I wanted a new plane to learn how to do fabric covering. After seeing the Seagull Pt-22, I fell in love with the gear and the possibility of doing an aluminum fuselage along with covering the flying surfaces with fabric. This plane is currently available at www.legendhobby.com. This version is the WW-2 trainer.

The fuselage on the Pt-22 is huge. The major assemblies fit together well. First step, strip the covering. The hardware in this kit is really nice from the control rods to the flying wires.

After removing the covering from the fuselage, cracks, gaps and switch cutouts were covered and filled with putty. The wing center section and fuse on the Ryan are aluminum. These were glassed with 3/4 Oz cloth and Zpoxy finishing resin. Then primed and sanded multiple times. The wing center section will be the same color as the wings and the fuse, bare aluminum.

A new turtle deck/ headrest was made in fiberglass using the kit’s plastic one as the mold. A mock up of the rudder & elevator linkages was done. The slit in the left side of the fuselage was 8 mm lower than the right one. I had to cut the fuse and create a new opening for the left elevator rod.

Make sure you test fit the gear. I had to enlarge two of the openings on the wing center section. The axles also did not fit the holes in the struts. They had to be enlarged. I also found this issue on their 90” Stuka. I believe the diameters were designed without taking into consideration of chrome plating. The balsa sheeting on the wing center section has no support under it near the strut openings. I added wood supports from the openings so this area isn’t prone to crushing when handled.

The Ryan has hand holds built into the trailing edge of the wingtips. I wanted to replicate them. Balsa was used to build up the area and sanded to create the holds.

Prior to covering the wings and tail , I had to build up some areas to attach the fabric and also add a few extra ribs on the tips of the vertical, and horizontal tail surfaces.

Covering: Sig Koverall
Edges brushed with Fab Tac and secured with Nitrate dope thinner. Once tacked down, the fabric was covered with non-taughtening Nitrate dope.

Very important!
The control horns are not labeled or described in the manual.
The longer curved ones are the ailerons.
Shorter are for flaps.

They look very close You’ll also need to cut the aileron ones down so they don’t poke the other side.

Starting to gets some color.

The fuselage on the Ryan is cavernous. It’s about 4 1/2 “ deep. Another reason I decided to go electric, i would be putting in the dual cockpits. I made the cockpits so they can just drop in. They were made of balsa, ply, plastic and misc wire and rod. I created a curved lower section to simulate the fuselage’s lines. There are tons of photos online, but I wanted to make mine WW2 era. The instrument panels were sparse. I obtained the instruments from www.iflytailies.com.

More work on the cockpits.

I built ledges along the sides, inside the fuselage. The front box can be lifted out to access the battery tray. The rear box can be lifted out to access the electronics.

With all that beautiful work, a scale radial would really look insane on there.

For the seat cushions, I used modeling clay. It’s light weight and you can give it a lot of detail. I formed the cushions, baked them for 15 minutes and done!

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