Newly Restored Stearman on Display at The NUSAF Museum .

[VintageAviationNews]

Newly Restored Stearman PT-13D Kaydet on Display at The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

http://www.warbirdsnews.com/aviation-mu ... force.html

[Pat Carry]

[JohnB]

The story says it was the 63rd from the last one built, but Boeing historian Peter M. Bowers repeatedly wrote it was the last one built. By serial #, the NMUSAF seems to be correct, but I don't think Bowers would have made that error, especially since he worked for Boeing and if anyone would have the correct info, he would have.

I'm wondering if the last aircraft were cancelled or delivered as spares or something similar?

Also, the painted metal areas on the restoration look very gray in the NMUSAF photo, whereas wartime shots show the color to be more silver with less of a contrast between the metal and silver fabric.

Any experts out there with insight?

[mustangdriver]

I put Mike Porter in touch with them on this one. The plane this one was thought to be actually crashed and was destroyed. This is not the last Stearman.

[mustangdriver]

As for the colors, the metal areas were given a special treatment that would have made them appear a different color from the fabric. I've not seen the completed aircraft in person. Not sure if they recreated that or just painted it. Either way the appearance is correct.

[Steve Nelson]

The aircraft sports a Navy designation and BuNo on the tail. I know in the 30s the spec for fabric-covered Navy types was silver dope on the fabric, and gray on the metal areas. I don't know if that was carried over into wartime paint specs though.

SN

[Dan Jones]

Late production Stearman airplanes (Army and Navy) were finished in silver dope on the fabric and had bare metal, anodized aluminum panels, cowling, and struts. It varied a bit, but the anodized aluminum is sort of a cigarette ash grey color.

Dan

[stearmann4]

The contrast you're seeing between the sheet metal and fabric surfaces on late-war (post 1942) of both services is caused by the treatment of the aluminum.

All the aluminum sheet metal was anodized by a process patented by Alcoa Aluminum. It certain lighting it can have a drastic, dull contrast to the silver dope. When you see Stearmans with the sheet metal painted silver, It matches nicely, but is not authentic. Restoring the sheet metal to the original color and sheen is a pain, which is why you see some restorers just paint it, to include some convincing color matches that are very close to the anodized aluminum but wear better.

Mike-

[JohnB]

The contrast you're seeing between the sheet metal and fabric surfaces on late-war (post 1942) of both services is caused by the treatment of the aluminum.
All the aluminum sheet metal was anodized by a process patented by Alcoa Aluminum. It certain lighting it can have a drastic, dull contrast to the silver dope. When you see Stearmans with the sheet metal painted silver, It matches nicely, but is not authentic. Restoring the sheet metal to the original color and sheen is a pain, which is why you see some restorers just paint it, to include some convincing color matches that are very close to the anodized aluminum but wear better.

Mike-

I realize all that, it's just that the photo of the restored aircraft doesn't match the period photos.

[John Dupre]

I heard from a guy who rebuilt a Stearman that some aircraft were delivered with both Navy and Army Air Force serial numbers. The receiving service would then paint over the number not needed. Any truth to that? The photos shown don't show any AAF numbers on the tail and because the left forward panel is up I can't tell if the standar AAF data block is painted there.