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So why the lack of Harvards?


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Yet the total Scimitar and F2H production ends up a long way short of the T-6 family, and neither were particularly widely used, lasted long in service, nor appeared in a wide range of markings.  (I must admit being slightly surprised that their total number of kits exceed eight, and think that's doing pretty well!)

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13 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

Yet the total Scimitar and F2H production ends up a long way short of the T-6 family, and neither were particularly widely used

Which brings us back to what makes kits popular.  It clearly doesn't depend on how ubiquitous the subject is, or there would be no kits of the SR-71.  Or, in the motoring world, we should be knee-deep in kits of the Mk.3 Cortina, instead of all those Ferraris and Lamborghinis.  And I reluctantly have to conclude that my interest in the Scimitar and F2H-3 must be lacking a certain something, too.  Just don't get me started on the Vicker MBT or the Pz.68.

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6 minutes ago, pigsty said:

Which brings us back to what makes kits popular.  

 

'charisma'  (..in the original subject).  The T-6 is squat, relatively ugly, blunt-ended ..and doesn't have much (to answer Graham's point)

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59 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

Yet the total Scimitar and F2H production ends up a long way short of the T-6 family, and neither were particularly widely used, lasted long in service, nor appeared in a wide range of markings.  (I must admit being slightly surprised that their total number of kits exceed eight, and think that's doing pretty well!)

 

Frankly speaking the T-6 family (Including Yale and Wirraway) is the most produced US warplane in history, just before the B-24 and miles away of the P-51, P-47, P-40, B-17, C-47, F-86, F6F, F4U, UH-1, a.s.o.  For the Americans it's like the Spitfire for the Britons, Bf 109 for the Germans, A6M for the Japanese and Yak-1/3/7/9/11 for the Russians.

Cheers

Michael

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The abovementioned SR-71 isn't particularly well represented in kit form either, on top of my head I can think of 5 kits in 1/72 and 1 in 1/48. Don't know how many have been around in the smaller scales though. Of course it's not too bad for an aircraft that IIRC was built in 36 units..

That brings me to what a subject needs to be popular... and my answer would be that it must "only" satisfy our dreams. And inside the most remote part of our brain, most of us would prefer to be the fighter pilot flying high and shooting down the enemies before returning home covered in glory. Most want to be the Spitfire (or Hurricane) pilot that saves the Country from the invasion, very few dream of towing gliders across the Channel. We want to be the knight in shiny armour, not his servant. We want to be the tip of the spear, not the baggage train. Give me a fighter, if not I can take a bomber. But I don't need a trainer... actually I do if I want to learn to fly, but hey, this is just a dream in my subconscious, I know how to fly....:D

 

Back to the T-6 after having apologised for the OT, I'm not surprised that most kits represent the G version. This was afterall widely used postwar and the one most likely to be seen by the potential buyers at airshows or in the pictures on the magazines.

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I digress slightly, so feel free to tune out but It's also, if we're going to whisper the truth, a bit of an old barge to fly.

 

That doesn't stop it being an excellent training machine. Which it is, for its intended purpose. To this day, if you can be a good safe T-6 pilot throughout its flight envelope you are a legitimate candidate for transition to a WW2 piston fighter. And it has the noise, the heft, the low-slop controls, the general feeling of solidity, the slight dangerousness, the very real sense of pre-war old-fashionedness that give it charm and charisma. (It very much feels like a 1930s design rather than a 1940s one, in its handling).

 

But it's heavy, so heavy. And it always nags at you that it would have been so much more effective with the geared engine it should have had, accompanied by a decent sized prop. The performance is just flabby, and the fuel burn horrific for the climb rate and the cruise speed and the aerobatic potential. If you have jumped out of a typical 200 hp aerobatic sport aeroplane like a Vans RV-8 or an Extra 200 or even an old Pitts S2a, it really makes you wonder how a 550 hp aeroplane - the same power allocation as a much higher performance six seat Beech Baron - can be so sluggish.

 

The perfect aeroplane for its job at the time, but I think if I owned one it would gradually grind my heart down, as well as my bank account. In its class I would have a Yak-11 like a shot, over a T-6. Or from the next generation the absolutely wonderful T-28D. Both aeroplanes which actually deliver on the dynamic promise that their fighter-trainer looks suggest.

Edited by Work In Progress
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3 hours ago, pigsty said:

Hang on, eight plastic kits in three scales isn't exactly underdoing it. 

True, but they aren't exactly overcrowding LHS shelves or even on line auction site lists. :( Leastwise not at prices I'm going to afford.

Steve.

Edited by stevehnz
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One I haven't seen mentioned is the old and decades-out-of-production Aurora 1/48 T-6/SNJ.  I'm assuming it's not nearly as detailed or accurate as the later Monogram and Ocidental kits.

 

Also, there's the Kitty Hawk 1/32 kit..more or less a dedicated postwar T-6G, but quite nice.

 

SN

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9 hours ago, FalkeEins said:

 

'charisma'  (..in the original subject).  The T-6 is squat, relatively ugly, blunt-ended ..and doesn't have much (to answer Graham's point)

The looks may be a part of it, but there's a reason why the T-6 is used as the basis for A6M lookalikes. 

Not too long ago, we only had 3 long run kits of the Tiger Moth (if we count the Toltoys/Aurora and its Merit clone as one ), two of them having appeared not later than 1960. If I'm not mistaken, there has never been a long run kit of the Vultee BTs, which were also built in substantial numbers. 

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9 hours ago, Work In Progress said:

 I think if I owned one it would gradually grind my heart down, as well as my bank account.

 

..chatting to Chris Bellhouse about same. He keeps his in a farm shed in a field in Postling, Kent. In the markings of the 64th TCGP as originally worn during its service with the USAF in August 1950. The longest 'continuously' owned T-6 on the UK register. He only flies this because the Yaks are in pieces in the same shed...

 

1T6landingPentfarm2.jpg

 

1StearmanT6ChrisBellhousePentFarmairfiel

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Can I add that the Heller one also appeared in an Airfix boxing just a few years ago, But all the 1/72nd ones don't have the long canopy as fitted to many RAF ones and Canadian ones. Aeroclub did do a few vac form canopies to convert this area at least. I have a few in my stash for future builds.  As for 1/48th I'm not too keen on the Occidental one that much. But have built the Monogram kit which was rahter nice and have another partially started. Yet again only the US Texan style canopy is included  but with clear side panel sections, as options,  for later post war variants.

In addition I have a 1/200th white metal one from Two sheds.

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14 hours ago, Britman said:

Given Airfix, s liking for trainers a nice early mark 1 would be nice in 72nd and 48th. 

 

The Harvard is a glaring gap in Airfix's recent line-up of RAF trainers (Tiger Moth, Vampire, Gnat, Jet Provost, Hawk): probably as many Harvards served with Empire nations as all the rest put together (okay, inclusion of the Tiger Moth maybe makes that assertion a bit questionable).  And a Harvard fits so well with their policy of replacing horrible ancient kits from the back catalogue.  But, for range of possible markings and thus indirectly Airfix's bottom line, I'd much prefer a Harvard IIb to the relatively rare Harvard I.  Just please don't waste plastic doing it in the Wrong Scale like the Sea Vixen, Javelin, Sea Fury and Walrus.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Seahawk said:

 

And a Harvard fits so well with their policy of replacing horrible ancient kits from the back catalogue. 

 

It's old and a bit crude, especially the engine, but nowhere near as horrible as the Tiger Moth, Defiant, Beaufighter, 110, 262 or Swordfish. IMVHO.

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19 hours ago, Work In Progress said:

The perfect aeroplane for its job at the time, but I think if I owned one it would gradually grind my heart down, as well as my bank account. In its class I would have a Yak-11 like a shot, over a T-6. Or from the next generation the absolutely wonderful T-28D. Both aeroplanes which actually deliver on the dynamic promise that their fighter-trainer looks suggest.

 

OK, but one must remember that T-6 was born years before the Yak-11 and T-28. Moreover - most (almost all) T-28s flying today use the R-1820 engine that is twice as powerful as the T-6's original R-1340, while the much smaller and lighter Yak-11 is just a radial-engined two-seater variant of the tiny Yak-3 fighter. On the other hand the 1936-vintage BT-9 has been designed to be just a trainer - PRIMARY trainer to be exact. And T-6 is just a (more or less) modified BT-9...

Cheers

Michael

 

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Yes, as  I said it is a terribly old fashioned thing, very pre-war in character, and underpowered for its weight. Those were exactly the points I was making.

 

I'm not saying that makes it morally bad or anything, just rather stodgy and wasteful of resources. The Harvard was very good at its job but something significantly more economical in manufacture and fuel burn could have done the same job as a secondary training aeroplane  (it would have come out very much the shape, size, weight and performance of a tailwheel Yak-52) and still had significantly higher performance.

Edited by Work In Progress
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KRK4m:  Strictly a Basic trainer not a primary one, which would have been in the PT series.  There was a single attempt to sell a version of the NA.16 as a Primary trainer but it was too large and expensive for the job.  This role may still have been then in the hands of early Consolidated types but is perhaps better known nowadays for the Boeing/Stearman Kaydet.  More importantly perhaps, the NA.16 was definitely not designed just to be a basic trainer but also to be capable of use as an advanced trainer and light attack aircraft.  A genuinely multi-role type, if a bit limited in the upper range (but cheap).  Interestingly, but largely forgotten, there were also multi-role versions of the Kaydet, though I've found it difficult to find out much about them beyond the odd Latin American sale.

 

Tempestfan:  Although good in outline, the Airfix undercarriage is a bit undersized too - the advice used to be to use ones from the Boomerang if you cared that much.  The canopy also seemed to end up a bit off-centre in the mould, so that one side was thinner than the other.  The cockpit also lacked, well, everything?  A roll-over pylon was the minimum that needed adding.  A new wartime T-6 variant would be welcome.

 

For those thinking it ugly and squat, isn't that true of all 1930s designs with a single radial engine?  If you care to look at them that way?  Most 1940 designs too - it took a long time before single-engined radial-engine designs achieved the proportion and cleanliness of line of the inline designs.  If, arguably, they ever did, it being more a case of the cooling requirements of the most powerful liquid-cooled engines spoiling their fine lines. 

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2 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

For those thinking it ugly and squat, isn't that true of all 1930s designs with a single radial engine?  If you care to look at them that way?

 

Many are. I can't deny they are less pointy than the in-lines, and subjective opinions need not divide us, but I do see some of them as rather dashing.

 

38bced2c58f7b84fad23bef09d545bee.jpg

our-planes-main-waco-1.jpg

Gloster_Gladiator.jpg

 

 

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On 4/7/2017 at 8:16 AM, FalkeEins said:

 

..chatting to Chris Bellhouse about same. He keeps his in a farm shed in a field in Postling, Kent. In the markings of the 64th TCGP as originally worn during its service with the USAF in August 1950. The longest 'continuously' owned T-6 on the UK register. He only flies this because the Yaks are in pieces in the same shed...

 

 

 

Did he used to base it at Headcorn? I'm sure many years ago seeing a T-6 in those colours nestled up in a hangar there.

 

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One point that I was thinking of as a result of this thread:  What difference does it make how many different kits there are of a given subject?  The real question is whether there is a decent kit in the scales of choice.  And in that respect, the Harvard/AT-6 actually now does fairly well.

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3 minutes ago, gingerbob said:

One point that I was thinking of as a result of this thread:  What difference does it make how many different kits there are of a given subject?  The real question is whether there is a decent kit in the scales of choice.  And in that respect, the Harvard/AT-6 actually now does fairly well.

 

I have to disagree slightly, the Texan is well represented, what isn't is the longer canopied versions of which most Harvards were, there's no modern kit of a Harvard IIb in 1/72nd scale which I think is a startling omission given its widespread use in British, Commonwealth and many other users, the markings options are many and varied. 

 

A modern kit which allowed for this SFTB is long overdue and could be combined with a shorter canopied version with clever moulding.

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True, and I nearly added a disclaimer.  It WOULD be nice to have more of the variations (conveniently) covered.  The Harvard Mk I is a special case of sorts, but between a vac conversion and a Wirraway (in 1/48) I think I can manage...

 

Which subtly works that other member of the family in, too.

Edited by gingerbob
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