Aircraft type I.D. help

[jaldo]

Gents
Can you help ID the aircraft type in this photo?
Look at the frame top (arrow),which can be the main clue.Is it an SNJ type (AT-6,T-6,etc.) or an NA-16?

The aircraft in the photo is from the Honduras Air Force during a complete mechanical inspection.

[tom d. friedman]

looks like a yale, fixed gear canadian version of the u.s. t-6 to me, but......... then i've been known to be wrong!!!! nawwwww...

[Mark_Pilkington]

The aircraft is definately a NA product, but with steel tube rear fuselage and fixed undercarriage it pre-dates both the SNJ/T6 and the Yale.

It is most likely a BT9 or BT14, or alternatively the rare NA-16 that survives in a South American Air force collection, this may well be that aircraft being restored for that museum?

regards

Mark Pilkington

[Stoney]

There's a P-3 an an A-26 in the bacjround, but the rollover looks wrong for a T-6.

[Shay]

Actually it looks like the Invader in the back ground is a B-26K which would date the picture as to being taken after 1966 but most likely later than that.

If you hadn't said Honduras I would have guessed the picture was taken at Nakhom Phanom RTAFB.

Looks like a BT-13 to me (amateur)

The Royal Thai Air Force did operate T-6s but not Valiants to my knowledge.


Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[Tinker51]

I think another large clue is that the empennage is a tube structure. Perhaps others with more experience can chime in here but all the T-6/SNJ/Harvards I have encountered have a tubular cockpit section and the empennage is a stressed skin assembly. I know there were wood empennages but was there a version with a tubular empennage? It is looking very T-6/SNJ/Harvard to me.

[phil65]

The aircraft in the photo is from the Honduras Air Force during a complete mechanical inspection.

That is some inspection

Phil

[Mark_Pilkington]

The aircraft is definately a NA-16, from which the Australian Wirraway, UK Harvard I, and USAAC BT-9, BT-14 and BC-1 are all derived from.

These aircraft all shared the following two characteristics not found on the T-6/SNJ and later Harvard models.

Steel tube rear fuselage frame.
Straight trailing edge wing outer panels
Fabric covered fuselage side panels

many also carried rounded rudders and round wingtips

Early NA-16's were fixed undercarriage but later models such as that used as the prototype of the Australian Wirraway was fitted with retractable undercarriage.

Not sure if the images will display so I have put some links to a Wirraway and a bare steel tube Wirraway frame on display at the Ballarat Aviation Museum.




http://thumb0.webshots.net/t/52/152/3/21/43/470332143rBDkgb_th.jpg



http://thumb0.webshots.net/t/64/164/3/18/59/470331859IHKJLj_th.jpg

The Honduran air force became an independent part of the armed forces since its inception in 1931 and has sported the designation Fuerza Aérea Hondureña (FAH) since 1938 when its first combat aircraft were purchased, 3 North American NA-16's and 3 Ryan STM's.

A composite NA-16 was recreated in Sweden from a set of Yale wings, ccentre-section and fixed undercarriage, and an Australian Wirraway steel tube fuselage, the only original North American NA-16 survives in the "Museo del Aire" in Hondura's.

I suspect the original photo above shows that aircraft either being used an instructional airframe, or being restored for the museum?

The aircraft in the photo above definately seems to have fixed undercarriage, it is difficult to confirm from the photo below that the museum's NA-16 has fixed undercarriage? It also has solid fuselage side panels however this was adopted by late model NA-16s' but may also be a modification implemented by the Hondura Air Force?

Regards

Mark Pilkington



http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=0602735&WxsIERv=Abbeqhla%20NG-16%20Uneineq%20Zx2O&Wm=0&WdsYXMg=Ubaqhenf%20-%20Nve%20Zhfrhz%20Sbhaqngvba&QtODMg=Grthpvtnycn%20-%20Gbapbagva%20Vagreangvbany%20%28GTH%20%2F%20ZUGT%29&ERDLTkt=Ubaqhenf&ktODMp=Znl%2027%2C%202004&BP=0&WNEb25u=Cnoyb%20Onyfnzb&xsIERvdWdsY=21&MgTUQtODMgKE=Ynfg%20bs%20gur%20Abegu%20Nzrevpna%20AN-16%2C%20Guvf%20nvepensg%20orybatf%20gb%20%22Zhfrb%20qry%20Nver%22%2C%20tbbq%20jbex%20xrrcvat%20nivngvba%20fcvevg%20nyvir.&YXMgTUQtODMgKERD=2222&NEb25uZWxs=2004-06-19%2000%3A00%3A00&ODJ9dvCE=&O89Dcjdg=&static=yes&width=1280&height=972&sok=JURER%20%20%28cynpr%20%3D%20%27Grthpvtnycn%20-%20Gbapbagva%20Vagreangvbany%20%28GTH%20%2F%20ZUGT%29%27%29%20%20BEQRE%20OL%20cubgb_vq%20QRFP&photo_nr=6&prev_id=0790435&next_id=0597571

Last edited by Mark_Pilkington on Mon Jul 09, 2007 6:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's not a BT-13 and it's not a normal T-6. It looks like a Mk 1 Harvard (with the fabric covered rear fuselage) to me.

Dan

[Steve T]

Hi all--

Cool. (Where's MacHarvard! He'd go nuts over this one). Going to guess, and depending on the date I think I'm spot on...This, I'm pretty sure, is the less complete of two surviving NAA NA-42s, a close cousin of the BT-9 built for export. The other one is in the Honduran museum. I remember an article in one of the mags in the early 80s that mentioned both the complete one--then in outdoor storage--and "a second mostly complete basket case in the weeds nearby". I'm guessing this is that second example, being recovered for spares use for the restoration of the intact one...That or this could be the intact one, early in its restoration. But I think it's the "spare". When was the photo taken?

S.

[jaldo]

Thanks for your messages
The picture it's around 1980-1982 taken at Tegucigalpa.In the background are the L-188 FAH-555 and the B-26 FAH-550.
The NA-16 in the first picture may be the spare one as Steve suggests (FAH-20),and that Aircraft was in pretty good condition,as well as the FAH-21,which is now in restored condition at the museum.Rumors say that a group of swedish people arrived to Honduras looking for drawings,parts or whatever was available for their own project back in Sweden,and since that,nobody knows what happened to the other airframe.I'll post pictures of that airframe later.For now,here's a couple of pictures showing the fixed landing gear on the restored FAH-21

[jaldo]

This is the other NA-16 that was at Tegucigalpa in 1980