viscount806x

Been on t'internet for years now along with Wonderful Radio London, Radio Sutch and many of the others too. t makes the BBC music radio look a bit irrelevant just as they did way back in 1964. I know, I was there in Yorkshire listening to them distantly and with great difficulty. We eventually got our own Radio 270 in Bridlington Bay until the disaster of 1967 and the Marine Offences Act.

CMR told me recently that there is an new injection Harvard II coming soon from someone unnamed and for that reason they have binned their own planned new resin Harvards II. Nobody seems to know anything more. Bit frustrating actually.

Very informative tale but that bit above is a bit of a cheek from an ancillary trade....... Only kidding, sorry. I'm an ex 'Fairy' and no, I never did open or close the hangar doors either. That last bit's a lie too, I did, many times. In fact I had to take the rest of the shift off once and sit at Otley A&E having trapped my finger in the doors. Nige B

An endangered species in their own right methinks.....

Thanks for the info Tony and I know what you mean in the last bit. Nige B

Thanks SF

Thanks for that Tony. I have the MDC conversion but I think it is a bit lacking according to another thread here on BM. Belcher Bits Harvard conversions are not sold or stocked by any European dealers according to Mr. Belcher and being quite pricey would no doubt attract eye watering customs charges as well as postage from Canada. I think that the SH Wirraway kit conversion would definitely be a good economic proposition (by comparison) even if having also to buy an Italeri (for e.g.) kit as a donor for a prop and canopy (assuming that would be suitable??). I have canvassed Petr of SH to see if he might consider a slight revision of the Wirraway kit to give us a Harvard I but I haven't heard back from him so far. Cheers, NB

Very nice indeed. I'm wondering what it would take to make a Harvard Mk.I from this kit but I think the canopy might be an issue.

The short answer to the original question is,,,, We want a 1:48 Scimitar because there isn't one and we covet what we can never have. Usually. Having said that, I have enjoyed the very respectful to and fro ing of the discussions and yes I would buy one to show willing just as I would, without hesitation, support a Harvard Mk.I in either scale or a decent new 1:48 Hunter. Well, that's me and here, I have my Paypal ready and waiting for any manufacturer who would care to relieve me of my grandsons inheritance.... Nige B

Just welcome back! A bucket load of good news there.

I've been wearing specs for a good twenty years now starting in my late 40s with readers during darkness then day too when the eyes got worse. Eventually I had to go with bifocals which worked very well (I flew commercially at the time) for a good number of years. In fact, I still have a tinted 'sunglasses' pair from year 2000 which still work OK and another untinted pair for when I airbrush. Otherwise, I'm on varifocals mainly but it was a hesitant start. At the risk of boring you witless, I'll tell you a shortened version of the tale: A well known high street chain did me an eye test for varifocals, made me two pairs (one free!) but, they were desperately bad. I could barely walk without feeling as though I was having an out of body experience. Flying with them was out of the question. I went back and they remade them. The replacements were just as bad. After another eye test (which had different results!!) they had to make a third set of two specs. I'd lost confidence by now and had them make up bi focals again. Some years later, a small independant optician talked me into varifocals again after a routine eye test. With much trepidation, I tried the resulting specs. Now, this guy took great pains to make sure that the prescription was correct and also carefully tweaked the specs until they sat in front of each eye exactly at the correct position. This is absolutely crucial since both eyes must be looking through the same focal part of it's own lens to get the correct image. The moral of this cautionary tale is to make sure the optician knows what they are doing and has the skill for the task in hand otherwise you will be struggling as I did. You can get by unknowingly almost with an unskilled optician and bifocals but varifocals are a whole different ball game. I wouldn't be without my varifocals now and they are great for driving and although retired from flying now, I could still never cope with varifocals in the cockpit and always resorted to my old bifocals when at work. Hope this helps.

That's your lot more or less. The AN plans have been discussed previously. They are recognisably Viscount but have obvious errors when compared to pictures of he real thing. They are also very generic when it comes to the V800, window positions and door sizes do not tally with the colour schemes and particular airframes which they illustrate. Your best bet is to get access to the real thing. There are several (I believe) in the Antipodes but since distances down there are unimaginable for us, I'm unsure how practical that would be. There is an excellent group website called The Vickers Viscount Network here: http://www.vickersviscount.net/Default.aspx They aim to record and preserve anything related to the Viscount. You can join or just use it as you wish. Highly recommended. Good luck, Nige B

I contacted CMR the other day to ask what the projected time scale was regarding their previously announced RAF Harvard II kits. The answer was that they probably wouldn't now happen since a new injection kit was imminent from "another manufacturer". Anybody here heard anything? Nige B

Respect!

I'm pretty sure that you are right on with that observation. I thought the same myself after the very interesting image appeared of '455 on here. That looks as though the idea of a clipped wing was translated for viability into flight trialling by simply clipping and fairing it off. Because the F3 had a longer aileron too, that also needed clipping and thus we have the config shown. Regarding colours, the usual ortho film/yellow darkening is very evident and this is also on the clipped tip so we could conclude (maybe) that the outer wing panels were also yellow at this stage, prior to clipping. This all may call into question when this trial tip image was taken. Was '455 fitted afterwards with full span wings again for the speed trials? Or, did the clipped wing trials occur after the speed trials? If the former, then why bother respraying the replaced full span wings with yellow and thus the 'metal' colour we have discussed. If the latter, then '455 did indeed possibly have the outer full span wings in yellow prior to clipping. Maybe. We could only know really by a wider call in the hope that someone around at the time might remember. Nige B