Stearman 5 Cyl

About

The Boeing-Stearman Model 75 — known variously as the PT-13 (with Lycoming engine), PT-17 (with Continental R-670), N2S (Navy variant), and "Kaydet" — is one of the most-produced biplane trainers ever built. The original Stearman Aircraft Company designed the Model 75 in 1934, and after Boeing acquired Stearman in 1939, the type entered mass production at Boeing's Wichita, Kansas plant for U.S. Army Air Corps and U.S. Navy primary training. Approximately 10,626 PT-17/N2S airframes were built between 1934 and 1945.

The Stearman taught a whole generation of Allied pilots how to fly. Open cockpits, helmet and goggles, the smell of castor oil from the radial engine, and the unmistakable basso-profundo note of a 220 hp Continental R-670 became the defining experience of primary flight training for hundreds of thousands of military pilots through the Second World War. After the war, surplus Stearmans flooded the civilian market — many ended up as crop-dusters in agricultural service, where the type's strong airframe, low stall speed, and robust radial engine made it ideally suited to spraying work. Surviving PT-17s and N2Ss continue to fly today as warbird-show favorites and recreational aircraft.

The "5 Cyl" designation in this model name refers to a five-cylinder radial engine variant (most production Stearmans used seven-cylinder Continental R-670 or Lycoming R-680 radials). The unmistakable Stearman silhouette — open-cockpit biplane, big round radial up front, conventional landing gear — is one of the most-modeled American biplane subjects in modern RC scale flying.

In the simulator

A satisfying golden-age biplane scale subject. The Stearman in our sim has the slow, stable handling of a primary trainer, with the characteristic biplane low-speed authority and predictable stall behavior. Use it for relaxed scale flying with the open-cockpit biplane aesthetic.