Scratchbuilt 1/48 Scale
CT-4A Airtrainer

by Ryan Hamilton

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One of the first scratch built project I started was the 1/48 CT-4A Airtrainer. Its construction was similar to that used to build my 1/48 PC-9, with plastic card laminated wings, tailplane, scratch built fuselage halves, and vac formed canopy.

Construction started with the wings, again with laminating 30thou plastic card into an aerofoil roughly the same shape as the wing. Although I did not have the dihedral and wheel well to build this time, the control surfaces have recessed and raised ribbing, which proved a challenge to build.

The fuselage was built in two halves, left and right, the cockpit completed and the airframe glued together. I realised from an early stage that due to the fragile nature of the undercarriage and the weight in the tail, this model was going to be a tail sitter. The undercarriage was made from brass to enhance strength; I tried to reduce the amount of weight in the model, and then glued it to the base once completed. Small exterior parts such as the flag actuators, wing fence, and undercarriage were added and the airframe was then primed for painting.

Other extra items included:

• Propellers – Spares box (Cessna)

• Exhausts – Hollow plastic rod

• Canopy – Vac formed using resin master.

• Cockpit – Spare box again (Cessna) along with control columns and roll cage, and radios.

The CT-4 served in two colour schemes with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Orange/White and the earlier Yellow/Bronze.

I chose to build the orange and white, in particular A19-040 which was one of two CT-4s used to re-enacted the flight by Captain Henry Wrigley across Australia in 1989. The original flight was completed in 1919 in a BE.2e. The markings and decals were printed from a computer, and from the 1/48 Roodecal standard decals sheet.

This aircraft turned out to be an attractive little model, and I have already started building a second CT-4A in the earlier Yellow/Bronze colour scheme.

Model by Ryan Hamilton
Images Copyright 2004 by Allen Yee and Pieter Stroethoff
Page Created 20 March, 2004
Last Updated 24 December, 2007

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