PT-13D Restoration at National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

DAYTON, OH, UNITED STATES

08.07.2014

Video by Ken LaRock 

National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

A Stearman PT-13D Kaydet was recently restored at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. This Aircraft is now on display in the museum’s World War II Gallery, where it will be used to represent flight training during the war as part of an expanded Tuskegee Airman exhibit.
Interview with Mr. Jeff Duford, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force-Curator
When you think about primary training during WWII in the United States, you think the Stearman. It’s universal, and nearly every pilot in WWII in the United States learned how to fly in a Kaydet. There was a three tiered system for training a pilot for combat during WWII in the United States, at least in the Army Air Forces. There was primary training which was the first airplane they would get in and fly, then there was basic training which was a monoplane with fixed landing gear, a little more complicated. Then there was advance training which would be a single engine aircraft with retractable landing gear if they were going into fighters, or a twin engine aircraft if they were going into bombers or transports. So this was a primary training aircraft. So this would be a the first airplane that a cadet would be flying in. Even more importantly this is the airplane they would solo in. And that’s a magic moment for a military aviator. I’ve talked to veterans from WWII, and they know what day and what tail number they flew in. When they come back from that flight, that’s when they get their wings, they are a pilot. So for thousands and thousands of American Airmen, whether they were Navy, Marine Corps, or Army Air Forces, this was the airplane they did it in.
On all restorations, the research staff and the restoration staff work hand in glove. The restoration staff has expertise and the research staff has expertise. And some questions that come from the restoration staff are “how is the aircraft painted?” And it’s not just simply like color, is it gloss, semi-gloss or flat? Are there stencils on the aircraft and what is the font, how big are they, where are they located? So it really is an investigation, it’s almost like being a P.I. or private investigator, cause every airplane is different. Also they change over time, and when an aircraft changes over time, we can’t do the markings over a course of a year. We have to pick a specific date to paint the aircraft as. So in the case of this PT-13D we picked the day it was accepted by the U.S. Army Air Forces. That day was January 13, 1945. Millions of our visitors will see this snapshot in time, the very same view the workers at the Wichita plant in Kansas saw in January of 1945.
Interview with Mr. Casey Simmons, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Restoration Specialist
There were five guys total working on the aircraft, probably two or three full time and others would come in and help as needed. It was really just a great experience because we work so well together. And we would learn from each other and help each other out. Something unique to this would be the materials we used on this airframe. It’s obviously completely different for a fabric aircraft. So it’s using the nitrate dopes and burderate dopes. One interesting thing about this aircraft is how it’s marked. It does have Army and Navy markings on it, so that’s something different from the other aircraft that we do. The finishing process is very tedious. On other aircraft you are just prepping the metal, using primer and spraying the color on. This you have to build your layers of finish on there until you get it nice and glassy smooth, then you can start putting your colors on. So it’s very time consuming. The fabric also, a little bit longer than it does to do sheet metal at least in our experience because we haven’t done fabric that much. Overall it’s a very rewarding process and it comes out looking pretty good. Painting the insignia is always a lot of fun because you get to lay it out by hand and tape it off and spray it. This one was a challenge because it does have the inspection door right in the middle of the star and bar.
Cockpit, it does have leather trim around it to keep your arms from bumping the side of the cockpit here. Standard gages for an aircraft of that time period, both front and back matching. Our aircraft had a delete plate here because at one point in time they added an electric starter. So we wanted to go back to when it came off the assembly line. So we added the inertial starter back into this aircraft. Oil cap and fuel cap are both similar, they both get a color circle in the middle, red for gas and yellow for oil. And they get hand lettered outside with their capacities. The wings were pretty straight forward when we put them on. We were lucky enough to work with an aircraft that had a very stable and strong structure. There was nothing broke on it. When we got inside of it, and took the old fabric off it looked pretty much brand new on the inside. It just needed a little dusting, so we were very fortunate. The flying wires for the wings very straight forward. We used the assembly manual from the time period. So it tells you what order they are in, and what tension to use to hold the wings. This was a four of five person job to hold the wings up and get them on.

The propeller here, when we got the aircraft to restore it had a metal propeller, but we wanted to go back to right off the assembly line so it needed the wooden propeller. So we had to locate a wooden one, and fortunately we had one in collections. It was in pretty bad shape, it was delaminating. So we had to inject epoxy into the propeller and tray and squeeze it back together. It came out pretty good, we were able to contact Sensenich to get the original style logos to put on, and we were able to finsihs the propeller.

Interview with Mr. Jeff Duford, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force-Curator
It’s exciting to think that all of us who worked on it are going to be gone someday. So fifty years from now, a hundred years from now, the great work that the restoration staff did will be around long after we are gone. It will be on display in the museum, the museum will still be here. And millions of visitors will read about the start of the military career of those who served and fought in our greatest foreign war of all time.
One of the wonderful things about working here is that I learn something new every day, and its wonderful. And it’s one more piece of the puzzle to see the big picture. And it’s not just learning from doing the research. It’s learning from the talent that’s here in restoration. The skill and knowledge that’s here in unbelievable.

Interview with Mr. Casey Simmons, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Restoration Specialist
It was a lot of fun. It’s not often you get to do a project start to finish down the exact details that it should be. You would learn something from the other people on the team. You don’t get to do a fabric aircraft that often so it was a learning experience. You got to try your hand at new skills. We learned that you don’t have to stretch the fabric as tight as you thought because the dope really shrinks it. Just having four or five guys looking at everything all the time helps you pick up all the details so it’s the way it should be.

Interview with Mr. Jeff Duford, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force-Curator
This particular airframe is fully restored and it’s now on display in the WWII gallery. This restoration is part of a larger project. We are recreating our Tuskegee Airmen exhibit. And this will have a feature spot in that exhibit. The Tuskegee Airmen did much of their primary training on either the PT-13 or the PT-17, which is still a Stearman Kaydet just has a different engine. This aircraft is marked as it left the factory, so when it was delivered to the field where the Tuskegee Airmen were training; this is how it would look when it landed. Then they would add some specific markings that would relate to that particular field. The Tuskegee Airmen exhibit is going to open February of 2015. We are very excited, we are expanding the exhibit. We’ve gone deep into our collection to find artifacts that have never been on display. The curator of the exhibit, Dr. Jeff Underwood did a great job finding photographs that have never been published or on display before. In fact in some cases he even found photographs of those artifacts being used by the Tuskegee Airmen. Those very artifacts will be on display. There will be a small diorama with a couple of noted Tuskegee Airmen. So we’re real excited about it and hope that people come out and see it.

• Date Taken: 08.07.2014
• Date Posted: 08.07.2014 09:50
• Category: Package
• Video ID: 354028
• VIRIN: 140804-F-IO108-396
• Filename: DOD_101864236
• Length: 00:10:11
• Location: DAYTON, OH, US