines. 620sqin area.

Quote: "The beautiful ever-popular Fairchild PT-19, reduced to a truely practical size. 62 inches of potent, fully acrobatic scale aircraft, ideally suited to full house proportional.

The popular Fairchild PT-19 is rightfully considered an all time great R/C scale project. The design of the full size aircraft couldn't be better suited for the radio control enthusiast. Many of Chuck Hollinger's original R/C Fairchild PT-19 (oz327) have been successfully flown on rudder-only, proving its fine inherent stability.

Having built Chuck's design from plans a few years back, made me an avid PT-19 enthusiast. This ship had Orbit ten channel reeds and a K&B .45 up front. After looking back at my original venture, the solutions to earlier prob-lems became quite evident, too late! Being my first attempt at a low winger, and a ship with ailerons, plus elevator trim, I can see now that it was under-powered with the .45 engine. To put it bluntly, my enthusiasm and building ability greatly exceeded my flying ex-perience, which is the sad story of many brave scale attempts. Take it from the one who knows!

I had some fine flights, blended nicely with a few spectacular crashes, and even a fly-away! The ship was just too big, heavy, and under-powered for my limited flying experience. Those knock-off wing panels are great, but not for a beginner who occasionally stalled out on take-offs and landing approaches.

In designing this version, I tried to make an honest effort in the direction of a practical scale model. The design is light, rugged and of a compact size. The ship was not bred for just an occasional contest spectacular. A good-looking sport flyer was my first concern.

The design is 1/7 actual size, having a 62 in wingspan compared to Chuck's version of 1/6 actual size, having a wing span of 72 inches. The size difference wouldn't appear to make it much smaller; but when wing area's are calculated, my ship is 630 square inches, compared

with Chuck's 820 square inches; or about 75% of the size! I'll make no claims of the ship being exactly true to scale. It is not. The stabilizer is about 20% oversize, with the wing having slightly less taper, and a thicker airfoil.

The actual full scale PT-19 has no much individual character of its own, little deviences from scale are hardly noticeable. I wanted a scale airplane, with few compromises in performance, for the sake of scale fidelity alone. This ship will keep up with the best of stunt pattern ships, with no excuses made. Its only limitation for contests might be, its two wheel landing gear, making ground maneuvers and take-offs slightly more difficult than the now conventional trike gear set-up.

For simplicity sake, it was decided to use the wartime color scheme of: all silver, with black trim around the cock-pit area. Admittedly, the prewar colors, of army blue and yellow, with the four large, red, white and blue wing insignias are very striking. However, this scheme has become commonplace, as far as PT-19's are concerned. Some of the small scale details have also been left off for the sake of practical flying, and maintenance considerations.

Since it must be realized that all readers might not be entirely familiar with the Fairchild PT-19 full sized ship, it might be mentioned that most ex-World War II Army Air Corps pilots get a little misty eyed with nostalgia, when viewing the model and discussing; their experiences with the aircraft as a training ship.

Fairchild engineers turned out this primary trainer in 1938 (almost 30 years ago!). It was used just before, and during the war to train men for their wings as military pilots. Being a low winger, this made it quite radical for that date; as compared with the primary trainers of other air forces. The 175 hp Ranger engine wasn't in-tended to make it a power-house; but it was a very docile and forgiving air-craft, yet capable of many creditable aerobatic stunts. Many of these trainers are still flying, and are still greatly in demand..."

Update 17/10/2017: added complete article, thanks to RFJ.

Supplementary file notes

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Additional (clearer) scan of the same plan, includes some text and pics, courtesy of theshadow.

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