I have discovered that, for an aircraft I have always admired, I know very little about Harvards. There are, however, many links to the trainer in other Miscellavia threads: preserved examples in Spain, service with the South African Air Force, insurgent operations in Biafra and Gary Numan’s Harvard flights from Earls Colne airstrip. So let’s look at a brief history of the type after an appreciation of WW2 veteran G-BDAM.
G-BDAM was built in 1943 as a Harvard IIb at Noorduyn’s Cartierville factory in northern Montreal. It was originally constructed as an AT-16 to become 42-12479 with the USAAF but delivery never took place and, on 26/4/43, joined the RCAF as FE992. It was used for training would-be Spitfire and Mustang pilots at Moncton and Weyburn before going into storage in November 1944. The RCAF demobilised the Harvard in November 1946 and the aircraft was one of a batch of 145 IIb s sold to the Swedish Air Force at bargain prices in February 1947. With the air force serial 16047 and designated an SK-16A, the Harvard was re-assembled following the sea crossing to Scandinavia and assigned to the F5 Air Force Flying Academy at Ljungbyhed in August 1947. Originally in a yellow training colour scheme, bomb and rocket armaments were added in 1948. This didn’t stop the Harvard from being placed in storage during September 1949. The Swedish Air Force received a batch of 112 T-6Gs during 1950 and 16047 was dug out of storage and assigned to reconnaissance unit F11 as 11-047 at Nykoping in green and grey camouflage colours during December 1956. The following October, the Harvard shuffled to F12 (possibly for meteorology duties) before returning to F11 in April 1958. A more exotic posting followed in July 1958 when the Harvard was sprayed white overall and assigned to the United Nations Observation Unit in Lebanon for three months with the code ’04’. By November 1958, the Harvard was back with F11 before joining F21 in November 1958 with the identity 21-20. Based at Lulea in Northern Sweden, the Harvard was probably used for reconnaissance. It reverted to the green/ grey colours and later appeared with the code 21-75.
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