Yet another Harvard...

Wild Bill Kelso

Wild Bill Kelso

Charter Member 2011
Hi there!

Although the "German Harvards" are already represented, I felt the need to do my own one for the Alphasim model.
Pics I collected from the real Luftwaffe Harvards show them as more-or-less clean and glossy, so there was no need for making her look 'worn & weathered'. No further markings or special decals added, as for the real "AA+080".

Just uploaded at AVSIM and SOH.

Cheers,
Markus.
 
Very nice indeed.....having flown in two ex-Luftwaffe Mk.4s, these will take pride of place in my virtual hangar. Thank you very much indeed.

Best wishes,

Martin
 
Thanks for that new Harvard, Markus ! I find that canary colour and Texans/Harvards (of whatever make) are a perfect match !

And I don't mind if it's squeaky clean or not.

Jean-Robert
 
Thanks, guys!

It's said that these canaries were nicknamed "Zitronenbomber" (= "lemon bomber") by the crews of FFS "A" (pilot's school), refering to the famous "Rosinenbomber / candy bombers" of the Berlin Air Lift campaign...

I tried this repaint also on the SkyUnlimited Harvard I purchased on saturday but wasn't too satisfied with the result. The paint kit doesn't seem to be made for repaints differing from the bare metal liveries. I don't know if I'm going to finish this. I'm sad about this, because the SU model has a far better VC than the Alphasim "Six" (that's not too hard...) and the flight dynamics make it some more challenging. On the other hand, the SU external model seems a little out of proportions to me (canopy area, wheel struts). But maybe I'm comparing apples and oranges (although a teacher once told me that you may compare apples and oranges, but you should not equate them...).

Cheers,
Markus.
 
When I get home from work I'll take a look at the source files for the SU Harvard, and see what can be done to help you get the kind of results you want with a repaint. I suspect it's a matter of adjusting alpha channels. FSX and FS9 handle materials differently and off the top of my head I can't remember the details.

Don't give up, help is on the way.
 
Which of the 6 versions in the FS9 SU Texan/Harvard are you trying to make the re-paint for?

The T-6 FAC would probably get you the closest results because you can turn off the smoke rockets and lower antenna to get something close to the plane in your photo, but the exhaust won't be right nor will the back canopy be correct. The Reno racer FAZGB is a Harvard MkIV, but it's had the back cockpit stripped down for racing and the back canopy isn't the standard type for a MkIV.

The AT6D and WASP piloted AT6D are the only two that use specular maps to get the shinny metal effect. All the others leave those files out.
 
Hi, X_eidos2!

Thank you for answering!

It's the Harvard IV "racer" model I took as a base, because the Luftwaffe Harvards in fact carried this odd "stove pipe" exhaust (see pic).

I tried to fuzz around with the paint kit (no alpha), but although the "black rivets" layer is over the base yellow textures layer, the rivets appear in a slightly uneven overairbrushed manner. Same goes for the panel lines. The stencils also do have some shades at their edges, and there's some nasty spots on upper layers that make the yellow airbrushing seem "spotty" too, especially in the rear bottom fuselage area (see screenies).

I don't bother too hard about that stripped back cockpit:
This aircraft is to be declared as a fictive restored one (I'd rather prefer some convenient avionics in the 2D front, such as a HSI, RMI and autopilot), so I'll also allow this lack of historical accuracy...

Maybe I should continue erasing these disturbing spots and try to get some "darker" rivets and panel lines too.

Cheers,
Markus.
 
Wild Bill Kelso said:
Hi there!

Although the "German Harvards" are already represented, I felt the need to do my own one for the Alphasim model.
Pics I collected from the real Luftwaffe Harvards show them as more-or-less clean and glossy, so there was no need for making her look 'worn & weathered'. No further markings or special decals added, as for the real "AA+080".

Just uploaded at AVSIM and SOH.

Cheers,
Markus.
Click to expand...
Looks great, Bill! Thanks and have added it to my hanger.
:ernae:
 
The paintkit was made by making the Photoshop files that were used in making the textures for the AT6D version available.

One thing you'd might like to change is the lines that show the edge for the baggage compartment on the port side. The Texans had an angle on the bottom front corner, while the Harvards were squared off. It was one of my many lessons about the differences between Texans and Harvards from Tien and Martin (T6Flyer)
 
X_eidos2 said:
One thing you'd might like to change is the lines that show the edge for the baggage compartment on the port side. The Texans had an angle on the bottom front corner, while the Harvards were squared off. It was one of my many lessons about the differences between Texans and Harvards from Tien and Martin (T6Flyer)
Click to expand...
Martin pointed that out to me also but it was too late.
Can't believe I didn't notice that. I'm usually very good
at spotting those little details.:whistle:
 
Another thing I just noticed.

The Harvard MkIV, FAZGB was based on a photo-real texture that Banana Bob made for us. He based it on a photo that he saw on the Airliner.net website. That particular plane had modified walk-on wing strips. To make the wings look right in his re-paint, Wild Bill will have to add some black strips to the wing texture. When building the model I tried as much as possible to give texture artists sharp edges in the actual model to work with. That's why the walking strips are actually modeled in 3d. Another area with modeled edges is the upper part of the forward fuselage.

When building the model I was keenly aware that experts from around the world would be taking a very close look to see how much was right and how much was off. I even modeled in the 1 degree 45' angle on the vertical stabilizer which made a lot of trouble when trying to get the textures and smoothing right. But for all my research and hours and hours of modeling, I still missed things. I did find out there's a right way and a wrong way to tell a developer that he's missed something. Tien MacDonald knows how to do it the right way. :gossip:
 
Hey guys!

Wow - it's nice to have some real experts around! No kidding. :ernae:
Still a newbie in this community, it's once more some sort of exiting for me to exchange opinions with the very people who create the stuff I spend so many hours of my sparse leisure time. Again no kidding!

@Frank:
I'm very glad you like my little canary - but I must admit that, using this gorgeous paint kit the "Six" came with, it was an easy job to do! Just fiddling with some opacity sliders...

@X_eidos:
Hmm - seems like I'm heading into a blind lane trying to "germanize" your Harvard. Think I'm gonna go out and look for some nice and yet undone USAAF/USAF birds to depict.

Concerning the baggage compartment:
It's this one?
Ya mean I should upload some "revised textures"?
 
Concerning the baggage compartment. Yes you've got the proper location and correction.

A proper rendition of the standard Harvard MkIV is scheduled for the second set of planes for FS9. That set will include a Harvard MkIV, a SNJ with tailhook, and a COIN version that France flew in Algeria.
 
Well - I'll cancel it till then.
Thanks for the hint! :wavey:

Ehm - speaking about differences between Texan and Harvard:
Is there anything I should also consider when packing a texture revision set?
Panel lining / riveting?
Tank filling caps?
What about the fire extinguisher access?
 
Here's a link to a website all about modeling the T-6. There's such a wealth of information here, I haven't been able to get through it all.

http://www.geocities.com/t6modeling/

I think all variants had the access door to the fire extinguisher, but not everyone labeled it the same way.

Tien and/or Martin sent me a copy of this image early in the development stages.
 
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