AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 19 / 94

Plate 19 of 94 · Between the wars · Primary trainer

Boeing-Stearman Kaydet

PT-17 Kaydet, painted as The Imperial War Museum’s Boeing-Stearman PT-17 Kaydet, the US Army Air Forces’ primary trainer, built mainly from 41-8169 (later CF-EQS in Canada) with its 220 hp Continental R-670 radial and hung from the roof of the American Air Museum at Duxford as ‘42-17786’, painted in the pre-war Air Corps trainer scheme: a true-blue fuselage, struts and undercarriage fairings, chrome-yellow wings, tailplane and fin, a rudder with a blue band at the post and thirteen red and white stripes, a large white ‘25’ on the rear fuselage and a small one on the nose, stars under both lower wings with ‘U.S.’ under the starboard wing and ‘ARMY’ under the port, the uncowled engine with black cylinders and a polished exhaust collector ring, and a metal propeller with red, white and blue tips, as displayed at Duxford.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as The Imperial War Museum’s Boeing-Stearman PT-17 Kaydet, the US Army Air Forces’ primary trainer, built mainly from 41-8169 (later CF-EQS in Canada) with its 220 hp Continental R-670 radial and hung from the roof of the American Air Museum at Duxford as ‘42-17786’, painted in the pre-war Air Corps trainer scheme: a true-blue fuselage, struts and undercarriage fairings, chrome-yellow wings, tailplane and fin, a rudder with a blue band at the post and thirteen red and white stripes, a large white ‘25’ on the rear fuselage and a small one on the nose, stars under both lower wings with ‘U.S.’ under the starboard wing and ‘ARMY’ under the port, the uncowled engine with black cylinders and a polished exhaust collector ring, and a metal propeller with red, white and blue tips, as displayed at Duxford. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (731 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the PT-17 Kaydet modelled here.

History

The Kaydet

Stearman Aircraft of Wichita, Kansas, was already a subsidiary of Boeing when its engineers built the Model 70 as a private venture in 1933: a sturdy two-seat biplane trainer with open tandem cockpits, a welded steel-tube fuselage, fabric-covered wooden wings and a wide-track undercarriage that forgave a student’s heavy landings. The prototype first flew on 1 January 1934. The US Navy ordered 61 as the NS-1 that year, and the US Army Air Corps followed in 1936 with the PT-13, powered by a Lycoming R-680 radial. The improved Model 75 became the standard version, and in 1939 the Stearman works became Boeing’s Wichita Division, so the aircraft is known as both a Stearman and a Boeing.

The Army’s expansion programme from 1939 turned a modest order book into mass production. When Lycoming engines ran short the Army took the Model 75 with a 220 hp Continental R-670 instead, as the PT-17, and more than 3,500 were built, the most numerous single version; Jacobs-engined PT-18s and the Navy’s N2S variants, painted yellow all over and nicknamed the “Yellow Peril”, made up much of the rest. Almost every American military pilot of the Second World War learnt to fly on one at a civilian-run primary school before moving on to the Vultee BT-13 and the North American AT-6. Canada received 300 under Lend-Lease as the PT-27, fitted with cockpit canopies and heating, and it was the Royal Canadian Air Force that gave the type the name Kaydet, which then stuck to the whole family.

Production ended in 1945 after 8,584 complete aircraft had been built, with spare parts for perhaps 2,000 more. Thousands were sold off cheaply after the war, and the strong airframe proved ideal for crop dusting and spraying, usually with a hopper in the front cockpit and a 450 hp Pratt & Whitney R-985 in place of the original engine. Many others went to flying schools, aerobatic pilots and air-show wing-walking teams, and the Kaydet remains one of the commonest vintage aircraft in the air, with several flying from British airfields.

This airframe

PT-17 Kaydet “42-17786”

42-17786The airframe modelled

The Imperial War Museum’s Kaydet hangs from the roof of the American Air Museum at Duxford. It is built mainly around PT-17 41-8169 (constructor’s number 75-1728), one of the Continental-engined trainers Boeing’s Wichita Division delivered to the US Army Air Forces, completed with parts of other airframes; after the war it was registered in Canada as CF-EQS. It is displayed as a USAAF primary trainer serialled 42-17786 and coded “25”. The model shows it as it hangs: the pre-war Air Corps trainer scheme of a true-blue fuselage, struts and undercarriage fairings with chrome-yellow wings, tailplane and fin, a rudder with a blue band at the post and thirteen red and white stripes, a large white “25” on the rear fuselage and a small one on the nose, stars under both lower wings with “U.S.” under the starboard wing and “ARMY” under the port, the uncowled Continental R-670 with black cylinders and a polished exhaust collector ring, and a metal propeller with red, white and blue tips. Every photograph of it is taken from below, so the top of the upper wing is left plain yellow.

See it at IWM Duxford

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Kaydet in 2 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 94 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.