South African Airforce Harvards |
made from 1/48 Monogram T6 Texan |
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Gallery
Article by Sinuhe Hahn |
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The SAAF was
one of the largest, and certainly one of the longest users of the T6 Texan or
Harvard in commonwealth use, with these aircraft finally being retired in the
mid-90’s by the new Astra Pilatus PC7 mkll.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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In
the opinion of SAAF fans, the SAAF employed some of the most colourful schemes
for this
remarkable aircraft: two of which are shown here.
The
first illustrates a commonwealth era machine with the classic Springbok roundels
(mid-50’s). The second shows the same aircraft at a later stage with new
castle markings as used during the day-glo era (mid-70’s till retirement).
I
used the old Monogram kit, which to me is still the most accurate. It is also
readily available and very cheap. Numerals and stencils were from the Dutch
Decal sheets, while the SAAF markings were from generic SAAF decal sheets. All
are available from Flightdecs.
To
simulate the aluminium finish, I used Alclad ll paints, which worked
beautifully. Revell day-glo orange was sprayed over matt white to achieve the
brilliant effect of this colour, else it tends to give a very flat dull finish
(in other words - I had to re-spray the beast). Gunze RLM 4 was used for trainer
yellow.
Photos
were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 995 and single studio flash. This was my first
experiment with a digital camera.
Sinuhe Hahn
Click on
images below to see larger images
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