Lockheed Carrier Landing Trainer, a T-33 with a difference -- a Twin Tail.

[kitnut617]

This subject came out of left field on me, I had visited SPF and came across a thread all about this aircraft. Once I saw the photos of it, I knew I just had to build a model of it. Yes, this is a RW aircraft.

The US Navy were looking for a jet powered carrier landing trainer, they already were operating T-33's (designated TV-1) but they weren't carrier capable. The Navy was dubious about its control capability during the crucial moments just before and during landing on a carrier. To address the Navy's concerns, Lockheed took a T-33 and modified it giving it a larger horizontal tail plane and not one, but two fins, which were attached to the tail plane's ends.

These were the photos that had been posted by Justo Miranda, he also posted a couple of side profiles of it, but contacting him, he said he didn't have any 3-View.









Looking in the Squadron/Signal bookazine, P-80 (T-33/F-94) in Action, there's another photo of it. Carl (The Big Gimper) tells me that there's also a photo in the Aztec book on the T-33. I've got the Ginter book on the T2V Seastar --- (somewhere  ) and I'm fairly sure there's some photos in that book too.

[PR19_Kit]

They were just using up spare fins from the P-38 production line. 

That's pretty interesting, and unusual too. It'd make many JMNs figure it was a Whiff too. 

[kitnut617]

So here's the result of my build;

[PR19_Kit]

Oh yeah! 

That looks great Robert, it's almost a pity it isn't a Whiff or it'd be a Whiffie nomination for sure.

[kitnut617]

Thanks Kit ---

[Old Wombat]

 

[kitnut617]

Anyway, this all started about four weeks ago, base kit was this old Hasegawa kit.



And my first thoughts when seeing the photos was -- they used P-38 tail surfaces. And I had this un-named kit of a P-38 which I've decided was going to be used as a donor kit for something else in mind, so the fins were quickly removed before I changed my mind --- 



The build of the T-33 was fairly quick, it's a very basic kit at best, it had a lot of flash on it, which surprised me seeing as it was a Hasegawa kit. I didn't take any photos of that part of the build, it's a bit boring to be honest, but the new tail took a lot of the time to make, plus the painting ---

I printed off the side profile and scaled it to the kit's fuselage, then offered up the P-38 fins to it and soon realized that although the Twin Tail's fins look like a P-38, they weren't quite. So a bit of reprofiling was done and a lot of sanding to thin the fin parts down was needed.



For the tail modifications, I started with some strips of styrene angle section which was whittled down to match the top of the fuselage and the side profile. These pics I've got bit's an pieces taped up so I could view the result. I had pinned the new tail plane with some small diameter brass tubing and found that cutting the P-38 just in half didn't look right as the styrene angle leg made it look to wide apart. So I trimmed the root ends down until I got the fins to be the same width as the P-38 has them. With the lack of a 3-View, that's a bit of a guess on my part.







Once everything was glued together, I primed it with Humbrol H1 but then I switched to some very light grey instead, H196. I did a lot of wet&dry sanding and it took a couple of coats to get the finish I was looking for, as I used Humbrol's Polished Aluminum, H27002, for the NMF. For the tip tanks, I used Humbrol Gloss Red, H19, for the base coat, then Humbrol Gloss Blaze Orange, H209, for the top coat. Me and Carl had figured out that the photos had shown that the tanks were DayGlo Red/Orange or Fluorescent Orange. Carl had sent me some black & white photos of a T-33 which he knew was DayGlo Red/Orange and the odd shade of white the tanks have, matched.

[kitnut617]

Cheers Guy ---

[kitnut617]

The nose codes and what's on the fins, I had to make decals for those, the rest of the decals are what's in the box.

Although all the testing was done for the US Navy, the aircraft retained it's USAF serial numbers and markings. A couple of interesting notes though, first one, though there's these photos of it, records of what happened during the test can't be found, not in the Navy's Archives, nor at Lockheed (from what I read about it). The second note, after the tests were completed (and the 'In Action' book say successfully), it was re-converted back into a standard T-33 and it carried on as a USAF T-33, the bonus is that the aircraft still exists -- on display at K. I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum (not with the twin fins though).

Here's what Joe Baugher's USAF Serial Numbers page has to say about it, full serial is 51-4263

4263 modified by Lockheed with twin fins and rudders while being considered for the TV-2 deck landing trainer.
               Now mounted on pylon at K. I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum, Michigan.

[kitnut617]

And I should say thanks to Carl (The Big Gimper) and Kit (PR19_Kit) for the help with some questions I had.

[sandiego89]

That looks great! A new one to me.

[Dizzyfugu]

That's looking nice, great work. 

[Scotaidh]

Looks great - good build!   

I don't get, though, why if it's a prototype for the USN it has USAF markings on it ... It seems very unlikely to me that the Air Force would willingly do anything for the Navy ...

[zenrat]

Very nicely done.  Good work.


Are you sure there isn't something different from the RW aircraft?  Just needs to be one little thing so we can call it a whiff and make it eligible for this GB.

[PR19_Kit]

Are you sure there isn't something different from the RW aircraft?  Just needs to be one little thing so we can call it a whiff and make it eligible for this GB.

The tyre pressure in the port mainwheel is too low....................