T-6G canopy to Harvard II - anyone tried the conversion?

[RidgeRunner]

Yep, that’s the plan and a piece to the rear

[RidgeRunner]

On 7/7/2020 at 4:09 PM, Tail-Dragon said:

Here you go ...

 

 

 

 

T6G canopy

 

 

Harvard canopy

 

There would be other differences also, such as the 'spade grip' control stick for the front cockpit

 

 

... and the long exhaust stack with the cabin heater pipe running through it.

 

Not sure what else.

 

Colin

For anyone out there looking to build a SAAF Harvard III note that they had the stick-type control column and not the paddle, as above. I just gone my canopy on and firm after converting the front stick to a paddle

 

Martin

 

 

[Mike Starmer]

The Azure N.A.57 kit is a mish-mash of scales anyway.  The canopy is a whole glazing panel too long.  It cannot be shortened since all of each frame section has been stretched to look equal.  The RS Yale kit looks super.  But nothing fits without serious filing. sanding etc.  If you can build the framework interior, a major challenge on it's own, you cannot get the fuselage halves to close over it, it is nearly 2mm too wide.  The canopy is too long to fit, I removed a chunk of the front cowling to accomodate that and then found the turnover pylon is far too high.   Don't glue the upper wings to the lower one before checking that the fuselage will fit into the finished wings.  I did and needed to heavily remove large pieces on the fuselage fairing  and the butting faces of the upper wings.  In all there was hardly anything that didn't need modifying to fit.  I cannot believe that anyone at RS  ever built one out of the box before beginning production.  RS also sell the N.A. 57 version. What you get is another Yale with an injection moulded fabric fuselage, new tailplanes, fin/rudder and round wingtips.  It has all the problems of the Yale plus the overlong fuselage.  They also omitted the corrugated skinning on the fin and tailplanes which was used on all the early N.A. series.  I converted my Yale into a BT-14 since only  2 years earlier I converted an Acadamy T-6 into a Yale.  The BT-14 required a new engine and cowling modified from an ancient Airfix Wellington with an Aeroclub engine.

[Graham Boak]

I disagree about the Azur canopy.  It is not too long, but a decent representation of the early/Canadian/Harvard canopy with the additional frame on a longer rear segment.  But yellow....  So far, my main complaint about the RS kit is that the internal cockpit framing is difficult to assemble properly.  I don't actually like the canopy too much, as it is heavily framed, but haven't found it too long - again, this is the longer fixed rear segment rather than the shorter opening position suitable for a gunner.  I haven't yet found problems with the cowling or wings because I haven't put the fuselage together, so I'll watch out for those,

[RidgeRunner]

Thanks Graham. I'm actually happy with the RS canopy. It is crisp in detail (a little heavy? - not for me) and once the rear fuselage is changed it works well. It is very, very slightly shallow, though, for matching with an Academy T-6G fuselage. A very thin shim fixed that.

 

Martin