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So why the lack of Harvards?


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I did build the ol' Airfix Harvard many years ago and there was the option to build either a pure trainer or an armed version. Came with bomblets and I think a single machine gun in the wing.  One of my best builds was that one. The Academy kit seems relatively hard to find and managed to track one down in the end.

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On 6 April 2017 at 5:43 PM, tempestfan said:

 

Not sure if Encore boxed the Heller T-6, as Heller sold that mould to Lodela (Mexico ), while the ex-Heller kits I'm aware of done by Encore a good 25 years ago came from Argentina  (then Crovetto, but  still available today , now manufactured by an apparently fairly large toy company. ).

 

Yes, they did. The older Encore boxing of the T-6 (with the monochrome art) contains the Heller kit and had a rather good decal sheet with four options. 

 

Encore T-6

 

Nick

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2 hours ago, Nick Millman said:

 

Yes, they did. The older Encore boxing of the T-6 (with the monochrome art) contains the Heller kit and had a rather good decal sheet with four options. 

 

Encore T-6

 

Nick

Thanks Nick, that is one I wasn't Aware of. Checking Scalemates, Encore also reboxed the 196 (another mould that went to Lodela) - and outside of aircraft, the Revolutionary war cannon (ex Palmer), which also at least spent some time with Smer, the third big taker of Heller moulds.

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3 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

An injection-moulded Harvard Mk.I was promised, although perhaps by Tasman rather than Ventura, as part of a line of variants, but it never appeared.  I don't know of any kits of this type that have actually been produced.

 

I could have sworn I'd seen one, about the same time as the Ventura Tempest I conversion. Mind must be going!

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On 4/6/2017 at 11:27 PM, Jure Miljevic said:

Hello

Slightly off topic, but still related to it: has anyone ever produced NA-50A/NA-68/P-64 in 1/72? Does not have to be mainstream kit, vacuform or resin would be quite enough. Cheers

Jure

 

Jure,

 

Xotic did a resin kit, but I'm not sure how widely they were available.  I never got my hands on one.

 

http://www.internetmodeler.com/2006/august/first-looks/xotic_p64.php

 

Jim

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On 4/6/2017 at 2:29 PM, 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.

 

I have no experience with Yaks so I can't compare, but when I hear about an airplane that would gradually grind down my bank account, the T-28 would far outstrip the T-6!  Heck, it might not be so gradual.  (I do love the T-28 and I get you point about its performance over the T-6, but IMO it is a whole level of spendy above the T-6.)

 

And yes, we need a Harvard II or Harvard 4 in 1/72.  I don't expect a mainstream manufacturer to get to it for all the reasons discussed in this thread, but I think it would be a steady and good seller for a short run maker.

 

Jim

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It should be remembered that the T-28 was designed to be the aircraft you went to AFTER a T-6.  These aircraft mentioned may have been more fun to fly (OK, were and are more fun to fly) but they wouldn't have fitted so well into the progression of the training programme at the time the T-6 was designed (let alone the original NA16).  At this stage the frontline fighters only had 1000hp.  Pilots went onto the Harvard fresh from the Tiger Moth, Finch, Cornell or the Kaydet - or if they were really lucky a BT-9.  It's a different world from that of the modern warbird.

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Graham, I'm not knocking it as a suitable trainer for the time it was designed, in fact I have done quite the opposite. Merely pointing out that it's a remarkably poor performer for the amount of metal, fuel and money involved, and that I couldn't really countenance owning something with that combination of cost and sluggishness today when so many relatively mundane aircraft will eat it for breakfast.

 

For some reason it just feels a bit disappointing. A well rigged Tiger Moth or a 220 Stearman don't disappoint in my experience because tehy deliver what they feel as if they should. But the T-6 looks as if it ought to put that big thirsty engine to at least some sort fo performance and yet still has trouble getting away from some other contemporaries. What a fixed gear three seat Proctor III achieves on 210 hp frankly makes a two seat Harvard seem a bit red-faced with its 550 or 600 hp and disappearing wheels.

 

Mind you, Percival had their own trainer embarrassment later with the Prentice, a truly hopeless thing devoid of any recognisable merit at all. How that came about I will never understand. Fortunately they redeemed themselves with the Provost.

 

Edited by Work In Progress
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I was at a gloriously sunny Headcorn yesterday, and was delighted to see this start up and disappear (apologies for crap photo). Made me want to model one immediately, but was as disappointed as others that decent 1/72 kits are in short supply:

 

IMG_2770_zps9rprg3rr.jpg

 

But I was sad too that the Tiger Club had literally vanished from the airfield (building and all) and only read up on the acrimony last night. But that's probably something for another thread.

 

Justin

Edited by Bedders
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Blackbird Models did a Mark I conversion in resin a few years back. I have one minus the vacform canopy which was going to be sent on which never appeared. Never sure if the conversion was ever on general sale.

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I'm curious as to what the Blackbird parts were a conversion of.  Other than with a Wirraway, you'd need a new fuselage and a new wing, which doesn't leave much.  With a Wirraway, you don't need much at all.  This leaves a suspicion that they were thinking of an Airfix or Heller wing - there were drawings in Aviation News that drew the aircraft this way, and they were even copied into Air Britain's The Harvard File, who really should have known better.

 

re the armed Airfix version: this gave one of the three (as was then - or two plus a mobile collection of spare parts) Boscombe Down aircraft. but the bombs were on the Mau-Mau uprising option.  I don't recall a machine gun being provided, although it would have been easy enough to add one to the airframe as it was allowed for on the standard, in one of the wings.  The design allowed for up to five guns - one in each wing (rarely carried in both), two in the nose and one in the rear cockpit.  I'm not sure if any single airframe ever carried them all.

 

Justin's aircraft above appears to be a Harvard Mk.IV in false markings - note the longer canopy at the rear - which is almost a T-6G but not quite.

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According to this it is indeed a 1952 Canadian Car & Foundry Harvard IV with a pretty varied history, but appears to be wearing its original service serial as the USAF was the first owner, as 52-8251, before it went off round the world. I don't know very much about early 50s USAF trainer colours but it looks plausible enough to me.

http://www.t6harvard.com/G-TVIJ.html

 

On this page relating to G-BUKY, another 1952 CC&F Harvard IV, 22 aircraft later off the line, which also first served with the USAF as 52-8543, there is a picture of 543 and some siblings in their original USAF yellow schemes

http://www.t6harvard.com/G-BUKY_history.html

 

stacks_image_6019.jpg

Edited by Work In Progress
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The colour scheme looks perfectly good to me too,  but I didn't know of any Harvard Mk.IVs serving with the USAF, and with the small qualification below they didn't.  Three batches were built under MDAP funding for passing out to US-friendly countries around the world.  52-8521 is from the second batch 52-8493 to 51-8612.  The first two went to the Italian Air Force and all of the remainder to the Germans.  I suspect what we are seeing is the delivery scheme, so ok it is genuine, just temporary.

 

Apparently the Canadians borrowed 100 T-6Ds whilst waiting for their Mk.IVs but crashed six of them, so six Harvard IVs were included when the batch were returned.  Dan Hagedorn has been unable to track down any US record of these aircraft, which not having been built to US contract would not have been delivered with any US serial.  The suspicion has to be that they weren't noticed and went straight into long-term storage and later scrapping with the other T-6Ds.

 

Separately but interestingly (at least to me) Dan Hagedorn has tried to find justification for the commonly-used designation T-6J for the Harvard Mk.IV, but apparently this is just wrong.  This was to be given to a batch of T-6Gs ordered from NAA Columbus, but this was cancelled and CCF bought the basic design data. 

 

 

Edited by Graham Boak
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On 4/10/2017 at 9:02 AM, Graham Boak said:

Pilots went onto the Harvard fresh from the Tiger Moth, Finch, Cornell or the Kaydet - or if they were really lucky a BT-9.  

 

I often wonder what the step from a Tiger to a Harvard was like.  I went from a J-3 to the Harvard and struggled.  I intended to circle back and get some PT-17 time before I continued my Harvard training, but life got in the way and I never got back to it.  Someday.

 

Jim

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On 4/10/2017 at 1:38 PM, Graham Boak said:

Apparently the Canadians borrowed 100 T-6Ds whilst waiting for their Mk.IVs but crashed six of them, so six Harvard IVs were included when the batch were returned.  Dan Hagedorn has been unable to track down any US record of these aircraft, which not having been built to US contract would not have been delivered with any US serial.  The suspicion has to be that they weren't noticed and went straight into long-term storage and later scrapping with the other T-6Ds.

 

Separately but interestingly (at least to me) Dan Hagedorn has tried to find justification for the commonly-used designation T-6J for the Harvard Mk.IV, but apparently this is just wrong.  This was to be given to a batch of T-6Gs ordered from NAA Columbus, but this was cancelled and CCF bought the basic design data. 

 

 

 

The RCAF did indeed borrow U.S. T-6s and returned some Mk. 4s to the USAF to replaced damaged airplanes.  (They also returned the T-6s in better shape than they got them.)  I'll see if I can find anything on the Canadian side of the transactions and remember to bring up the topic next time I see Dan.

 

I've never seen any primary source justification for the T-6J designation and have always considered it a urban legend that got passed down from book/article to book/article.  I do wonder where some of these faux designations originated from!

 

Jim

Edited by airjiml2
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20 minutes ago, airjiml2 said:

I often wonder what the step from a Tiger to a Harvard was like.  I went from a J-3 to the Harvard and struggled.  I intended to circle back and get some PT-17 time before I continued my Harvard training, but life got in the way and I never got back to it.  Someday.

 

I've not flown the Harvard, but I did an hour of general handling on a two-stick Spitfire IX.

 

At the time, I had about 400 hr P.1 and was current on the Chipmunk with a lot of aerobatics; I had some Tiger P.1 as well. My honest self-assessment at the time was that I would have needed something like 5 hr on an intermediate type to do a proper conversion and be properly safe on the more powerful aircraft. Of course, at the time there wasn't a serious prospect of doing a type conversion - it was done for the experience of flying a aircraft (PT462) which my Dad had flown operationally on 253 Sqn.

 

The Spit (while I wouldn't want to give the wrong impression) was in some handling respects like a great big Chipmunk but with ten times the power and a lot of torque. An intermediate aircraft would have been useful, but not entirely essential: a direct conversion would be doable, but for a low-time pilot it would doubtless be easier, cheaper and safer to go the Harvard route.

 

I would encourage you to do as you suggest and try the PT-17 (or a Chippie - I've heard there are a few in Canada!) as a 'lead-in' to the Harvard. The J-3's not ideal.

 

Kevin

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