Fairchild Club Forum

On Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 2:18 PM Ranchaero Wing Shop david@ranchaerowingshop.com [fairchildclub] wrote:
 
Is there any way of determining the original 2 digit squadron code for
PT-19's where it is not known? It would be great to find the original
code to use, otherwise, would choosing arbitrarily be my only choice?

Is 14" the correct character height?

Thanks for any help,

David

 
David, Curt is correct, the "school no." never appears on the AAF record card.  I have the USAAF Fairchild PT individual aircraft record cards and am sure I have never seen it recorded on any one of them.
There is no guarantee that a particular aircraft carried the same school no. throughout it's service life.

A two-digit identity was the usual, though the largest schools may have needed to go beyond #99.  
There are instances of a few schools using a prefix character as well, but that was not common.  It may be that it was only the RAF all-through schools in the U.S.A. that use letter-prefixed school nos and only one of those school was assigned the Fairchild PT.
One of downsides of researching A.A.F. PT's from veteran's log book's is that the school no. was the usual form of aircraft identity they entered in their personal records.  Fortunately from my point of view, the students and instructors at RAF and RCAF elementary schools usually recorded the aircraft's serial no.
I can think of three possibilities... 1) As Curt suggested.  If no one has removed all the original paint from the cowlings and removable panels you may be lucky.  There have been instances of this but it must be increasingly rare. 2)  Did any of the original AAF documentation came with the aircraft?  I have only seen a couple of W.W.2 AAF PT-19 airframe logs but I seem to recall that in both cases the document carried the school no. 3)  A.A.F. accident records often record the school no. - and if you are really lucky there may even be a photograph of the damaged aircraft.  Of course that depends upon your aircraft having suffered a reportable accident whilst in service - I think these were called Form 14.
Unfortunately, the usual site I use to check for A.A.F. accident records has removed their on-line database due to constant hacking.
If you can tell me either your aircraft's civil registration, it's c/no. or AAF serial no. then I will check it against the AAF record cards and my own accident database.
Tony Broadhurst