PT-16 Main Page

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When in 1927, just before construction of the Ryan NYP, Claude Ryan sold his assets in Ryan Air Lines to Frank Mahoney, he continued to operate his flying school, the Ryan School of Aeronautics which he had founded in 1922, With signs of economic recovery in the USA in 1933 he decided the moment had come to re-enter the aircraft manufacturing business, the Ryan S-T (Sport-Trainer) being the first product of the new Ryan Aeronautical Company, established at San Diego, California.

A braced low-wing monoplane with fixed tailwheel landing gear and tandem open-cockpit accommodation for the pilot and passenger/ pupil, and powered initially by a 71-kVV (95-hp) Menasco B-4 Pirate inline engine, the S-T proved an excellent design, although only five examples of this low-powered version were built. It was followed by the S-T-A (71 built), A-T-A Special (11 built) and STM. This last version was a single-seat fighter deve(opment exported in small numbers to Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua, to the Netherlands East Indies as the two-seat CTM-2 landplane and STM-S2 seaplane and to China as the STM-2E/P. (the USAAC.) A further contract for 15 YPT-16 aircraft for wider service evaluation soon followed, and both of these initial versions were powered by the 93-kW (125-hp) Menasco L-365-1 inline engine. Production for the USAAC was initiated in 1940 with 30 PT-20 trainers, these being generally similar to the YPT-16s except for minor structural revisions.

During the following year Ryan developed a version known as the ST-3KR which introduced a Kinner radial engine that the US Army believed would give improved performance, and the 100 PT-21 aircraft contracted in 1941 were powered by the 98-kW (132-hp) Kinner R-440-3. The superiority of this airframe/engine combination resulted in 14 of the YPT-16s and 27 of the PT-20s being given R-440-1 engines of similar powef output under the respective designations PT-16A and PT-20A. Three PT-20s delivered with civil (as opposed to military) Menasco D4 engines were designated PT-208. With a rapid expansion of aircrew training during 1941, Ryan received a contract for 1,023 examples of the most extensively-built version, the PT-22 Recruit.

A couple photos of Chauncy's early mockups

This differed from the PT-21 primarily by deletion of the wheel spats and main landing gear fairings, and by introduction of the 119-kW (160-hp) Kinner R-540-1 engine. 25 similar ST-3 aircraft were ordered by the Netherlands, but by the time they were ready for delivery the country had been overrun by the German advance and they the 100 PT-21 aircraft contracted in 1941 were powered by the 98-kW (132-hp) Kinner R-440-3. The superiority of this airframe/engine combination resulted in 14 of the YPT-16s and 27 of the PT-20s being given R-440-1 engines of similar powef output under the respective designations PT-16A and PT-20A. Three PT-20s delivered with civil (as opposed to military) Menasco D4 engines were designated PT-208.

With a rapid expansion of aircrew training during 1941, Ryan received a contract for 1,023 examples of the most extensively-built version, the PT-22 Recruit. This differed from the PT-21 primarily by deletion of the wheel spats and main landing gear fairings, and by introduction of the 119-kW (160-hp) Kinner R-540-1 engine. 25 similar ST-3 aircraft were ordered by the Netherlands, but by the time they were ready for delivery the country had been overrun by the German advance and they were accepted instead by the USAAC under the designation PT-22A. Following US Army evaluation of the XPT-16/ YPT-16, the US Navy also acquired 100 examples of the ST-3 version, powered by the Kinner R-440-3 engine, and these were given the designation NR-I Recruit. These Ryan trainers remained in USAAC/USAAF service until the end of World War ll, and with the US Navy until mid-1944.

The YPT-16 is a military version of the civilian Ryan STA, It is a low-wing monoplane of mixed construction; a metal fuselage, wooden wing spars with fabric covering and external wire bracing. the YPT-16 has tandem open cockpits and was used by the Army Air Corps for primary training. Fifteen were ordered after the Air Corps purchased a single Ryan STA-1 in 1939 for testing as the XPT-16. The XPT-16 and the YPT-16s originally were fitted with Menasco L-365 in-line engines, but later all but one of the -16s were converted to -16As with the installation of Kinner R-440 radial engines. It was the first monoplane acquired by the Army as a primary trainer. From 1940 to 1942, the Army Air Corps bought nearly 1,200 more similar Ryan trainers as PT-20s, PT-21s, and PT-22s.
This is a photo of a PT-16 at the Oshkosh EAA Fly in...2001. Too cool !

Claude T. Ryan was born in Parson, Kansas on January 3, 1898; he had wanted to enlist for service in World War I but by the time he was 18 and old enough to join, the Air Service, it was 1919, and the war was at an end. He trained as a fighter pilot and had attained the rank of Lieutenant when he left the Army in 1922, well and truly bitten by the aeronautical bug. Failing to find work in aviation, he set up a very small airline with a few war surplus Standard J-1 aircraft which he had converted to accommodate four passengers each. By 1925, the company had expanded so much that it was running regular services from San Diego to Los Angeles, under the impressive name of Ryan Airlines and had started to design and construct its own aircraft. The Spirit of St. Louis was built after Claude T. Ryan had sold his interest in the company, while continuing to run it, and was his fifth project, a derivant of his earlier Bluebird (his first enclosed cockpit monoplane) and of the Ryan Brougham, both of which were very well known in their day. Ryan's great enthusiasm in life, however, was teaching the young how to fly: after his close involvement with the Flying Schools during the years 1928-193 1, when he founded the Ryan Aeronautical Company, his one wish was to produce a basic trainer which was safe, easy to fly and reliable, in short the ideal plane for beginners. Drawing on his considerable experience, he built the ST in 1933, his first metalfuselage monoplane which led to the PT-20, PT-21, PT-22 and PT-25 for the U. S.Army and the equally well-known NR-1 for the U. S.Navy, 1, 440 of which were produced during World War H.
The FR-1 Fireball was something of an anomaly, undertaken by Ryan with his usual enthusiasm, determination and singlemindedness, a new departure cut short by the coming ofpeace. Gradually Ryan withdrewfirom series aircraft production and became more and more involved with the development of guided missiles and systems for automatic landing in zero visibility and also built several research planes and experimental VTOL aircraft such as the X-13 Vertijet of 1957, and its successor, the XV15A Vertiplane. In 1969, the company (with a total of 5,000 employees, including engineers, administrative staff and factory workers) was taken over by Teledyne Inc., with a change of name to Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical and Claude T. Ryan was asked to carry on as chief executive.

Ryan certainly seems to have been cast in the mold of many American captains of industry, steering his company through both favorable and disastrous economic conditions in the rough and tumble of the fiercely competitive world of aviation; while not one ofAmerica's greatest aeronautical sagas, the company's story lives on in the memory of the unforgettable Spirit of St. Louis and the Fireball.

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