Warbird Information Exchange

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=1 ... id=1005603

Just wondering,

1. How accurate are these replicas?
2. What paint schemes are out there that would be authentic?
3. What other aircraft closely resembles the NA-50 replica that you could modify it into?

Chris

Well... here is a pic of a real NA-50. As you can see the ones replicated from a T6 airframe are really not much like an NA-50 other than that they are "fastbacked." Thats my take.

_________________
Blue Skies,
Dan
http://www.flytoanothertime.com

The NA-50 had 1820s' not 1340s' although back then the 1820s' only put out around 950hp.

I don;t know about the NA-50, but the P-64 has very little in common with a T-6. The outer wings are off a Yale, the wing center section is SNJ-2 as is the tail cone. The truss structure is prob SNJ-2 as well.

I'm sorry, but I have been researching these aircraft for a long, long time and I must disagree with that description of the P-64. The wing outer panels were a modified BC-1A/AT-6, the tail section is again, typical BC-1A/AT-6 and the center section and undercarriage are completely unique to this aircraft. The tubular structure, as you can see from one of many photos I took at the EAA Museum, is unique as well.

I have attached photographs from a collection taken by Doug Olson, showing the current EAA example just after she returned from her Mexican period. Another photo, graciously provided by the EAA Museum for my research, shows the unusual wingform of the P-64.

Doug

Here's a sideview of the NA-50, from a magazine article long since forgotten. The 'Torito', as it was called by the Peruvian Air Force, was basically a cut down version of the NA-44 light bomber demonstrator - fuselage, wings, everything. You can see from the photo that the rollover pylon is also slightly different from the later NA-68 (P-64).

Doug

Doug,
I helped build the P-64 replica that is now in Thialand, and I have looked at the P-64 in Oshkosh, and while the shape of the wing is the same as a T-6, if you look closely at the ailerons, they are mounted entirely differently than a T-6. The outer wing panels have a entirly different airfoil than the T-6 as well.
The last time Carl Schmieder was at Oshkosh, he and I spent many hours with the P-64, as he was interested in building another replica, except the new one was going to be as accurate as possiable. It was then that we noticed the outer wing was different. We had worked on every model of T-6 / SNJ / Havard, and could ID the smallest part of any of them, but I could not tell what the wing was until I was looking at a Yale later that day and noticed the ailerons. By the time Oshkosh was over, We had located the major parts we needed, but it was never to be built, as Carl died in his T-6 6 months later.

Hi Matt: I hate know-it-alls or people who try to make it sound like they know it all, so I am going to go back and go through the motions of my previous research, obviously hoping to make myself look like the fair haired boy, but if it turns out you're right, I can live with that!

I am a historian, not a pilot (red/green colourblind) or mechanic, so I may get some of the working bits (like ailerons) wrong, but I will deal with that as best I can.

First of all, let's deal with the outer wing panels. I can't see how they can be NA-64/Yale panels, because they are the wrong shape - see the photo of 3374 in RCAF service and compare that with the photo of the NA-68/P-64 that I posted previously.

The following are comments from a gentleman in California who operates a sheet metal fabricating operation, and who is an enthusiastic P-64 fan.... "The wing of the P-64 looks like a total independent design to any NA model that I know of. Looks are deceiving though, what it appears that what they did was design new spars and angle them towards the leading edge, giving the wing its tapered appearance. But they used ribs common to the (I am taking a shot here) BC-1A (T-6 style) and placed them closer together in order to shorten the wing span and maintain a thin wing tip section."

Proof? No, but comments based on years of aviation experience and study of the specific subject at hand.

And finally, for the moment at least, my records show that the NA-68/P-64 has identical airfoils, inner and outer, to the AT-6/Harvard, NACA 2215 and 4412. However, I am going over my prints from factory microfilm to check on everything we're discussing. More when my eyes clear......

Have your eyes cleared yet?

I would love to hear more about this mysterious little fighter. Any chance that factory records (blue-prints, etc.) exist somewhere? Probably in some Boeing IDS records room that nobody knows about.