Harvard Cockpit to Sywell Aviation Museum, MARTEL missile to Newark Air Museum!

HARVARD FOR SYWELL, MARTEL TO NEWARK!

KF532 was part of an order for 657 Harvards completed by Noorduyn in Montreal, Canada as a Harvard 11B (AT-16) (S/no 14A-2232 under contract WSL 72-253) on 25th September 1944 and delivered in May 1945. Postwar she was one of 39 allocated to The Royal Navy and saw service with 758 799, 727 and 781 Sqns before being Struck Of Charge on 29.4.1954. The cockpit passed to Newark Air Museum which, with the acquisition of complete Harvard 42-12417 in 2010 subsquently became surplus. Thanks to the kind offices of NAM, the cockpit has been exchanged with Sywell Aviation Museum for a MARTEL missile to fill a gap in Newark’s ordnance collection. Delivered to Bruntingthorpe on the 2nd April the cockpit will be spruced up by well-known Harvard specialists Beech Restorations before going on display at Sywell. Many hundreds of Harvards passed through Brooklands Aviation on the Northamptonshire airfield in the post-war years and the SAM team had been searching for a cockpit for many years! This is a great example of one of the ‘big boys’ helping out a smaller museum! With sincere thanks to Dave Hibbert, NAM.

Pics – cockpit ‘as is’

Contemporary photo of Harvards at Brooklands Aviation c.1946-47