Pavla's 1/72
Curtiss AT-9 "Jeep"

By Al Superczynski

History

Originally given the nickname "Fledgling," but more widely known as the "Jeep", the AT-9 was designed by Curtiss as a transition trainer for student pilots assigned to fly high performance twin-engine aircraft. The prototype first flew in 1941, with production versions entering service in 1942. Known initially as the Model 25, it had a fabric covered steel tube fuselage and fabric covered wings, but production airframes were of stressed metal skin construction. Four hundred ninety-one AT-9s and three hundred similar AT-9As were built before production ended in February 1943.

The AT-9 was not easy to fly or land, which made it particularly suitable for teaching new pilots to cope with the demanding flight characteristics of a new generation of high performance, multi engine aircraft. They remained in use for a comparatively short time, and were phased out of service as production tactical models and more versatile trainers for full crew integration training became available.

Specifications

Type: advanced trainer
Crew: 2
Armament: none
Length: 31' 8" (9.65 m)
Height: 9' 10" (2.99 m)
Wingspan: 40' 4" (12.99 m)
Wing area: 233 sq. ft (21.65 sq. m)
Empty Weight: 4600 lb (2087 kg)
Max Weight: 6000 lb (2722 kg) max at takeoff
Engines: Two Lycoming R-680-9 radials of 295 hp each

Performance:
Range: 750 miles (1207 km)
Cruise Speed: 175 mph ( 282 km/h)
Max Speed: 197 mph ( 317 km/h)
Service ceiling: 19,000 feet

Unit price: $34,900

The Kit

This is a typical Pavla offering molded in one sprue of medium gray plastic with fairly heavy gates to the parts. As is normal for limited run kits there aren’t any positive locators for the main airframe parts – all are butt joints that may benefit from a slight sanding after test fitting. The kit also features both photo-etched (by Eduard) and resin parts, the former mostly for the cockpit and the latter including the engines and prop blades (which are also on the plastic sprue but not mentioned in the instructions. High quality Propagteam decals are included for two NMF and one OD/NG a/c. The insignia blue may be a little dark but is probably okay for a newly painted airframe.

I’m currently working on Pavla’s T-50 Bobcat kit and the comparison is interesting. The engine cowls are again molded in halves and this can be a problem with the soft plastic used by Pavla. I’ve had a lot of trouble keeping my Bobcat cowls round and will take extra care with these; it would be much simpler if the cowlings had been molded in one piece. The T-50 has no locators whatsoever for the landing gear struts but this kit makes things much simpler by giving locators on the engine firewalls. One still has to open the slots in the bottom of the nacelles for the l/g struts but this is made easier by the presence of engraved cutting lines. There are still no locators for the cockpit floor, rear bulkhead, or instrument panel but, unlike the T-50, there is a good side view drawing showing the proper locations.

Pavla’s instructions would have you cut away the upper part of the doors before installing the canopy. This would leave an unrealistic and difficult to fill line through the door frame so I’ll instead try trimming the canopy to fit the unaltered fuselage, and install the door windows separately. As mentioned before the prop blades are provided in both resin and plastic. The plastic blades are crude but would be much easier to attach to the prop hubs since using normal plastic cement would give a little "fiddling around" time to get them aligned properly. The resin blades are much more finely molded but could present their own problems getting them aligned and attached neatly with super glue. I’d like to have seen each prop assembly molded as a single piece in resin. I’m not sure yet which way I’ll go – see next month’s IM for my review of the completed kit.

This should turn out to be a relatively easy build for a modeler of intermediate experience.