SAAF Harvard 1/48

Great job Big mike, I'm partial to those Texans, Very similar to the Wirraways from down under. Was that the 1-48 Italeri kit. I love the markings you chose.

Cheers Leo

Hey Bigmike... Nice spammy!!!

I'm busy finishing my 1/48 Heller kit (which is what Italeri have re-boxed as their AT-6G)... which is infact a rebox of someone else's spammy.

Fortunately one can choose the AT-6F in the Heller kit... so all I really have to finish doing on it to make it an accurate SAAF spammy.... is finish the gun blister on the STB side cowling.

Just out of curiousity, what paints did you use for the Dayglo??? I've got the humbrol enamel and acrylic dayglo orange.. and neither of them are particularly nice to use.... the acrylic formed a sludge that blocked up my airbrush.

Sadly I havent been able to do too much more work on it, as my uncle is borrowing his compressor back from me. :-p

oh.. and are those the spammy decals from Mav?

Good day gents

The kit is a Ocidental nice kit just very soft plastic. The paint is alclad and model master for the dayglo the paint also blocked my air brush dont know what happend it went all sludgy . The decals are from Mav.

Thank you

Mike

Very nice build, Big Mike. And Kudos on being one of the 1st builds of 2009.

...Guy

Nice one Mike .  The unusual markings set this one apart.

Regards,  Rick

Thank you guys it sure does stand out on the shelf and i really enjoyed building it

Thanks

Mike

A year ago I made a same one, and I did make a litlle mistake with the canopy.

You did the same.

I have to put some more vertical stripes on the glas part, I did this with bare metal foil.

I find a lot of pictures here

http://www.saairforce.co.za/gallery-and-media/34/harvard

Never seen anything at all from the South African Air Force! Very unusual, and extremely well done, MIke!

Very nice Spammys in here!!!

And technically speaking those canopies are accurate for the SAAF AT-6Gs I think.

Not all the SAAF's aircraft had the full panel canopies (For lack of a better description)... but as I said above, I think they were the extra Gs that the SAAF got.

I'm waiting for my compressor to get back then I can finish mine up.

Quick question tho... did you guys coat the wings and fuselage in white or yellow before you painted the dayglo??

I have battled to get mine to really shine through... and I'm debating biting the bullet and shelling out R55 for the Tam rattle can. But that would be exactly half of what I paid for my kit... *sigh*

Tacan

I did put a thin coat of tamiya white primer under the dayglo but i have heard that you can use yellow aswel

 Thanks

Mike

Awesome! That is one of my favorite paint schemes.

Here's mine (Academy 1/72)

Its good to see some more harvards here its not a very well known paint schemes. i like it and i grew up with them flying around.

Mike

Stumbled across this (as am not a modeler) but seeing the trouble you guys go to to get it perfect, thought I could help.

These detailed pictures will show you exactly how SAAF Harvards looked in the flesh. These photographs taken by me from flying in "Old Nelson" #7111 in 1987. You can see some fine detail on the markings and instructional labels on the aircraft. You can also see the exact detail of the canopy.

Note, unlike this one, some of the models I see have very  vivid dayglo, but in reality it faded, almost giving it slighty yellow appearances from certain angles. Also the yellow of the numbers is much yellower than the decals I see. You can particularly see this dayglo in the second pic which is 7111's wing. Taken on the way to a Air Combat Maneovers exercise out of Donnotar Central Flying School in South Africa, where all 'pupil pilots' trained for service in the SAAF.

Pity none of your models have the CFS Africa/Eagle Sqn badge on them. You could make these by copying from a book (like the SAAF at War), photoshopping them to the right size and printing them on decal paper.

Have pics of Impala's and the Silver Falcon aircraft too.

See how the dayglo looked faded on the wing below....

Hi there SAAF Capt,

Welcome to the forum... did you serve in the airforce?? I have finished a 48 scale Mirage 3R2Z, along with an Impala Mk1 (need to take pics still). I am currently working on finishing a SAAF CL13 Mk6 along with a Spitfire XVI painted as the MkIXe that the museum flew.

If you have any more ref shots of SAAF birds, please dont hesitate to share them.. we can always use more!!