Original Item: One of a Kind. Now this is a fantastic display piece, perfect for the avid aviator collector who has the room to spare! This HUGE piece of material measures 15 FEET long, measuring about 29 1/2 inches across at the front, tapering to about 17 inches at the rear. This is the majority of the right side canvas from U.S. Army Air Corps Consolidated PT-1 Trusty Aircraft Trainer Serial #26-309. We assume this means it was first acquired in 1926 as a trainer. The original military markings on the canvas are still fully visible:

U.S. ARMY
A.C. 26-309
F.A.D. CONSOLIDATED PT-1

1926 was the year that the USAAC was founded, replacing the earlier U.S. Army Air Service. This occurred during July, so this was most likely received in that year after that point. As with all canvas skin aircraft, the painted fabric needed periodic replacement, and this piece was mounted in 1930, as indicated by the small markings by the edge:

A.C. 26-309-C1-CB-56D1-4PD2--11-18-30

Looking at pictures, we believe this section originally ran from the rear cockpit area up to the tail of the plane on the right side. The stamped designation on the piece may actually give this information as well in reference to a shop manual.

The piece is painted a lovely O.D. Green color, and bears the insignia of the 430th Pursuit Squadron, a Native American on horseback inside a red heart and the aircraft's #4. The 430th Pursuit Squadron was based at Richards Field in Kansas City, Missouri from 1926-1939. It is still in very good shape, showing a wonderful period stitched repair from its time in service. The edges do show some fraying, and it is has been rolled up for some time, so it will need some time to settle once flattened out.

A really great piece of early U.S. military aviation history, with some fantastic research and display potential!

Please note: The airplane shown in the main picture is from the National Museum of the United States Air Force, and is not the airplane that the skin section came from. It is shown for illustrative purposes only.

Information on the 430th Pursuit Squadron, per US Army Order of Battle 1919-1941 by Steven E. Clay Combat Studies Institute Press. US Army Combined Arms Center. Fort Leavenworth, KS.

Unit Lineage:
- 430th Aero Squadron (Construction) organized, Jan 1918
- Redesignated 37th Spruce Squadron, Jul 1918
- Demobilized, Jan 1919
- 430th Squadron (Pursuit), constituted in the Organized Reserve, 15 Oct 1921
- Redesignated 430th Pursuit Squadron, 25 Jan 1923
- 37th Spruce Squadron reconstituted and consolidated with 430th Pursuit Squadron, 25 Nov 1936. Consolidated organization designated 430th Pursuit Squadron.
- Inactivated, 2 Oct 1939
- Disbanded, 31 May 1942

Unit History:
- Constituted in the Organized Reserve on 15 October 1921 as the 430th Squadron (Pursuit), assigned to the 310th Pursuit Group (Sixth Army), and allotted to the Seventh Corps Area.
- Initiated in March 1922 at St. Joseph, MO.
- Redesignated as the 430th Pursuit Squadron on 25 January 1923.
- Relocated on 26 May 1926 to Richards Field, Kansas City, MO. This squadron was one of the few in the Organized Reserve that possessed facilities, equipment, and aircraft. Squadron personnel were largely pilots and ground support personnel employed by Trans-World Airways (TWA) at the Kansas City Municipal Airport.
- Participated in a “Fly By” in June 1932 for the Honorable Patrick J. Hurley, Secretary of War, at the grand opening of the Kansas City-St. Louis Waterway.
- Consolidated on 25 November 1936 with the 430th Aero Squadron (Construction) (a WWI unit organized in January 1918 at Vancouver Barracks, WA; redesignated as the 37th Spruce Squadron in July 1918; demobilized in January 1919 at Vancouver Barracks; reconstituted on 25 November 1936).
- Operated from Paso Robles Airfield, CA, in support of the 40th Division during the 1937 Fourth Army Maneuver.
- Conducted summer training at Marshall Field, KS; Richards Field, MO; Camp Dodge, IA; or Camp Ripley, MN, 1922-40.
- Inactivated on 2 October 1939 at Richards Field by relief of personnel.
- Status: Disbanded on 31 May 1942.

The 430th Pursuit Squadron, formed from Kansas City reservists, deployed from its base at Richards Field, and flew to Marshall Field at Fort Riley, Kansas, in August 1932 for its two-week active duty training. There, for the first time in its history, the squadron had available fourteen service planes, three P-6s, three 0-25s and eight 01-Es. In addition, a BT-2C and a PT-3 were available to flyers who needed dual work. This was also the first year the 430th could count a large number of its men who were experienced in all types of service planes. Many of its younger officers, graduates of the Air Corps Advanced Flying School, had served on active duty for a year or two with a tactical unit. Many others were commercial pilots who flew the military service planes on inactive duty at Richards Field. Fortified by this caliber of flying personnel, the squadron launched a tactical training program immediately upon reaching Fort Riley. In other years, more than half the time at camp had been consumed by dual instruction for officers who
had not flown since their last active duty periods. Consequently, in 1932 the 430th put in much time on gunnery and bombing ranges as well as on formation flying and combat routine. Typifying the training all across the country that year, the airmen completed a map problem, working with the ground units of the Kansas National Guard.

The Consolidated PT-1 Trusty (company designation Model 1) was a biplane primary trainer used by the United States Army Air Service (USAAS), and by its successor, the U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC). The plane became the first training airplane purchased by the USAAS in substantial quantity following World War I. Aviation cadets in Texas and California flew it extensively during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It acquired the nickname 'Trusty' for their excellent ability to make a quick and effective recovery from a spin. Easy to fly, the Trusty made some students overconfident, and they received a shock when they advanced to faster airplanes with more difficult handling characteristics. The 'Trusty' was commonly flown without its cowlings in an effort to prevent overheating.

Whereas the TW-3 had supplemented the JN-4D, the PT-1 supplanted this wholly obsolescent type and was responsible for a radical improvement in the safety record of US Army pilot training. One of the aircraft was diverted to the US Navy for trials, and four other generally similar aircraft were delivered to Siam in 1928. From 1928 the PT-1 was replaced in frontline service by the Consolidated PT-3, but then became a valuable implement in the National Guard flying program until retired in the early 1930s

Design and development
In 1921, Colonel Virginius Clark, chief designer of the Dayton-Wright Company, designed the Chummy sporting biplane. The airframe was advanced in its use of the new Clark Y thick-section airfoil and a welded fuselage framework of chrome-molybdenum steel tubing. A departure from the all-wood structures found in other trainers, the structure proved sturdy and dependable. It was offered to the USAAS as a replacement for the Curtiss JN-4D trainer, with a choice of Le Rhone or Clerget rotary piston engines.

In 1922, the Army ordered three TA-3 (Trainer, Air-cooled, Type 3) machines for evaluation with the Le Rhone engine and dual controls. Evaluation showed that the type had the makings of a good trainer, but was somewhat lacking in power, so in 1923 Dayton-Wright modified one TA-3 with a more powerful 110 hp (82 kW) Le Rhone.

The USAAS then ordered ten examples of this improved model, and these were the last U.S. Army aircraft to be delivered with a rotary-engine. Appreciating that this type of power plant had passed its development peak, the USAAS then contracted for three examples of the TW-3 (Trainer, Water-cooled, Type 3) with a 150 hp (112 kW) Wright-Hispano I V8. The revised type clearly had greater long-term potential, and in June 1923 the USAAS contracted for 20 TW-3 production aircraft, together with enough spare parts for the construction of another three aircraft. At this time the General Motors Corporation was thinking of pulling out of the aircraft business and closing its Dayton-Wright subsidiary, so Reuben H. Fleet of the Gallaudet Aircraft Corporation secured rights to the Dayton-Wright trainer design. When Gallaudet shareholders expressed disapproval at this move, Fleet left the company and established the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation.

It was to this new company the TW-3 order went, and all the aircraft were delivered by the end of 1923 with the uprated powerplant of one Wright-Hispano E (license-built Hispano-Suiza 8) engine. Once the aircraft had entered service, Fleet continued to improve the TW-3, the most important change being the removal of the engine cowling to improve the occupants' forward and downward fields of vision. Visibility was still poor, so Fleet secured US Army permission to rebuild one TW-3 with a new, slimmer fuselage, providing tandem rather than side-by-side seating. This revised aircraft was generally known as the "Camel" due to the hump between its two cockpits.

The "Camel" may be regarded as the prototype of the Consolidated response to the USAAS's 1924 requirement for a new primary trainer. In the early summer of 1924, the USAAS tested a prototype unofficially designated TW-8 and placed an order for 50 examples of the Consolidated Model 1 production variant for service with the designation PT-1.[1] Early production models had flat dorsal turtledecks, soon replaced by a faired version, and some of the first ones were likely built at the Gallaudet plant in Norwich before production began at Buffalo. The first 171 of the 221 produced used a streamlined nose radiator, the remainder used an un-faired installation. One PT-1 airframe was completed as XPT-2 with a 220 hp (164 kW) Wright J-5 radial engine.