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+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The history of the PZL P.11 started in 1929, when a talented designer, Zygmunt Puławski, designed an all-metal, metal-covered monoplane fighter, the P.1. While most of the world's forces were still using biplanes, the new P.1 used a high-mounted gull wing to give the pilot an excellent view. A second prototype, the P.6, was completed the next year. The design generated intense interest around the world, the layout becoming known as the "Polish wing" or "Puławski wing". A further improvement, the PZL P.7, was built for the Polish Air Force in a series of 150.
After designing the P.7, Puławski started further variants with larger engines, leading eventually to the P.11. The first P.11/I prototype flew in August 1931, after Puławski's death in an air crash. It was followed by two slightly modified prototypes, the P.11/II and the P.11/III. The first variant ordered by the Polish Air Force was the P.11a, considered an interim model and built in a series of 30. Otherwise similar to the P.7, it mounted the 575 hp (429 kW) Bristol Mercury IV S2 radial engine produced in Poland under licence.
The final variant for the Polish air force, the P.11c had a new, refined fuselage, with the engine lowered in the nose to give the pilot a better view. The central part of the wings was also modified. Production of the P.11c started in 1934 and 175 were produced. The first series of approximately 50 P.11c aircraft were fitted with Mercury V S2 of 600 hp (447 kW), the rest with Mercury VI S2 of 630 hp (470 kW).
Apart from Poland, Romania showed interest in the new design. Even before the P.11a entered service with the Polish air force, 50 aircraft designated P.11b were ordered for the Romanian Air Force, while an agreement for license production was agreed. Deliveries of Polish-built P.11bs to Romania commenced in October 1933. They were fitted with Gnome-Rhone 9Krsd Mistral 595 hp (444 kW) engines, otherwise they were similar to the P.11a.
After the P.11c had been developed, the Romanians decided to switch the license production to the new model. As a result, from 1936 IAR built 70 aircraft as the IAR P.11f, powered by the Romanian-built IAR-K-9 engine, which was a heavily modified version of the Gnome-Rhone 9K giving 640 hp (480 kW).
The Romanians then produced another Polish fighter, the PZL P.24, developed from the P.11 exclusively for export. Greece, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Hungary and Republican Spain were interested in buying the P.11, but finally Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey bought the P.24 instead.
Hungary bought thirty aircraft from Bulgarian license production, designated PZL.11m. These machines were powered by a slightly weaker Bristol Jupiter VIIF 9-cylinder radial engine, rated at 520 hp (388 kW), which had also powered the PZL.7. This lack of power was compensated by a new three blade metal propeller with variable pitch – a very innovative solution at the time, and it improved rate of climb and acceleration considerably, as well as endurance. Furthermore, the PZL.11m received armament of Italian origin: four 7.7mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns.
When the P.11 entered service in 1934, as a counterpart to the British Gloster Gauntlet and German Heinkel He 51, it was arguably the most advanced fighter in the world. However, due to the quick progress in aircraft technology, the P.11 was obsolete by 1939, overtaken by cantilever designs with retractable landing gear such as the British Supermarine Spitfire and German Messerschmitt Bf 109.
Hungary’s PZL.11hs even saw short, hot action during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, when the country’s northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, were taken over by Germany in March 1939 under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. The incorporation of the Sudetenland into Germany left the rest of Czechoslovakia weak and it became powerless to resist subsequent occupation.
On 16 March 1939, the German Wehrmacht moved into the remainder of Czechoslovakia and, from Prague Castle, Bohemia and Moravia were declared as German protectorates. The occupation ended with the surrender of Germany following World War II.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 7.55 m (24 ft 9 in)
Wingspan: 10.719 m (35 ft 2 in)
Height: 2.85 m (9 ft 4 in)
Wing area: 17.9 m2 (193 sq ft)
Empty weight: 1,147 kg (2,529 lb)
Gross weight: 1,630 kg (3,594 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 1,800 kg (3,968 lb)
Powerplant:
1 × Bristol Jupiter VIIF 9-cylinder radial engine, 520 hp (388 kW)
Performance:
Maximum speed: 390 km/h (242 mph; 211 kn) at 5,000 m (16,404 ft),
300 km/h (186 mph) at sea level
Stall speed: 98 km/h (61 mph; 53 kn)
Range: 800 km (435 mi; 378 nmi)
Service ceiling: 8,000 m (26,247 ft) absolute ceiling 11,000 m (36,089 ft)
Time to altitude: 5,000 m (16,404 ft) in 5.2 minutes
7,000 m (22,966 ft) in 11.5 minutes
Wing loading: 91.1 kg/m2 (18.7 lb/sq ft)
Power/mass: 0.279 kW/kg (0.166 hp/lb)
Armament:
4× 7.7 mm (.303 in) Breda-SAFAT machine guns with 500rpg
The kit and its assembly:
This quickie whif was a rather short notice build – I had a surplus Mastercraft PZL.11c in my stash, originally part of a cheap lot, and for a long time no idea what to do with it …until I read an article about the Hungarian/Czech clash right before the outbreak of WWII, with very detailed army and air force activities, including profiles and pics of some aircraft of that era.
That spawned the idea to build a Hungarian PZL.11 from the kit, more or less based on a Fiat CR.32bis (aircraft V.107) in Hungarian service with a very attractive paint scheme as “design benchmark”.
The PZL.11 was built almost OOB – the kit is simple, but has very nice surface details. Fit is mediocre, though, especially the stabilizers puzzled me. The only thing I changed is the propeller; instead of a two blade wood piece I installed a three-bladed alternative (from a Matchbox Provost, coupled with a spinner from an Italeri La-5) for a modernized/different look.
Painting and markings:
This is an individual interpretation of a real aircraft’s paint scheme - I found VERY contradictive sources about the potential paint scheme. MKHL aircraft began to be camouflaged in a three-tone scheme from October of 1938. The upper surfaces received irregular, undulating patches of Green/Grey/Brown, while the undersides were painted light Grey-Blue.
As no specific official camouflage patterns were issued, a wide variety of styles and colors resulted, depending as much on the means available in every case, as on the particular tastes of the maintenance personnel detached to do the job. I also guess that many foreign aircraft like the Italian CR.32s or He 70 reconnaissance bombers simply kept their home countries schemes/colors and were successively re-painted with whatever was at hand.
I based my scheme on a CR.32’s profile in a magazine, and I assume that the print colors are brighter than the real Hungarian aircraft – on other profiles of the same machine it looks as if it was painted in RLM 61, 62, 63 and 65! Anyway, I liked the more saturated colors, so I went for this more decorative option.
The colors I used are Olive Green (RAL 6003 from Modelmaster), Dark Green (FS 34079; Humbrol 116) and Brown (Modelmaster), with Pastel Blue (Humbrol 44) undersides. The latter tone is also found as irregular patches on the upper surfaces, it really looks wild and colorful – esp. in combination with the Hungarian national markings.
Personally, I think that the typical Hungarian paint scheme of the time was just a crude addition of paint on top of the original bare metal/aluminum finish of many aircraft, but pics are difficult to interpret.
A quickie, finished in the course of three evenings and some finishing touches before the fourth day's breakfast - the colors are certainly totally wrong, but it's a whif aircraft after all. ;)
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
Although the performance increases of jet-powered aircraft introduced towards the end of World War II over their piston-powered ancestors were breathtaking, there were those at the time who believed that much more was possible. As far back as 1943, the British Ministry of Aircraft Production had issued a specification designated "E.24/43" for a supersonic experimental jet aircraft that would be able to achieve 1,600 KPH (1,000 MPH).
Beginning in 1946, a design team at English Electric (EE) under W.E.W. "Teddy" Petter began design studies for a supersonic fighter, leading to award of a Ministry of Supply (MoS) contract in 1947 under specification "ER.103" for a design study on an experimental aircraft that could achieve Mach 1.2.
The MoS liked the EE concepts, and in early 1949 awarded the company a contract under specification "F.23/49" for two flying prototypes and one ground-test prototype of the "P.1".
The P.1 was defined as a supersonic research aircraft, though the design had provisions for armament and a radar gunsight. It incorporate advanced and unusual design features, such as twin turbojet engines mounted one above the other to reduce aircraft frontal area; and strongly swept wings, with the wingtip edges at a right angle to the fuselage, giving a wing configuration like that of a delta wing with the rear inner corners cut out. The aircraft featured an elliptical intake in the nose.
The P.1's performance was so outstanding that the decision was quickly made to proceed on an operational version that would be capable of Mach 2. In fact, the second P.1 prototype featured items such as a bulged belly tank and fit of twin Aden Mark 4 30 millimeter revolver-type cannon, bringing it closer to operational specification.
Orders were placed for three "P.1B" prototypes for a production interceptor and the original P.1 was retroactively designated "P.1A". The P.1B featured twin Rolls-Royce Avon afterburning engines and a larger tailfin. An airborne intercept (AI) radar was carried in the air intake shock cone, which was changed from elliptical to circular. The cockpit was raised for a better field of view and the P.1B was armed with two Aden cannon in the upper nose, plus a pack under the cockpit that could either support two De Havilland Blue Jay (later Firestreak) heat-seeking AAMs or 44 Microcell 5 centimeter (2 inch) unguided rockets.
The initial P.1B prototype performed its first flight on 4 April 1957 and the type entered RAF service as EE Lightning F.1. RAF Number 74 Squadron at Coltishall was the first full service unit, with the pilots acquiring familiarization with the type during late 1960 and the squadron declared operational in 1961.
However, while the Lightning was developed further into more and more advanced versions. Its concept was also the basis for another research aircraft that would also be developed into a high performance interceptor: the P.6/1, which later became the “Levin” fighter.
P.6 encompassed a total of four different layouts for a Mach 2+ research aircraft, tendering to ER.134T from 1952. P.6/1 was the most conservative design and it relied heavily on existing (and already proven) P.1 Lightning components, primarily the aerodynamic surfaces. The most obvious difference was a new fuselage of circular diameter, housing a single Rolls Royce RB.106 engine.
The RB.106 was a two-shaft design with two axial flow compressors each driven by its own single stage turbine and reheat. It was of similar size to the Rolls-Royce Avon, but it produced about twice the thrust at 21,750 lbf (96.7 kN) in the initial version. The two-shaft layout was relatively advanced for the era; the single-shaft de Havilland Gyron matched it in power terms, while the two-spool Bristol Olympus was much less powerful at the then-current state of development. Apart from being expected to power other British aircraft such as those competing for Operational Requirement F.155, it was also selected to be the powerplant for the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow and led to the Orenda Iroquois engine, which even reach 30.000 lbf (130 kN).
The P.6/1 was eventually chosen by the MoS for further development because it was regarded as the least risky and costly alternative. Beyond its test bed role for the RB.106 the P.6/1 was also seen as a potential basis for a supersonic strategic air-to-ground missile (similar to the massive Soviet AS-3 ‘Kangaroo’ cruise missile) and the starting point for an operational interceptor that would be less complex than the Lightning, but with a comparable if not improved performance but a better range.
In 1955 English Electric received a go ahead for two P.6/1 research aircraft prototypes. Despite a superficial similarity to the Lightning, the P.6/1’s internal structure was very different. The air duct, for instance, was bifurcated and led around on both sides of the cockpit tub and the front wheel well instead of below it. Further down, the duct ran below the wing main spar and directly fed the RB.106.
The rear fuselage was area-ruled, the main landing gear retracted, just like the Lightning’s, outwards into the wings, while the front wheel retracted backwards into a well that was placed further aft than on the Lightning. The upper fuselage behind the main wings spar carried fuel tanks, more fuel was carried in wing tanks.
Both research machines were ready in 1958 and immediately started with aerodynamic and material tests for the MoS, reaching top speeds of Mach 2.5 and altitudes of 60.000 ft. and more.
In parallel, work on the fighter version, now called “Levin”, had started. The airframe was basically the same as the P.6/1’s. Biggest visible changes were a wider air intake with a bigger central shock cone (primarily for a radar dish), a shorter afterburner section and an enlarged fin with area increased by 15% that had become necessary in order to compensate instability through the new nose layout and the potential carriage of external ordnance, esp. under the fuselage. This bigger fin was taken over to the Lightning F.3 that also initially suffered from longitudal instability due to the new Red Top missiles.
The Levin carried armament and avionics similar to the Lightning, including the Ferranti-developed AI.23 monopulse radar. The aircraft was to be fully integrated into a new automatic intercept system developed by Ferranti, Elliot, and BAC. It would have turned the fighters into something like a "manned missile" and greatly simplified intercepts.
Anyway, the Levin’s weapon arrangement was slightly different from the Lightning: the Levin’s armament comprised theoretically a mix of up to four 30mm Aden cannons and/or up to four of the new Red Top AAMs, or alternatively the older Firestreak. The guns were mounted in the upper nose flanks (similar to the early Lightning arrangement, but set further back), right under the cockpit hatch, while a pair of AAMs was carried on wing tip launch rails. Two more AAMs could be carried on pylons under the lower front fuselage, similar to the Lightning’s standard configuration, even though there was no interchangeable module. Since this four-missile arrangement would not allow any cannon to be carried anymore and caused excessive drag, the typical payload was limited to two Aden cannons and the single pair of wing-tip missiles.
Despite its proven Lightning ancestry, the development of the Levin went through various troubles. While the RB.106 worked fine in the research P.6/1, it took until 1962 that a fully reliable variant for the interceptor could be cleared for service. Meanwhile the Lightning had already evolved into the F.3 variant and political discussions circled around the end of manned military aircraft. To make matters even worse, the RAF refused to buy the completely automatic intercept system, despite the fact that it had been fully engineered at a cost of 1.4 million pounds and trialed in one of the P.1Bs.
Eventually, the Levin F.1 finally entered service in 1964, together with the Lightning F.3. While the Lightning was rather seen as a point defense interceptor, due to the type’s limited range: If a Lightning F.3 missed its target on its first pass, it almost never had enough fuel to make a second attempt without topping off from a tanker, which would give an intruder plenty of time to get to its target and then depart… The Lightning’s flight endurance was less than 2 hours (in the F.2A, other variants even less), and it was hoped that the Levin had more potential through a longer range. Anyway, in service, the Levin’s range in clean configuration was only about 8% better than the Lightning’s. The Levin F.1’s flight endurance was about 2 ½ hours – an improvement, but not as substantial as expected.
In order to improve the range on both fighters, English Electric developed a new, stiffened wing for the carriage of a pair of jettisonable overwing ferry tanks with a capacity of 1,182 liters (312 US gallons / 260 Imperial gallons, so-called “Overburgers”). The new wing also featured a kinked leading edge, providing better low-speed handling. From mid 1965 onwards, all Levins were directly produced in this F.2 standard, and during regular overhauls the simpler F.1 machines were successively updated. The Lightning introduced the kinked wing with the F.3A variant and it was later introduced with the F.2A and F.6A variants.
Levin production comprised 21 original F.1 airframes, plus 34 F.2 fighters, and production was stopped in 1967. A trainer version was not produced, the Lightning trainers were deemed sufficient for conversion since the Levin and the Lightning shared similar handling characteristics.
The Levin served only with RAF 29 and 65 Squadron, the latter re-instated in 1970 as a dedicated fighter squadron. When in November 1984 the Tornado squadrons began to form, the Levin was gradually phased out and replaced until April 1987 by the Tornado F.3.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length w/o pitot: 51 ft 5 in (15,70 m), 55 ft 8 in (16.99 m) overall
Wingspan incl. wingtip launch rails: 34 ft 9 in (10.54 m)
Height: 19 ft 7 in (5.97 m)
Wing area: 474.5 ft² (44.08 m²)
Empty weight: 8937 kg (lb)
Loaded weight: 13,570 kg (29,915)
Max. takeoff weight: 15,210 kg (33,530 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Rolls-Royce RB.106-10S afterburning turbojet,
rated at 20,000 lbf (89 kN) dry and 26,000 lbf (116 kN) with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed:
- 1,150 km/h (620 kn, 715 mph, Mach 0.94) at sea level
- 2,230 km/h (1.202 kn, 1,386 mph, Mach 2.1;), clean with 2× Red Top AAMs at high altitude
- Mach 2.4 absolute top speed in clean configuration at 50.000 ft.
Range: 1,650 km (890 nmi, 1,025 mi) on internal fuel
Combat radius: 500 km (312 mi); clean, with a pair of wing tip Red Top AAMs
Ferry range: 1,270 mi (1.100 NM/ 2.040 km) with overwing tanks
Service ceiling: 16,760 m (55,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 136.7 m/s (27,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 76 lb/ft² (370 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 0.78
Takeoff roll: 950 m (3,120 ft)
Landing roll: 700 m (2,300 ft)
Armament:
2× 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannons with 120 RPG in the upper front fuselage
2× wing tip hardpoints for mounting air-to-air missiles (2 Red Top of Firestreak AAMs)
2× overwing pylon stations for 260 gal ferry tanks
Optional, but rarely used: 2× hardpoints under the front fuselage for mounting air-to-air missiles
(2 Red Top of Firestreak AAMs)
The kit and its assembly:
Another contribution to the Cold War GB at whatifmodelers.com, and the realization of a project I had on the agenda for long. The EE P.6/1 was a real project for a Mach 2+ research aircraft, as described above, but it never went off the drawing board. Its engine, the RB.106, also never saw the light of day, even though its later career as the Canadian Orenda Iroquois for the stillborn CF-105.
Building this aircraft as a model appears simple, because it’s a classic Lightning (actually a F.1 with the un-kinked wing and the small fin), just with a single engine and a rather tubular fuselage. But creating this is not easy at all…
I did not want to replicate the original P.6/1, but rather a service aircraft based on the research aircraft. Therefore I used parts from a Lightning F.6 (a vintage NOVO/Frog kit). For the fuselage I settled for a Su-17, from a MasterCraft kit. The kit’s selling point was its small price tag and the fuselage construction: the VG mechanism is hidden under a separate spine piece, and I wanted to transplant the Lightning’s spine and cockpit frame, so I thought that this would make things easier.
Nope.
Putting the parts from the VERY different kits/aircraft together was a major surgery feat, with several multiple PSR sessions on the fuselage, the air intake section (opened and fitted with both an internal splitter and a bulkhead to the cockpit section), the wings, the stabilizers, the fin… This model deserves the title “kitbash” like no other, because no major sections had ever been intended to be glued together, and in the intended position!
The landing gear was more or less taken OOB, but the main struts had to be elongated by 2mm – somehow the model turned out to be a low-riding tail sitter! The cockpit interior was improvised, too, consisting of a Su-17 cockpit tub, a scratched dashboard and a Martin Baker ejection seat from an Italeri Bae Hawk trainer.
Since most of the fuselage surface consists of various materials (styrene and two kinds of putty), I did not dare to engrave panel lines – after all the PSR work almost any surface detail was gone. I rather went for a graphic solution (see below). Some antennae and air scoops were added, though.
The overwing tanks come OOB from the NOVO kit, as well as the Red Top missiles, which ended up on improvised wing tip launch rails, based on design sketches for Lightning derivatives with this layout.
Colors and markings:
There are several “classic” RAF options, but I settled for a low-viz Eighties livery taken from BAC Lightnings. There’s a surprising variety of styles, and my version is a mix of several real world aircraft.
I settled for Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces (Modelmaster Authentic) with a high waterline, a fuselage completely in Medium Sea Grey (Humbrol 165 – had to be applied twice because the first tin I used was obviously old and the paint ended up in a tone not unlike PRU Blue!) and Light aircraft Grey underwing surfaces (Humbrol 166). The leading edges under the wings are Dark Sea Grey, too.
The cockpit interior was painted in dark grey (Humbrol 32 with some dry-brushing), while the landing gear is Aluminum (Humbrol 56).
Once the basic painting was done I had to deal with the missing panel lines on the fuselage and those raised lines that were sanded away during the building process. I decided to simulate these with a soft pencil, after the whole kit was buffed with a soft cotton cloth and some grinded graphite. This way, the remaining raised panel lines were emphasized, and from these the rest was drawn up. A ruler and masking tape were used as guidance for straight lines, and this worked better than expected, with good results.
As a next step, the newly created panels were highlighted with dry-brushed lighter tones of the basic paints (FS 36492 and WWII Italian Blue Grey from Modelmaster, and Humbrol 126), more for a dramatic than a weathered effect. The gun ports and the exhaust section were painted with Modelmaster Metallizer (Titanium and Magnesium).
The decals come from several Xtradecal aftermarket sheets, including a dedicated Lightning stencils sheet, another Lightning sheet with various squadron markings and a sheet for RAF Tornado ADVs.
The code number “XS970” was earmarked to a TSR.2, AFAIK, but since it was never used on a service aircraft it would be a good option for the Levin.
The kit received a coat of matt acrylic varnish from the rattle can – jn this case the finish was intended to bear a slight shine.
This was a project with LOTS of effort, but you hardly recognize it – it’s a single engine Lightning, so what? But welding the Lightning and Su-17 parts together for something that comes close to the P.6/1 necessitated LOTS of body work and improvisation, carving it from wood would probably have been the next complicated option. Except for the surprisingly long tail I am very happy with the result, despite the model’s shaggy origins, and the low-viz livery suits the sleek aircraft IMHO very well.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (NATO reporting name: "Farmer") was a Soviet second-generation, single-seat, twin jet-engine fighter aircraft. It was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. A comparable U.S. "Century Series" fighter was the North American F-100 Super Sabre, although the MiG-19 would primarily oppose the more modern McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Republic F-105 Thunderchief over North Vietnam. Furthermore, the North American YF-100 Super Sabre prototype appeared approximately one year after the MiG-19, making the MiG-19 the first operational supersonic jet in the world.
On 20 April 1951, OKB-155 was given the order to develop the MiG-17 into a new fighter called "I-340", also known as "SM-1". It was to be powered by two Mikulin AM-5 non-afterburning jet engines, a scaled-down version of the Mikulin AM-3, with 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) of thrust. The I-340 was supposed to attain 1,160 km/h (725 mph, Mach 0.97) at 2,000 m (6,562 ft), 1,080 km/h (675 mph, Mach 1.0) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft), climb to 10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 2.9 minutes, and have a service ceiling of no less than 17,500 m (57,415 ft).
After several prototypes with many detail improvements, the ministers of the Soviet Union issued the order #286-133 to start serial production on February 17, 1954, at the factories in Gorkiy and Novosibirsk. Factory trials were completed on September 12 the same year, and government trials started on September 30.
Initial enthusiasm for the aircraft was dampened by several problems. The most alarming of these was the danger of a midair explosion due to overheating of the fuselage fuel tanks located between the engines. Deployment of airbrakes at high speeds caused a high-g pitch-up. Elevators lacked authority at supersonic speeds. The high landing speed of 230 km/h (145 mph), compared to 160 km/h (100 mph) for the MiG-15, combined with the lack of a two-seat trainer version, slowed pilot transition to the type. Handling problems were addressed with the second prototype, "SM-9/2", which added a third ventral airbrake and introduced all-moving tailplanes with a damper to prevent pilot-induced oscillations at subsonic speeds. It flew on 16 September 1954, and entered production as the MiG-19S.
Approximately 5,500 MiG-19's were produced, first in the USSR and in Czechoslovakia as the Avia S-105, but mainly in the People's Republic of China as the Shenyang J-6. The aircraft saw service with a number of other national air forces, including those of Cuba, North Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan, and North Korea. The aircraft saw combat during the Vietnam War, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1971 Bangladesh War.
However, jet fighter development made huge leaps in the 1960s, and OKB MiG was constantly trying to improve the MiG-19's performance, esp. against fast and high-flying enemies, primarily bombers but also spy planes like the U-2.
As the MiG-19S was brought into service with the Soviet air forces in mid-1956, the OKB MiG was continuing the refinement of the SM-1/I-340 fighter. One of these evolutionary paths was the SM-12 (literally, “SM-1, second generation”) family of prototypes, the ultimate extrapolation of the basic MiG-19 design, which eventually led to the MiG-19bis interceptor that filled the gap between the MiG-19S and the following, highly successful MiG-21.
The SM-12 first saw life as an exercise in drag reduction by means of new air intake configurations, since the MiG-19’s original intake with rounded lips became inefficient at supersonic speed (its Western rival, the North American F-100, featured a sharp-lipped nose air intake from the start). The first of three prototypes, the SM-12/1, was essentially a MiG-19S with an extended and straight-tapered nose with sharp-lipped orifice and a pointed, two-position shock cone on the intake splitter. The simple arrangement proved to be successful and was further refined.
The next evolutionary step, the SM-12/3, differed from its predecessors primarily in two new R3-26 turbojets developed from the earlier power plant by V. N. Sorokin. These each offered an afterburning thrust of 3,600kg, enabling the SM-12/3 to attain speeds ranging between 1,430km/h at sea level, or Mach=1.16, and 1,930km/h at 12,000m, or Mach=1.8, and an altitude of between 17,500 and 18,000m during its test program. This outstanding performance prompted further development with a view to production as a point defense interceptor.
Similarly powered by R3-26 engines, and embodying major nose redesign with a larger orifice permitting introduction of a substantial two-position conical centerbody for a TsD-30 radar, a further prototype was completed as the SM-12PM. Discarding the wing root NR-30 cannon of preceding prototypes, the SM-12PM was armed with only two K-5M (RS-2U) beam-riding missiles and entered flight test in 1957. This configuration would become the basis for the MiG-19bis interceptor that eventually was ordered into limited production (see below).
However, the SM-12 development line did not stop at this point. At the end of 1958, yet another prototype, the SM-12PMU, joined the experimental fighter family. This had R3M-26 turbojets uprated to 3.800kg with afterburning, but these were further augmented by a U-19D accelerator, which took the form of a permanent ventral pack containing an RU-013 rocket motor and its propellant tanks. Developed by D. D. Sevruk, the RU-013 delivered 3,000kg of additional thrust, and with the aid of this rocket motor, the SM-12PMU attained an altitude of 24,000m and a speed of Mach=1.69. But this effort was to no avail: the decision had been taken meanwhile to manufacture the Ye-7 in series as the MiG-21, and further development of the SM-12 series was therefore discontinued.
Nevertheless, since full operational status of the new MiG-21 was expected to remain pending for some time, production of a modified SM-12PM was ordered as a gap filler. Not only would this fighter bridge the performance gap to the Mach 2-capable MiG-21, it also had the benefit of being based on proven technologies and would not require a new basic pilot training.
The new aircraft received the official designation MiG-19bis. Compared with the SM-12PM prototype, the MiG-19bis differed in some details and improvements. The SM-12PM’s most significant shortfall was its short range – at full power, it had only a range of 750 km! This could be mended through an additional fuel tank in an enlarged dorsal fairing behind the cockpit. With this internal extra fuel, range could be extended by a further 200 - 250km range, but drop tanks had typically to be carried, too, in order to extend the fighter’ combat radius with two AAMs to 500 km. Specifically for the MiG-19bis, new, supersonic drop tanks (PTB-490) were designed, and these were later adapted for the MiG-21, too.
The air intake shock cone was re-contoured and the shifting mechanism improved: Instead of a simple, conical shape, the shock cone now had a more complex curvature with two steps and the intake orifice area was widened to allow a higher airflow rate. The air intake’s efficiency was further optimized through gradual positions of the shock cone.
As a positive side effect, the revised shock cone offered space for an enlarged radar dish, what improved detection range and resolution. The TsD-30 radar for the fighter’s missile-only armament was retained, even though the K-5’s effective range of only 2–6 km (1¼ – 3¾ mi) made it only suitable against slow and large targets like bombers. All guns were deleted in order to save weight or make room for the electronic equipment. The tail section was also changed because the R3M-26 engines and their afterburners were considerably longer than the MiG-19's original RM-5 engines. The exhausts now markedly protruded from the tail section, and the original, characteristic pen nib fairing between the two engines had been modified accordingly.
Production started in 1960, but only a total of roundabout 180 MiG-19bis, which received the NATO code "Farmer F", were built and the Soviet Union remained the only operator of the type. The first aircraft entered Soviet Anti-Air Defense in early 1961, and the machines were concentrated in PVO interceptor units around major sites like Moscow, Sewastopol at the Black Sea and Vladivostok in the Far East.
With the advent of the MiG-21, though, their career did not last long. Even though many machines were updated to carry the K-13 (the IR-guided AA-2 "Atoll") as well as the improved K-55 AAMs, with no change of the type’s designation, most MiG-19bis were already phased out towards the late 1960s and quickly replaced by 2nd generation MiG-21s as well as heavier and more capable Suchoj interceptors like the Su-9, -11 and -15. By 1972, all MiG-19bis had been retired.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 13.54 m (44 ft 4 in), fuselage only with shock cone in forward position
15.48 m (50 8 ½ in) including pitot
Wingspan: 9 m (29 ft 6 in)
Height: 3.8885 m (12 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 25 m² (269 ft²)
Empty weight: 5,210 kg (11,475 lb)
Loaded weight: 7,890 kg (17,380 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 9,050 kg (19,935 lb)
Fuel capacity: 2,450 l (556 imp gal; 647 US gal) internal;
plus 760 l (170 imp gal; 200 US gal) with 2 drop tanks
Powerplant:
2× Sorokin R3M-26 turbojets, rated at 37.2 kN (8,370 lbf) thrust each with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,380km/h at sea level (Mach=1.16)
1,850km/h at 12,000m (Mach=1.8)
Range: 1,250 km (775 mi; 750 nmi) at 14,000 m (45,000 ft) with 2 × 490 l drop tanks
Combat range: 500 km (312 mi; 270 nmi)
Ferry range: 2,000 km (1,242 mi; 690 nmi)
Service ceiling: 19,750 m (64,690 ft)
Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 353.3 kg/m² (72.4 lb/ft²)
Thrust/weight: 0.86
Armament:
No internal guns.
4× underwing pylons; typically, a pair of PTB-490 drop tanks were carried on the outer pylon pair,
plus a pair of air-to air missiles on the inner pair: initially two radar-guided Kaliningrad K-5M (RS-2US)
AAMs, later two radar-guided K-55 or IR-guided Vympel K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll') AAMs
The kit and its assembly:
Another submission for the 2018 Cold War Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and again the opportunity to build a whiffy model from the project list. But it’s as fictional as one might think, since the SM-12 line of experimental “hybrid” fighters between the MiG-19 and the MiG-21 was real. But none of these aircraft ever made it into serial production, and in real life the MiG-21 showed so much potential that the attempts to improve the MiG-19 were stopped and no operational fighter entered production or service.
However, the SM-12, with its elongated nose and the central shock cone, makes a nice model subject, and I imagined what a service aircraft might have looked like? It would IMHO have been close, if not identical, to the SM-12PM, since this was the most refined pure jet fighter in the development family.
The basis for the build was a (dead cheap) Mastercraft MiG-19, which is a re-edition of the venerable Kovozávody Prostějov (KP) kit – as a tribute to modern tastes, it comes with (crudely) engraved panel, but it has a horrible fit all over. For instance, there was a 1mm gap between the fuselage and the right wing, the wing halves’ outlines did not match at all and it is questionable if the canopy actually belongs to the kit at all? PSR everywhere. I also had a Plastyk version of this kit on the table some time ago, but it was of a much better quality! O.K., the Mastercraft kit comes cheap, but it’s, to be honest, not a real bargain.
Even though the result would not be crisp I did some mods and changes. Internally, a cockpit tub was implanted (OOB there’s just a wacky seat hanging in mid air) plus some serious lead weight in the nose section for a proper stance.
On the outside, the new air intake is the most obvious change. I found a Su-17 intake (from a Mastercraft kit, too) and used a piece from a Matchbox B-17G’s dorsal turret to elongate the nose – it had an almost perfect diameter and a mildly conical shape. Some massive PSR work was necessary to blend the parts together, though.
The tail received new jet nozzles, scratched from steel needle protection covers, and the tail fairing was adjusted according to the real SM-12’s shape.
Ordnance was adapted, too: the drop tanks come from a Mastercraft MiG-21, and these supersonic PTB-490 tanks were indeed carried by the real SM-12 prototypes because the uprated engines were very thirsty and the original, teardrop-shaped MiG-19 tanks simply too draggy for the much faster SM-12. As a side note, the real SM-12’s short range was one of the serious factors that prevented the promising type’s production in real life. In order to overcome the poor range weakness I added an enlarged spine (half of a drop tank), inspired by the MiG-21 SMT, that would house an additional internal fuel tank.
The R2-SU/K-5 AAMs come from a vintage Mastercraft Soviet aircraft weapon set, which carries a pair of these 1st generation AAMs. While the molds seem to be a bit soft, the missiles look pretty convincing. Their pylons were taken from the kit (OOB they carry unguided AAM pods and are placed behind the main landing gear wells), just reversed and placed on the wings’ leading edges – similar to the real SM-12’s arrangement.
Painting and markings:
No surprises. In the Sixties, any PVO aircraft was left in bare metal, so there was hardly an alternative to a NMF finish.
Painting started with an all-over coat with acrylic Revell 99 (Aluminum), just the spine tank became light grey (Revell 371) for some contrast, and I painted some di-electric covers in a deep green (Revell 48).
The cockpit interior was painted with a bright mix of Revell 55 and some 48, while the landing gear wells and the back section of the cockpit were painted in a bluish grey (Revell 57).
The landing gear was painted in Steel (unpolished Modelmaster metallizer) and received classic, bright green wheel discs (Humbrol 2). As a small, unusual highlight the pitot boom under the chin received red and white stripes – seen on occasional MiG-19S fighters in Soviet service, and the anti-flutter booms on the stabilizers became bright red, too.
After the basic painting was done the kit received a black ink wash. Once this had dried and wiped off with a soft cotton cloth, post shading with various metallizer tones was added in order to liven up the uniform aircraft (including Humbrol’s matt and polished aluminum, and the exhaust section was treated with steel). Some panel lines were emphasized with a thin pencil.
Decals were puzzled together from various sources, a Guards badge and a few Russian stencils were added, too. Finally, the kit was sealed with a coat of sheen acrylic varnish (a 2:1 mix of Italeri matt and semi-gloss varnish).
The K-5 missiles, last but not least, were painted in aluminum, too, but their end caps (both front and tail section) became off-white.
The Mastercraft kit on which this conversion was based is crude, so I did not have high expectations concerning the outcome. But the new nose blends nicely into the MiG-19 fuselage, and the wide spine is a subtle detail that makes the aircraft look more “beefy” and less MiG-19-ish. The different drop tanks – even though they are authentic – visually add further speed. And despite many flaws, I am quite happy with the result of roundabout a week’s work.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (NATO reporting name: "Farmer") was a Soviet second-generation, single-seat, twin jet-engine fighter aircraft. It was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. A comparable U.S. "Century Series" fighter was the North American F-100 Super Sabre, although the MiG-19 would primarily oppose the more modern McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Republic F-105 Thunderchief over North Vietnam. Furthermore, the North American YF-100 Super Sabre prototype appeared approximately one year after the MiG-19, making the MiG-19 the first operational supersonic jet in the world.
On 20 April 1951, OKB-155 was given the order to develop the MiG-17 into a new fighter called "I-340", also known as "SM-1". It was to be powered by two Mikulin AM-5 non-afterburning jet engines, a scaled-down version of the Mikulin AM-3, with 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) of thrust. The I-340 was supposed to attain 1,160 km/h (725 mph, Mach 0.97) at 2,000 m (6,562 ft), 1,080 km/h (675 mph, Mach 1.0) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft), climb to 10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 2.9 minutes, and have a service ceiling of no less than 17,500 m (57,415 ft).
After several prototypes with many detail improvements, the ministers of the Soviet Union issued the order #286-133 to start serial production on February 17, 1954, at the factories in Gorkiy and Novosibirsk. Factory trials were completed on September 12 the same year, and government trials started on September 30.
Initial enthusiasm for the aircraft was dampened by several problems. The most alarming of these was the danger of a midair explosion due to overheating of the fuselage fuel tanks located between the engines. Deployment of airbrakes at high speeds caused a high-g pitch-up. Elevators lacked authority at supersonic speeds. The high landing speed of 230 km/h (145 mph), compared to 160 km/h (100 mph) for the MiG-15, combined with the lack of a two-seat trainer version, slowed pilot transition to the type. Handling problems were addressed with the second prototype, "SM-9/2", which added a third ventral airbrake and introduced all-moving tailplanes with a damper to prevent pilot-induced oscillations at subsonic speeds. It flew on 16 September 1954, and entered production as the MiG-19S.
Approximately 5,500 MiG-19's were produced, first in the USSR and in Czechoslovakia as the Avia S-105, but mainly in the People's Republic of China as the Shenyang J-6. The aircraft saw service with a number of other national air forces, including those of Cuba, North Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan, and North Korea. The aircraft saw combat during the Vietnam War, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1971 Bangladesh War.
However, jet fighter development made huge leaps in the 1960s, and OKB MiG was constantly trying to improve the MiG-19's performance, esp. against fast and high-flying enemies, primarily bombers but also spy planes like the U-2.
As the MiG-19S was brought into service with the Soviet air forces in mid-1956, the OKB MiG was continuing the refinement of the SM-1/I-340 fighter. One of these evolutionary paths was the SM-12 (literally, “SM-1, second generation”) family of prototypes, the ultimate extrapolation of the basic MiG-19 design, which eventually led to the MiG-19bis interceptor that filled the gap between the MiG-19S and the following, highly successful MiG-21.
The SM-12 first saw life as an exercise in drag reduction by means of new air intake configurations, since the MiG-19’s original intake with rounded lips became inefficient at supersonic speed (its Western rival, the North American F-100, featured a sharp-lipped nose air intake from the start). The first of three prototypes, the SM-12/1, was essentially a MiG-19S with an extended and straight-tapered nose with sharp-lipped orifice and a pointed, two-position shock cone on the intake splitter. The simple arrangement proved to be successful and was further refined.
The next evolutionary step, the SM-12/3, differed from its predecessors primarily in two new R3-26 turbojets developed from the earlier power plant by V. N. Sorokin. These each offered an afterburning thrust of 3,600kg, enabling the SM-12/3 to attain speeds ranging between 1,430km/h at sea level, or Mach=1.16, and 1,930km/h at 12,000m, or Mach=1.8, and an altitude of between 17,500 and 18,000m during its test program. This outstanding performance prompted further development with a view to production as a point defense interceptor.
Similarly powered by R3-26 engines, and embodying major nose redesign with a larger orifice permitting introduction of a substantial two-position conical centerbody for a TsD-30 radar, a further prototype was completed as the SM-12PM. Discarding the wing root NR-30 cannon of preceding prototypes, the SM-12PM was armed with only two K-5M (RS-2U) beam-riding missiles and entered flight test in 1957. This configuration would become the basis for the MiG-19bis interceptor that eventually was ordered into limited production (see below).
However, the SM-12 development line did not stop at this point. At the end of 1958, yet another prototype, the SM-12PMU, joined the experimental fighter family. This had R3M-26 turbojets uprated to 3.800kg with afterburning, but these were further augmented by a U-19D accelerator, which took the form of a permanent ventral pack containing an RU-013 rocket motor and its propellant tanks. Developed by D. D. Sevruk, the RU-013 delivered 3,000kg of additional thrust, and with the aid of this rocket motor, the SM-12PMU attained an altitude of 24,000m and a speed of Mach=1.69. But this effort was to no avail: the decision had been taken meanwhile to manufacture the Ye-7 in series as the MiG-21, and further development of the SM-12 series was therefore discontinued.
Nevertheless, since full operational status of the new MiG-21 was expected to remain pending for some time, production of a modified SM-12PM was ordered as a gap filler. Not only would this fighter bridge the performance gap to the Mach 2-capable MiG-21, it also had the benefit of being based on proven technologies and would not require a new basic pilot training.
The new aircraft received the official designation MiG-19bis. Compared with the SM-12PM prototype, the MiG-19bis differed in some details and improvements. The SM-12PM’s most significant shortfall was its short range – at full power, it had only a range of 750 km! This could be mended through an additional fuel tank in an enlarged dorsal fairing behind the cockpit. With this internal extra fuel, range could be extended by a further 200 - 250km range, but drop tanks had typically to be carried, too, in order to extend the fighter’ combat radius with two AAMs to 500 km. Specifically for the MiG-19bis, new, supersonic drop tanks (PTB-490) were designed, and these were later adapted for the MiG-21, too.
The air intake shock cone was re-contoured and the shifting mechanism improved: Instead of a simple, conical shape, the shock cone now had a more complex curvature with two steps and the intake orifice area was widened to allow a higher airflow rate. The air intake’s efficiency was further optimized through gradual positions of the shock cone.
As a positive side effect, the revised shock cone offered space for an enlarged radar dish, what improved detection range and resolution. The TsD-30 radar for the fighter’s missile-only armament was retained, even though the K-5’s effective range of only 2–6 km (1¼ – 3¾ mi) made it only suitable against slow and large targets like bombers. All guns were deleted in order to save weight or make room for the electronic equipment. The tail section was also changed because the R3M-26 engines and their afterburners were considerably longer than the MiG-19's original RM-5 engines. The exhausts now markedly protruded from the tail section, and the original, characteristic pen nib fairing between the two engines had been modified accordingly.
Production started in 1960, but only a total of roundabout 180 MiG-19bis, which received the NATO code "Farmer F", were built and the Soviet Union remained the only operator of the type. The first aircraft entered Soviet Anti-Air Defense in early 1961, and the machines were concentrated in PVO interceptor units around major sites like Moscow, Sewastopol at the Black Sea and Vladivostok in the Far East.
With the advent of the MiG-21, though, their career did not last long. Even though many machines were updated to carry the K-13 (the IR-guided AA-2 "Atoll") as well as the improved K-55 AAMs, with no change of the type’s designation, most MiG-19bis were already phased out towards the late 1960s and quickly replaced by 2nd generation MiG-21s as well as heavier and more capable Suchoj interceptors like the Su-9, -11 and -15. By 1972, all MiG-19bis had been retired.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 13.54 m (44 ft 4 in), fuselage only with shock cone in forward position
15.48 m (50 8 ½ in) including pitot
Wingspan: 9 m (29 ft 6 in)
Height: 3.8885 m (12 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 25 m² (269 ft²)
Empty weight: 5,210 kg (11,475 lb)
Loaded weight: 7,890 kg (17,380 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 9,050 kg (19,935 lb)
Fuel capacity: 2,450 l (556 imp gal; 647 US gal) internal;
plus 760 l (170 imp gal; 200 US gal) with 2 drop tanks
Powerplant:
2× Sorokin R3M-26 turbojets, rated at 37.2 kN (8,370 lbf) thrust each with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,380km/h at sea level (Mach=1.16)
1,850km/h at 12,000m (Mach=1.8)
Range: 1,250 km (775 mi; 750 nmi) at 14,000 m (45,000 ft) with 2 × 490 l drop tanks
Combat range: 500 km (312 mi; 270 nmi)
Ferry range: 2,000 km (1,242 mi; 690 nmi)
Service ceiling: 19,750 m (64,690 ft)
Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 353.3 kg/m² (72.4 lb/ft²)
Thrust/weight: 0.86
Armament:
No internal guns.
4× underwing pylons; typically, a pair of PTB-490 drop tanks were carried on the outer pylon pair,
plus a pair of air-to air missiles on the inner pair: initially two radar-guided Kaliningrad K-5M (RS-2US)
AAMs, later two radar-guided K-55 or IR-guided Vympel K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll') AAMs
The kit and its assembly:
Another submission for the 2018 Cold War Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and again the opportunity to build a whiffy model from the project list. But it’s as fictional as one might think, since the SM-12 line of experimental “hybrid” fighters between the MiG-19 and the MiG-21 was real. But none of these aircraft ever made it into serial production, and in real life the MiG-21 showed so much potential that the attempts to improve the MiG-19 were stopped and no operational fighter entered production or service.
However, the SM-12, with its elongated nose and the central shock cone, makes a nice model subject, and I imagined what a service aircraft might have looked like? It would IMHO have been close, if not identical, to the SM-12PM, since this was the most refined pure jet fighter in the development family.
The basis for the build was a (dead cheap) Mastercraft MiG-19, which is a re-edition of the venerable Kovozávody Prostějov (KP) kit – as a tribute to modern tastes, it comes with (crudely) engraved panel, but it has a horrible fit all over. For instance, there was a 1mm gap between the fuselage and the right wing, the wing halves’ outlines did not match at all and it is questionable if the canopy actually belongs to the kit at all? PSR everywhere. I also had a Plastyk version of this kit on the table some time ago, but it was of a much better quality! O.K., the Mastercraft kit comes cheap, but it’s, to be honest, not a real bargain.
Even though the result would not be crisp I did some mods and changes. Internally, a cockpit tub was implanted (OOB there’s just a wacky seat hanging in mid air) plus some serious lead weight in the nose section for a proper stance.
On the outside, the new air intake is the most obvious change. I found a Su-17 intake (from a Mastercraft kit, too) and used a piece from a Matchbox B-17G’s dorsal turret to elongate the nose – it had an almost perfect diameter and a mildly conical shape. Some massive PSR work was necessary to blend the parts together, though.
The tail received new jet nozzles, scratched from steel needle protection covers, and the tail fairing was adjusted according to the real SM-12’s shape.
Ordnance was adapted, too: the drop tanks come from a Mastercraft MiG-21, and these supersonic PTB-490 tanks were indeed carried by the real SM-12 prototypes because the uprated engines were very thirsty and the original, teardrop-shaped MiG-19 tanks simply too draggy for the much faster SM-12. As a side note, the real SM-12’s short range was one of the serious factors that prevented the promising type’s production in real life. In order to overcome the poor range weakness I added an enlarged spine (half of a drop tank), inspired by the MiG-21 SMT, that would house an additional internal fuel tank.
The R2-SU/K-5 AAMs come from a vintage Mastercraft Soviet aircraft weapon set, which carries a pair of these 1st generation AAMs. While the molds seem to be a bit soft, the missiles look pretty convincing. Their pylons were taken from the kit (OOB they carry unguided AAM pods and are placed behind the main landing gear wells), just reversed and placed on the wings’ leading edges – similar to the real SM-12’s arrangement.
Painting and markings:
No surprises. In the Sixties, any PVO aircraft was left in bare metal, so there was hardly an alternative to a NMF finish.
Painting started with an all-over coat with acrylic Revell 99 (Aluminum), just the spine tank became light grey (Revell 371) for some contrast, and I painted some di-electric covers in a deep green (Revell 48).
The cockpit interior was painted with a bright mix of Revell 55 and some 48, while the landing gear wells and the back section of the cockpit were painted in a bluish grey (Revell 57).
The landing gear was painted in Steel (unpolished Modelmaster metallizer) and received classic, bright green wheel discs (Humbrol 2). As a small, unusual highlight the pitot boom under the chin received red and white stripes – seen on occasional MiG-19S fighters in Soviet service, and the anti-flutter booms on the stabilizers became bright red, too.
After the basic painting was done the kit received a black ink wash. Once this had dried and wiped off with a soft cotton cloth, post shading with various metallizer tones was added in order to liven up the uniform aircraft (including Humbrol’s matt and polished aluminum, and the exhaust section was treated with steel). Some panel lines were emphasized with a thin pencil.
Decals were puzzled together from various sources, a Guards badge and a few Russian stencils were added, too. Finally, the kit was sealed with a coat of sheen acrylic varnish (a 2:1 mix of Italeri matt and semi-gloss varnish).
The K-5 missiles, last but not least, were painted in aluminum, too, but their end caps (both front and tail section) became off-white.
The Mastercraft kit on which this conversion was based is crude, so I did not have high expectations concerning the outcome. But the new nose blends nicely into the MiG-19 fuselage, and the wide spine is a subtle detail that makes the aircraft look more “beefy” and less MiG-19-ish. The different drop tanks – even though they are authentic – visually add further speed. And despite many flaws, I am quite happy with the result of roundabout a week’s work.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
Although the performance increases of jet-powered aircraft introduced towards the end of World War II over their piston-powered ancestors were breathtaking, there were those at the time who believed that much more was possible. As far back as 1943, the British Ministry of Aircraft Production had issued a specification designated "E.24/43" for a supersonic experimental jet aircraft that would be able to achieve 1,600 KPH (1,000 MPH).
Beginning in 1946, a design team at English Electric (EE) under W.E.W. "Teddy" Petter began design studies for a supersonic fighter, leading to award of a Ministry of Supply (MoS) contract in 1947 under specification "ER.103" for a design study on an experimental aircraft that could achieve Mach 1.2.
The MoS liked the EE concepts, and in early 1949 awarded the company a contract under specification "F.23/49" for two flying prototypes and one ground-test prototype of the "P.1".
The P.1 was defined as a supersonic research aircraft, though the design had provisions for armament and a radar gunsight. It incorporate advanced and unusual design features, such as twin turbojet engines mounted one above the other to reduce aircraft frontal area; and strongly swept wings, with the wingtip edges at a right angle to the fuselage, giving a wing configuration like that of a delta wing with the rear inner corners cut out. The aircraft featured an elliptical intake in the nose.
The P.1's performance was so outstanding that the decision was quickly made to proceed on an operational version that would be capable of Mach 2. In fact, the second P.1 prototype featured items such as a bulged belly tank and fit of twin Aden Mark 4 30 millimeter revolver-type cannon, bringing it closer to operational specification.
Orders were placed for three "P.1B" prototypes for a production interceptor and the original P.1 was retroactively designated "P.1A". The P.1B featured twin Rolls-Royce Avon afterburning engines and a larger tailfin. An airborne intercept (AI) radar was carried in the air intake shock cone, which was changed from elliptical to circular. The cockpit was raised for a better field of view and the P.1B was armed with two Aden cannon in the upper nose, plus a pack under the cockpit that could either support two De Havilland Blue Jay (later Firestreak) heat-seeking AAMs or 44 Microcell 5 centimeter (2 inch) unguided rockets.
The initial P.1B prototype performed its first flight on 4 April 1957 and the type entered RAF service as EE Lightning F.1. RAF Number 74 Squadron at Coltishall was the first full service unit, with the pilots acquiring familiarization with the type during late 1960 and the squadron declared operational in 1961.
However, while the Lightning was developed further into more and more advanced versions. Its concept was also the basis for another research aircraft that would also be developed into a high performance interceptor: the P.6/1, which later became the “Levin” fighter.
P.6 encompassed a total of four different layouts for a Mach 2+ research aircraft, tendering to ER.134T from 1952. P.6/1 was the most conservative design and it relied heavily on existing (and already proven) P.1 Lightning components, primarily the aerodynamic surfaces. The most obvious difference was a new fuselage of circular diameter, housing a single Rolls Royce RB.106 engine.
The RB.106 was a two-shaft design with two axial flow compressors each driven by its own single stage turbine and reheat. It was of similar size to the Rolls-Royce Avon, but it produced about twice the thrust at 21,750 lbf (96.7 kN) in the initial version. The two-shaft layout was relatively advanced for the era; the single-shaft de Havilland Gyron matched it in power terms, while the two-spool Bristol Olympus was much less powerful at the then-current state of development. Apart from being expected to power other British aircraft such as those competing for Operational Requirement F.155, it was also selected to be the powerplant for the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow and led to the Orenda Iroquois engine, which even reach 30.000 lbf (130 kN).
The P.6/1 was eventually chosen by the MoS for further development because it was regarded as the least risky and costly alternative. Beyond its test bed role for the RB.106 the P.6/1 was also seen as a potential basis for a supersonic strategic air-to-ground missile (similar to the massive Soviet AS-3 ‘Kangaroo’ cruise missile) and the starting point for an operational interceptor that would be less complex than the Lightning, but with a comparable if not improved performance but a better range.
In 1955 English Electric received a go ahead for two P.6/1 research aircraft prototypes. Despite a superficial similarity to the Lightning, the P.6/1’s internal structure was very different. The air duct, for instance, was bifurcated and led around on both sides of the cockpit tub and the front wheel well instead of below it. Further down, the duct ran below the wing main spar and directly fed the RB.106.
The rear fuselage was area-ruled, the main landing gear retracted, just like the Lightning’s, outwards into the wings, while the front wheel retracted backwards into a well that was placed further aft than on the Lightning. The upper fuselage behind the main wings spar carried fuel tanks, more fuel was carried in wing tanks.
Both research machines were ready in 1958 and immediately started with aerodynamic and material tests for the MoS, reaching top speeds of Mach 2.5 and altitudes of 60.000 ft. and more.
In parallel, work on the fighter version, now called “Levin”, had started. The airframe was basically the same as the P.6/1’s. Biggest visible changes were a wider air intake with a bigger central shock cone (primarily for a radar dish), a shorter afterburner section and an enlarged fin with area increased by 15% that had become necessary in order to compensate instability through the new nose layout and the potential carriage of external ordnance, esp. under the fuselage. This bigger fin was taken over to the Lightning F.3 that also initially suffered from longitudal instability due to the new Red Top missiles.
The Levin carried armament and avionics similar to the Lightning, including the Ferranti-developed AI.23 monopulse radar. The aircraft was to be fully integrated into a new automatic intercept system developed by Ferranti, Elliot, and BAC. It would have turned the fighters into something like a "manned missile" and greatly simplified intercepts.
Anyway, the Levin’s weapon arrangement was slightly different from the Lightning: the Levin’s armament comprised theoretically a mix of up to four 30mm Aden cannons and/or up to four of the new Red Top AAMs, or alternatively the older Firestreak. The guns were mounted in the upper nose flanks (similar to the early Lightning arrangement, but set further back), right under the cockpit hatch, while a pair of AAMs was carried on wing tip launch rails. Two more AAMs could be carried on pylons under the lower front fuselage, similar to the Lightning’s standard configuration, even though there was no interchangeable module. Since this four-missile arrangement would not allow any cannon to be carried anymore and caused excessive drag, the typical payload was limited to two Aden cannons and the single pair of wing-tip missiles.
Despite its proven Lightning ancestry, the development of the Levin went through various troubles. While the RB.106 worked fine in the research P.6/1, it took until 1962 that a fully reliable variant for the interceptor could be cleared for service. Meanwhile the Lightning had already evolved into the F.3 variant and political discussions circled around the end of manned military aircraft. To make matters even worse, the RAF refused to buy the completely automatic intercept system, despite the fact that it had been fully engineered at a cost of 1.4 million pounds and trialed in one of the P.1Bs.
Eventually, the Levin F.1 finally entered service in 1964, together with the Lightning F.3. While the Lightning was rather seen as a point defense interceptor, due to the type’s limited range: If a Lightning F.3 missed its target on its first pass, it almost never had enough fuel to make a second attempt without topping off from a tanker, which would give an intruder plenty of time to get to its target and then depart… The Lightning’s flight endurance was less than 2 hours (in the F.2A, other variants even less), and it was hoped that the Levin had more potential through a longer range. Anyway, in service, the Levin’s range in clean configuration was only about 8% better than the Lightning’s. The Levin F.1’s flight endurance was about 2 ½ hours – an improvement, but not as substantial as expected.
In order to improve the range on both fighters, English Electric developed a new, stiffened wing for the carriage of a pair of jettisonable overwing ferry tanks with a capacity of 1,182 liters (312 US gallons / 260 Imperial gallons, so-called “Overburgers”). The new wing also featured a kinked leading edge, providing better low-speed handling. From mid 1965 onwards, all Levins were directly produced in this F.2 standard, and during regular overhauls the simpler F.1 machines were successively updated. The Lightning introduced the kinked wing with the F.3A variant and it was later introduced with the F.2A and F.6A variants.
Levin production comprised 21 original F.1 airframes, plus 34 F.2 fighters, and production was stopped in 1967. A trainer version was not produced, the Lightning trainers were deemed sufficient for conversion since the Levin and the Lightning shared similar handling characteristics.
The Levin served only with RAF 29 and 65 Squadron, the latter re-instated in 1970 as a dedicated fighter squadron. When in November 1984 the Tornado squadrons began to form, the Levin was gradually phased out and replaced until April 1987 by the Tornado F.3.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length w/o pitot: 51 ft 5 in (15,70 m), 55 ft 8 in (16.99 m) overall
Wingspan incl. wingtip launch rails: 34 ft 9 in (10.54 m)
Height: 19 ft 7 in (5.97 m)
Wing area: 474.5 ft² (44.08 m²)
Empty weight: 8937 kg (lb)
Loaded weight: 13,570 kg (29,915)
Max. takeoff weight: 15,210 kg (33,530 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Rolls-Royce RB.106-10S afterburning turbojet,
rated at 20,000 lbf (89 kN) dry and 26,000 lbf (116 kN) with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed:
- 1,150 km/h (620 kn, 715 mph, Mach 0.94) at sea level
- 2,230 km/h (1.202 kn, 1,386 mph, Mach 2.1;), clean with 2× Red Top AAMs at high altitude
- Mach 2.4 absolute top speed in clean configuration at 50.000 ft.
Range: 1,650 km (890 nmi, 1,025 mi) on internal fuel
Combat radius: 500 km (312 mi); clean, with a pair of wing tip Red Top AAMs
Ferry range: 1,270 mi (1.100 NM/ 2.040 km) with overwing tanks
Service ceiling: 16,760 m (55,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 136.7 m/s (27,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 76 lb/ft² (370 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 0.78
Takeoff roll: 950 m (3,120 ft)
Landing roll: 700 m (2,300 ft)
Armament:
2× 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannons with 120 RPG in the upper front fuselage
2× wing tip hardpoints for mounting air-to-air missiles (2 Red Top of Firestreak AAMs)
2× overwing pylon stations for 260 gal ferry tanks
Optional, but rarely used: 2× hardpoints under the front fuselage for mounting air-to-air missiles
(2 Red Top of Firestreak AAMs)
The kit and its assembly:
Another contribution to the Cold War GB at whatifmodelers.com, and the realization of a project I had on the agenda for long. The EE P.6/1 was a real project for a Mach 2+ research aircraft, as described above, but it never went off the drawing board. Its engine, the RB.106, also never saw the light of day, even though its later career as the Canadian Orenda Iroquois for the stillborn CF-105.
Building this aircraft as a model appears simple, because it’s a classic Lightning (actually a F.1 with the un-kinked wing and the small fin), just with a single engine and a rather tubular fuselage. But creating this is not easy at all…
I did not want to replicate the original P.6/1, but rather a service aircraft based on the research aircraft. Therefore I used parts from a Lightning F.6 (a vintage NOVO/Frog kit). For the fuselage I settled for a Su-17, from a MasterCraft kit. The kit’s selling point was its small price tag and the fuselage construction: the VG mechanism is hidden under a separate spine piece, and I wanted to transplant the Lightning’s spine and cockpit frame, so I thought that this would make things easier.
Nope.
Putting the parts from the VERY different kits/aircraft together was a major surgery feat, with several multiple PSR sessions on the fuselage, the air intake section (opened and fitted with both an internal splitter and a bulkhead to the cockpit section), the wings, the stabilizers, the fin… This model deserves the title “kitbash” like no other, because no major sections had ever been intended to be glued together, and in the intended position!
The landing gear was more or less taken OOB, but the main struts had to be elongated by 2mm – somehow the model turned out to be a low-riding tail sitter! The cockpit interior was improvised, too, consisting of a Su-17 cockpit tub, a scratched dashboard and a Martin Baker ejection seat from an Italeri Bae Hawk trainer.
Since most of the fuselage surface consists of various materials (styrene and two kinds of putty), I did not dare to engrave panel lines – after all the PSR work almost any surface detail was gone. I rather went for a graphic solution (see below). Some antennae and air scoops were added, though.
The overwing tanks come OOB from the NOVO kit, as well as the Red Top missiles, which ended up on improvised wing tip launch rails, based on design sketches for Lightning derivatives with this layout.
Colors and markings:
There are several “classic” RAF options, but I settled for a low-viz Eighties livery taken from BAC Lightnings. There’s a surprising variety of styles, and my version is a mix of several real world aircraft.
I settled for Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces (Modelmaster Authentic) with a high waterline, a fuselage completely in Medium Sea Grey (Humbrol 165 – had to be applied twice because the first tin I used was obviously old and the paint ended up in a tone not unlike PRU Blue!) and Light aircraft Grey underwing surfaces (Humbrol 166). The leading edges under the wings are Dark Sea Grey, too.
The cockpit interior was painted in dark grey (Humbrol 32 with some dry-brushing), while the landing gear is Aluminum (Humbrol 56).
Once the basic painting was done I had to deal with the missing panel lines on the fuselage and those raised lines that were sanded away during the building process. I decided to simulate these with a soft pencil, after the whole kit was buffed with a soft cotton cloth and some grinded graphite. This way, the remaining raised panel lines were emphasized, and from these the rest was drawn up. A ruler and masking tape were used as guidance for straight lines, and this worked better than expected, with good results.
As a next step, the newly created panels were highlighted with dry-brushed lighter tones of the basic paints (FS 36492 and WWII Italian Blue Grey from Modelmaster, and Humbrol 126), more for a dramatic than a weathered effect. The gun ports and the exhaust section were painted with Modelmaster Metallizer (Titanium and Magnesium).
The decals come from several Xtradecal aftermarket sheets, including a dedicated Lightning stencils sheet, another Lightning sheet with various squadron markings and a sheet for RAF Tornado ADVs.
The code number “XS970” was earmarked to a TSR.2, AFAIK, but since it was never used on a service aircraft it would be a good option for the Levin.
The kit received a coat of matt acrylic varnish from the rattle can – jn this case the finish was intended to bear a slight shine.
This was a project with LOTS of effort, but you hardly recognize it – it’s a single engine Lightning, so what? But welding the Lightning and Su-17 parts together for something that comes close to the P.6/1 necessitated LOTS of body work and improvisation, carving it from wood would probably have been the next complicated option. Except for the surprisingly long tail I am very happy with the result, despite the model’s shaggy origins, and the low-viz livery suits the sleek aircraft IMHO very well.
Mastercraft. Produced by Lorenzo of Italy, probably in the 1950s. If George Jetson smoked a pipe, it would have been this one.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Focke-Wulf Ta 152 was a World War II German high-altitude fighter-interceptor designed by Kurt Tank and produced by Focke-Wulf. The fighter was a development of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 aircraft. Originally it was intended to be made in three versions—the Ta 152H Höhenjäger ("high-altitude fighter"), the Ta 152C designed for medium-altitude operations and ground-attack, using a different engine and smaller wing, and finally the Ta 152E fighter-reconnaissance aircraft with the engine of the H model and the short wing of the C model.
The fighters, esp. the high altitude variants, had top priority. The initial Fw 190's BMW 801 engine was originally designed for bomber and transport aircraft flying at medium altitudes in the 15,000 to 20,000 feet (4,600 to 6,100 m) range. In keeping with this role, it used a relatively simple single-stage supercharger that lacked performance above 20,000 feet (6,100 m) altitude. This presented a problem for fighter use, where high-altitude performance was desirable. Through careful tuning, the Fw 190 instead emerged as a powerful medium altitude design. Several experimental models of the 190 with different engines were tested, primarily aiming at an improved high altitude performance. But these were not high priority projects or failed through various teething troubles with the innovative engines.
The entry of the United States into the war brought with it a series of heavy bombers and escort fighters optimized for operations at higher altitudes, around 25,000 feet (7,600 m). At these altitudes, the BMW 801-powered 190 found itself at a distinct disadvantage, and this problem became acute in early 1944 when the P-51 Mustang arrived in quantity. This led to the introduction of the Fw 190D-9, mounting the Junkers Jumo 213E engine. This engine had a two-stage supercharger and much better altitude performance. However, the rest of the aircraft's design, especially the relatively short wings, made it difficult to fly at high altitudes. While the D-9 upgrade was expedient, it was not ideal.
This led to the more refined Ta 152. Kurt Tank originally designed the Ta 152 with the 44.52 litre displacement Daimler-Benz DB 603 engine, as it offered better high-altitude performance and also a greater developmental potential. The DB 603 had been used in the Fw 190C prototypes but had many problems and was considered too difficult to implement in the Ta 152 by RLM officials. With this in mind, Tank focused his efforts on the 213E as the Ta 152H's power plant. However, he insisted that the DB 603 be retained for the Ta 152C versions and as an option for later versions of the Ta 152H.
The Ta 152's fuselage was an extended version of the Fw 190D-9 fuselage with wider-chord fixed vertical tail surfaces (especially the top half), and hydraulic rather than electrically controlled undercarriage and flaps. Due to the changes in the center of gravity and overall balance, the nose was also lengthened. The D-9 retained the 10.51 metres (34.5 ft) wingspan of the original pre-war Fw 190 models, but this was slightly extended for the C model to 11 metres (36 ft), and greatly extended for the H model to 14.44 metres (47.4 ft), which gave it much better control at high altitudes at the cost of speed at lower altitudes.
Due to the war's impact on aluminum availability, the wing was built around two steel spars, the front extending from just past the landing gear attachment points, and the rear spar spanning the entire wing. The wing itself was designed with 3° of washout, from the root to the flap-aileron junction, to prevent the ailerons from stalling before the center section of the wing. The Ta 152 featured the FuG 16ZY and FuG 25a radio equipment, but some aircraft were issued with an FuG 125 Hermine D/F for navigation and blind landing, LGW-Siemens K 23 autopilot, and a heated armor glass windscreen for bad-weather operations.
By October 1944, the war was going very badly for Germany, and the RLM pushed Focke-Wulf to quickly get the Ta 152 into production. As a result, several Ta 152 prototypes crashed early into the test program. It was found that critical systems were lacking sufficient quality control. Problems arose with superchargers, pressurized cockpits leaked, the engine cooling system was unreliable at best due in part to unreliable oil temperature monitoring, and in several instances the landing gear failed to properly retract. A total of up to 20 pre-production Ta 152 H-0s were delivered from November 1944 to Erprobungskommando Ta 152 to service test the aircraft. It was reported that test pilots were only able to conduct a mere 31 hours of flight tests before full production hastily started.
In parallel, further attempts were made to improve the Ta 152’s performance. One development path were the J and K models, which were to be powered by the Jumo 222 engine. Design work on the high-power Jumo 222 had already started in 1937, and it had had a winding development story.
The massive engine looked like a radial due to its arrangement, since it was configured with six inline cylinder banks spaced at equal angles around the central crankcase, each bank having four cylinders. Like most inlines it was liquid-cooled and typically connected with an annular radiator around the propeller shaft. Compared with the contemporary BMW 801 and Daimler-Benz DB 605, the 222 was a huge leap in performance. It had only a slightly larger displacement figure than the 801's 41.8 L (2,550.8 in³), and about 25% more than the 605's 35.7 L (2,178.5 in³), but delivered considerably more power: 1,850 kW (2,500 hp) compared to 1,193 kW (1,600 hp) in the 801 and 1,119 kW (1,500 hp) in the 605. Such was the projected performance of the engine compared to contemporary designs that many developments of wartime Luftwaffe piston-engined aircraft designs were based on it, at least as an option. Notable among these was the entire “Bomber B” program, which looked to replace all existing Luftwaffe bombers with a new twin-engine design that was larger, faster and more heavily armed than any aircraft in their inventory.
However, the engine’s development was protracted and complex, so that the project had been shelved and revived several times in the course of the following years. Junkers did not give up on it, though, and, towards late 1944, a functional variant finally emerged. Using the original 46.4 litre displacement A/B design, Junkers added a new two-stage supercharger including a trio of aftercoolers, one per pair of neighboring cylinder banks for high-altitude use, and produced the 222E and F-series. Although sea-level performance was unchanged at 1,850 kW (2,500 hp), the engine was able to produce 1,439 kW (1,930 hp) at 9,000 m (29,530 ft). A further attempt for even higher altitude performance resulted in the turbocharged 222G and H.
Both of these new engines were earmarked for the Ta 152, resulting in two projects: the new Ta 152J-1 for medium altitudes with the Jumo 222E and a short wing span and the Ta 152K-1 high altitude fighter with the Jumo 222 G and long wings.
The engineers expected a phenomenal performance, superior to any piston engine fighter both Axis and Allies forces had fielded to date, and the aircraft would furthermore carry a potent cannon armament.
However, integrating the massive engine into the slender Ta 152 airframe resulted in a thorough redesign of the complete front section. The cowling had to be widened considerably and a new four-blade propeller was mounted in order to exploit the incremental power. The Ta 152 J’s wing was based on the earlier C model but had its span extended further to 11.65 m in order cope with the aircraft’s higher weight. The Ta 152 K used the former H model’s high altitude wings.
Further changes were less visible, including a completely new engine mount and reinforcements of the airframe’s internal structure. Due to the lack of light-weight materials, these were mostly done with steel, what raised overall weight of the aircraft considerably – the empty Ta 152J weighed 4,175 kg (9,205 lb), more than half a ton than the Fw 190D-9 with 3,490 kg (7,694 lb), and at full TOW the new aircraft almost weighed roundabout 5 tons.
Another Achilles heel of the new design turned out to be the Jumo 222’s high fuel consumption and the fighter’s resulting short legs. With internal fuel, range was limited to only 835 km (519 mi) instead of 2.000 km (1.242 mi) for the Ta 152H, what confined the fighter to short, local interception duties or strike attacks close to the front lines.
In order to counter this flaw and to avoid a draggy, ventral drop tank, the Ta 152J was outfitted with attachment points for a pair of so-called “Doppelreiter” (lit. “twin riders”) auxiliary slipper tanks on the wings’ upper surfaces.
These conformal tanks had originally been developed for the Fw 190A-7 fighter in 1943 and they offered several operational benefits. They could be easily mounted (a team of 2 or 3 engineers had them in place in less than 10 minutes), held 2x 270l of additional fuel and their aerodynamic shape did hardly impair the aircraft’s performance at all. In fact, they could even be carried when the aircraft was engaging in a dogfight and did not have to be jettisoned at all. With the “Doppelreiter” tanks, the range could be extended to almost 1.500 km (900 mi), and this could be further improved by an additional standard 300 l drop tank under the fuselage.
Initial stability problems through semi-filled tanks and sloshing fuel had, since the initial tests with the Fw 190 A-7, been fixed through an internal chamber system. In this modified form, the Ta 152 J-2 entered service in late 1945.
However, the “Doppelreiter” tanks were not a viable option for Ta 152 K’s long wings and the type’s turbocharged Jumo 222G remained troublesome. As a result, the K variant was held back and focus returned to the older Ta 152H for high altitude duties.
The Ta 152 J-2 remained the only production variant with the new engine, though, because the complex Jumo 222 was hard to manufacture and resources had become increasingly scarce by mid-1945. Consequentially, even though production of the Ta 152 J started in late 1945, the fighter’s production numbers remained low and only a small number of aircraft were finished and eventually reached front line units in serviceable condition. Probably only 30 machines went operational, with 30 more in the production lines in a more or less uncompleted condition. But those which countered bomber raids proved to be highly effective at the Western front and over Northern Germany against medium bombers and their escort fighters coming in from Great Britain.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 10.29 m (33 ft 8¾ in)
Wingspan: 11.65 m (38 ft 2 in)
Height: 3.35 m (11 ft 0 in)
Wing area: 19.80 m² (212.42 ft²)
Empty weight: 4,175 kg (9,205 lb)
Loaded weight: 6,054 kg (13,346 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,995 kg (15,422 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Junkers Jumo 222E liquid-cooled, 24-cylinder six-row inline piston engine
with a two-stage supercharger, rated at 2,500 hp (1,850 kW) at sea level
and 1,930 hp (1,439 kW) at 9,000 m (29,530 ft), driving a four-blade propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 760 km/h (408 knots, 470 mph) at 6,600 m (21,655 ft)
Range: 835 km (519 mi) with internal fuel only
1.480 km (919 mi) with Doppelreiter auxiliary tanks
Service ceiling: 12,600 m (41,500 ft)
Rate of climb: 22.1 m/s (4,360 ft/min)
Armament:
2× 20 mm (0.787 in) MG 151 cannons with 250 RPG above the engine
2x 30mm (1.181 in) MK 103 in the wing roots with 150 RPG
1x ventral hardpoint for a 500 kg (1,102 lb) SC 500 bomb or a 300l drop tank
Attachment points for a pair of “Doppelreiter” 270 l conformal slipper tanks above the wings
The kit and its assembly:
This is a what-if model, but, as usual, it is rooted in reality – to be precise in the German late-war plans to mate the Ta 152(H) with the mighty Jumo 222 engine. I do not know what the official service designation would have been, but this combo would have resulted in a powerful fighter – AFAIK, German engineers’ calculations indicated a performance that would have been comparable with the post-WWII F4U-5!
Creating a model of such this paper aircraft called for some serious conversion work and ended almost in a kitbashing. The starting point became a (cheap) Mistercraft Fw 190D-9 kit, and I originally planned this model to be a Fw 190 variant, but eventually this turned into a Ta 152, since it would better match up with the late war time frame.
The Mastercraft/Mistercraft kit appears to be an indigenous mold and not a re-issue of a vintage kit. At first glance the parts look pretty crisp, but the kit has some serious fit and flash issues. Another selling point is the detailed decal set, which comes in three sheets and encompasses a lot of stencils – even though the instructions where to place them are not consistent, and there are even 1:48 scale(!) markings included. But that’s a Mastercraft/Mistercraft standard, anyway…
Well, the basis was sound and the kit would, in any event, be thoroughly modified. From the OOB kit, fuselage, wings and stabilizers were taken, as well as the landing gear and some other bits.
The wings were extended, in order to keep overall proportions with the new, much more massive engine cowling balanced (see below). Not an easy stunt, but I was lucky to have recently bought a set of resin Doppelreiter tanks from Airmodel which were just perfect to cover the cuts and seams on the upper wing surfaces. Inside of the wings, a styrene strip secured stability while the lower wing surface was sculpted with putty and the trailing edge of the outer wing panels was cut down by 1 mm, so that the wings’ outlines match again. Some further PSR work was necessary to blend the slipper tanks into the wings, forming the upper side of the modifications, but in the end the whole thing looks quite good.
The fuselage lost both its original engine and the tail. The latter is a donor part from a Frog Ta 152H (Revell re-boxing), but mating it with the Mistercraft Fw 190D was not easy because the fuselage shapes of the two kits are totally different! I also used the Mistercraft stabilizers because they were markedly bigger than the same parts from the Ta 152 kit!
The Jumo 222 front end was simulated with parts from the spares box, and it is a bit exaggerated. Actually, the Jumo 222 was hardly bigger (in both length and diameter) than the Fw 190D’s Jumo 213 V12 engine! The cowling and the radiator for my conversion came from a Frog He 219 engine nacelle (Revell re-boxing, too) which is utterly dubious. The nacelle parts were turned upside down and integrated into the slender Fw 190 front fuselage with several layers of putty.
Inside of the cowling, a radiator plate from an Italeri Fw 190D was mounted, together with a styrene tube adapter for the new propeller. The latter was scratched, using a drop tank as spinner and single propeller blades from the Mistercraft Fw 190D, plus one donor blade from the Frog Ta 152H kit, which had to be trimmed in order to match the other blades. But with some paint, no one will tell the small differences…
Once the bigger engine was integrated into the fuselage, the exhaust system had to be added. In real life, the Jumo 222 would have featured three clusters with two rows of four exhaust stubs, distributed evenly around the cowling. Using a drawing of this arrangement as benchmark, I started with square cuts for the cluster openings. From the back side, styrene sheet closed the gaps and offered a basis for the exhaust stubs. These were improvised with H0 scale roofing shingles – each of the 24 exhaust stubs was cut individually into shape and size and then glued into the respective openings on the upper flanks and under the engine. Finally, styrene sheet was used to create small spoilers and heat shields. The result is certainly not perfect, but comes close to what the real world arrangement would basically have looked like. In a final step, two air intakes for the two-stage supercharger, scratched from sprue material, were added to the flanks.
The cockpit remained OOB, simple as it is, as well as the landing gear, but the canopy was modified in order to allow a presentation in open position. This meant that the OOB canopy had to be cut in two parts and that the model’s spine had to be cut away, making place for a donor canopy (the late, bulged variant, IIRC from an Italeri Fw 190D-9). Internally the fuselage gap was filled with putty and the headrest had to be modified, too, but the conversion turned out to look better than expected.
As a small cosmetic improvement, the molded gun barrel stumps in the wing roots were replaced with hollow steel needles, and the outer guns were completely removed.
Painting and markings:
I wanted a typical “German”, yet improvised look, as if the machine had been rushed to a service unit after minimal exterior decoration. I found a late war Fw 190F as a benchmark for my design, which basically carried a standard paint scheme of RLM 74 and 75 from above (wing surfaces and spine), but the undersides camouflage (typically in RLM 76) was completely missing. Instead, the aircraft was left in bare metal, and it carried only very simple and minimal markings.
I adapted this scheme for my build with RLM 74 and 75 for the upper wing surfaces, but the spine was painted with RLM 75 and 81 (all from Modelmaster’s Authentic line). The NMF areas were painted with Steel Metallizer instead of aluminum. I went for this darker tone because I wanted a rather weathered and unpolished look. Some camouflage mottles with thinned RLM 75 and 81 were added to the flanks and the fin, too.
The landing gear covers as well as the undersides of the Doppelreiter tanks’ rear extensions were painted with RLM 76, while the undersides of the rudders on wings and stabilizers were painted with a greenish grey (similar to RAF Sky and frequently misidentified as RLM 84, a tone that never officially existed). The fin’s rudder was painted in a rusty red (Humbrol 70) – again a typical German primer tone for metal replacement parts.
The cockpit interior became RLM 66 (a very dark grey, Humbrol 67), while the landing gear became RLM 02 (Revell 45) – all classic Luftwaffe tones for the intended era.
The markings were puzzled together from various sources, including the OOB sheets from the Mistercraft kit plus aftermarket material from TL Modellbau and Sky Models.
While most of this build was improvised, I like the beefy and purposeful look of this über-Ta 152. It’s certainly not 100% what the potential real thing would have looked like, but, after all, it’s intended to be a whif model plane. The massive engine changes the look considerably, even though in a subtle way since the original silhouette remains intact. But if you place a standard Fw 190 next to it, the overall growth becomes recognizable – as if you place an early Spitfire next to one of its post-war, Griffon-powered evolutions that only share the general outlines. The shaggy look due to the NMF undersides might look strange, but many late-war builds arrived in a similar, unfinished fashionat the front line units.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (NATO reporting name: "Farmer") was a Soviet second-generation, single-seat, twin jet-engine fighter aircraft. It was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. A comparable U.S. "Century Series" fighter was the North American F-100 Super Sabre, although the MiG-19 would primarily oppose the more modern McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Republic F-105 Thunderchief over North Vietnam. Furthermore, the North American YF-100 Super Sabre prototype appeared approximately one year after the MiG-19, making the MiG-19 the first operational supersonic jet in the world.
On 20 April 1951, OKB-155 was given the order to develop the MiG-17 into a new fighter called "I-340", also known as "SM-1". It was to be powered by two Mikulin AM-5 non-afterburning jet engines, a scaled-down version of the Mikulin AM-3, with 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) of thrust. The I-340 was supposed to attain 1,160 km/h (725 mph, Mach 0.97) at 2,000 m (6,562 ft), 1,080 km/h (675 mph, Mach 1.0) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft), climb to 10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 2.9 minutes, and have a service ceiling of no less than 17,500 m (57,415 ft).
After several prototypes with many detail improvements, the ministers of the Soviet Union issued the order #286-133 to start serial production on February 17, 1954, at the factories in Gorkiy and Novosibirsk. Factory trials were completed on September 12 the same year, and government trials started on September 30.
Initial enthusiasm for the aircraft was dampened by several problems. The most alarming of these was the danger of a midair explosion due to overheating of the fuselage fuel tanks located between the engines. Deployment of airbrakes at high speeds caused a high-g pitch-up. Elevators lacked authority at supersonic speeds. The high landing speed of 230 km/h (145 mph), compared to 160 km/h (100 mph) for the MiG-15, combined with the lack of a two-seat trainer version, slowed pilot transition to the type. Handling problems were addressed with the second prototype, "SM-9/2", which added a third ventral airbrake and introduced all-moving tailplanes with a damper to prevent pilot-induced oscillations at subsonic speeds. It flew on 16 September 1954, and entered production as the MiG-19S.
Approximately 5,500 MiG-19's were produced, first in the USSR and in Czechoslovakia as the Avia S-105, but mainly in the People's Republic of China as the Shenyang J-6. The aircraft saw service with a number of other national air forces, including those of Cuba, North Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan, and North Korea. The aircraft saw combat during the Vietnam War, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1971 Bangladesh War.
However, jet fighter development made huge leaps in the 1960s, and OKB MiG was constantly trying to improve the MiG-19's performance, esp. against fast and high-flying enemies, primarily bombers but also spy planes like the U-2.
As the MiG-19S was brought into service with the Soviet air forces in mid-1956, the OKB MiG was continuing the refinement of the SM-1/I-340 fighter. One of these evolutionary paths was the SM-12 (literally, “SM-1, second generation”) family of prototypes, the ultimate extrapolation of the basic MiG-19 design, which eventually led to the MiG-19bis interceptor that filled the gap between the MiG-19S and the following, highly successful MiG-21.
The SM-12 first saw life as an exercise in drag reduction by means of new air intake configurations, since the MiG-19’s original intake with rounded lips became inefficient at supersonic speed (its Western rival, the North American F-100, featured a sharp-lipped nose air intake from the start). The first of three prototypes, the SM-12/1, was essentially a MiG-19S with an extended and straight-tapered nose with sharp-lipped orifice and a pointed, two-position shock cone on the intake splitter. The simple arrangement proved to be successful and was further refined.
The next evolutionary step, the SM-12/3, differed from its predecessors primarily in two new R3-26 turbojets developed from the earlier power plant by V. N. Sorokin. These each offered an afterburning thrust of 3,600kg, enabling the SM-12/3 to attain speeds ranging between 1,430km/h at sea level, or Mach=1.16, and 1,930km/h at 12,000m, or Mach=1.8, and an altitude of between 17,500 and 18,000m during its test program. This outstanding performance prompted further development with a view to production as a point defense interceptor.
Similarly powered by R3-26 engines, and embodying major nose redesign with a larger orifice permitting introduction of a substantial two-position conical centerbody for a TsD-30 radar, a further prototype was completed as the SM-12PM. Discarding the wing root NR-30 cannon of preceding prototypes, the SM-12PM was armed with only two K-5M (RS-2U) beam-riding missiles and entered flight test in 1957. This configuration would become the basis for the MiG-19bis interceptor that eventually was ordered into limited production (see below).
However, the SM-12 development line did not stop at this point. At the end of 1958, yet another prototype, the SM-12PMU, joined the experimental fighter family. This had R3M-26 turbojets uprated to 3.800kg with afterburning, but these were further augmented by a U-19D accelerator, which took the form of a permanent ventral pack containing an RU-013 rocket motor and its propellant tanks. Developed by D. D. Sevruk, the RU-013 delivered 3,000kg of additional thrust, and with the aid of this rocket motor, the SM-12PMU attained an altitude of 24,000m and a speed of Mach=1.69. But this effort was to no avail: the decision had been taken meanwhile to manufacture the Ye-7 in series as the MiG-21, and further development of the SM-12 series was therefore discontinued.
Nevertheless, since full operational status of the new MiG-21 was expected to remain pending for some time, production of a modified SM-12PM was ordered as a gap filler. Not only would this fighter bridge the performance gap to the Mach 2-capable MiG-21, it also had the benefit of being based on proven technologies and would not require a new basic pilot training.
The new aircraft received the official designation MiG-19bis. Compared with the SM-12PM prototype, the MiG-19bis differed in some details and improvements. The SM-12PM’s most significant shortfall was its short range – at full power, it had only a range of 750 km! This could be mended through an additional fuel tank in an enlarged dorsal fairing behind the cockpit. With this internal extra fuel, range could be extended by a further 200 - 250km range, but drop tanks had typically to be carried, too, in order to extend the fighter’ combat radius with two AAMs to 500 km. Specifically for the MiG-19bis, new, supersonic drop tanks (PTB-490) were designed, and these were later adapted for the MiG-21, too.
The air intake shock cone was re-contoured and the shifting mechanism improved: Instead of a simple, conical shape, the shock cone now had a more complex curvature with two steps and the intake orifice area was widened to allow a higher airflow rate. The air intake’s efficiency was further optimized through gradual positions of the shock cone.
As a positive side effect, the revised shock cone offered space for an enlarged radar dish, what improved detection range and resolution. The TsD-30 radar for the fighter’s missile-only armament was retained, even though the K-5’s effective range of only 2–6 km (1¼ – 3¾ mi) made it only suitable against slow and large targets like bombers. All guns were deleted in order to save weight or make room for the electronic equipment. The tail section was also changed because the R3M-26 engines and their afterburners were considerably longer than the MiG-19's original RM-5 engines. The exhausts now markedly protruded from the tail section, and the original, characteristic pen nib fairing between the two engines had been modified accordingly.
Production started in 1960, but only a total of roundabout 180 MiG-19bis, which received the NATO code "Farmer F", were built and the Soviet Union remained the only operator of the type. The first aircraft entered Soviet Anti-Air Defense in early 1961, and the machines were concentrated in PVO interceptor units around major sites like Moscow, Sewastopol at the Black Sea and Vladivostok in the Far East.
With the advent of the MiG-21, though, their career did not last long. Even though many machines were updated to carry the K-13 (the IR-guided AA-2 "Atoll") as well as the improved K-55 AAMs, with no change of the type’s designation, most MiG-19bis were already phased out towards the late 1960s and quickly replaced by 2nd generation MiG-21s as well as heavier and more capable Suchoj interceptors like the Su-9, -11 and -15. By 1972, all MiG-19bis had been retired.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 13.54 m (44 ft 4 in), fuselage only with shock cone in forward position
15.48 m (50 8 ½ in) including pitot
Wingspan: 9 m (29 ft 6 in)
Height: 3.8885 m (12 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 25 m² (269 ft²)
Empty weight: 5,210 kg (11,475 lb)
Loaded weight: 7,890 kg (17,380 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 9,050 kg (19,935 lb)
Fuel capacity: 2,450 l (556 imp gal; 647 US gal) internal;
plus 760 l (170 imp gal; 200 US gal) with 2 drop tanks
Powerplant:
2× Sorokin R3M-26 turbojets, rated at 37.2 kN (8,370 lbf) thrust each with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,380km/h at sea level (Mach=1.16)
1,850km/h at 12,000m (Mach=1.8)
Range: 1,250 km (775 mi; 750 nmi) at 14,000 m (45,000 ft) with 2 × 490 l drop tanks
Combat range: 500 km (312 mi; 270 nmi)
Ferry range: 2,000 km (1,242 mi; 690 nmi)
Service ceiling: 19,750 m (64,690 ft)
Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 353.3 kg/m² (72.4 lb/ft²)
Thrust/weight: 0.86
Armament:
No internal guns.
4× underwing pylons; typically, a pair of PTB-490 drop tanks were carried on the outer pylon pair,
plus a pair of air-to air missiles on the inner pair: initially two radar-guided Kaliningrad K-5M (RS-2US)
AAMs, later two radar-guided K-55 or IR-guided Vympel K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll') AAMs
The kit and its assembly:
Another submission for the 2018 Cold War Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and again the opportunity to build a whiffy model from the project list. But it’s as fictional as one might think, since the SM-12 line of experimental “hybrid” fighters between the MiG-19 and the MiG-21 was real. But none of these aircraft ever made it into serial production, and in real life the MiG-21 showed so much potential that the attempts to improve the MiG-19 were stopped and no operational fighter entered production or service.
However, the SM-12, with its elongated nose and the central shock cone, makes a nice model subject, and I imagined what a service aircraft might have looked like? It would IMHO have been close, if not identical, to the SM-12PM, since this was the most refined pure jet fighter in the development family.
The basis for the build was a (dead cheap) Mastercraft MiG-19, which is a re-edition of the venerable Kovozávody Prostějov (KP) kit – as a tribute to modern tastes, it comes with (crudely) engraved panel, but it has a horrible fit all over. For instance, there was a 1mm gap between the fuselage and the right wing, the wing halves’ outlines did not match at all and it is questionable if the canopy actually belongs to the kit at all? PSR everywhere. I also had a Plastyk version of this kit on the table some time ago, but it was of a much better quality! O.K., the Mastercraft kit comes cheap, but it’s, to be honest, not a real bargain.
Even though the result would not be crisp I did some mods and changes. Internally, a cockpit tub was implanted (OOB there’s just a wacky seat hanging in mid air) plus some serious lead weight in the nose section for a proper stance.
On the outside, the new air intake is the most obvious change. I found a Su-17 intake (from a Mastercraft kit, too) and used a piece from a Matchbox B-17G’s dorsal turret to elongate the nose – it had an almost perfect diameter and a mildly conical shape. Some massive PSR work was necessary to blend the parts together, though.
The tail received new jet nozzles, scratched from steel needle protection covers, and the tail fairing was adjusted according to the real SM-12’s shape.
Ordnance was adapted, too: the drop tanks come from a Mastercraft MiG-21, and these supersonic PTB-490 tanks were indeed carried by the real SM-12 prototypes because the uprated engines were very thirsty and the original, teardrop-shaped MiG-19 tanks simply too draggy for the much faster SM-12. As a side note, the real SM-12’s short range was one of the serious factors that prevented the promising type’s production in real life. In order to overcome the poor range weakness I added an enlarged spine (half of a drop tank), inspired by the MiG-21 SMT, that would house an additional internal fuel tank.
The R2-SU/K-5 AAMs come from a vintage Mastercraft Soviet aircraft weapon set, which carries a pair of these 1st generation AAMs. While the molds seem to be a bit soft, the missiles look pretty convincing. Their pylons were taken from the kit (OOB they carry unguided AAM pods and are placed behind the main landing gear wells), just reversed and placed on the wings’ leading edges – similar to the real SM-12’s arrangement.
Painting and markings:
No surprises. In the Sixties, any PVO aircraft was left in bare metal, so there was hardly an alternative to a NMF finish.
Painting started with an all-over coat with acrylic Revell 99 (Aluminum), just the spine tank became light grey (Revell 371) for some contrast, and I painted some di-electric covers in a deep green (Revell 48).
The cockpit interior was painted with a bright mix of Revell 55 and some 48, while the landing gear wells and the back section of the cockpit were painted in a bluish grey (Revell 57).
The landing gear was painted in Steel (unpolished Modelmaster metallizer) and received classic, bright green wheel discs (Humbrol 2). As a small, unusual highlight the pitot boom under the chin received red and white stripes – seen on occasional MiG-19S fighters in Soviet service, and the anti-flutter booms on the stabilizers became bright red, too.
After the basic painting was done the kit received a black ink wash. Once this had dried and wiped off with a soft cotton cloth, post shading with various metallizer tones was added in order to liven up the uniform aircraft (including Humbrol’s matt and polished aluminum, and the exhaust section was treated with steel). Some panel lines were emphasized with a thin pencil.
Decals were puzzled together from various sources, a Guards badge and a few Russian stencils were added, too. Finally, the kit was sealed with a coat of sheen acrylic varnish (a 2:1 mix of Italeri matt and semi-gloss varnish).
The K-5 missiles, last but not least, were painted in aluminum, too, but their end caps (both front and tail section) became off-white.
The Mastercraft kit on which this conversion was based is crude, so I did not have high expectations concerning the outcome. But the new nose blends nicely into the MiG-19 fuselage, and the wide spine is a subtle detail that makes the aircraft look more “beefy” and less MiG-19-ish. The different drop tanks – even though they are authentic – visually add further speed. And despite many flaws, I am quite happy with the result of roundabout a week’s work.
quick restore tonight before I head out. #Mastercraft, Algerian Briar, Made in France. Not real happy with the stem but it'll do for now. Wasn't real impressed with this pipe when I started. But then, as the decades of wear came off, it had some really nice grain. It prolly looked like this when it was first bought by someone's grandad back in the day.
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+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Focke-Wulf Ta 152 was a World War II German high-altitude fighter-interceptor designed by Kurt Tank and produced by Focke-Wulf. The fighter was a development of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 aircraft. Originally it was intended to be made in three versions—the Ta 152H Höhenjäger ("high-altitude fighter"), the Ta 152C designed for medium-altitude operations and ground-attack, using a different engine and smaller wing, and finally the Ta 152E fighter-reconnaissance aircraft with the engine of the H model and the short wing of the C model.
The fighters, esp. the high altitude variants, had top priority. The initial Fw 190's BMW 801 engine was originally designed for bomber and transport aircraft flying at medium altitudes in the 15,000 to 20,000 feet (4,600 to 6,100 m) range. In keeping with this role, it used a relatively simple single-stage supercharger that lacked performance above 20,000 feet (6,100 m) altitude. This presented a problem for fighter use, where high-altitude performance was desirable. Through careful tuning, the Fw 190 instead emerged as a powerful medium altitude design. Several experimental models of the 190 with different engines were tested, primarily aiming at an improved high altitude performance. But these were not high priority projects or failed through various teething troubles with the innovative engines.
The entry of the United States into the war brought with it a series of heavy bombers and escort fighters optimized for operations at higher altitudes, around 25,000 feet (7,600 m). At these altitudes, the BMW 801-powered 190 found itself at a distinct disadvantage, and this problem became acute in early 1944 when the P-51 Mustang arrived in quantity. This led to the introduction of the Fw 190D-9, mounting the Junkers Jumo 213E engine. This engine had a two-stage supercharger and much better altitude performance. However, the rest of the aircraft's design, especially the relatively short wings, made it difficult to fly at high altitudes. While the D-9 upgrade was expedient, it was not ideal.
This led to the more refined Ta 152. Kurt Tank originally designed the Ta 152 with the 44.52 litre displacement Daimler-Benz DB 603 engine, as it offered better high-altitude performance and also a greater developmental potential. The DB 603 had been used in the Fw 190C prototypes but had many problems and was considered too difficult to implement in the Ta 152 by RLM officials. With this in mind, Tank focused his efforts on the 213E as the Ta 152H's power plant. However, he insisted that the DB 603 be retained for the Ta 152C versions and as an option for later versions of the Ta 152H.
The Ta 152's fuselage was an extended version of the Fw 190D-9 fuselage with wider-chord fixed vertical tail surfaces (especially the top half), and hydraulic rather than electrically controlled undercarriage and flaps. Due to the changes in the center of gravity and overall balance, the nose was also lengthened. The D-9 retained the 10.51 metres (34.5 ft) wingspan of the original pre-war Fw 190 models, but this was slightly extended for the C model to 11 metres (36 ft), and greatly extended for the H model to 14.44 metres (47.4 ft), which gave it much better control at high altitudes at the cost of speed at lower altitudes.
Due to the war's impact on aluminum availability, the wing was built around two steel spars, the front extending from just past the landing gear attachment points, and the rear spar spanning the entire wing. The wing itself was designed with 3° of washout, from the root to the flap-aileron junction, to prevent the ailerons from stalling before the center section of the wing. The Ta 152 featured the FuG 16ZY and FuG 25a radio equipment, but some aircraft were issued with an FuG 125 Hermine D/F for navigation and blind landing, LGW-Siemens K 23 autopilot, and a heated armor glass windscreen for bad-weather operations.
By October 1944, the war was going very badly for Germany, and the RLM pushed Focke-Wulf to quickly get the Ta 152 into production. As a result, several Ta 152 prototypes crashed early into the test program. It was found that critical systems were lacking sufficient quality control. Problems arose with superchargers, pressurized cockpits leaked, the engine cooling system was unreliable at best due in part to unreliable oil temperature monitoring, and in several instances the landing gear failed to properly retract. A total of up to 20 pre-production Ta 152 H-0s were delivered from November 1944 to Erprobungskommando Ta 152 to service test the aircraft. It was reported that test pilots were only able to conduct a mere 31 hours of flight tests before full production hastily started.
In parallel, further attempts were made to improve the Ta 152’s performance. One development path were the J and K models, which were to be powered by the Jumo 222 engine. Design work on the high-power Jumo 222 had already started in 1937, and it had had a winding development story.
The massive engine looked like a radial due to its arrangement, since it was configured with six inline cylinder banks spaced at equal angles around the central crankcase, each bank having four cylinders. Like most inlines it was liquid-cooled and typically connected with an annular radiator around the propeller shaft. Compared with the contemporary BMW 801 and Daimler-Benz DB 605, the 222 was a huge leap in performance. It had only a slightly larger displacement figure than the 801's 41.8 L (2,550.8 in³), and about 25% more than the 605's 35.7 L (2,178.5 in³), but delivered considerably more power: 1,850 kW (2,500 hp) compared to 1,193 kW (1,600 hp) in the 801 and 1,119 kW (1,500 hp) in the 605. Such was the projected performance of the engine compared to contemporary designs that many developments of wartime Luftwaffe piston-engined aircraft designs were based on it, at least as an option. Notable among these was the entire “Bomber B” program, which looked to replace all existing Luftwaffe bombers with a new twin-engine design that was larger, faster and more heavily armed than any aircraft in their inventory.
However, the engine’s development was protracted and complex, so that the project had been shelved and revived several times in the course of the following years. Junkers did not give up on it, though, and, towards late 1944, a functional variant finally emerged. Using the original 46.4 litre displacement A/B design, Junkers added a new two-stage supercharger including a trio of aftercoolers, one per pair of neighboring cylinder banks for high-altitude use, and produced the 222E and F-series. Although sea-level performance was unchanged at 1,850 kW (2,500 hp), the engine was able to produce 1,439 kW (1,930 hp) at 9,000 m (29,530 ft). A further attempt for even higher altitude performance resulted in the turbocharged 222G and H.
Both of these new engines were earmarked for the Ta 152, resulting in two projects: the new Ta 152J-1 for medium altitudes with the Jumo 222E and a short wing span and the Ta 152K-1 high altitude fighter with the Jumo 222 G and long wings.
The engineers expected a phenomenal performance, superior to any piston engine fighter both Axis and Allies forces had fielded to date, and the aircraft would furthermore carry a potent cannon armament.
However, integrating the massive engine into the slender Ta 152 airframe resulted in a thorough redesign of the complete front section. The cowling had to be widened considerably and a new four-blade propeller was mounted in order to exploit the incremental power. The Ta 152 J’s wing was based on the earlier C model but had its span extended further to 11.65 m in order cope with the aircraft’s higher weight. The Ta 152 K used the former H model’s high altitude wings.
Further changes were less visible, including a completely new engine mount and reinforcements of the airframe’s internal structure. Due to the lack of light-weight materials, these were mostly done with steel, what raised overall weight of the aircraft considerably – the empty Ta 152J weighed 4,175 kg (9,205 lb), more than half a ton than the Fw 190D-9 with 3,490 kg (7,694 lb), and at full TOW the new aircraft almost weighed roundabout 5 tons.
Another Achilles heel of the new design turned out to be the Jumo 222’s high fuel consumption and the fighter’s resulting short legs. With internal fuel, range was limited to only 835 km (519 mi) instead of 2.000 km (1.242 mi) for the Ta 152H, what confined the fighter to short, local interception duties or strike attacks close to the front lines.
In order to counter this flaw and to avoid a draggy, ventral drop tank, the Ta 152J was outfitted with attachment points for a pair of so-called “Doppelreiter” (lit. “twin riders”) auxiliary slipper tanks on the wings’ upper surfaces.
These conformal tanks had originally been developed for the Fw 190A-7 fighter in 1943 and they offered several operational benefits. They could be easily mounted (a team of 2 or 3 engineers had them in place in less than 10 minutes), held 2x 270l of additional fuel and their aerodynamic shape did hardly impair the aircraft’s performance at all. In fact, they could even be carried when the aircraft was engaging in a dogfight and did not have to be jettisoned at all. With the “Doppelreiter” tanks, the range could be extended to almost 1.500 km (900 mi), and this could be further improved by an additional standard 300 l drop tank under the fuselage.
Initial stability problems through semi-filled tanks and sloshing fuel had, since the initial tests with the Fw 190 A-7, been fixed through an internal chamber system. In this modified form, the Ta 152 J-2 entered service in late 1945.
However, the “Doppelreiter” tanks were not a viable option for Ta 152 K’s long wings and the type’s turbocharged Jumo 222G remained troublesome. As a result, the K variant was held back and focus returned to the older Ta 152H for high altitude duties.
The Ta 152 J-2 remained the only production variant with the new engine, though, because the complex Jumo 222 was hard to manufacture and resources had become increasingly scarce by mid-1945. Consequentially, even though production of the Ta 152 J started in late 1945, the fighter’s production numbers remained low and only a small number of aircraft were finished and eventually reached front line units in serviceable condition. Probably only 30 machines went operational, with 30 more in the production lines in a more or less uncompleted condition. But those which countered bomber raids proved to be highly effective at the Western front and over Northern Germany against medium bombers and their escort fighters coming in from Great Britain.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 10.29 m (33 ft 8¾ in)
Wingspan: 11.65 m (38 ft 2 in)
Height: 3.35 m (11 ft 0 in)
Wing area: 19.80 m² (212.42 ft²)
Empty weight: 4,175 kg (9,205 lb)
Loaded weight: 6,054 kg (13,346 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,995 kg (15,422 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Junkers Jumo 222E liquid-cooled, 24-cylinder six-row inline piston engine
with a two-stage supercharger, rated at 2,500 hp (1,850 kW) at sea level
and 1,930 hp (1,439 kW) at 9,000 m (29,530 ft), driving a four-blade propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 760 km/h (408 knots, 470 mph) at 6,600 m (21,655 ft)
Range: 835 km (519 mi) with internal fuel only
1.480 km (919 mi) with Doppelreiter auxiliary tanks
Service ceiling: 12,600 m (41,500 ft)
Rate of climb: 22.1 m/s (4,360 ft/min)
Armament:
2× 20 mm (0.787 in) MG 151 cannons with 250 RPG above the engine
2x 30mm (1.181 in) MK 103 in the wing roots with 150 RPG
1x ventral hardpoint for a 500 kg (1,102 lb) SC 500 bomb or a 300l drop tank
Attachment points for a pair of “Doppelreiter” 270 l conformal slipper tanks above the wings
The kit and its assembly:
This is a what-if model, but, as usual, it is rooted in reality – to be precise in the German late-war plans to mate the Ta 152(H) with the mighty Jumo 222 engine. I do not know what the official service designation would have been, but this combo would have resulted in a powerful fighter – AFAIK, German engineers’ calculations indicated a performance that would have been comparable with the post-WWII F4U-5!
Creating a model of such this paper aircraft called for some serious conversion work and ended almost in a kitbashing. The starting point became a (cheap) Mistercraft Fw 190D-9 kit, and I originally planned this model to be a Fw 190 variant, but eventually this turned into a Ta 152, since it would better match up with the late war time frame.
The Mastercraft/Mistercraft kit appears to be an indigenous mold and not a re-issue of a vintage kit. At first glance the parts look pretty crisp, but the kit has some serious fit and flash issues. Another selling point is the detailed decal set, which comes in three sheets and encompasses a lot of stencils – even though the instructions where to place them are not consistent, and there are even 1:48 scale(!) markings included. But that’s a Mastercraft/Mistercraft standard, anyway…
Well, the basis was sound and the kit would, in any event, be thoroughly modified. From the OOB kit, fuselage, wings and stabilizers were taken, as well as the landing gear and some other bits.
The wings were extended, in order to keep overall proportions with the new, much more massive engine cowling balanced (see below). Not an easy stunt, but I was lucky to have recently bought a set of resin Doppelreiter tanks from Airmodel which were just perfect to cover the cuts and seams on the upper wing surfaces. Inside of the wings, a styrene strip secured stability while the lower wing surface was sculpted with putty and the trailing edge of the outer wing panels was cut down by 1 mm, so that the wings’ outlines match again. Some further PSR work was necessary to blend the slipper tanks into the wings, forming the upper side of the modifications, but in the end the whole thing looks quite good.
The fuselage lost both its original engine and the tail. The latter is a donor part from a Frog Ta 152H (Revell re-boxing), but mating it with the Mistercraft Fw 190D was not easy because the fuselage shapes of the two kits are totally different! I also used the Mistercraft stabilizers because they were markedly bigger than the same parts from the Ta 152 kit!
The Jumo 222 front end was simulated with parts from the spares box, and it is a bit exaggerated. Actually, the Jumo 222 was hardly bigger (in both length and diameter) than the Fw 190D’s Jumo 213 V12 engine! The cowling and the radiator for my conversion came from a Frog He 219 engine nacelle (Revell re-boxing, too) which is utterly dubious. The nacelle parts were turned upside down and integrated into the slender Fw 190 front fuselage with several layers of putty.
Inside of the cowling, a radiator plate from an Italeri Fw 190D was mounted, together with a styrene tube adapter for the new propeller. The latter was scratched, using a drop tank as spinner and single propeller blades from the Mistercraft Fw 190D, plus one donor blade from the Frog Ta 152H kit, which had to be trimmed in order to match the other blades. But with some paint, no one will tell the small differences…
Once the bigger engine was integrated into the fuselage, the exhaust system had to be added. In real life, the Jumo 222 would have featured three clusters with two rows of four exhaust stubs, distributed evenly around the cowling. Using a drawing of this arrangement as benchmark, I started with square cuts for the cluster openings. From the back side, styrene sheet closed the gaps and offered a basis for the exhaust stubs. These were improvised with H0 scale roofing shingles – each of the 24 exhaust stubs was cut individually into shape and size and then glued into the respective openings on the upper flanks and under the engine. Finally, styrene sheet was used to create small spoilers and heat shields. The result is certainly not perfect, but comes close to what the real world arrangement would basically have looked like. In a final step, two air intakes for the two-stage supercharger, scratched from sprue material, were added to the flanks.
The cockpit remained OOB, simple as it is, as well as the landing gear, but the canopy was modified in order to allow a presentation in open position. This meant that the OOB canopy had to be cut in two parts and that the model’s spine had to be cut away, making place for a donor canopy (the late, bulged variant, IIRC from an Italeri Fw 190D-9). Internally the fuselage gap was filled with putty and the headrest had to be modified, too, but the conversion turned out to look better than expected.
As a small cosmetic improvement, the molded gun barrel stumps in the wing roots were replaced with hollow steel needles, and the outer guns were completely removed.
Painting and markings:
I wanted a typical “German”, yet improvised look, as if the machine had been rushed to a service unit after minimal exterior decoration. I found a late war Fw 190F as a benchmark for my design, which basically carried a standard paint scheme of RLM 74 and 75 from above (wing surfaces and spine), but the undersides camouflage (typically in RLM 76) was completely missing. Instead, the aircraft was left in bare metal, and it carried only very simple and minimal markings.
I adapted this scheme for my build with RLM 74 and 75 for the upper wing surfaces, but the spine was painted with RLM 75 and 81 (all from Modelmaster’s Authentic line). The NMF areas were painted with Steel Metallizer instead of aluminum. I went for this darker tone because I wanted a rather weathered and unpolished look. Some camouflage mottles with thinned RLM 75 and 81 were added to the flanks and the fin, too.
The landing gear covers as well as the undersides of the Doppelreiter tanks’ rear extensions were painted with RLM 76, while the undersides of the rudders on wings and stabilizers were painted with a greenish grey (similar to RAF Sky and frequently misidentified as RLM 84, a tone that never officially existed). The fin’s rudder was painted in a rusty red (Humbrol 70) – again a typical German primer tone for metal replacement parts.
The cockpit interior became RLM 66 (a very dark grey, Humbrol 67), while the landing gear became RLM 02 (Revell 45) – all classic Luftwaffe tones for the intended era.
The markings were puzzled together from various sources, including the OOB sheets from the Mistercraft kit plus aftermarket material from TL Modellbau and Sky Models.
While most of this build was improvised, I like the beefy and purposeful look of this über-Ta 152. It’s certainly not 100% what the potential real thing would have looked like, but, after all, it’s intended to be a whif model plane. The massive engine changes the look considerably, even though in a subtle way since the original silhouette remains intact. But if you place a standard Fw 190 next to it, the overall growth becomes recognizable – as if you place an early Spitfire next to one of its post-war, Griffon-powered evolutions that only share the general outlines. The shaggy look due to the NMF undersides might look strange, but many late-war builds arrived in a similar, unfinished fashionat the front line units.
Today was the picture perfect day for the Banana Boat's maiden voyage. It wasn't quite swimming or wakeboarding weather at Lake Billy Chinook (the water was 56 degrees, the air 65 degrees) - but it was a perfect day to take our friends and kids out for a cruise.
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I was out shooting photos for the Clean Lakes Festival - Barefoot Challenge out on the water at Brittingham Park and was able to get this fantastic shot. I have plenty of great photos of competitors in action and not falling which I will post later on here, but at such a high shutter speed this shot really is dramatic and shows what these athletes are willing to go through to win a competition. I can't imagine hitting the water at 30 plus mph!
Something's brewing down at Mastercraft doors.
Can you guess the alphabet agency?
1:43 First Response Replicas:
Chevy Tahoe PPV
Ford Police Interceptor Utility
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Chevy Suburban
#1stPix43LE
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III
Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R
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+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The history of the PZL P.11 started in 1929, when a talented designer, Zygmunt Puławski, designed an all-metal, metal-covered monoplane fighter, the P.1. While most of the world's forces were still using biplanes, the new P.1 used a high-mounted gull wing to give the pilot an excellent view. A second prototype, the P.6, was completed the next year. The design generated intense interest around the world, the layout becoming known as the "Polish wing" or "Puławski wing". A further improvement, the PZL P.7, was built for the Polish Air Force in a series of 150.
After designing the P.7, Puławski started further variants with larger engines, leading eventually to the P.11. The first P.11/I prototype flew in August 1931, after Puławski's death in an air crash. It was followed by two slightly modified prototypes, the P.11/II and the P.11/III. The first variant ordered by the Polish Air Force was the P.11a, considered an interim model and built in a series of 30. Otherwise similar to the P.7, it mounted the 575 hp (429 kW) Bristol Mercury IV S2 radial engine produced in Poland under licence.
The final variant for the Polish air force, the P.11c had a new, refined fuselage, with the engine lowered in the nose to give the pilot a better view. The central part of the wings was also modified. Production of the P.11c started in 1934 and 175 were produced. The first series of approximately 50 P.11c aircraft were fitted with Mercury V S2 of 600 hp (447 kW), the rest with Mercury VI S2 of 630 hp (470 kW).
Apart from Poland, Romania showed interest in the new design. Even before the P.11a entered service with the Polish air force, 50 aircraft designated P.11b were ordered for the Romanian Air Force, while an agreement for license production was agreed. Deliveries of Polish-built P.11bs to Romania commenced in October 1933. They were fitted with Gnome-Rhone 9Krsd Mistral 595 hp (444 kW) engines, otherwise they were similar to the P.11a.
After the P.11c had been developed, the Romanians decided to switch the license production to the new model. As a result, from 1936 IAR built 70 aircraft as the IAR P.11f, powered by the Romanian-built IAR-K-9 engine, which was a heavily modified version of the Gnome-Rhone 9K giving 640 hp (480 kW).
The Romanians then produced another Polish fighter, the PZL P.24, developed from the P.11 exclusively for export. Greece, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Hungary and Republican Spain were interested in buying the P.11, but finally Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey bought the P.24 instead.
Hungary bought thirty aircraft from Bulgarian license production, designated PZL.11m. These machines were powered by a slightly weaker Bristol Jupiter VIIF 9-cylinder radial engine, rated at 520 hp (388 kW), which had also powered the PZL.7. This lack of power was compensated by a new three blade metal propeller with variable pitch – a very innovative solution at the time, and it improved rate of climb and acceleration considerably, as well as endurance. Furthermore, the PZL.11m received armament of Italian origin: four 7.7mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns.
When the P.11 entered service in 1934, as a counterpart to the British Gloster Gauntlet and German Heinkel He 51, it was arguably the most advanced fighter in the world. However, due to the quick progress in aircraft technology, the P.11 was obsolete by 1939, overtaken by cantilever designs with retractable landing gear such as the British Supermarine Spitfire and German Messerschmitt Bf 109.
Hungary’s PZL.11hs even saw short, hot action during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, when the country’s northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, were taken over by Germany in March 1939 under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. The incorporation of the Sudetenland into Germany left the rest of Czechoslovakia weak and it became powerless to resist subsequent occupation.
On 16 March 1939, the German Wehrmacht moved into the remainder of Czechoslovakia and, from Prague Castle, Bohemia and Moravia were declared as German protectorates. The occupation ended with the surrender of Germany following World War II.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 7.55 m (24 ft 9 in)
Wingspan: 10.719 m (35 ft 2 in)
Height: 2.85 m (9 ft 4 in)
Wing area: 17.9 m2 (193 sq ft)
Empty weight: 1,147 kg (2,529 lb)
Gross weight: 1,630 kg (3,594 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 1,800 kg (3,968 lb)
Powerplant:
1 × Bristol Jupiter VIIF 9-cylinder radial engine, 520 hp (388 kW)
Performance:
Maximum speed: 390 km/h (242 mph; 211 kn) at 5,000 m (16,404 ft),
300 km/h (186 mph) at sea level
Stall speed: 98 km/h (61 mph; 53 kn)
Range: 800 km (435 mi; 378 nmi)
Service ceiling: 8,000 m (26,247 ft) absolute ceiling 11,000 m (36,089 ft)
Time to altitude: 5,000 m (16,404 ft) in 5.2 minutes
7,000 m (22,966 ft) in 11.5 minutes
Wing loading: 91.1 kg/m2 (18.7 lb/sq ft)
Power/mass: 0.279 kW/kg (0.166 hp/lb)
Armament:
4× 7.7 mm (.303 in) Breda-SAFAT machine guns with 500rpg
The kit and its assembly:
This quickie whif was a rather short notice build – I had a surplus Mastercraft PZL.11c in my stash, originally part of a cheap lot, and for a long time no idea what to do with it …until I read an article about the Hungarian/Czech clash right before the outbreak of WWII, with very detailed army and air force activities, including profiles and pics of some aircraft of that era.
That spawned the idea to build a Hungarian PZL.11 from the kit, more or less based on a Fiat CR.32bis (aircraft V.107) in Hungarian service with a very attractive paint scheme as “design benchmark”.
The PZL.11 was built almost OOB – the kit is simple, but has very nice surface details. Fit is mediocre, though, especially the stabilizers puzzled me. The only thing I changed is the propeller; instead of a two blade wood piece I installed a three-bladed alternative (from a Matchbox Provost, coupled with a spinner from an Italeri La-5) for a modernized/different look.
Painting and markings:
This is an individual interpretation of a real aircraft’s paint scheme - I found VERY contradictive sources about the potential paint scheme. MKHL aircraft began to be camouflaged in a three-tone scheme from October of 1938. The upper surfaces received irregular, undulating patches of Green/Grey/Brown, while the undersides were painted light Grey-Blue.
As no specific official camouflage patterns were issued, a wide variety of styles and colors resulted, depending as much on the means available in every case, as on the particular tastes of the maintenance personnel detached to do the job. I also guess that many foreign aircraft like the Italian CR.32s or He 70 reconnaissance bombers simply kept their home countries schemes/colors and were successively re-painted with whatever was at hand.
I based my scheme on a CR.32’s profile in a magazine, and I assume that the print colors are brighter than the real Hungarian aircraft – on other profiles of the same machine it looks as if it was painted in RLM 61, 62, 63 and 65! Anyway, I liked the more saturated colors, so I went for this more decorative option.
The colors I used are Olive Green (RAL 6003 from Modelmaster), Dark Green (FS 34079; Humbrol 116) and Brown (Modelmaster), with Pastel Blue (Humbrol 44) undersides. The latter tone is also found as irregular patches on the upper surfaces, it really looks wild and colorful – esp. in combination with the Hungarian national markings.
Personally, I think that the typical Hungarian paint scheme of the time was just a crude addition of paint on top of the original bare metal/aluminum finish of many aircraft, but pics are difficult to interpret.
A quickie, finished in the course of three evenings and some finishing touches before the fourth day's breakfast - the colors are certainly totally wrong, but it's a whif aircraft after all. ;)
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
After the Ukrainian independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Air Force (Повітряні Сили України, Povitryani Syly Ukrayiny) was established on March 17, 1992, in accordance with a Directive of the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, many aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory, including a wide range of fighters and attack aircraft, helicopters and even strategic bombers, and these became the initial equipment. Ever since, the Ukrainian air force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces, but for many years the main inventory still consisted of Soviet-made aircraft.
Following the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution and subsequent March 2014 Russian annexation of the Crimea peninsula and the following violence and insurgency in east Ukraine, the Ukrainian government tried to increase its defense spending and capabilities. Returning equipment (of Russian origin, though) to service was a key part of the spending drive, but in parallel attempts were made to procure flying material from Western sources in order to become moer and more independent from the obtrusive neighbor. In April 2014 two MiG-29 aircraft were restored to flight on short notice and in August a decommissioned An-26 transport aircraft was restored to active service by a volunteer group. On 5 January 2015 the air force received another 4 restored airplanes, two MiG-29s and two Su-27s, as well as two Mi-8 and Mi-2 helicopters. However, since these aircraft had already accumulated a considerable number of flying hours, this could only have been an interim solution and the Ukraine turned directly to NATO for material support.
This politically highly delicate help was eventually granted in the form of eight General Dynamics F-16 C (six) and D (two) multi-role fighters of early Block 40 standard, leased from the U.S.A. and diverted from active aircraft which were about to become surplus stock and mothballed, anyway.
The F-16 Fighting Falcon itself was a single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as a light air superiority day fighter as a complement to the heavier F-15 Eagle interceptor, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,600 aircraft were built since production was approved in 1976. In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation, which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta.
Although no longer being purchased by the launch customer, the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are still being built for export customers – the F-16 has been procured to serve in the air forces of 25 other nations all around the world, making it one of the world's most numerous fixed-wing aircraft in military service.
The Fighting Falcon's key features include a frameless bubble canopy for better visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while maneuvering, an ejection seat reclined 30 degrees from vertical to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot, and the first use of a relaxed static stability/fly-by-wire flight control system which helps to make it an agile aircraft. The F-16 has an internal M61 Vulcan cannon and the advanced C/D version features a total of 11 locations for mounting weapons and other mission equipment.
The eight machines for the Ukraine arrived in June 2016 via direct transfer flights over the Atlantic and Western Europe. The former USAF machines were delivered “as is”, even though they had some state-of-the-art avionics replaced by less sensitive alternatives from older F-16 production blocks. Together with the fighters, an undisclosed number of AIM-9M Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles were delivered, but the leasing agreement did not include LANTIRN pods that would provide the F-16C/D with improved all-day/all-weather strike capability. Other equipment like ECM pods was also not included. Service, maintenance and logistics for the new type in Ukrainian service was, due to the small operational number, secured with the help of the Polish air force, which had been operating 48 F-16C/D+ Block 52 fighters since 2006 and had the required experience and facilities at its 31st Tactical Air Base in Poznań-Krzesiny.
Upon arrival, the aircraft were immediately re-painted in a striking digital camouflage and received non-consecutive tactical codes, apparently based on the airframe’s former U.S. serial numbers, using the last two digits. They were all allocated to the 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade, based at Vasylkiv air base, south of Kiev, where they replaced a number of outdated and partly grounded MiG-29 fighters. They were exclusively tasked with aerial defense of the Ukrainian capital city – also as a political sign that the machines were not intended for attack missions.
Since their introduction, the Ukrainian F-16s have been fulfilling QRA duties and airspace patrol, and the corresponding maintenance infrastructure has been gradually built up, so that F-16 operations became independent from Poland in 2019. With the worsening relationship to Russia, more military hardware of Western origin is expected to enter Ukrainian service. If the tight Ukrainian defense budget allows it, twenty more 2nd hand F-16s are to be delivered in 2021 to replace more Soviet fighter types (primarily the rest of the Ukrainian MiG-29 “Fulcrum” single and two seater fleet), and the procurement of LANTIRN pods to expand the type’s capabilities is under consideration and negotiations, too.
General characteristics:
Length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)
Wingspan: 32 ft 8 in (9.96 m)
Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)
Wing area: 300 sq ft (28 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 64A204
Empty weight: 18,900 lb (8,573 kg)
Gross weight: 26,500 lb (12,020 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 42,300 lb (19,187 kg)
Internal fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg)
Powerplant:
1× General Electric F110-GE-100 afterburning turbofan
with 17,155 lbf (76.31 kN) dry and 28,600 lbf (127 kN) thrust with afterburner
Performance:
Maximum speed: Mach 2.05 at altitude in clean configuration
Mach 1.2, 800 kn (921 mph; 1,482 km/h) at sea level
Combat range: 295 nmi (339 mi, 546 km) on a hi-lo-hi mission with 4x 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs
Ferry range: 2,277 nmi (2,620 mi, 4,217 km) with drop tanks
Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,000 m) plus
g limits: +9.0 (limited by flight control system)
Rate of climb: +50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)
Wing loading: 88.3 lb/sq ft (431 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 1.095 (1.24 with loaded weight & 50% internal fuel)
Armament:
1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon with 511 rounds
2× wing-tip air-to-air missile launch rails plus 6× under-wing
and 3× under-fuselage pylon (2 of these for sensors) stations
with a capacity of up to 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) of a wide range of stores
The kit and its assembly:
I am not a big F-16 fan, but in some cases it’s an unavoidable canvas – just like in this case here. This fictional aircraft model (or better: this model of a [yet] fictional F-16 operator) was spawned by two ideas. One was the simple question: what if the Ukraine had after the USSR’s dissolution chosen a stronger attachment to (old) Western forces after the dissolution of the USSSR? And/or: what if the Ukraine had started to procure non-Russian equipment, esp. aircraft? So, what would an Ukrainian F-16 might have looked like, in general but esp. after the Crimea annexation in 2014 when such a scenario had become even more possible?
The other source of inspiration was a picture of an Ukrainian Su-24 with grey digital camouflage, a scheme that was/is also worn by some Su-25s. When I stumbled upon an Authentic Decals sheet for this unique paint scheme that allows to apply the complex and delicate pattern through water-slide transfers, I thought that the relatively “flat” F-16 surface would be an ideal basis to try this stunt?
What sounded like a very simple livery whif on an OOB model turned into a construction nightmare. Originally, this project provided me with a purpose for a dubious Trumpeter F-16 kit that I had bought some years ago – dead cheap, but righteously so. This kit is cruel, the model even has no concrete variant specification and is apparently the re-boxing of a kit from an obscure Chinese company called “Income”. Effectively, the Trumpeter F-16 is a rip-off of Italeri’s quite nice F-16C/D kit – but the Income/Trumpeter clone comes with MUCH deeper engravings esp. on the fuselage that remind a lot of the dreaded Matchbox “trenches”. Everything is rather “soft” and toylike, the clear parts are poor and the (few) decals look like toy stickers (!!!). I’d call it crude, even the instructions are apparently poor scans or photocopies from the Italeri kit, including hints for detail painting with no corresponding reference what colors should be used at all… All that could have been overlooked, but after starting with the kit I could not commit myself to use it any further. It’s rare that I give up because of a kit’s basis!
Next idea to “save” the project’s idea of an Ukrainian F-16 was to dig out a surplus Intech F-16 from the pile, also bought long ago because it was cheap, as conversion fodder. This kit has also been re-released in infinite variations under the Mister-/Mastercraft label. Upon closer inspection this kit turned out to have massive flaws, too, but in different areas from the Trumpeter thing. For instance, the Intech kit’s wings are utterly thick, certainly 1mm thicker than the Trumpeter model’s parts. This does not sound much, but on the really thin F-16 wings and stabilizers this looks really awful! Furthermore, the clear parts had not been fully molded, so I’d have needed a replacement canopy, anyway. Again, I gave up on building…
…until I decided to make the best of this mess and combine the “best” parts from both gimp models, trying to mend the worst flaws to an acceptable level. This led to the glorious kitbashing that this model eventually became! From the Intech kit I took the acceptable fuselage, including cockpit interior, air intake and landing gear, as well as the fin and the weapon pylons. The Trumpeter kit donated its thinner wings and the stabilizers, as well as the much better open exhaust nozzle (there’s an optional closed one, too; the Intech kit only offers an open nozzle, without ANY surface detail at all, it’s just a blank pipe!).
Beyond these basic ingredients, some more donors became necessary: All clear parts from both Intech and Trumpeter kit turned out to be rubbish for various reasons. The decision to build an F-16D two-seater was dictated by the fact that I had a leftover canopy from an Italeri F-16 kit in the donor bank – luckily it fitted well to the Intech kit’s body. Two crewmen from the spares box populate the cockpit and hide the rather basic interior, which was not improved at all. Furthermore, the ordnance came from external sources, too. The characteristic drop tanks with their cut-off tails were also leftover parts from the Italeri F-16, all AAMs come from a Hasegawa weapon set.
Some PSR was necessary to blend the parts from different kits together – thankfully, almost all F-16 kits are constructed in a similar fashion, even though there are small detail differences. In this case, the wings had to be slightly modified to fit onto the Intech fuselage. However, even those parts from the original kit(s) that are supposed to fit, e.g. the fin or the alternative cockpit opening frames for the optional single- and two-seater canopies, do hardly match at all. Horrible.
I rather focused on the model’s exterior, and a personal addition to improve the overall look of the otherwise rather basic/poor model, I added some small blade antennae that were totally missing on either model. Another extra detail are the small static dischargers on the trailing edges, created with thin, heated sprue material. Only small details, but they improve IMHO the model’s look considerably.
Painting and markings:
Until today, I never dared to apply decal camouflage to a model, but I expected that the flat/smooth F-16 surface would make this stunt relatively easy. This application method would also make painting the model easy, since only a single, uniform color had to be laid down from above and below.
To my surprise, the painting instructions of the Authentic Decals sheet for a number of Ukrainian Su-25 (which all carry the same standardized pixel camouflage) indicated RAL tones – a little surprising, but: why not? Since no other authentic color references were available, I cross-checked the paint suggestions with real life pictures of Su-24s and -25s in this striking paint scheme, and the indicated tones appear very plausible.
The problem: not every RAL tone is available as a model paint, so I had to make guesstimates. This eventually led to Modelmaster 2133 (Fulcrum Grey) as a light grey overall basis (suggested: RAL 7030 Achatgrau/Agate Grey, a tone with a brownish hue) from above and Humbrol 47 (Sea Blue Gloss) for a pale blue underside. The recommendation for the belly is RAL 7001 (Silbergrau/Silver Grey, very close to FS 36375), and this appears plausible, too, even though real-life pictures suggest a more bluish tone. But for a more dramatic look and some color contrast to the upper side’s all-grey I deliberately settled upon the Humbrol color, and this looks IMHO good.
The other suggested grey tones that make up the pixel patterns are RAL 7040 (Fenstergrau/Window Grey), RAL 7037 (Staubgrau/Dust Grey) and RAL 7043 (Verkehrsgrau B/Traffic Grey).
The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140), the air intake and the landing gear in white (Humbrol 22). The exhaust nozzle was painted externally with individual Metallizer mixes (with blue and gold added), while the inside was painted with Burnt Steel Metallizer towards the afterburner section while the ceramic nozzle petals were painted in a pale, almost white grey with darker lines, applied wet-in-wet. This looks pretty good – but does not withstand a closer inspection, just like the rest of this Franken-bashed F-16 thing.
Applying the digital camouflage pattern went better than expected. The decals turned out to be very thin and delicate, though, with almost no excessive clear film outside of the printed areas, so that application had to be executed swiftly and with lots of water to slide them into place. Nothing for modelers who are faint at heart! Because the single pixel clouds partly follow the Su-25 outlines, the decals had partly to be tailored to the rather different F-16 shape, and due to the different proportions I also had to improvise with the material at hand – fortunately the Su-25 sheet offered enough material to cover the F-16! Some small areas lacked decal material and had to be filled through painting, though, with replacement model paints for the aforementioned darker RAL greys, namely Humbrol 246 (RLM 75) and a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 125 and 67. The lightest grey on the prints turned out to be very close to the Fulcrum Grey, so there’s unfortunately very little contrast, and this only became clear after the decals had already dried. However, I left it that way, because lightening the Fulcrum Grey up further would have been a quite messy affair, ending in a rather dirty look that I wanted to avoid, and it had called for an almost white tone.
Another challenge became the weathering process, since I normally apply a black ink wash and some post-panel shading to the finished and painted model before I add the decals to a model. Fearing that the ink might creep under the decals’ clear sections, I left that step out completely. The delicate static dischargers were another complicating factor. So, I decided to finish the upper camouflage with the light grey base and the decals cammo first. This made trimming down excess decal material easier. After that had been roughly finished, the dischargers were added and the underside was painted blue. On top of that came the “normal” decals with national markings, codes and stencils. The latter were mostly taken from a vintage Microscale F-16 sheet, the tactical code came from a Begemot Ka-27 sheet. Since the bort number on the air intake was not well visible frame every angle, I added a white 77 to the fin, too. Thereafter I added some panel lines with the help of thinned black ink and a soft pencil. This way the model appears pretty clean, and I think that’s fine since many recent Ukrainian aircraft I know from pictures look well-tended. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish overall.
A simple F-16 in alternative markings – that’s what this model was supposed to be. I did not expect that the building phase would become such a challenge, and I’d sincerely recommend to any modeler who wants to build a “serious” F-16 in 1:72 to stay away from the Trumpeter and the Intech/Mister-/Mastercraft kits. They might be cheap, but that does not outweigh their flaws and building troubles.
Beyond these technical issues, I like the look of this “Ukrainized” Viper, the digital camouflage looks very special and works well on the aircraft. The light grey base could have been lighter, though. In fact, the F-16 now looks like an exaggerated U.S. Aggressor on first sight, but with the Ukrainian markings the whole thing looks pretty different and conclusive - a “what if” in the best sense. 😉
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
After the Ukrainian independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Air Force (Повітряні Сили України, Povitryani Syly Ukrayiny) was established on March 17, 1992, in accordance with a Directive of the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, many aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory, including a wide range of fighters and attack aircraft, helicopters and even strategic bombers, and these became the initial equipment. Ever since, the Ukrainian air force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces, but for many years the main inventory still consisted of Soviet-made aircraft.
Following the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution and subsequent March 2014 Russian annexation of the Crimea peninsula and the following violence and insurgency in east Ukraine, the Ukrainian government tried to increase its defense spending and capabilities. Returning equipment (of Russian origin, though) to service was a key part of the spending drive, but in parallel attempts were made to procure flying material from Western sources in order to become moer and more independent from the obtrusive neighbor. In April 2014 two MiG-29 aircraft were restored to flight on short notice and in August a decommissioned An-26 transport aircraft was restored to active service by a volunteer group. On 5 January 2015 the air force received another 4 restored airplanes, two MiG-29s and two Su-27s, as well as two Mi-8 and Mi-2 helicopters. However, since these aircraft had already accumulated a considerable number of flying hours, this could only have been an interim solution and the Ukraine turned directly to NATO for material support.
This politically highly delicate help was eventually granted in the form of eight General Dynamics F-16 C (six) and D (two) multi-role fighters of early Block 40 standard, leased from the U.S.A. and diverted from active aircraft which were about to become surplus stock and mothballed, anyway.
The F-16 Fighting Falcon itself was a single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as a light air superiority day fighter as a complement to the heavier F-15 Eagle interceptor, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,600 aircraft were built since production was approved in 1976. In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation, which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta.
Although no longer being purchased by the launch customer, the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are still being built for export customers – the F-16 has been procured to serve in the air forces of 25 other nations all around the world, making it one of the world's most numerous fixed-wing aircraft in military service.
The Fighting Falcon's key features include a frameless bubble canopy for better visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while maneuvering, an ejection seat reclined 30 degrees from vertical to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot, and the first use of a relaxed static stability/fly-by-wire flight control system which helps to make it an agile aircraft. The F-16 has an internal M61 Vulcan cannon and the advanced C/D version features a total of 11 locations for mounting weapons and other mission equipment.
The eight machines for the Ukraine arrived in June 2016 via direct transfer flights over the Atlantic and Western Europe. The former USAF machines were delivered “as is”, even though they had some state-of-the-art avionics replaced by less sensitive alternatives from older F-16 production blocks. Together with the fighters, an undisclosed number of AIM-9M Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles were delivered, but the leasing agreement did not include LANTIRN pods that would provide the F-16C/D with improved all-day/all-weather strike capability. Other equipment like ECM pods was also not included. Service, maintenance and logistics for the new type in Ukrainian service was, due to the small operational number, secured with the help of the Polish air force, which had been operating 48 F-16C/D+ Block 52 fighters since 2006 and had the required experience and facilities at its 31st Tactical Air Base in Poznań-Krzesiny.
Upon arrival, the aircraft were immediately re-painted in a striking digital camouflage and received non-consecutive tactical codes, apparently based on the airframe’s former U.S. serial numbers, using the last two digits. They were all allocated to the 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade, based at Vasylkiv air base, south of Kiev, where they replaced a number of outdated and partly grounded MiG-29 fighters. They were exclusively tasked with aerial defense of the Ukrainian capital city – also as a political sign that the machines were not intended for attack missions.
Since their introduction, the Ukrainian F-16s have been fulfilling QRA duties and airspace patrol, and the corresponding maintenance infrastructure has been gradually built up, so that F-16 operations became independent from Poland in 2019. With the worsening relationship to Russia, more military hardware of Western origin is expected to enter Ukrainian service. If the tight Ukrainian defense budget allows it, twenty more 2nd hand F-16s are to be delivered in 2021 to replace more Soviet fighter types (primarily the rest of the Ukrainian MiG-29 “Fulcrum” single and two seater fleet), and the procurement of LANTIRN pods to expand the type’s capabilities is under consideration and negotiations, too.
General characteristics:
Length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)
Wingspan: 32 ft 8 in (9.96 m)
Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)
Wing area: 300 sq ft (28 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 64A204
Empty weight: 18,900 lb (8,573 kg)
Gross weight: 26,500 lb (12,020 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 42,300 lb (19,187 kg)
Internal fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg)
Powerplant:
1× General Electric F110-GE-100 afterburning turbofan
with 17,155 lbf (76.31 kN) dry and 28,600 lbf (127 kN) thrust with afterburner
Performance:
Maximum speed: Mach 2.05 at altitude in clean configuration
Mach 1.2, 800 kn (921 mph; 1,482 km/h) at sea level
Combat range: 295 nmi (339 mi, 546 km) on a hi-lo-hi mission with 4x 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs
Ferry range: 2,277 nmi (2,620 mi, 4,217 km) with drop tanks
Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,000 m) plus
g limits: +9.0 (limited by flight control system)
Rate of climb: +50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)
Wing loading: 88.3 lb/sq ft (431 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 1.095 (1.24 with loaded weight & 50% internal fuel)
Armament:
1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon with 511 rounds
2× wing-tip air-to-air missile launch rails plus 6× under-wing
and 3× under-fuselage pylon (2 of these for sensors) stations
with a capacity of up to 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) of a wide range of stores
The kit and its assembly:
I am not a big F-16 fan, but in some cases it’s an unavoidable canvas – just like in this case here. This fictional aircraft model (or better: this model of a [yet] fictional F-16 operator) was spawned by two ideas. One was the simple question: what if the Ukraine had after the USSR’s dissolution chosen a stronger attachment to (old) Western forces after the dissolution of the USSSR? And/or: what if the Ukraine had started to procure non-Russian equipment, esp. aircraft? So, what would an Ukrainian F-16 might have looked like, in general but esp. after the Crimea annexation in 2014 when such a scenario had become even more possible?
The other source of inspiration was a picture of an Ukrainian Su-24 with grey digital camouflage, a scheme that was/is also worn by some Su-25s. When I stumbled upon an Authentic Decals sheet for this unique paint scheme that allows to apply the complex and delicate pattern through water-slide transfers, I thought that the relatively “flat” F-16 surface would be an ideal basis to try this stunt?
What sounded like a very simple livery whif on an OOB model turned into a construction nightmare. Originally, this project provided me with a purpose for a dubious Trumpeter F-16 kit that I had bought some years ago – dead cheap, but righteously so. This kit is cruel, the model even has no concrete variant specification and is apparently the re-boxing of a kit from an obscure Chinese company called “Income”. Effectively, the Trumpeter F-16 is a rip-off of Italeri’s quite nice F-16C/D kit – but the Income/Trumpeter clone comes with MUCH deeper engravings esp. on the fuselage that remind a lot of the dreaded Matchbox “trenches”. Everything is rather “soft” and toylike, the clear parts are poor and the (few) decals look like toy stickers (!!!). I’d call it crude, even the instructions are apparently poor scans or photocopies from the Italeri kit, including hints for detail painting with no corresponding reference what colors should be used at all… All that could have been overlooked, but after starting with the kit I could not commit myself to use it any further. It’s rare that I give up because of a kit’s basis!
Next idea to “save” the project’s idea of an Ukrainian F-16 was to dig out a surplus Intech F-16 from the pile, also bought long ago because it was cheap, as conversion fodder. This kit has also been re-released in infinite variations under the Mister-/Mastercraft label. Upon closer inspection this kit turned out to have massive flaws, too, but in different areas from the Trumpeter thing. For instance, the Intech kit’s wings are utterly thick, certainly 1mm thicker than the Trumpeter model’s parts. This does not sound much, but on the really thin F-16 wings and stabilizers this looks really awful! Furthermore, the clear parts had not been fully molded, so I’d have needed a replacement canopy, anyway. Again, I gave up on building…
…until I decided to make the best of this mess and combine the “best” parts from both gimp models, trying to mend the worst flaws to an acceptable level. This led to the glorious kitbashing that this model eventually became! From the Intech kit I took the acceptable fuselage, including cockpit interior, air intake and landing gear, as well as the fin and the weapon pylons. The Trumpeter kit donated its thinner wings and the stabilizers, as well as the much better open exhaust nozzle (there’s an optional closed one, too; the Intech kit only offers an open nozzle, without ANY surface detail at all, it’s just a blank pipe!).
Beyond these basic ingredients, some more donors became necessary: All clear parts from both Intech and Trumpeter kit turned out to be rubbish for various reasons. The decision to build an F-16D two-seater was dictated by the fact that I had a leftover canopy from an Italeri F-16 kit in the donor bank – luckily it fitted well to the Intech kit’s body. Two crewmen from the spares box populate the cockpit and hide the rather basic interior, which was not improved at all. Furthermore, the ordnance came from external sources, too. The characteristic drop tanks with their cut-off tails were also leftover parts from the Italeri F-16, all AAMs come from a Hasegawa weapon set.
Some PSR was necessary to blend the parts from different kits together – thankfully, almost all F-16 kits are constructed in a similar fashion, even though there are small detail differences. In this case, the wings had to be slightly modified to fit onto the Intech fuselage. However, even those parts from the original kit(s) that are supposed to fit, e.g. the fin or the alternative cockpit opening frames for the optional single- and two-seater canopies, do hardly match at all. Horrible.
I rather focused on the model’s exterior, and a personal addition to improve the overall look of the otherwise rather basic/poor model, I added some small blade antennae that were totally missing on either model. Another extra detail are the small static dischargers on the trailing edges, created with thin, heated sprue material. Only small details, but they improve IMHO the model’s look considerably.
Painting and markings:
Until today, I never dared to apply decal camouflage to a model, but I expected that the flat/smooth F-16 surface would make this stunt relatively easy. This application method would also make painting the model easy, since only a single, uniform color had to be laid down from above and below.
To my surprise, the painting instructions of the Authentic Decals sheet for a number of Ukrainian Su-25 (which all carry the same standardized pixel camouflage) indicated RAL tones – a little surprising, but: why not? Since no other authentic color references were available, I cross-checked the paint suggestions with real life pictures of Su-24s and -25s in this striking paint scheme, and the indicated tones appear very plausible.
The problem: not every RAL tone is available as a model paint, so I had to make guesstimates. This eventually led to Modelmaster 2133 (Fulcrum Grey) as a light grey overall basis (suggested: RAL 7030 Achatgrau/Agate Grey, a tone with a brownish hue) from above and Humbrol 47 (Sea Blue Gloss) for a pale blue underside. The recommendation for the belly is RAL 7001 (Silbergrau/Silver Grey, very close to FS 36375), and this appears plausible, too, even though real-life pictures suggest a more bluish tone. But for a more dramatic look and some color contrast to the upper side’s all-grey I deliberately settled upon the Humbrol color, and this looks IMHO good.
The other suggested grey tones that make up the pixel patterns are RAL 7040 (Fenstergrau/Window Grey), RAL 7037 (Staubgrau/Dust Grey) and RAL 7043 (Verkehrsgrau B/Traffic Grey).
The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140), the air intake and the landing gear in white (Humbrol 22). The exhaust nozzle was painted externally with individual Metallizer mixes (with blue and gold added), while the inside was painted with Burnt Steel Metallizer towards the afterburner section while the ceramic nozzle petals were painted in a pale, almost white grey with darker lines, applied wet-in-wet. This looks pretty good – but does not withstand a closer inspection, just like the rest of this Franken-bashed F-16 thing.
Applying the digital camouflage pattern went better than expected. The decals turned out to be very thin and delicate, though, with almost no excessive clear film outside of the printed areas, so that application had to be executed swiftly and with lots of water to slide them into place. Nothing for modelers who are faint at heart! Because the single pixel clouds partly follow the Su-25 outlines, the decals had partly to be tailored to the rather different F-16 shape, and due to the different proportions I also had to improvise with the material at hand – fortunately the Su-25 sheet offered enough material to cover the F-16! Some small areas lacked decal material and had to be filled through painting, though, with replacement model paints for the aforementioned darker RAL greys, namely Humbrol 246 (RLM 75) and a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 125 and 67. The lightest grey on the prints turned out to be very close to the Fulcrum Grey, so there’s unfortunately very little contrast, and this only became clear after the decals had already dried. However, I left it that way, because lightening the Fulcrum Grey up further would have been a quite messy affair, ending in a rather dirty look that I wanted to avoid, and it had called for an almost white tone.
Another challenge became the weathering process, since I normally apply a black ink wash and some post-panel shading to the finished and painted model before I add the decals to a model. Fearing that the ink might creep under the decals’ clear sections, I left that step out completely. The delicate static dischargers were another complicating factor. So, I decided to finish the upper camouflage with the light grey base and the decals cammo first. This made trimming down excess decal material easier. After that had been roughly finished, the dischargers were added and the underside was painted blue. On top of that came the “normal” decals with national markings, codes and stencils. The latter were mostly taken from a vintage Microscale F-16 sheet, the tactical code came from a Begemot Ka-27 sheet. Since the bort number on the air intake was not well visible frame every angle, I added a white 77 to the fin, too. Thereafter I added some panel lines with the help of thinned black ink and a soft pencil. This way the model appears pretty clean, and I think that’s fine since many recent Ukrainian aircraft I know from pictures look well-tended. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish overall.
A simple F-16 in alternative markings – that’s what this model was supposed to be. I did not expect that the building phase would become such a challenge, and I’d sincerely recommend to any modeler who wants to build a “serious” F-16 in 1:72 to stay away from the Trumpeter and the Intech/Mister-/Mastercraft kits. They might be cheap, but that does not outweigh their flaws and building troubles.
Beyond these technical issues, I like the look of this “Ukrainized” Viper, the digital camouflage looks very special and works well on the aircraft. The light grey base could have been lighter, though. In fact, the F-16 now looks like an exaggerated U.S. Aggressor on first sight, but with the Ukrainian markings the whole thing looks pretty different and conclusive - a “what if” in the best sense. 😉
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
After the Ukrainian independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Air Force (Повітряні Сили України, Povitryani Syly Ukrayiny) was established on March 17, 1992, in accordance with a Directive of the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, many aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory, including a wide range of fighters and attack aircraft, helicopters and even strategic bombers, and these became the initial equipment. Ever since, the Ukrainian air force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces, but for many years the main inventory still consisted of Soviet-made aircraft.
Following the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution and subsequent March 2014 Russian annexation of the Crimea peninsula and the following violence and insurgency in east Ukraine, the Ukrainian government tried to increase its defense spending and capabilities. Returning equipment (of Russian origin, though) to service was a key part of the spending drive, but in parallel attempts were made to procure flying material from Western sources in order to become moer and more independent from the obtrusive neighbor. In April 2014 two MiG-29 aircraft were restored to flight on short notice and in August a decommissioned An-26 transport aircraft was restored to active service by a volunteer group. On 5 January 2015 the air force received another 4 restored airplanes, two MiG-29s and two Su-27s, as well as two Mi-8 and Mi-2 helicopters. However, since these aircraft had already accumulated a considerable number of flying hours, this could only have been an interim solution and the Ukraine turned directly to NATO for material support.
This politically highly delicate help was eventually granted in the form of eight General Dynamics F-16 C (six) and D (two) multi-role fighters of early Block 40 standard, leased from the U.S.A. and diverted from active aircraft which were about to become surplus stock and mothballed, anyway.
The F-16 Fighting Falcon itself was a single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as a light air superiority day fighter as a complement to the heavier F-15 Eagle interceptor, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,600 aircraft were built since production was approved in 1976. In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation, which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta.
Although no longer being purchased by the launch customer, the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are still being built for export customers – the F-16 has been procured to serve in the air forces of 25 other nations all around the world, making it one of the world's most numerous fixed-wing aircraft in military service.
The Fighting Falcon's key features include a frameless bubble canopy for better visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while maneuvering, an ejection seat reclined 30 degrees from vertical to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot, and the first use of a relaxed static stability/fly-by-wire flight control system which helps to make it an agile aircraft. The F-16 has an internal M61 Vulcan cannon and the advanced C/D version features a total of 11 locations for mounting weapons and other mission equipment.
The eight machines for the Ukraine arrived in June 2016 via direct transfer flights over the Atlantic and Western Europe. The former USAF machines were delivered “as is”, even though they had some state-of-the-art avionics replaced by less sensitive alternatives from older F-16 production blocks. Together with the fighters, an undisclosed number of AIM-9M Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles were delivered, but the leasing agreement did not include LANTIRN pods that would provide the F-16C/D with improved all-day/all-weather strike capability. Other equipment like ECM pods was also not included. Service, maintenance and logistics for the new type in Ukrainian service was, due to the small operational number, secured with the help of the Polish air force, which had been operating 48 F-16C/D+ Block 52 fighters since 2006 and had the required experience and facilities at its 31st Tactical Air Base in Poznań-Krzesiny.
Upon arrival, the aircraft were immediately re-painted in a striking digital camouflage and received non-consecutive tactical codes, apparently based on the airframe’s former U.S. serial numbers, using the last two digits. They were all allocated to the 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade, based at Vasylkiv air base, south of Kiev, where they replaced a number of outdated and partly grounded MiG-29 fighters. They were exclusively tasked with aerial defense of the Ukrainian capital city – also as a political sign that the machines were not intended for attack missions.
Since their introduction, the Ukrainian F-16s have been fulfilling QRA duties and airspace patrol, and the corresponding maintenance infrastructure has been gradually built up, so that F-16 operations became independent from Poland in 2019. With the worsening relationship to Russia, more military hardware of Western origin is expected to enter Ukrainian service. If the tight Ukrainian defense budget allows it, twenty more 2nd hand F-16s are to be delivered in 2021 to replace more Soviet fighter types (primarily the rest of the Ukrainian MiG-29 “Fulcrum” single and two seater fleet), and the procurement of LANTIRN pods to expand the type’s capabilities is under consideration and negotiations, too.
General characteristics:
Length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)
Wingspan: 32 ft 8 in (9.96 m)
Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)
Wing area: 300 sq ft (28 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 64A204
Empty weight: 18,900 lb (8,573 kg)
Gross weight: 26,500 lb (12,020 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 42,300 lb (19,187 kg)
Internal fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg)
Powerplant:
1× General Electric F110-GE-100 afterburning turbofan
with 17,155 lbf (76.31 kN) dry and 28,600 lbf (127 kN) thrust with afterburner
Performance:
Maximum speed: Mach 2.05 at altitude in clean configuration
Mach 1.2, 800 kn (921 mph; 1,482 km/h) at sea level
Combat range: 295 nmi (339 mi, 546 km) on a hi-lo-hi mission with 4x 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs
Ferry range: 2,277 nmi (2,620 mi, 4,217 km) with drop tanks
Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,000 m) plus
g limits: +9.0 (limited by flight control system)
Rate of climb: +50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)
Wing loading: 88.3 lb/sq ft (431 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 1.095 (1.24 with loaded weight & 50% internal fuel)
Armament:
1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon with 511 rounds
2× wing-tip air-to-air missile launch rails plus 6× under-wing
and 3× under-fuselage pylon (2 of these for sensors) stations
with a capacity of up to 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) of a wide range of stores
The kit and its assembly:
I am not a big F-16 fan, but in some cases it’s an unavoidable canvas – just like in this case here. This fictional aircraft model (or better: this model of a [yet] fictional F-16 operator) was spawned by two ideas. One was the simple question: what if the Ukraine had after the USSR’s dissolution chosen a stronger attachment to (old) Western forces after the dissolution of the USSSR? And/or: what if the Ukraine had started to procure non-Russian equipment, esp. aircraft? So, what would an Ukrainian F-16 might have looked like, in general but esp. after the Crimea annexation in 2014 when such a scenario had become even more possible?
The other source of inspiration was a picture of an Ukrainian Su-24 with grey digital camouflage, a scheme that was/is also worn by some Su-25s. When I stumbled upon an Authentic Decals sheet for this unique paint scheme that allows to apply the complex and delicate pattern through water-slide transfers, I thought that the relatively “flat” F-16 surface would be an ideal basis to try this stunt?
What sounded like a very simple livery whif on an OOB model turned into a construction nightmare. Originally, this project provided me with a purpose for a dubious Trumpeter F-16 kit that I had bought some years ago – dead cheap, but righteously so. This kit is cruel, the model even has no concrete variant specification and is apparently the re-boxing of a kit from an obscure Chinese company called “Income”. Effectively, the Trumpeter F-16 is a rip-off of Italeri’s quite nice F-16C/D kit – but the Income/Trumpeter clone comes with MUCH deeper engravings esp. on the fuselage that remind a lot of the dreaded Matchbox “trenches”. Everything is rather “soft” and toylike, the clear parts are poor and the (few) decals look like toy stickers (!!!). I’d call it crude, even the instructions are apparently poor scans or photocopies from the Italeri kit, including hints for detail painting with no corresponding reference what colors should be used at all… All that could have been overlooked, but after starting with the kit I could not commit myself to use it any further. It’s rare that I give up because of a kit’s basis!
Next idea to “save” the project’s idea of an Ukrainian F-16 was to dig out a surplus Intech F-16 from the pile, also bought long ago because it was cheap, as conversion fodder. This kit has also been re-released in infinite variations under the Mister-/Mastercraft label. Upon closer inspection this kit turned out to have massive flaws, too, but in different areas from the Trumpeter thing. For instance, the Intech kit’s wings are utterly thick, certainly 1mm thicker than the Trumpeter model’s parts. This does not sound much, but on the really thin F-16 wings and stabilizers this looks really awful! Furthermore, the clear parts had not been fully molded, so I’d have needed a replacement canopy, anyway. Again, I gave up on building…
…until I decided to make the best of this mess and combine the “best” parts from both gimp models, trying to mend the worst flaws to an acceptable level. This led to the glorious kitbashing that this model eventually became! From the Intech kit I took the acceptable fuselage, including cockpit interior, air intake and landing gear, as well as the fin and the weapon pylons. The Trumpeter kit donated its thinner wings and the stabilizers, as well as the much better open exhaust nozzle (there’s an optional closed one, too; the Intech kit only offers an open nozzle, without ANY surface detail at all, it’s just a blank pipe!).
Beyond these basic ingredients, some more donors became necessary: All clear parts from both Intech and Trumpeter kit turned out to be rubbish for various reasons. The decision to build an F-16D two-seater was dictated by the fact that I had a leftover canopy from an Italeri F-16 kit in the donor bank – luckily it fitted well to the Intech kit’s body. Two crewmen from the spares box populate the cockpit and hide the rather basic interior, which was not improved at all. Furthermore, the ordnance came from external sources, too. The characteristic drop tanks with their cut-off tails were also leftover parts from the Italeri F-16, all AAMs come from a Hasegawa weapon set.
Some PSR was necessary to blend the parts from different kits together – thankfully, almost all F-16 kits are constructed in a similar fashion, even though there are small detail differences. In this case, the wings had to be slightly modified to fit onto the Intech fuselage. However, even those parts from the original kit(s) that are supposed to fit, e.g. the fin or the alternative cockpit opening frames for the optional single- and two-seater canopies, do hardly match at all. Horrible.
I rather focused on the model’s exterior, and a personal addition to improve the overall look of the otherwise rather basic/poor model, I added some small blade antennae that were totally missing on either model. Another extra detail are the small static dischargers on the trailing edges, created with thin, heated sprue material. Only small details, but they improve IMHO the model’s look considerably.
Painting and markings:
Until today, I never dared to apply decal camouflage to a model, but I expected that the flat/smooth F-16 surface would make this stunt relatively easy. This application method would also make painting the model easy, since only a single, uniform color had to be laid down from above and below.
To my surprise, the painting instructions of the Authentic Decals sheet for a number of Ukrainian Su-25 (which all carry the same standardized pixel camouflage) indicated RAL tones – a little surprising, but: why not? Since no other authentic color references were available, I cross-checked the paint suggestions with real life pictures of Su-24s and -25s in this striking paint scheme, and the indicated tones appear very plausible.
The problem: not every RAL tone is available as a model paint, so I had to make guesstimates. This eventually led to Modelmaster 2133 (Fulcrum Grey) as a light grey overall basis (suggested: RAL 7030 Achatgrau/Agate Grey, a tone with a brownish hue) from above and Humbrol 47 (Sea Blue Gloss) for a pale blue underside. The recommendation for the belly is RAL 7001 (Silbergrau/Silver Grey, very close to FS 36375), and this appears plausible, too, even though real-life pictures suggest a more bluish tone. But for a more dramatic look and some color contrast to the upper side’s all-grey I deliberately settled upon the Humbrol color, and this looks IMHO good.
The other suggested grey tones that make up the pixel patterns are RAL 7040 (Fenstergrau/Window Grey), RAL 7037 (Staubgrau/Dust Grey) and RAL 7043 (Verkehrsgrau B/Traffic Grey).
The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140), the air intake and the landing gear in white (Humbrol 22). The exhaust nozzle was painted externally with individual Metallizer mixes (with blue and gold added), while the inside was painted with Burnt Steel Metallizer towards the afterburner section while the ceramic nozzle petals were painted in a pale, almost white grey with darker lines, applied wet-in-wet. This looks pretty good – but does not withstand a closer inspection, just like the rest of this Franken-bashed F-16 thing.
Applying the digital camouflage pattern went better than expected. The decals turned out to be very thin and delicate, though, with almost no excessive clear film outside of the printed areas, so that application had to be executed swiftly and with lots of water to slide them into place. Nothing for modelers who are faint at heart! Because the single pixel clouds partly follow the Su-25 outlines, the decals had partly to be tailored to the rather different F-16 shape, and due to the different proportions I also had to improvise with the material at hand – fortunately the Su-25 sheet offered enough material to cover the F-16! Some small areas lacked decal material and had to be filled through painting, though, with replacement model paints for the aforementioned darker RAL greys, namely Humbrol 246 (RLM 75) and a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 125 and 67. The lightest grey on the prints turned out to be very close to the Fulcrum Grey, so there’s unfortunately very little contrast, and this only became clear after the decals had already dried. However, I left it that way, because lightening the Fulcrum Grey up further would have been a quite messy affair, ending in a rather dirty look that I wanted to avoid, and it had called for an almost white tone.
Another challenge became the weathering process, since I normally apply a black ink wash and some post-panel shading to the finished and painted model before I add the decals to a model. Fearing that the ink might creep under the decals’ clear sections, I left that step out completely. The delicate static dischargers were another complicating factor. So, I decided to finish the upper camouflage with the light grey base and the decals cammo first. This made trimming down excess decal material easier. After that had been roughly finished, the dischargers were added and the underside was painted blue. On top of that came the “normal” decals with national markings, codes and stencils. The latter were mostly taken from a vintage Microscale F-16 sheet, the tactical code came from a Begemot Ka-27 sheet. Since the bort number on the air intake was not well visible frame every angle, I added a white 77 to the fin, too. Thereafter I added some panel lines with the help of thinned black ink and a soft pencil. This way the model appears pretty clean, and I think that’s fine since many recent Ukrainian aircraft I know from pictures look well-tended. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish overall.
A simple F-16 in alternative markings – that’s what this model was supposed to be. I did not expect that the building phase would become such a challenge, and I’d sincerely recommend to any modeler who wants to build a “serious” F-16 in 1:72 to stay away from the Trumpeter and the Intech/Mister-/Mastercraft kits. They might be cheap, but that does not outweigh their flaws and building troubles.
Beyond these technical issues, I like the look of this “Ukrainized” Viper, the digital camouflage looks very special and works well on the aircraft. The light grey base could have been lighter, though. In fact, the F-16 now looks like an exaggerated U.S. Aggressor on first sight, but with the Ukrainian markings the whole thing looks pretty different and conclusive - a “what if” in the best sense. 😉
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
After the Ukrainian independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Air Force (Повітряні Сили України, Povitryani Syly Ukrayiny) was established on March 17, 1992, in accordance with a Directive of the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, many aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory, including a wide range of fighters and attack aircraft, helicopters and even strategic bombers, and these became the initial equipment. Ever since, the Ukrainian air force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces, but for many years the main inventory still consisted of Soviet-made aircraft.
Following the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution and subsequent March 2014 Russian annexation of the Crimea peninsula and the following violence and insurgency in east Ukraine, the Ukrainian government tried to increase its defense spending and capabilities. Returning equipment (of Russian origin, though) to service was a key part of the spending drive, but in parallel attempts were made to procure flying material from Western sources in order to become moer and more independent from the obtrusive neighbor. In April 2014 two MiG-29 aircraft were restored to flight on short notice and in August a decommissioned An-26 transport aircraft was restored to active service by a volunteer group. On 5 January 2015 the air force received another 4 restored airplanes, two MiG-29s and two Su-27s, as well as two Mi-8 and Mi-2 helicopters. However, since these aircraft had already accumulated a considerable number of flying hours, this could only have been an interim solution and the Ukraine turned directly to NATO for material support.
This politically highly delicate help was eventually granted in the form of eight General Dynamics F-16 C (six) and D (two) multi-role fighters of early Block 40 standard, leased from the U.S.A. and diverted from active aircraft which were about to become surplus stock and mothballed, anyway.
The F-16 Fighting Falcon itself was a single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as a light air superiority day fighter as a complement to the heavier F-15 Eagle interceptor, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,600 aircraft were built since production was approved in 1976. In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation, which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta.
Although no longer being purchased by the launch customer, the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are still being built for export customers – the F-16 has been procured to serve in the air forces of 25 other nations all around the world, making it one of the world's most numerous fixed-wing aircraft in military service.
The Fighting Falcon's key features include a frameless bubble canopy for better visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while maneuvering, an ejection seat reclined 30 degrees from vertical to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot, and the first use of a relaxed static stability/fly-by-wire flight control system which helps to make it an agile aircraft. The F-16 has an internal M61 Vulcan cannon and the advanced C/D version features a total of 11 locations for mounting weapons and other mission equipment.
The eight machines for the Ukraine arrived in June 2016 via direct transfer flights over the Atlantic and Western Europe. The former USAF machines were delivered “as is”, even though they had some state-of-the-art avionics replaced by less sensitive alternatives from older F-16 production blocks. Together with the fighters, an undisclosed number of AIM-9M Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles were delivered, but the leasing agreement did not include LANTIRN pods that would provide the F-16C/D with improved all-day/all-weather strike capability. Other equipment like ECM pods was also not included. Service, maintenance and logistics for the new type in Ukrainian service was, due to the small operational number, secured with the help of the Polish air force, which had been operating 48 F-16C/D+ Block 52 fighters since 2006 and had the required experience and facilities at its 31st Tactical Air Base in Poznań-Krzesiny.
Upon arrival, the aircraft were immediately re-painted in a striking digital camouflage and received non-consecutive tactical codes, apparently based on the airframe’s former U.S. serial numbers, using the last two digits. They were all allocated to the 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade, based at Vasylkiv air base, south of Kiev, where they replaced a number of outdated and partly grounded MiG-29 fighters. They were exclusively tasked with aerial defense of the Ukrainian capital city – also as a political sign that the machines were not intended for attack missions.
Since their introduction, the Ukrainian F-16s have been fulfilling QRA duties and airspace patrol, and the corresponding maintenance infrastructure has been gradually built up, so that F-16 operations became independent from Poland in 2019. With the worsening relationship to Russia, more military hardware of Western origin is expected to enter Ukrainian service. If the tight Ukrainian defense budget allows it, twenty more 2nd hand F-16s are to be delivered in 2021 to replace more Soviet fighter types (primarily the rest of the Ukrainian MiG-29 “Fulcrum” single and two seater fleet), and the procurement of LANTIRN pods to expand the type’s capabilities is under consideration and negotiations, too.
General characteristics:
Length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)
Wingspan: 32 ft 8 in (9.96 m)
Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)
Wing area: 300 sq ft (28 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 64A204
Empty weight: 18,900 lb (8,573 kg)
Gross weight: 26,500 lb (12,020 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 42,300 lb (19,187 kg)
Internal fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg)
Powerplant:
1× General Electric F110-GE-100 afterburning turbofan
with 17,155 lbf (76.31 kN) dry and 28,600 lbf (127 kN) thrust with afterburner
Performance:
Maximum speed: Mach 2.05 at altitude in clean configuration
Mach 1.2, 800 kn (921 mph; 1,482 km/h) at sea level
Combat range: 295 nmi (339 mi, 546 km) on a hi-lo-hi mission with 4x 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs
Ferry range: 2,277 nmi (2,620 mi, 4,217 km) with drop tanks
Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,000 m) plus
g limits: +9.0 (limited by flight control system)
Rate of climb: +50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)
Wing loading: 88.3 lb/sq ft (431 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 1.095 (1.24 with loaded weight & 50% internal fuel)
Armament:
1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon with 511 rounds
2× wing-tip air-to-air missile launch rails plus 6× under-wing
and 3× under-fuselage pylon (2 of these for sensors) stations
with a capacity of up to 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) of a wide range of stores
The kit and its assembly:
I am not a big F-16 fan, but in some cases it’s an unavoidable canvas – just like in this case here. This fictional aircraft model (or better: this model of a [yet] fictional F-16 operator) was spawned by two ideas. One was the simple question: what if the Ukraine had after the USSR’s dissolution chosen a stronger attachment to (old) Western forces after the dissolution of the USSSR? And/or: what if the Ukraine had started to procure non-Russian equipment, esp. aircraft? So, what would an Ukrainian F-16 might have looked like, in general but esp. after the Crimea annexation in 2014 when such a scenario had become even more possible?
The other source of inspiration was a picture of an Ukrainian Su-24 with grey digital camouflage, a scheme that was/is also worn by some Su-25s. When I stumbled upon an Authentic Decals sheet for this unique paint scheme that allows to apply the complex and delicate pattern through water-slide transfers, I thought that the relatively “flat” F-16 surface would be an ideal basis to try this stunt?
What sounded like a very simple livery whif on an OOB model turned into a construction nightmare. Originally, this project provided me with a purpose for a dubious Trumpeter F-16 kit that I had bought some years ago – dead cheap, but righteously so. This kit is cruel, the model even has no concrete variant specification and is apparently the re-boxing of a kit from an obscure Chinese company called “Income”. Effectively, the Trumpeter F-16 is a rip-off of Italeri’s quite nice F-16C/D kit – but the Income/Trumpeter clone comes with MUCH deeper engravings esp. on the fuselage that remind a lot of the dreaded Matchbox “trenches”. Everything is rather “soft” and toylike, the clear parts are poor and the (few) decals look like toy stickers (!!!). I’d call it crude, even the instructions are apparently poor scans or photocopies from the Italeri kit, including hints for detail painting with no corresponding reference what colors should be used at all… All that could have been overlooked, but after starting with the kit I could not commit myself to use it any further. It’s rare that I give up because of a kit’s basis!
Next idea to “save” the project’s idea of an Ukrainian F-16 was to dig out a surplus Intech F-16 from the pile, also bought long ago because it was cheap, as conversion fodder. This kit has also been re-released in infinite variations under the Mister-/Mastercraft label. Upon closer inspection this kit turned out to have massive flaws, too, but in different areas from the Trumpeter thing. For instance, the Intech kit’s wings are utterly thick, certainly 1mm thicker than the Trumpeter model’s parts. This does not sound much, but on the really thin F-16 wings and stabilizers this looks really awful! Furthermore, the clear parts had not been fully molded, so I’d have needed a replacement canopy, anyway. Again, I gave up on building…
…until I decided to make the best of this mess and combine the “best” parts from both gimp models, trying to mend the worst flaws to an acceptable level. This led to the glorious kitbashing that this model eventually became! From the Intech kit I took the acceptable fuselage, including cockpit interior, air intake and landing gear, as well as the fin and the weapon pylons. The Trumpeter kit donated its thinner wings and the stabilizers, as well as the much better open exhaust nozzle (there’s an optional closed one, too; the Intech kit only offers an open nozzle, without ANY surface detail at all, it’s just a blank pipe!).
Beyond these basic ingredients, some more donors became necessary: All clear parts from both Intech and Trumpeter kit turned out to be rubbish for various reasons. The decision to build an F-16D two-seater was dictated by the fact that I had a leftover canopy from an Italeri F-16 kit in the donor bank – luckily it fitted well to the Intech kit’s body. Two crewmen from the spares box populate the cockpit and hide the rather basic interior, which was not improved at all. Furthermore, the ordnance came from external sources, too. The characteristic drop tanks with their cut-off tails were also leftover parts from the Italeri F-16, all AAMs come from a Hasegawa weapon set.
Some PSR was necessary to blend the parts from different kits together – thankfully, almost all F-16 kits are constructed in a similar fashion, even though there are small detail differences. In this case, the wings had to be slightly modified to fit onto the Intech fuselage. However, even those parts from the original kit(s) that are supposed to fit, e.g. the fin or the alternative cockpit opening frames for the optional single- and two-seater canopies, do hardly match at all. Horrible.
I rather focused on the model’s exterior, and a personal addition to improve the overall look of the otherwise rather basic/poor model, I added some small blade antennae that were totally missing on either model. Another extra detail are the small static dischargers on the trailing edges, created with thin, heated sprue material. Only small details, but they improve IMHO the model’s look considerably.
Painting and markings:
Until today, I never dared to apply decal camouflage to a model, but I expected that the flat/smooth F-16 surface would make this stunt relatively easy. This application method would also make painting the model easy, since only a single, uniform color had to be laid down from above and below.
To my surprise, the painting instructions of the Authentic Decals sheet for a number of Ukrainian Su-25 (which all carry the same standardized pixel camouflage) indicated RAL tones – a little surprising, but: why not? Since no other authentic color references were available, I cross-checked the paint suggestions with real life pictures of Su-24s and -25s in this striking paint scheme, and the indicated tones appear very plausible.
The problem: not every RAL tone is available as a model paint, so I had to make guesstimates. This eventually led to Modelmaster 2133 (Fulcrum Grey) as a light grey overall basis (suggested: RAL 7030 Achatgrau/Agate Grey, a tone with a brownish hue) from above and Humbrol 47 (Sea Blue Gloss) for a pale blue underside. The recommendation for the belly is RAL 7001 (Silbergrau/Silver Grey, very close to FS 36375), and this appears plausible, too, even though real-life pictures suggest a more bluish tone. But for a more dramatic look and some color contrast to the upper side’s all-grey I deliberately settled upon the Humbrol color, and this looks IMHO good.
The other suggested grey tones that make up the pixel patterns are RAL 7040 (Fenstergrau/Window Grey), RAL 7037 (Staubgrau/Dust Grey) and RAL 7043 (Verkehrsgrau B/Traffic Grey).
The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140), the air intake and the landing gear in white (Humbrol 22). The exhaust nozzle was painted externally with individual Metallizer mixes (with blue and gold added), while the inside was painted with Burnt Steel Metallizer towards the afterburner section while the ceramic nozzle petals were painted in a pale, almost white grey with darker lines, applied wet-in-wet. This looks pretty good – but does not withstand a closer inspection, just like the rest of this Franken-bashed F-16 thing.
Applying the digital camouflage pattern went better than expected. The decals turned out to be very thin and delicate, though, with almost no excessive clear film outside of the printed areas, so that application had to be executed swiftly and with lots of water to slide them into place. Nothing for modelers who are faint at heart! Because the single pixel clouds partly follow the Su-25 outlines, the decals had partly to be tailored to the rather different F-16 shape, and due to the different proportions I also had to improvise with the material at hand – fortunately the Su-25 sheet offered enough material to cover the F-16! Some small areas lacked decal material and had to be filled through painting, though, with replacement model paints for the aforementioned darker RAL greys, namely Humbrol 246 (RLM 75) and a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 125 and 67. The lightest grey on the prints turned out to be very close to the Fulcrum Grey, so there’s unfortunately very little contrast, and this only became clear after the decals had already dried. However, I left it that way, because lightening the Fulcrum Grey up further would have been a quite messy affair, ending in a rather dirty look that I wanted to avoid, and it had called for an almost white tone.
Another challenge became the weathering process, since I normally apply a black ink wash and some post-panel shading to the finished and painted model before I add the decals to a model. Fearing that the ink might creep under the decals’ clear sections, I left that step out completely. The delicate static dischargers were another complicating factor. So, I decided to finish the upper camouflage with the light grey base and the decals cammo first. This made trimming down excess decal material easier. After that had been roughly finished, the dischargers were added and the underside was painted blue. On top of that came the “normal” decals with national markings, codes and stencils. The latter were mostly taken from a vintage Microscale F-16 sheet, the tactical code came from a Begemot Ka-27 sheet. Since the bort number on the air intake was not well visible frame every angle, I added a white 77 to the fin, too. Thereafter I added some panel lines with the help of thinned black ink and a soft pencil. This way the model appears pretty clean, and I think that’s fine since many recent Ukrainian aircraft I know from pictures look well-tended. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish overall.
A simple F-16 in alternative markings – that’s what this model was supposed to be. I did not expect that the building phase would become such a challenge, and I’d sincerely recommend to any modeler who wants to build a “serious” F-16 in 1:72 to stay away from the Trumpeter and the Intech/Mister-/Mastercraft kits. They might be cheap, but that does not outweigh their flaws and building troubles.
Beyond these technical issues, I like the look of this “Ukrainized” Viper, the digital camouflage looks very special and works well on the aircraft. The light grey base could have been lighter, though. In fact, the F-16 now looks like an exaggerated U.S. Aggressor on first sight, but with the Ukrainian markings the whole thing looks pretty different and conclusive - a “what if” in the best sense. 😉
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
After the Ukrainian independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Air Force (Повітряні Сили України, Povitryani Syly Ukrayiny) was established on March 17, 1992, in accordance with a Directive of the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, many aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory, including a wide range of fighters and attack aircraft, helicopters and even strategic bombers, and these became the initial equipment. Ever since, the Ukrainian air force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces, but for many years the main inventory still consisted of Soviet-made aircraft.
Following the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution and subsequent March 2014 Russian annexation of the Crimea peninsula and the following violence and insurgency in east Ukraine, the Ukrainian government tried to increase its defense spending and capabilities. Returning equipment (of Russian origin, though) to service was a key part of the spending drive, but in parallel attempts were made to procure flying material from Western sources in order to become moer and more independent from the obtrusive neighbor. In April 2014 two MiG-29 aircraft were restored to flight on short notice and in August a decommissioned An-26 transport aircraft was restored to active service by a volunteer group. On 5 January 2015 the air force received another 4 restored airplanes, two MiG-29s and two Su-27s, as well as two Mi-8 and Mi-2 helicopters. However, since these aircraft had already accumulated a considerable number of flying hours, this could only have been an interim solution and the Ukraine turned directly to NATO for material support.
This politically highly delicate help was eventually granted in the form of eight General Dynamics F-16 C (six) and D (two) multi-role fighters of early Block 40 standard, leased from the U.S.A. and diverted from active aircraft which were about to become surplus stock and mothballed, anyway.
The F-16 Fighting Falcon itself was a single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as a light air superiority day fighter as a complement to the heavier F-15 Eagle interceptor, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,600 aircraft were built since production was approved in 1976. In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation, which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta.
Although no longer being purchased by the launch customer, the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are still being built for export customers – the F-16 has been procured to serve in the air forces of 25 other nations all around the world, making it one of the world's most numerous fixed-wing aircraft in military service.
The Fighting Falcon's key features include a frameless bubble canopy for better visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while maneuvering, an ejection seat reclined 30 degrees from vertical to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot, and the first use of a relaxed static stability/fly-by-wire flight control system which helps to make it an agile aircraft. The F-16 has an internal M61 Vulcan cannon and the advanced C/D version features a total of 11 locations for mounting weapons and other mission equipment.
The eight machines for the Ukraine arrived in June 2016 via direct transfer flights over the Atlantic and Western Europe. The former USAF machines were delivered “as is”, even though they had some state-of-the-art avionics replaced by less sensitive alternatives from older F-16 production blocks. Together with the fighters, an undisclosed number of AIM-9M Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles were delivered, but the leasing agreement did not include LANTIRN pods that would provide the F-16C/D with improved all-day/all-weather strike capability. Other equipment like ECM pods was also not included. Service, maintenance and logistics for the new type in Ukrainian service was, due to the small operational number, secured with the help of the Polish air force, which had been operating 48 F-16C/D+ Block 52 fighters since 2006 and had the required experience and facilities at its 31st Tactical Air Base in Poznań-Krzesiny.
Upon arrival, the aircraft were immediately re-painted in a striking digital camouflage and received non-consecutive tactical codes, apparently based on the airframe’s former U.S. serial numbers, using the last two digits. They were all allocated to the 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade, based at Vasylkiv air base, south of Kiev, where they replaced a number of outdated and partly grounded MiG-29 fighters. They were exclusively tasked with aerial defense of the Ukrainian capital city – also as a political sign that the machines were not intended for attack missions.
Since their introduction, the Ukrainian F-16s have been fulfilling QRA duties and airspace patrol, and the corresponding maintenance infrastructure has been gradually built up, so that F-16 operations became independent from Poland in 2019. With the worsening relationship to Russia, more military hardware of Western origin is expected to enter Ukrainian service. If the tight Ukrainian defense budget allows it, twenty more 2nd hand F-16s are to be delivered in 2021 to replace more Soviet fighter types (primarily the rest of the Ukrainian MiG-29 “Fulcrum” single and two seater fleet), and the procurement of LANTIRN pods to expand the type’s capabilities is under consideration and negotiations, too.
General characteristics:
Length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)
Wingspan: 32 ft 8 in (9.96 m)
Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)
Wing area: 300 sq ft (28 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 64A204
Empty weight: 18,900 lb (8,573 kg)
Gross weight: 26,500 lb (12,020 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 42,300 lb (19,187 kg)
Internal fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg)
Powerplant:
1× General Electric F110-GE-100 afterburning turbofan
with 17,155 lbf (76.31 kN) dry and 28,600 lbf (127 kN) thrust with afterburner
Performance:
Maximum speed: Mach 2.05 at altitude in clean configuration
Mach 1.2, 800 kn (921 mph; 1,482 km/h) at sea level
Combat range: 295 nmi (339 mi, 546 km) on a hi-lo-hi mission with 4x 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs
Ferry range: 2,277 nmi (2,620 mi, 4,217 km) with drop tanks
Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,000 m) plus
g limits: +9.0 (limited by flight control system)
Rate of climb: +50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)
Wing loading: 88.3 lb/sq ft (431 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 1.095 (1.24 with loaded weight & 50% internal fuel)
Armament:
1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon with 511 rounds
2× wing-tip air-to-air missile launch rails plus 6× under-wing
and 3× under-fuselage pylon (2 of these for sensors) stations
with a capacity of up to 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) of a wide range of stores
The kit and its assembly:
I am not a big F-16 fan, but in some cases it’s an unavoidable canvas – just like in this case here. This fictional aircraft model (or better: this model of a [yet] fictional F-16 operator) was spawned by two ideas. One was the simple question: what if the Ukraine had after the USSR’s dissolution chosen a stronger attachment to (old) Western forces after the dissolution of the USSSR? And/or: what if the Ukraine had started to procure non-Russian equipment, esp. aircraft? So, what would an Ukrainian F-16 might have looked like, in general but esp. after the Crimea annexation in 2014 when such a scenario had become even more possible?
The other source of inspiration was a picture of an Ukrainian Su-24 with grey digital camouflage, a scheme that was/is also worn by some Su-25s. When I stumbled upon an Authentic Decals sheet for this unique paint scheme that allows to apply the complex and delicate pattern through water-slide transfers, I thought that the relatively “flat” F-16 surface would be an ideal basis to try this stunt?
What sounded like a very simple livery whif on an OOB model turned into a construction nightmare. Originally, this project provided me with a purpose for a dubious Trumpeter F-16 kit that I had bought some years ago – dead cheap, but righteously so. This kit is cruel, the model even has no concrete variant specification and is apparently the re-boxing of a kit from an obscure Chinese company called “Income”. Effectively, the Trumpeter F-16 is a rip-off of Italeri’s quite nice F-16C/D kit – but the Income/Trumpeter clone comes with MUCH deeper engravings esp. on the fuselage that remind a lot of the dreaded Matchbox “trenches”. Everything is rather “soft” and toylike, the clear parts are poor and the (few) decals look like toy stickers (!!!). I’d call it crude, even the instructions are apparently poor scans or photocopies from the Italeri kit, including hints for detail painting with no corresponding reference what colors should be used at all… All that could have been overlooked, but after starting with the kit I could not commit myself to use it any further. It’s rare that I give up because of a kit’s basis!
Next idea to “save” the project’s idea of an Ukrainian F-16 was to dig out a surplus Intech F-16 from the pile, also bought long ago because it was cheap, as conversion fodder. This kit has also been re-released in infinite variations under the Mister-/Mastercraft label. Upon closer inspection this kit turned out to have massive flaws, too, but in different areas from the Trumpeter thing. For instance, the Intech kit’s wings are utterly thick, certainly 1mm thicker than the Trumpeter model’s parts. This does not sound much, but on the really thin F-16 wings and stabilizers this looks really awful! Furthermore, the clear parts had not been fully molded, so I’d have needed a replacement canopy, anyway. Again, I gave up on building…
…until I decided to make the best of this mess and combine the “best” parts from both gimp models, trying to mend the worst flaws to an acceptable level. This led to the glorious kitbashing that this model eventually became! From the Intech kit I took the acceptable fuselage, including cockpit interior, air intake and landing gear, as well as the fin and the weapon pylons. The Trumpeter kit donated its thinner wings and the stabilizers, as well as the much better open exhaust nozzle (there’s an optional closed one, too; the Intech kit only offers an open nozzle, without ANY surface detail at all, it’s just a blank pipe!).
Beyond these basic ingredients, some more donors became necessary: All clear parts from both Intech and Trumpeter kit turned out to be rubbish for various reasons. The decision to build an F-16D two-seater was dictated by the fact that I had a leftover canopy from an Italeri F-16 kit in the donor bank – luckily it fitted well to the Intech kit’s body. Two crewmen from the spares box populate the cockpit and hide the rather basic interior, which was not improved at all. Furthermore, the ordnance came from external sources, too. The characteristic drop tanks with their cut-off tails were also leftover parts from the Italeri F-16, all AAMs come from a Hasegawa weapon set.
Some PSR was necessary to blend the parts from different kits together – thankfully, almost all F-16 kits are constructed in a similar fashion, even though there are small detail differences. In this case, the wings had to be slightly modified to fit onto the Intech fuselage. However, even those parts from the original kit(s) that are supposed to fit, e.g. the fin or the alternative cockpit opening frames for the optional single- and two-seater canopies, do hardly match at all. Horrible.
I rather focused on the model’s exterior, and a personal addition to improve the overall look of the otherwise rather basic/poor model, I added some small blade antennae that were totally missing on either model. Another extra detail are the small static dischargers on the trailing edges, created with thin, heated sprue material. Only small details, but they improve IMHO the model’s look considerably.
Painting and markings:
Until today, I never dared to apply decal camouflage to a model, but I expected that the flat/smooth F-16 surface would make this stunt relatively easy. This application method would also make painting the model easy, since only a single, uniform color had to be laid down from above and below.
To my surprise, the painting instructions of the Authentic Decals sheet for a number of Ukrainian Su-25 (which all carry the same standardized pixel camouflage) indicated RAL tones – a little surprising, but: why not? Since no other authentic color references were available, I cross-checked the paint suggestions with real life pictures of Su-24s and -25s in this striking paint scheme, and the indicated tones appear very plausible.
The problem: not every RAL tone is available as a model paint, so I had to make guesstimates. This eventually led to Modelmaster 2133 (Fulcrum Grey) as a light grey overall basis (suggested: RAL 7030 Achatgrau/Agate Grey, a tone with a brownish hue) from above and Humbrol 47 (Sea Blue Gloss) for a pale blue underside. The recommendation for the belly is RAL 7001 (Silbergrau/Silver Grey, very close to FS 36375), and this appears plausible, too, even though real-life pictures suggest a more bluish tone. But for a more dramatic look and some color contrast to the upper side’s all-grey I deliberately settled upon the Humbrol color, and this looks IMHO good.
The other suggested grey tones that make up the pixel patterns are RAL 7040 (Fenstergrau/Window Grey), RAL 7037 (Staubgrau/Dust Grey) and RAL 7043 (Verkehrsgrau B/Traffic Grey).
The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140), the air intake and the landing gear in white (Humbrol 22). The exhaust nozzle was painted externally with individual Metallizer mixes (with blue and gold added), while the inside was painted with Burnt Steel Metallizer towards the afterburner section while the ceramic nozzle petals were painted in a pale, almost white grey with darker lines, applied wet-in-wet. This looks pretty good – but does not withstand a closer inspection, just like the rest of this Franken-bashed F-16 thing.
Applying the digital camouflage pattern went better than expected. The decals turned out to be very thin and delicate, though, with almost no excessive clear film outside of the printed areas, so that application had to be executed swiftly and with lots of water to slide them into place. Nothing for modelers who are faint at heart! Because the single pixel clouds partly follow the Su-25 outlines, the decals had partly to be tailored to the rather different F-16 shape, and due to the different proportions I also had to improvise with the material at hand – fortunately the Su-25 sheet offered enough material to cover the F-16! Some small areas lacked decal material and had to be filled through painting, though, with replacement model paints for the aforementioned darker RAL greys, namely Humbrol 246 (RLM 75) and a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 125 and 67. The lightest grey on the prints turned out to be very close to the Fulcrum Grey, so there’s unfortunately very little contrast, and this only became clear after the decals had already dried. However, I left it that way, because lightening the Fulcrum Grey up further would have been a quite messy affair, ending in a rather dirty look that I wanted to avoid, and it had called for an almost white tone.
Another challenge became the weathering process, since I normally apply a black ink wash and some post-panel shading to the finished and painted model before I add the decals to a model. Fearing that the ink might creep under the decals’ clear sections, I left that step out completely. The delicate static dischargers were another complicating factor. So, I decided to finish the upper camouflage with the light grey base and the decals cammo first. This made trimming down excess decal material easier. After that had been roughly finished, the dischargers were added and the underside was painted blue. On top of that came the “normal” decals with national markings, codes and stencils. The latter were mostly taken from a vintage Microscale F-16 sheet, the tactical code came from a Begemot Ka-27 sheet. Since the bort number on the air intake was not well visible frame every angle, I added a white 77 to the fin, too. Thereafter I added some panel lines with the help of thinned black ink and a soft pencil. This way the model appears pretty clean, and I think that’s fine since many recent Ukrainian aircraft I know from pictures look well-tended. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish overall.
A simple F-16 in alternative markings – that’s what this model was supposed to be. I did not expect that the building phase would become such a challenge, and I’d sincerely recommend to any modeler who wants to build a “serious” F-16 in 1:72 to stay away from the Trumpeter and the Intech/Mister-/Mastercraft kits. They might be cheap, but that does not outweigh their flaws and building troubles.
Beyond these technical issues, I like the look of this “Ukrainized” Viper, the digital camouflage looks very special and works well on the aircraft. The light grey base could have been lighter, though. In fact, the F-16 now looks like an exaggerated U.S. Aggressor on first sight, but with the Ukrainian markings the whole thing looks pretty different and conclusive - a “what if” in the best sense. 😉
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (NATO reporting name: "Farmer") was a Soviet second-generation, single-seat, twin jet-engine fighter aircraft. It was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. A comparable U.S. "Century Series" fighter was the North American F-100 Super Sabre, although the MiG-19 would primarily oppose the more modern McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Republic F-105 Thunderchief over North Vietnam. Furthermore, the North American YF-100 Super Sabre prototype appeared approximately one year after the MiG-19, making the MiG-19 the first operational supersonic jet in the world.
On 20 April 1951, OKB-155 was given the order to develop the MiG-17 into a new fighter called "I-340", also known as "SM-1". It was to be powered by two Mikulin AM-5 non-afterburning jet engines, a scaled-down version of the Mikulin AM-3, with 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) of thrust. The I-340 was supposed to attain 1,160 km/h (725 mph, Mach 0.97) at 2,000 m (6,562 ft), 1,080 km/h (675 mph, Mach 1.0) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft), climb to 10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 2.9 minutes, and have a service ceiling of no less than 17,500 m (57,415 ft).
After several prototypes with many detail improvements, the ministers of the Soviet Union issued the order #286-133 to start serial production on February 17, 1954, at the factories in Gorkiy and Novosibirsk. Factory trials were completed on September 12 the same year, and government trials started on September 30.
Initial enthusiasm for the aircraft was dampened by several problems. The most alarming of these was the danger of a midair explosion due to overheating of the fuselage fuel tanks located between the engines. Deployment of airbrakes at high speeds caused a high-g pitch-up. Elevators lacked authority at supersonic speeds. The high landing speed of 230 km/h (145 mph), compared to 160 km/h (100 mph) for the MiG-15, combined with the lack of a two-seat trainer version, slowed pilot transition to the type. Handling problems were addressed with the second prototype, "SM-9/2", which added a third ventral airbrake and introduced all-moving tailplanes with a damper to prevent pilot-induced oscillations at subsonic speeds. It flew on 16 September 1954, and entered production as the MiG-19S.
Approximately 5,500 MiG-19's were produced, first in the USSR and in Czechoslovakia as the Avia S-105, but mainly in the People's Republic of China as the Shenyang J-6. The aircraft saw service with a number of other national air forces, including those of Cuba, North Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan, and North Korea. The aircraft saw combat during the Vietnam War, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1971 Bangladesh War.
However, jet fighter development made huge leaps in the 1960s, and OKB MiG was constantly trying to improve the MiG-19's performance, esp. against fast and high-flying enemies, primarily bombers but also spy planes like the U-2.
As the MiG-19S was brought into service with the Soviet air forces in mid-1956, the OKB MiG was continuing the refinement of the SM-1/I-340 fighter. One of these evolutionary paths was the SM-12 (literally, “SM-1, second generation”) family of prototypes, the ultimate extrapolation of the basic MiG-19 design, which eventually led to the MiG-19bis interceptor that filled the gap between the MiG-19S and the following, highly successful MiG-21.
The SM-12 first saw life as an exercise in drag reduction by means of new air intake configurations, since the MiG-19’s original intake with rounded lips became inefficient at supersonic speed (its Western rival, the North American F-100, featured a sharp-lipped nose air intake from the start). The first of three prototypes, the SM-12/1, was essentially a MiG-19S with an extended and straight-tapered nose with sharp-lipped orifice and a pointed, two-position shock cone on the intake splitter. The simple arrangement proved to be successful and was further refined.
The next evolutionary step, the SM-12/3, differed from its predecessors primarily in two new R3-26 turbojets developed from the earlier power plant by V. N. Sorokin. These each offered an afterburning thrust of 3,600kg, enabling the SM-12/3 to attain speeds ranging between 1,430km/h at sea level, or Mach=1.16, and 1,930km/h at 12,000m, or Mach=1.8, and an altitude of between 17,500 and 18,000m during its test program. This outstanding performance prompted further development with a view to production as a point defense interceptor.
Similarly powered by R3-26 engines, and embodying major nose redesign with a larger orifice permitting introduction of a substantial two-position conical centerbody for a TsD-30 radar, a further prototype was completed as the SM-12PM. Discarding the wing root NR-30 cannon of preceding prototypes, the SM-12PM was armed with only two K-5M (RS-2U) beam-riding missiles and entered flight test in 1957. This configuration would become the basis for the MiG-19bis interceptor that eventually was ordered into limited production (see below).
However, the SM-12 development line did not stop at this point. At the end of 1958, yet another prototype, the SM-12PMU, joined the experimental fighter family. This had R3M-26 turbojets uprated to 3.800kg with afterburning, but these were further augmented by a U-19D accelerator, which took the form of a permanent ventral pack containing an RU-013 rocket motor and its propellant tanks. Developed by D. D. Sevruk, the RU-013 delivered 3,000kg of additional thrust, and with the aid of this rocket motor, the SM-12PMU attained an altitude of 24,000m and a speed of Mach=1.69. But this effort was to no avail: the decision had been taken meanwhile to manufacture the Ye-7 in series as the MiG-21, and further development of the SM-12 series was therefore discontinued.
Nevertheless, since full operational status of the new MiG-21 was expected to remain pending for some time, production of a modified SM-12PM was ordered as a gap filler. Not only would this fighter bridge the performance gap to the Mach 2-capable MiG-21, it also had the benefit of being based on proven technologies and would not require a new basic pilot training.
The new aircraft received the official designation MiG-19bis. Compared with the SM-12PM prototype, the MiG-19bis differed in some details and improvements. The SM-12PM’s most significant shortfall was its short range – at full power, it had only a range of 750 km! This could be mended through an additional fuel tank in an enlarged dorsal fairing behind the cockpit. With this internal extra fuel, range could be extended by a further 200 - 250km range, but drop tanks had typically to be carried, too, in order to extend the fighter’ combat radius with two AAMs to 500 km. Specifically for the MiG-19bis, new, supersonic drop tanks (PTB-490) were designed, and these were later adapted for the MiG-21, too.
The air intake shock cone was re-contoured and the shifting mechanism improved: Instead of a simple, conical shape, the shock cone now had a more complex curvature with two steps and the intake orifice area was widened to allow a higher airflow rate. The air intake’s efficiency was further optimized through gradual positions of the shock cone.
As a positive side effect, the revised shock cone offered space for an enlarged radar dish, what improved detection range and resolution. The TsD-30 radar for the fighter’s missile-only armament was retained, even though the K-5’s effective range of only 2–6 km (1¼ – 3¾ mi) made it only suitable against slow and large targets like bombers. All guns were deleted in order to save weight or make room for the electronic equipment. The tail section was also changed because the R3M-26 engines and their afterburners were considerably longer than the MiG-19's original RM-5 engines. The exhausts now markedly protruded from the tail section, and the original, characteristic pen nib fairing between the two engines had been modified accordingly.
Production started in 1960, but only a total of roundabout 180 MiG-19bis, which received the NATO code "Farmer F", were built and the Soviet Union remained the only operator of the type. The first aircraft entered Soviet Anti-Air Defense in early 1961, and the machines were concentrated in PVO interceptor units around major sites like Moscow, Sewastopol at the Black Sea and Vladivostok in the Far East.
With the advent of the MiG-21, though, their career did not last long. Even though many machines were updated to carry the K-13 (the IR-guided AA-2 "Atoll") as well as the improved K-55 AAMs, with no change of the type’s designation, most MiG-19bis were already phased out towards the late 1960s and quickly replaced by 2nd generation MiG-21s as well as heavier and more capable Suchoj interceptors like the Su-9, -11 and -15. By 1972, all MiG-19bis had been retired.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 13.54 m (44 ft 4 in), fuselage only with shock cone in forward position
15.48 m (50 8 ½ in) including pitot
Wingspan: 9 m (29 ft 6 in)
Height: 3.8885 m (12 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 25 m² (269 ft²)
Empty weight: 5,210 kg (11,475 lb)
Loaded weight: 7,890 kg (17,380 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 9,050 kg (19,935 lb)
Fuel capacity: 2,450 l (556 imp gal; 647 US gal) internal;
plus 760 l (170 imp gal; 200 US gal) with 2 drop tanks
Powerplant:
2× Sorokin R3M-26 turbojets, rated at 37.2 kN (8,370 lbf) thrust each with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,380km/h at sea level (Mach=1.16)
1,850km/h at 12,000m (Mach=1.8)
Range: 1,250 km (775 mi; 750 nmi) at 14,000 m (45,000 ft) with 2 × 490 l drop tanks
Combat range: 500 km (312 mi; 270 nmi)
Ferry range: 2,000 km (1,242 mi; 690 nmi)
Service ceiling: 19,750 m (64,690 ft)
Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 353.3 kg/m² (72.4 lb/ft²)
Thrust/weight: 0.86
Armament:
No internal guns.
4× underwing pylons; typically, a pair of PTB-490 drop tanks were carried on the outer pylon pair,
plus a pair of air-to air missiles on the inner pair: initially two radar-guided Kaliningrad K-5M (RS-2US)
AAMs, later two radar-guided K-55 or IR-guided Vympel K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll') AAMs
The kit and its assembly:
Another submission for the 2018 Cold War Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and again the opportunity to build a whiffy model from the project list. But it’s as fictional as one might think, since the SM-12 line of experimental “hybrid” fighters between the MiG-19 and the MiG-21 was real. But none of these aircraft ever made it into serial production, and in real life the MiG-21 showed so much potential that the attempts to improve the MiG-19 were stopped and no operational fighter entered production or service.
However, the SM-12, with its elongated nose and the central shock cone, makes a nice model subject, and I imagined what a service aircraft might have looked like? It would IMHO have been close, if not identical, to the SM-12PM, since this was the most refined pure jet fighter in the development family.
The basis for the build was a (dead cheap) Mastercraft MiG-19, which is a re-edition of the venerable Kovozávody Prostějov (KP) kit – as a tribute to modern tastes, it comes with (crudely) engraved panel, but it has a horrible fit all over. For instance, there was a 1mm gap between the fuselage and the right wing, the wing halves’ outlines did not match at all and it is questionable if the canopy actually belongs to the kit at all? PSR everywhere. I also had a Plastyk version of this kit on the table some time ago, but it was of a much better quality! O.K., the Mastercraft kit comes cheap, but it’s, to be honest, not a real bargain.
Even though the result would not be crisp I did some mods and changes. Internally, a cockpit tub was implanted (OOB there’s just a wacky seat hanging in mid air) plus some serious lead weight in the nose section for a proper stance.
On the outside, the new air intake is the most obvious change. I found a Su-17 intake (from a Mastercraft kit, too) and used a piece from a Matchbox B-17G’s dorsal turret to elongate the nose – it had an almost perfect diameter and a mildly conical shape. Some massive PSR work was necessary to blend the parts together, though.
The tail received new jet nozzles, scratched from steel needle protection covers, and the tail fairing was adjusted according to the real SM-12’s shape.
Ordnance was adapted, too: the drop tanks come from a Mastercraft MiG-21, and these supersonic PTB-490 tanks were indeed carried by the real SM-12 prototypes because the uprated engines were very thirsty and the original, teardrop-shaped MiG-19 tanks simply too draggy for the much faster SM-12. As a side note, the real SM-12’s short range was one of the serious factors that prevented the promising type’s production in real life. In order to overcome the poor range weakness I added an enlarged spine (half of a drop tank), inspired by the MiG-21 SMT, that would house an additional internal fuel tank.
The R2-SU/K-5 AAMs come from a vintage Mastercraft Soviet aircraft weapon set, which carries a pair of these 1st generation AAMs. While the molds seem to be a bit soft, the missiles look pretty convincing. Their pylons were taken from the kit (OOB they carry unguided AAM pods and are placed behind the main landing gear wells), just reversed and placed on the wings’ leading edges – similar to the real SM-12’s arrangement.
Painting and markings:
No surprises. In the Sixties, any PVO aircraft was left in bare metal, so there was hardly an alternative to a NMF finish.
Painting started with an all-over coat with acrylic Revell 99 (Aluminum), just the spine tank became light grey (Revell 371) for some contrast, and I painted some di-electric covers in a deep green (Revell 48).
The cockpit interior was painted with a bright mix of Revell 55 and some 48, while the landing gear wells and the back section of the cockpit were painted in a bluish grey (Revell 57).
The landing gear was painted in Steel (unpolished Modelmaster metallizer) and received classic, bright green wheel discs (Humbrol 2). As a small, unusual highlight the pitot boom under the chin received red and white stripes – seen on occasional MiG-19S fighters in Soviet service, and the anti-flutter booms on the stabilizers became bright red, too.
After the basic painting was done the kit received a black ink wash. Once this had dried and wiped off with a soft cotton cloth, post shading with various metallizer tones was added in order to liven up the uniform aircraft (including Humbrol’s matt and polished aluminum, and the exhaust section was treated with steel). Some panel lines were emphasized with a thin pencil.
Decals were puzzled together from various sources, a Guards badge and a few Russian stencils were added, too. Finally, the kit was sealed with a coat of sheen acrylic varnish (a 2:1 mix of Italeri matt and semi-gloss varnish).
The K-5 missiles, last but not least, were painted in aluminum, too, but their end caps (both front and tail section) became off-white.
The Mastercraft kit on which this conversion was based is crude, so I did not have high expectations concerning the outcome. But the new nose blends nicely into the MiG-19 fuselage, and the wide spine is a subtle detail that makes the aircraft look more “beefy” and less MiG-19-ish. The different drop tanks – even though they are authentic – visually add further speed. And despite many flaws, I am quite happy with the result of roundabout a week’s work.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Focke-Wulf Ta 152 was a World War II German high-altitude fighter-interceptor designed by Kurt Tank and produced by Focke-Wulf. The fighter was a development of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 aircraft. Originally it was intended to be made in three versions—the Ta 152H Höhenjäger ("high-altitude fighter"), the Ta 152C designed for medium-altitude operations and ground-attack, using a different engine and smaller wing, and finally the Ta 152E fighter-reconnaissance aircraft with the engine of the H model and the short wing of the C model.
The fighters, esp. the high altitude variants, had top priority. The initial Fw 190's BMW 801 engine was originally designed for bomber and transport aircraft flying at medium altitudes in the 15,000 to 20,000 feet (4,600 to 6,100 m) range. In keeping with this role, it used a relatively simple single-stage supercharger that lacked performance above 20,000 feet (6,100 m) altitude. This presented a problem for fighter use, where high-altitude performance was desirable. Through careful tuning, the Fw 190 instead emerged as a powerful medium altitude design. Several experimental models of the 190 with different engines were tested, primarily aiming at an improved high altitude performance. But these were not high priority projects or failed through various teething troubles with the innovative engines.
The entry of the United States into the war brought with it a series of heavy bombers and escort fighters optimized for operations at higher altitudes, around 25,000 feet (7,600 m). At these altitudes, the BMW 801-powered 190 found itself at a distinct disadvantage, and this problem became acute in early 1944 when the P-51 Mustang arrived in quantity. This led to the introduction of the Fw 190D-9, mounting the Junkers Jumo 213E engine. This engine had a two-stage supercharger and much better altitude performance. However, the rest of the aircraft's design, especially the relatively short wings, made it difficult to fly at high altitudes. While the D-9 upgrade was expedient, it was not ideal.
This led to the more refined Ta 152. Kurt Tank originally designed the Ta 152 with the 44.52 litre displacement Daimler-Benz DB 603 engine, as it offered better high-altitude performance and also a greater developmental potential. The DB 603 had been used in the Fw 190C prototypes but had many problems and was considered too difficult to implement in the Ta 152 by RLM officials. With this in mind, Tank focused his efforts on the 213E as the Ta 152H's power plant. However, he insisted that the DB 603 be retained for the Ta 152C versions and as an option for later versions of the Ta 152H.
The Ta 152's fuselage was an extended version of the Fw 190D-9 fuselage with wider-chord fixed vertical tail surfaces (especially the top half), and hydraulic rather than electrically controlled undercarriage and flaps. Due to the changes in the center of gravity and overall balance, the nose was also lengthened. The D-9 retained the 10.51 metres (34.5 ft) wingspan of the original pre-war Fw 190 models, but this was slightly extended for the C model to 11 metres (36 ft), and greatly extended for the H model to 14.44 metres (47.4 ft), which gave it much better control at high altitudes at the cost of speed at lower altitudes.
Due to the war's impact on aluminum availability, the wing was built around two steel spars, the front extending from just past the landing gear attachment points, and the rear spar spanning the entire wing. The wing itself was designed with 3° of washout, from the root to the flap-aileron junction, to prevent the ailerons from stalling before the center section of the wing. The Ta 152 featured the FuG 16ZY and FuG 25a radio equipment, but some aircraft were issued with an FuG 125 Hermine D/F for navigation and blind landing, LGW-Siemens K 23 autopilot, and a heated armor glass windscreen for bad-weather operations.
By October 1944, the war was going very badly for Germany, and the RLM pushed Focke-Wulf to quickly get the Ta 152 into production. As a result, several Ta 152 prototypes crashed early into the test program. It was found that critical systems were lacking sufficient quality control. Problems arose with superchargers, pressurized cockpits leaked, the engine cooling system was unreliable at best due in part to unreliable oil temperature monitoring, and in several instances the landing gear failed to properly retract. A total of up to 20 pre-production Ta 152 H-0s were delivered from November 1944 to Erprobungskommando Ta 152 to service test the aircraft. It was reported that test pilots were only able to conduct a mere 31 hours of flight tests before full production hastily started.
In parallel, further attempts were made to improve the Ta 152’s performance. One development path were the J and K models, which were to be powered by the Jumo 222 engine. Design work on the high-power Jumo 222 had already started in 1937, and it had had a winding development story.
The massive engine looked like a radial due to its arrangement, since it was configured with six inline cylinder banks spaced at equal angles around the central crankcase, each bank having four cylinders. Like most inlines it was liquid-cooled and typically connected with an annular radiator around the propeller shaft. Compared with the contemporary BMW 801 and Daimler-Benz DB 605, the 222 was a huge leap in performance. It had only a slightly larger displacement figure than the 801's 41.8 L (2,550.8 in³), and about 25% more than the 605's 35.7 L (2,178.5 in³), but delivered considerably more power: 1,850 kW (2,500 hp) compared to 1,193 kW (1,600 hp) in the 801 and 1,119 kW (1,500 hp) in the 605. Such was the projected performance of the engine compared to contemporary designs that many developments of wartime Luftwaffe piston-engined aircraft designs were based on it, at least as an option. Notable among these was the entire “Bomber B” program, which looked to replace all existing Luftwaffe bombers with a new twin-engine design that was larger, faster and more heavily armed than any aircraft in their inventory.
However, the engine’s development was protracted and complex, so that the project had been shelved and revived several times in the course of the following years. Junkers did not give up on it, though, and, towards late 1944, a functional variant finally emerged. Using the original 46.4 litre displacement A/B design, Junkers added a new two-stage supercharger including a trio of aftercoolers, one per pair of neighboring cylinder banks for high-altitude use, and produced the 222E and F-series. Although sea-level performance was unchanged at 1,850 kW (2,500 hp), the engine was able to produce 1,439 kW (1,930 hp) at 9,000 m (29,530 ft). A further attempt for even higher altitude performance resulted in the turbocharged 222G and H.
Both of these new engines were earmarked for the Ta 152, resulting in two projects: the new Ta 152J-1 for medium altitudes with the Jumo 222E and a short wing span and the Ta 152K-1 high altitude fighter with the Jumo 222 G and long wings.
The engineers expected a phenomenal performance, superior to any piston engine fighter both Axis and Allies forces had fielded to date, and the aircraft would furthermore carry a potent cannon armament.
However, integrating the massive engine into the slender Ta 152 airframe resulted in a thorough redesign of the complete front section. The cowling had to be widened considerably and a new four-blade propeller was mounted in order to exploit the incremental power. The Ta 152 J’s wing was based on the earlier C model but had its span extended further to 11.65 m in order cope with the aircraft’s higher weight. The Ta 152 K used the former H model’s high altitude wings.
Further changes were less visible, including a completely new engine mount and reinforcements of the airframe’s internal structure. Due to the lack of light-weight materials, these were mostly done with steel, what raised overall weight of the aircraft considerably – the empty Ta 152J weighed 4,175 kg (9,205 lb), more than half a ton than the Fw 190D-9 with 3,490 kg (7,694 lb), and at full TOW the new aircraft almost weighed roundabout 5 tons.
Another Achilles heel of the new design turned out to be the Jumo 222’s high fuel consumption and the fighter’s resulting short legs. With internal fuel, range was limited to only 835 km (519 mi) instead of 2.000 km (1.242 mi) for the Ta 152H, what confined the fighter to short, local interception duties or strike attacks close to the front lines.
In order to counter this flaw and to avoid a draggy, ventral drop tank, the Ta 152J was outfitted with attachment points for a pair of so-called “Doppelreiter” (lit. “twin riders”) auxiliary slipper tanks on the wings’ upper surfaces.
These conformal tanks had originally been developed for the Fw 190A-7 fighter in 1943 and they offered several operational benefits. They could be easily mounted (a team of 2 or 3 engineers had them in place in less than 10 minutes), held 2x 270l of additional fuel and their aerodynamic shape did hardly impair the aircraft’s performance at all. In fact, they could even be carried when the aircraft was engaging in a dogfight and did not have to be jettisoned at all. With the “Doppelreiter” tanks, the range could be extended to almost 1.500 km (900 mi), and this could be further improved by an additional standard 300 l drop tank under the fuselage.
Initial stability problems through semi-filled tanks and sloshing fuel had, since the initial tests with the Fw 190 A-7, been fixed through an internal chamber system. In this modified form, the Ta 152 J-2 entered service in late 1945.
However, the “Doppelreiter” tanks were not a viable option for Ta 152 K’s long wings and the type’s turbocharged Jumo 222G remained troublesome. As a result, the K variant was held back and focus returned to the older Ta 152H for high altitude duties.
The Ta 152 J-2 remained the only production variant with the new engine, though, because the complex Jumo 222 was hard to manufacture and resources had become increasingly scarce by mid-1945. Consequentially, even though production of the Ta 152 J started in late 1945, the fighter’s production numbers remained low and only a small number of aircraft were finished and eventually reached front line units in serviceable condition. Probably only 30 machines went operational, with 30 more in the production lines in a more or less uncompleted condition. But those which countered bomber raids proved to be highly effective at the Western front and over Northern Germany against medium bombers and their escort fighters coming in from Great Britain.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 10.29 m (33 ft 8¾ in)
Wingspan: 11.65 m (38 ft 2 in)
Height: 3.35 m (11 ft 0 in)
Wing area: 19.80 m² (212.42 ft²)
Empty weight: 4,175 kg (9,205 lb)
Loaded weight: 6,054 kg (13,346 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,995 kg (15,422 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Junkers Jumo 222E liquid-cooled, 24-cylinder six-row inline piston engine
with a two-stage supercharger, rated at 2,500 hp (1,850 kW) at sea level
and 1,930 hp (1,439 kW) at 9,000 m (29,530 ft), driving a four-blade propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 760 km/h (408 knots, 470 mph) at 6,600 m (21,655 ft)
Range: 835 km (519 mi) with internal fuel only
1.480 km (919 mi) with Doppelreiter auxiliary tanks
Service ceiling: 12,600 m (41,500 ft)
Rate of climb: 22.1 m/s (4,360 ft/min)
Armament:
2× 20 mm (0.787 in) MG 151 cannons with 250 RPG above the engine
2x 30mm (1.181 in) MK 103 in the wing roots with 150 RPG
1x ventral hardpoint for a 500 kg (1,102 lb) SC 500 bomb or a 300l drop tank
Attachment points for a pair of “Doppelreiter” 270 l conformal slipper tanks above the wings
The kit and its assembly:
This is a what-if model, but, as usual, it is rooted in reality – to be precise in the German late-war plans to mate the Ta 152(H) with the mighty Jumo 222 engine. I do not know what the official service designation would have been, but this combo would have resulted in a powerful fighter – AFAIK, German engineers’ calculations indicated a performance that would have been comparable with the post-WWII F4U-5!
Creating a model of such this paper aircraft called for some serious conversion work and ended almost in a kitbashing. The starting point became a (cheap) Mistercraft Fw 190D-9 kit, and I originally planned this model to be a Fw 190 variant, but eventually this turned into a Ta 152, since it would better match up with the late war time frame.
The Mastercraft/Mistercraft kit appears to be an indigenous mold and not a re-issue of a vintage kit. At first glance the parts look pretty crisp, but the kit has some serious fit and flash issues. Another selling point is the detailed decal set, which comes in three sheets and encompasses a lot of stencils – even though the instructions where to place them are not consistent, and there are even 1:48 scale(!) markings included. But that’s a Mastercraft/Mistercraft standard, anyway…
Well, the basis was sound and the kit would, in any event, be thoroughly modified. From the OOB kit, fuselage, wings and stabilizers were taken, as well as the landing gear and some other bits.
The wings were extended, in order to keep overall proportions with the new, much more massive engine cowling balanced (see below). Not an easy stunt, but I was lucky to have recently bought a set of resin Doppelreiter tanks from Airmodel which were just perfect to cover the cuts and seams on the upper wing surfaces. Inside of the wings, a styrene strip secured stability while the lower wing surface was sculpted with putty and the trailing edge of the outer wing panels was cut down by 1 mm, so that the wings’ outlines match again. Some further PSR work was necessary to blend the slipper tanks into the wings, forming the upper side of the modifications, but in the end the whole thing looks quite good.
The fuselage lost both its original engine and the tail. The latter is a donor part from a Frog Ta 152H (Revell re-boxing), but mating it with the Mistercraft Fw 190D was not easy because the fuselage shapes of the two kits are totally different! I also used the Mistercraft stabilizers because they were markedly bigger than the same parts from the Ta 152 kit!
The Jumo 222 front end was simulated with parts from the spares box, and it is a bit exaggerated. Actually, the Jumo 222 was hardly bigger (in both length and diameter) than the Fw 190D’s Jumo 213 V12 engine! The cowling and the radiator for my conversion came from a Frog He 219 engine nacelle (Revell re-boxing, too) which is utterly dubious. The nacelle parts were turned upside down and integrated into the slender Fw 190 front fuselage with several layers of putty.
Inside of the cowling, a radiator plate from an Italeri Fw 190D was mounted, together with a styrene tube adapter for the new propeller. The latter was scratched, using a drop tank as spinner and single propeller blades from the Mistercraft Fw 190D, plus one donor blade from the Frog Ta 152H kit, which had to be trimmed in order to match the other blades. But with some paint, no one will tell the small differences…
Once the bigger engine was integrated into the fuselage, the exhaust system had to be added. In real life, the Jumo 222 would have featured three clusters with two rows of four exhaust stubs, distributed evenly around the cowling. Using a drawing of this arrangement as benchmark, I started with square cuts for the cluster openings. From the back side, styrene sheet closed the gaps and offered a basis for the exhaust stubs. These were improvised with H0 scale roofing shingles – each of the 24 exhaust stubs was cut individually into shape and size and then glued into the respective openings on the upper flanks and under the engine. Finally, styrene sheet was used to create small spoilers and heat shields. The result is certainly not perfect, but comes close to what the real world arrangement would basically have looked like. In a final step, two air intakes for the two-stage supercharger, scratched from sprue material, were added to the flanks.
The cockpit remained OOB, simple as it is, as well as the landing gear, but the canopy was modified in order to allow a presentation in open position. This meant that the OOB canopy had to be cut in two parts and that the model’s spine had to be cut away, making place for a donor canopy (the late, bulged variant, IIRC from an Italeri Fw 190D-9). Internally the fuselage gap was filled with putty and the headrest had to be modified, too, but the conversion turned out to look better than expected.
As a small cosmetic improvement, the molded gun barrel stumps in the wing roots were replaced with hollow steel needles, and the outer guns were completely removed.
Painting and markings:
I wanted a typical “German”, yet improvised look, as if the machine had been rushed to a service unit after minimal exterior decoration. I found a late war Fw 190F as a benchmark for my design, which basically carried a standard paint scheme of RLM 74 and 75 from above (wing surfaces and spine), but the undersides camouflage (typically in RLM 76) was completely missing. Instead, the aircraft was left in bare metal, and it carried only very simple and minimal markings.
I adapted this scheme for my build with RLM 74 and 75 for the upper wing surfaces, but the spine was painted with RLM 75 and 81 (all from Modelmaster’s Authentic line). The NMF areas were painted with Steel Metallizer instead of aluminum. I went for this darker tone because I wanted a rather weathered and unpolished look. Some camouflage mottles with thinned RLM 75 and 81 were added to the flanks and the fin, too.
The landing gear covers as well as the undersides of the Doppelreiter tanks’ rear extensions were painted with RLM 76, while the undersides of the rudders on wings and stabilizers were painted with a greenish grey (similar to RAF Sky and frequently misidentified as RLM 84, a tone that never officially existed). The fin’s rudder was painted in a rusty red (Humbrol 70) – again a typical German primer tone for metal replacement parts.
The cockpit interior became RLM 66 (a very dark grey, Humbrol 67), while the landing gear became RLM 02 (Revell 45) – all classic Luftwaffe tones for the intended era.
The markings were puzzled together from various sources, including the OOB sheets from the Mistercraft kit plus aftermarket material from TL Modellbau and Sky Models.
While most of this build was improvised, I like the beefy and purposeful look of this über-Ta 152. It’s certainly not 100% what the potential real thing would have looked like, but, after all, it’s intended to be a whif model plane. The massive engine changes the look considerably, even though in a subtle way since the original silhouette remains intact. But if you place a standard Fw 190 next to it, the overall growth becomes recognizable – as if you place an early Spitfire next to one of its post-war, Griffon-powered evolutions that only share the general outlines. The shaggy look due to the NMF undersides might look strange, but many late-war builds arrived in a similar, unfinished fashionat the front line units.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Focke-Wulf Ta 152 was a World War II German high-altitude fighter-interceptor designed by Kurt Tank and produced by Focke-Wulf. The fighter was a development of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 aircraft. Originally it was intended to be made in three versions—the Ta 152H Höhenjäger ("high-altitude fighter"), the Ta 152C designed for medium-altitude operations and ground-attack, using a different engine and smaller wing, and finally the Ta 152E fighter-reconnaissance aircraft with the engine of the H model and the short wing of the C model.
The fighters, esp. the high altitude variants, had top priority. The initial Fw 190's BMW 801 engine was originally designed for bomber and transport aircraft flying at medium altitudes in the 15,000 to 20,000 feet (4,600 to 6,100 m) range. In keeping with this role, it used a relatively simple single-stage supercharger that lacked performance above 20,000 feet (6,100 m) altitude. This presented a problem for fighter use, where high-altitude performance was desirable. Through careful tuning, the Fw 190 instead emerged as a powerful medium altitude design. Several experimental models of the 190 with different engines were tested, primarily aiming at an improved high altitude performance. But these were not high priority projects or failed through various teething troubles with the innovative engines.
The entry of the United States into the war brought with it a series of heavy bombers and escort fighters optimized for operations at higher altitudes, around 25,000 feet (7,600 m). At these altitudes, the BMW 801-powered 190 found itself at a distinct disadvantage, and this problem became acute in early 1944 when the P-51 Mustang arrived in quantity. This led to the introduction of the Fw 190D-9, mounting the Junkers Jumo 213E engine. This engine had a two-stage supercharger and much better altitude performance. However, the rest of the aircraft's design, especially the relatively short wings, made it difficult to fly at high altitudes. While the D-9 upgrade was expedient, it was not ideal.
This led to the more refined Ta 152. Kurt Tank originally designed the Ta 152 with the 44.52 litre displacement Daimler-Benz DB 603 engine, as it offered better high-altitude performance and also a greater developmental potential. The DB 603 had been used in the Fw 190C prototypes but had many problems and was considered too difficult to implement in the Ta 152 by RLM officials. With this in mind, Tank focused his efforts on the 213E as the Ta 152H's power plant. However, he insisted that the DB 603 be retained for the Ta 152C versions and as an option for later versions of the Ta 152H.
The Ta 152's fuselage was an extended version of the Fw 190D-9 fuselage with wider-chord fixed vertical tail surfaces (especially the top half), and hydraulic rather than electrically controlled undercarriage and flaps. Due to the changes in the center of gravity and overall balance, the nose was also lengthened. The D-9 retained the 10.51 metres (34.5 ft) wingspan of the original pre-war Fw 190 models, but this was slightly extended for the C model to 11 metres (36 ft), and greatly extended for the H model to 14.44 metres (47.4 ft), which gave it much better control at high altitudes at the cost of speed at lower altitudes.
Due to the war's impact on aluminum availability, the wing was built around two steel spars, the front extending from just past the landing gear attachment points, and the rear spar spanning the entire wing. The wing itself was designed with 3° of washout, from the root to the flap-aileron junction, to prevent the ailerons from stalling before the center section of the wing. The Ta 152 featured the FuG 16ZY and FuG 25a radio equipment, but some aircraft were issued with an FuG 125 Hermine D/F for navigation and blind landing, LGW-Siemens K 23 autopilot, and a heated armor glass windscreen for bad-weather operations.
By October 1944, the war was going very badly for Germany, and the RLM pushed Focke-Wulf to quickly get the Ta 152 into production. As a result, several Ta 152 prototypes crashed early into the test program. It was found that critical systems were lacking sufficient quality control. Problems arose with superchargers, pressurized cockpits leaked, the engine cooling system was unreliable at best due in part to unreliable oil temperature monitoring, and in several instances the landing gear failed to properly retract. A total of up to 20 pre-production Ta 152 H-0s were delivered from November 1944 to Erprobungskommando Ta 152 to service test the aircraft. It was reported that test pilots were only able to conduct a mere 31 hours of flight tests before full production hastily started.
In parallel, further attempts were made to improve the Ta 152’s performance. One development path were the J and K models, which were to be powered by the Jumo 222 engine. Design work on the high-power Jumo 222 had already started in 1937, and it had had a winding development story.
The massive engine looked like a radial due to its arrangement, since it was configured with six inline cylinder banks spaced at equal angles around the central crankcase, each bank having four cylinders. Like most inlines it was liquid-cooled and typically connected with an annular radiator around the propeller shaft. Compared with the contemporary BMW 801 and Daimler-Benz DB 605, the 222 was a huge leap in performance. It had only a slightly larger displacement figure than the 801's 41.8 L (2,550.8 in³), and about 25% more than the 605's 35.7 L (2,178.5 in³), but delivered considerably more power: 1,850 kW (2,500 hp) compared to 1,193 kW (1,600 hp) in the 801 and 1,119 kW (1,500 hp) in the 605. Such was the projected performance of the engine compared to contemporary designs that many developments of wartime Luftwaffe piston-engined aircraft designs were based on it, at least as an option. Notable among these was the entire “Bomber B” program, which looked to replace all existing Luftwaffe bombers with a new twin-engine design that was larger, faster and more heavily armed than any aircraft in their inventory.
However, the engine’s development was protracted and complex, so that the project had been shelved and revived several times in the course of the following years. Junkers did not give up on it, though, and, towards late 1944, a functional variant finally emerged. Using the original 46.4 litre displacement A/B design, Junkers added a new two-stage supercharger including a trio of aftercoolers, one per pair of neighboring cylinder banks for high-altitude use, and produced the 222E and F-series. Although sea-level performance was unchanged at 1,850 kW (2,500 hp), the engine was able to produce 1,439 kW (1,930 hp) at 9,000 m (29,530 ft). A further attempt for even higher altitude performance resulted in the turbocharged 222G and H.
Both of these new engines were earmarked for the Ta 152, resulting in two projects: the new Ta 152J-1 for medium altitudes with the Jumo 222E and a short wing span and the Ta 152K-1 high altitude fighter with the Jumo 222 G and long wings.
The engineers expected a phenomenal performance, superior to any piston engine fighter both Axis and Allies forces had fielded to date, and the aircraft would furthermore carry a potent cannon armament.
However, integrating the massive engine into the slender Ta 152 airframe resulted in a thorough redesign of the complete front section. The cowling had to be widened considerably and a new four-blade propeller was mounted in order to exploit the incremental power. The Ta 152 J’s wing was based on the earlier C model but had its span extended further to 11.65 m in order cope with the aircraft’s higher weight. The Ta 152 K used the former H model’s high altitude wings.
Further changes were less visible, including a completely new engine mount and reinforcements of the airframe’s internal structure. Due to the lack of light-weight materials, these were mostly done with steel, what raised overall weight of the aircraft considerably – the empty Ta 152J weighed 4,175 kg (9,205 lb), more than half a ton than the Fw 190D-9 with 3,490 kg (7,694 lb), and at full TOW the new aircraft almost weighed roundabout 5 tons.
Another Achilles heel of the new design turned out to be the Jumo 222’s high fuel consumption and the fighter’s resulting short legs. With internal fuel, range was limited to only 835 km (519 mi) instead of 2.000 km (1.242 mi) for the Ta 152H, what confined the fighter to short, local interception duties or strike attacks close to the front lines.
In order to counter this flaw and to avoid a draggy, ventral drop tank, the Ta 152J was outfitted with attachment points for a pair of so-called “Doppelreiter” (lit. “twin riders”) auxiliary slipper tanks on the wings’ upper surfaces.
These conformal tanks had originally been developed for the Fw 190A-7 fighter in 1943 and they offered several operational benefits. They could be easily mounted (a team of 2 or 3 engineers had them in place in less than 10 minutes), held 2x 270l of additional fuel and their aerodynamic shape did hardly impair the aircraft’s performance at all. In fact, they could even be carried when the aircraft was engaging in a dogfight and did not have to be jettisoned at all. With the “Doppelreiter” tanks, the range could be extended to almost 1.500 km (900 mi), and this could be further improved by an additional standard 300 l drop tank under the fuselage.
Initial stability problems through semi-filled tanks and sloshing fuel had, since the initial tests with the Fw 190 A-7, been fixed through an internal chamber system. In this modified form, the Ta 152 J-2 entered service in late 1945.
However, the “Doppelreiter” tanks were not a viable option for Ta 152 K’s long wings and the type’s turbocharged Jumo 222G remained troublesome. As a result, the K variant was held back and focus returned to the older Ta 152H for high altitude duties.
The Ta 152 J-2 remained the only production variant with the new engine, though, because the complex Jumo 222 was hard to manufacture and resources had become increasingly scarce by mid-1945. Consequentially, even though production of the Ta 152 J started in late 1945, the fighter’s production numbers remained low and only a small number of aircraft were finished and eventually reached front line units in serviceable condition. Probably only 30 machines went operational, with 30 more in the production lines in a more or less uncompleted condition. But those which countered bomber raids proved to be highly effective at the Western front and over Northern Germany against medium bombers and their escort fighters coming in from Great Britain.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 10.29 m (33 ft 8¾ in)
Wingspan: 11.65 m (38 ft 2 in)
Height: 3.35 m (11 ft 0 in)
Wing area: 19.80 m² (212.42 ft²)
Empty weight: 4,175 kg (9,205 lb)
Loaded weight: 6,054 kg (13,346 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,995 kg (15,422 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Junkers Jumo 222E liquid-cooled, 24-cylinder six-row inline piston engine
with a two-stage supercharger, rated at 2,500 hp (1,850 kW) at sea level
and 1,930 hp (1,439 kW) at 9,000 m (29,530 ft), driving a four-blade propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 760 km/h (408 knots, 470 mph) at 6,600 m (21,655 ft)
Range: 835 km (519 mi) with internal fuel only
1.480 km (919 mi) with Doppelreiter auxiliary tanks
Service ceiling: 12,600 m (41,500 ft)
Rate of climb: 22.1 m/s (4,360 ft/min)
Armament:
2× 20 mm (0.787 in) MG 151 cannons with 250 RPG above the engine
2x 30mm (1.181 in) MK 103 in the wing roots with 150 RPG
1x ventral hardpoint for a 500 kg (1,102 lb) SC 500 bomb or a 300l drop tank
Attachment points for a pair of “Doppelreiter” 270 l conformal slipper tanks above the wings
The kit and its assembly:
This is a what-if model, but, as usual, it is rooted in reality – to be precise in the German late-war plans to mate the Ta 152(H) with the mighty Jumo 222 engine. I do not know what the official service designation would have been, but this combo would have resulted in a powerful fighter – AFAIK, German engineers’ calculations indicated a performance that would have been comparable with the post-WWII F4U-5!
Creating a model of such this paper aircraft called for some serious conversion work and ended almost in a kitbashing. The starting point became a (cheap) Mistercraft Fw 190D-9 kit, and I originally planned this model to be a Fw 190 variant, but eventually this turned into a Ta 152, since it would better match up with the late war time frame.
The Mastercraft/Mistercraft kit appears to be an indigenous mold and not a re-issue of a vintage kit. At first glance the parts look pretty crisp, but the kit has some serious fit and flash issues. Another selling point is the detailed decal set, which comes in three sheets and encompasses a lot of stencils – even though the instructions where to place them are not consistent, and there are even 1:48 scale(!) markings included. But that’s a Mastercraft/Mistercraft standard, anyway…
Well, the basis was sound and the kit would, in any event, be thoroughly modified. From the OOB kit, fuselage, wings and stabilizers were taken, as well as the landing gear and some other bits.
The wings were extended, in order to keep overall proportions with the new, much more massive engine cowling balanced (see below). Not an easy stunt, but I was lucky to have recently bought a set of resin Doppelreiter tanks from Airmodel which were just perfect to cover the cuts and seams on the upper wing surfaces. Inside of the wings, a styrene strip secured stability while the lower wing surface was sculpted with putty and the trailing edge of the outer wing panels was cut down by 1 mm, so that the wings’ outlines match again. Some further PSR work was necessary to blend the slipper tanks into the wings, forming the upper side of the modifications, but in the end the whole thing looks quite good.
The fuselage lost both its original engine and the tail. The latter is a donor part from a Frog Ta 152H (Revell re-boxing), but mating it with the Mistercraft Fw 190D was not easy because the fuselage shapes of the two kits are totally different! I also used the Mistercraft stabilizers because they were markedly bigger than the same parts from the Ta 152 kit!
The Jumo 222 front end was simulated with parts from the spares box, and it is a bit exaggerated. Actually, the Jumo 222 was hardly bigger (in both length and diameter) than the Fw 190D’s Jumo 213 V12 engine! The cowling and the radiator for my conversion came from a Frog He 219 engine nacelle (Revell re-boxing, too) which is utterly dubious. The nacelle parts were turned upside down and integrated into the slender Fw 190 front fuselage with several layers of putty.
Inside of the cowling, a radiator plate from an Italeri Fw 190D was mounted, together with a styrene tube adapter for the new propeller. The latter was scratched, using a drop tank as spinner and single propeller blades from the Mistercraft Fw 190D, plus one donor blade from the Frog Ta 152H kit, which had to be trimmed in order to match the other blades. But with some paint, no one will tell the small differences…
Once the bigger engine was integrated into the fuselage, the exhaust system had to be added. In real life, the Jumo 222 would have featured three clusters with two rows of four exhaust stubs, distributed evenly around the cowling. Using a drawing of this arrangement as benchmark, I started with square cuts for the cluster openings. From the back side, styrene sheet closed the gaps and offered a basis for the exhaust stubs. These were improvised with H0 scale roofing shingles – each of the 24 exhaust stubs was cut individually into shape and size and then glued into the respective openings on the upper flanks and under the engine. Finally, styrene sheet was used to create small spoilers and heat shields. The result is certainly not perfect, but comes close to what the real world arrangement would basically have looked like. In a final step, two air intakes for the two-stage supercharger, scratched from sprue material, were added to the flanks.
The cockpit remained OOB, simple as it is, as well as the landing gear, but the canopy was modified in order to allow a presentation in open position. This meant that the OOB canopy had to be cut in two parts and that the model’s spine had to be cut away, making place for a donor canopy (the late, bulged variant, IIRC from an Italeri Fw 190D-9). Internally the fuselage gap was filled with putty and the headrest had to be modified, too, but the conversion turned out to look better than expected.
As a small cosmetic improvement, the molded gun barrel stumps in the wing roots were replaced with hollow steel needles, and the outer guns were completely removed.
Painting and markings:
I wanted a typical “German”, yet improvised look, as if the machine had been rushed to a service unit after minimal exterior decoration. I found a late war Fw 190F as a benchmark for my design, which basically carried a standard paint scheme of RLM 74 and 75 from above (wing surfaces and spine), but the undersides camouflage (typically in RLM 76) was completely missing. Instead, the aircraft was left in bare metal, and it carried only very simple and minimal markings.
I adapted this scheme for my build with RLM 74 and 75 for the upper wing surfaces, but the spine was painted with RLM 75 and 81 (all from Modelmaster’s Authentic line). The NMF areas were painted with Steel Metallizer instead of aluminum. I went for this darker tone because I wanted a rather weathered and unpolished look. Some camouflage mottles with thinned RLM 75 and 81 were added to the flanks and the fin, too.
The landing gear covers as well as the undersides of the Doppelreiter tanks’ rear extensions were painted with RLM 76, while the undersides of the rudders on wings and stabilizers were painted with a greenish grey (similar to RAF Sky and frequently misidentified as RLM 84, a tone that never officially existed). The fin’s rudder was painted in a rusty red (Humbrol 70) – again a typical German primer tone for metal replacement parts.
The cockpit interior became RLM 66 (a very dark grey, Humbrol 67), while the landing gear became RLM 02 (Revell 45) – all classic Luftwaffe tones for the intended era.
The markings were puzzled together from various sources, including the OOB sheets from the Mistercraft kit plus aftermarket material from TL Modellbau and Sky Models.
While most of this build was improvised, I like the beefy and purposeful look of this über-Ta 152. It’s certainly not 100% what the potential real thing would have looked like, but, after all, it’s intended to be a whif model plane. The massive engine changes the look considerably, even though in a subtle way since the original silhouette remains intact. But if you place a standard Fw 190 next to it, the overall growth becomes recognizable – as if you place an early Spitfire next to one of its post-war, Griffon-powered evolutions that only share the general outlines. The shaggy look due to the NMF undersides might look strange, but many late-war builds arrived in a similar, unfinished fashionat the front line units.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
After the Ukrainian independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Air Force (Повітряні Сили України, Povitryani Syly Ukrayiny) was established on March 17, 1992, in accordance with a Directive of the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, many aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory, including a wide range of fighters and attack aircraft, helicopters and even strategic bombers, and these became the initial equipment. Ever since, the Ukrainian air force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces, but for many years the main inventory still consisted of Soviet-made aircraft.
Following the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution and subsequent March 2014 Russian annexation of the Crimea peninsula and the following violence and insurgency in east Ukraine, the Ukrainian government tried to increase its defense spending and capabilities. Returning equipment (of Russian origin, though) to service was a key part of the spending drive, but in parallel attempts were made to procure flying material from Western sources in order to become moer and more independent from the obtrusive neighbor. In April 2014 two MiG-29 aircraft were restored to flight on short notice and in August a decommissioned An-26 transport aircraft was restored to active service by a volunteer group. On 5 January 2015 the air force received another 4 restored airplanes, two MiG-29s and two Su-27s, as well as two Mi-8 and Mi-2 helicopters. However, since these aircraft had already accumulated a considerable number of flying hours, this could only have been an interim solution and the Ukraine turned directly to NATO for material support.
This politically highly delicate help was eventually granted in the form of eight General Dynamics F-16 C (six) and D (two) multi-role fighters of early Block 40 standard, leased from the U.S.A. and diverted from active aircraft which were about to become surplus stock and mothballed, anyway.
The F-16 Fighting Falcon itself was a single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as a light air superiority day fighter as a complement to the heavier F-15 Eagle interceptor, it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,600 aircraft were built since production was approved in 1976. In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation, which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta.
Although no longer being purchased by the launch customer, the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are still being built for export customers – the F-16 has been procured to serve in the air forces of 25 other nations all around the world, making it one of the world's most numerous fixed-wing aircraft in military service.
The Fighting Falcon's key features include a frameless bubble canopy for better visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while maneuvering, an ejection seat reclined 30 degrees from vertical to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot, and the first use of a relaxed static stability/fly-by-wire flight control system which helps to make it an agile aircraft. The F-16 has an internal M61 Vulcan cannon and the advanced C/D version features a total of 11 locations for mounting weapons and other mission equipment.
The eight machines for the Ukraine arrived in June 2016 via direct transfer flights over the Atlantic and Western Europe. The former USAF machines were delivered “as is”, even though they had some state-of-the-art avionics replaced by less sensitive alternatives from older F-16 production blocks. Together with the fighters, an undisclosed number of AIM-9M Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles were delivered, but the leasing agreement did not include LANTIRN pods that would provide the F-16C/D with improved all-day/all-weather strike capability. Other equipment like ECM pods was also not included. Service, maintenance and logistics for the new type in Ukrainian service was, due to the small operational number, secured with the help of the Polish air force, which had been operating 48 F-16C/D+ Block 52 fighters since 2006 and had the required experience and facilities at its 31st Tactical Air Base in Poznań-Krzesiny.
Upon arrival, the aircraft were immediately re-painted in a striking digital camouflage and received non-consecutive tactical codes, apparently based on the airframe’s former U.S. serial numbers, using the last two digits. They were all allocated to the 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade, based at Vasylkiv air base, south of Kiev, where they replaced a number of outdated and partly grounded MiG-29 fighters. They were exclusively tasked with aerial defense of the Ukrainian capital city – also as a political sign that the machines were not intended for attack missions.
Since their introduction, the Ukrainian F-16s have been fulfilling QRA duties and airspace patrol, and the corresponding maintenance infrastructure has been gradually built up, so that F-16 operations became independent from Poland in 2019. With the worsening relationship to Russia, more military hardware of Western origin is expected to enter Ukrainian service. If the tight Ukrainian defense budget allows it, twenty more 2nd hand F-16s are to be delivered in 2021 to replace more Soviet fighter types (primarily the rest of the Ukrainian MiG-29 “Fulcrum” single and two seater fleet), and the procurement of LANTIRN pods to expand the type’s capabilities is under consideration and negotiations, too.
General characteristics:
Length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)
Wingspan: 32 ft 8 in (9.96 m)
Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)
Wing area: 300 sq ft (28 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 64A204
Empty weight: 18,900 lb (8,573 kg)
Gross weight: 26,500 lb (12,020 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 42,300 lb (19,187 kg)
Internal fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg)
Powerplant:
1× General Electric F110-GE-100 afterburning turbofan
with 17,155 lbf (76.31 kN) dry and 28,600 lbf (127 kN) thrust with afterburner
Performance:
Maximum speed: Mach 2.05 at altitude in clean configuration
Mach 1.2, 800 kn (921 mph; 1,482 km/h) at sea level
Combat range: 295 nmi (339 mi, 546 km) on a hi-lo-hi mission with 4x 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs
Ferry range: 2,277 nmi (2,620 mi, 4,217 km) with drop tanks
Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,000 m) plus
g limits: +9.0 (limited by flight control system)
Rate of climb: +50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)
Wing loading: 88.3 lb/sq ft (431 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 1.095 (1.24 with loaded weight & 50% internal fuel)
Armament:
1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon with 511 rounds
2× wing-tip air-to-air missile launch rails plus 6× under-wing
and 3× under-fuselage pylon (2 of these for sensors) stations
with a capacity of up to 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) of a wide range of stores
The kit and its assembly:
I am not a big F-16 fan, but in some cases it’s an unavoidable canvas – just like in this case here. This fictional aircraft model (or better: this model of a [yet] fictional F-16 operator) was spawned by two ideas. One was the simple question: what if the Ukraine had after the USSR’s dissolution chosen a stronger attachment to (old) Western forces after the dissolution of the USSSR? And/or: what if the Ukraine had started to procure non-Russian equipment, esp. aircraft? So, what would an Ukrainian F-16 might have looked like, in general but esp. after the Crimea annexation in 2014 when such a scenario had become even more possible?
The other source of inspiration was a picture of an Ukrainian Su-24 with grey digital camouflage, a scheme that was/is also worn by some Su-25s. When I stumbled upon an Authentic Decals sheet for this unique paint scheme that allows to apply the complex and delicate pattern through water-slide transfers, I thought that the relatively “flat” F-16 surface would be an ideal basis to try this stunt?
What sounded like a very simple livery whif on an OOB model turned into a construction nightmare. Originally, this project provided me with a purpose for a dubious Trumpeter F-16 kit that I had bought some years ago – dead cheap, but righteously so. This kit is cruel, the model even has no concrete variant specification and is apparently the re-boxing of a kit from an obscure Chinese company called “Income”. Effectively, the Trumpeter F-16 is a rip-off of Italeri’s quite nice F-16C/D kit – but the Income/Trumpeter clone comes with MUCH deeper engravings esp. on the fuselage that remind a lot of the dreaded Matchbox “trenches”. Everything is rather “soft” and toylike, the clear parts are poor and the (few) decals look like toy stickers (!!!). I’d call it crude, even the instructions are apparently poor scans or photocopies from the Italeri kit, including hints for detail painting with no corresponding reference what colors should be used at all… All that could have been overlooked, but after starting with the kit I could not commit myself to use it any further. It’s rare that I give up because of a kit’s basis!
Next idea to “save” the project’s idea of an Ukrainian F-16 was to dig out a surplus Intech F-16 from the pile, also bought long ago because it was cheap, as conversion fodder. This kit has also been re-released in infinite variations under the Mister-/Mastercraft label. Upon closer inspection this kit turned out to have massive flaws, too, but in different areas from the Trumpeter thing. For instance, the Intech kit’s wings are utterly thick, certainly 1mm thicker than the Trumpeter model’s parts. This does not sound much, but on the really thin F-16 wings and stabilizers this looks really awful! Furthermore, the clear parts had not been fully molded, so I’d have needed a replacement canopy, anyway. Again, I gave up on building…
…until I decided to make the best of this mess and combine the “best” parts from both gimp models, trying to mend the worst flaws to an acceptable level. This led to the glorious kitbashing that this model eventually became! From the Intech kit I took the acceptable fuselage, including cockpit interior, air intake and landing gear, as well as the fin and the weapon pylons. The Trumpeter kit donated its thinner wings and the stabilizers, as well as the much better open exhaust nozzle (there’s an optional closed one, too; the Intech kit only offers an open nozzle, without ANY surface detail at all, it’s just a blank pipe!).
Beyond these basic ingredients, some more donors became necessary: All clear parts from both Intech and Trumpeter kit turned out to be rubbish for various reasons. The decision to build an F-16D two-seater was dictated by the fact that I had a leftover canopy from an Italeri F-16 kit in the donor bank – luckily it fitted well to the Intech kit’s body. Two crewmen from the spares box populate the cockpit and hide the rather basic interior, which was not improved at all. Furthermore, the ordnance came from external sources, too. The characteristic drop tanks with their cut-off tails were also leftover parts from the Italeri F-16, all AAMs come from a Hasegawa weapon set.
Some PSR was necessary to blend the parts from different kits together – thankfully, almost all F-16 kits are constructed in a similar fashion, even though there are small detail differences. In this case, the wings had to be slightly modified to fit onto the Intech fuselage. However, even those parts from the original kit(s) that are supposed to fit, e.g. the fin or the alternative cockpit opening frames for the optional single- and two-seater canopies, do hardly match at all. Horrible.
I rather focused on the model’s exterior, and a personal addition to improve the overall look of the otherwise rather basic/poor model, I added some small blade antennae that were totally missing on either model. Another extra detail are the small static dischargers on the trailing edges, created with thin, heated sprue material. Only small details, but they improve IMHO the model’s look considerably.
Painting and markings:
Until today, I never dared to apply decal camouflage to a model, but I expected that the flat/smooth F-16 surface would make this stunt relatively easy. This application method would also make painting the model easy, since only a single, uniform color had to be laid down from above and below.
To my surprise, the painting instructions of the Authentic Decals sheet for a number of Ukrainian Su-25 (which all carry the same standardized pixel camouflage) indicated RAL tones – a little surprising, but: why not? Since no other authentic color references were available, I cross-checked the paint suggestions with real life pictures of Su-24s and -25s in this striking paint scheme, and the indicated tones appear very plausible.
The problem: not every RAL tone is available as a model paint, so I had to make guesstimates. This eventually led to Modelmaster 2133 (Fulcrum Grey) as a light grey overall basis (suggested: RAL 7030 Achatgrau/Agate Grey, a tone with a brownish hue) from above and Humbrol 47 (Sea Blue Gloss) for a pale blue underside. The recommendation for the belly is RAL 7001 (Silbergrau/Silver Grey, very close to FS 36375), and this appears plausible, too, even though real-life pictures suggest a more bluish tone. But for a more dramatic look and some color contrast to the upper side’s all-grey I deliberately settled upon the Humbrol color, and this looks IMHO good.
The other suggested grey tones that make up the pixel patterns are RAL 7040 (Fenstergrau/Window Grey), RAL 7037 (Staubgrau/Dust Grey) and RAL 7043 (Verkehrsgrau B/Traffic Grey).
The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140), the air intake and the landing gear in white (Humbrol 22). The exhaust nozzle was painted externally with individual Metallizer mixes (with blue and gold added), while the inside was painted with Burnt Steel Metallizer towards the afterburner section while the ceramic nozzle petals were painted in a pale, almost white grey with darker lines, applied wet-in-wet. This looks pretty good – but does not withstand a closer inspection, just like the rest of this Franken-bashed F-16 thing.
Applying the digital camouflage pattern went better than expected. The decals turned out to be very thin and delicate, though, with almost no excessive clear film outside of the printed areas, so that application had to be executed swiftly and with lots of water to slide them into place. Nothing for modelers who are faint at heart! Because the single pixel clouds partly follow the Su-25 outlines, the decals had partly to be tailored to the rather different F-16 shape, and due to the different proportions I also had to improvise with the material at hand – fortunately the Su-25 sheet offered enough material to cover the F-16! Some small areas lacked decal material and had to be filled through painting, though, with replacement model paints for the aforementioned darker RAL greys, namely Humbrol 246 (RLM 75) and a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 125 and 67. The lightest grey on the prints turned out to be very close to the Fulcrum Grey, so there’s unfortunately very little contrast, and this only became clear after the decals had already dried. However, I left it that way, because lightening the Fulcrum Grey up further would have been a quite messy affair, ending in a rather dirty look that I wanted to avoid, and it had called for an almost white tone.
Another challenge became the weathering process, since I normally apply a black ink wash and some post-panel shading to the finished and painted model before I add the decals to a model. Fearing that the ink might creep under the decals’ clear sections, I left that step out completely. The delicate static dischargers were another complicating factor. So, I decided to finish the upper camouflage with the light grey base and the decals cammo first. This made trimming down excess decal material easier. After that had been roughly finished, the dischargers were added and the underside was painted blue. On top of that came the “normal” decals with national markings, codes and stencils. The latter were mostly taken from a vintage Microscale F-16 sheet, the tactical code came from a Begemot Ka-27 sheet. Since the bort number on the air intake was not well visible frame every angle, I added a white 77 to the fin, too. Thereafter I added some panel lines with the help of thinned black ink and a soft pencil. This way the model appears pretty clean, and I think that’s fine since many recent Ukrainian aircraft I know from pictures look well-tended. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish overall.
A simple F-16 in alternative markings – that’s what this model was supposed to be. I did not expect that the building phase would become such a challenge, and I’d sincerely recommend to any modeler who wants to build a “serious” F-16 in 1:72 to stay away from the Trumpeter and the Intech/Mister-/Mastercraft kits. They might be cheap, but that does not outweigh their flaws and building troubles.
Beyond these technical issues, I like the look of this “Ukrainized” Viper, the digital camouflage looks very special and works well on the aircraft. The light grey base could have been lighter, though. In fact, the F-16 now looks like an exaggerated U.S. Aggressor on first sight, but with the Ukrainian markings the whole thing looks pretty different and conclusive - a “what if” in the best sense. 😉
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Focke-Wulf Ta 152 was a World War II German high-altitude fighter-interceptor designed by Kurt Tank and produced by Focke-Wulf. The fighter was a development of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 aircraft. Originally it was intended to be made in three versions—the Ta 152H Höhenjäger ("high-altitude fighter"), the Ta 152C designed for medium-altitude operations and ground-attack, using a different engine and smaller wing, and finally the Ta 152E fighter-reconnaissance aircraft with the engine of the H model and the short wing of the C model.
The fighters, esp. the high altitude variants, had top priority. The initial Fw 190's BMW 801 engine was originally designed for bomber and transport aircraft flying at medium altitudes in the 15,000 to 20,000 feet (4,600 to 6,100 m) range. In keeping with this role, it used a relatively simple single-stage supercharger that lacked performance above 20,000 feet (6,100 m) altitude. This presented a problem for fighter use, where high-altitude performance was desirable. Through careful tuning, the Fw 190 instead emerged as a powerful medium altitude design. Several experimental models of the 190 with different engines were tested, primarily aiming at an improved high altitude performance. But these were not high priority projects or failed through various teething troubles with the innovative engines.
The entry of the United States into the war brought with it a series of heavy bombers and escort fighters optimized for operations at higher altitudes, around 25,000 feet (7,600 m). At these altitudes, the BMW 801-powered 190 found itself at a distinct disadvantage, and this problem became acute in early 1944 when the P-51 Mustang arrived in quantity. This led to the introduction of the Fw 190D-9, mounting the Junkers Jumo 213E engine. This engine had a two-stage supercharger and much better altitude performance. However, the rest of the aircraft's design, especially the relatively short wings, made it difficult to fly at high altitudes. While the D-9 upgrade was expedient, it was not ideal.
This led to the more refined Ta 152. Kurt Tank originally designed the Ta 152 with the 44.52 litre displacement Daimler-Benz DB 603 engine, as it offered better high-altitude performance and also a greater developmental potential. The DB 603 had been used in the Fw 190C prototypes but had many problems and was considered too difficult to implement in the Ta 152 by RLM officials. With this in mind, Tank focused his efforts on the 213E as the Ta 152H's power plant. However, he insisted that the DB 603 be retained for the Ta 152C versions and as an option for later versions of the Ta 152H.
The Ta 152's fuselage was an extended version of the Fw 190D-9 fuselage with wider-chord fixed vertical tail surfaces (especially the top half), and hydraulic rather than electrically controlled undercarriage and flaps. Due to the changes in the center of gravity and overall balance, the nose was also lengthened. The D-9 retained the 10.51 metres (34.5 ft) wingspan of the original pre-war Fw 190 models, but this was slightly extended for the C model to 11 metres (36 ft), and greatly extended for the H model to 14.44 metres (47.4 ft), which gave it much better control at high altitudes at the cost of speed at lower altitudes.
Due to the war's impact on aluminum availability, the wing was built around two steel spars, the front extending from just past the landing gear attachment points, and the rear spar spanning the entire wing. The wing itself was designed with 3° of washout, from the root to the flap-aileron junction, to prevent the ailerons from stalling before the center section of the wing. The Ta 152 featured the FuG 16ZY and FuG 25a radio equipment, but some aircraft were issued with an FuG 125 Hermine D/F for navigation and blind landing, LGW-Siemens K 23 autopilot, and a heated armor glass windscreen for bad-weather operations.
By October 1944, the war was going very badly for Germany, and the RLM pushed Focke-Wulf to quickly get the Ta 152 into production. As a result, several Ta 152 prototypes crashed early into the test program. It was found that critical systems were lacking sufficient quality control. Problems arose with superchargers, pressurized cockpits leaked, the engine cooling system was unreliable at best due in part to unreliable oil temperature monitoring, and in several instances the landing gear failed to properly retract. A total of up to 20 pre-production Ta 152 H-0s were delivered from November 1944 to Erprobungskommando Ta 152 to service test the aircraft. It was reported that test pilots were only able to conduct a mere 31 hours of flight tests before full production hastily started.
In parallel, further attempts were made to improve the Ta 152’s performance. One development path were the J and K models, which were to be powered by the Jumo 222 engine. Design work on the high-power Jumo 222 had already started in 1937, and it had had a winding development story.
The massive engine looked like a radial due to its arrangement, since it was configured with six inline cylinder banks spaced at equal angles around the central crankcase, each bank having four cylinders. Like most inlines it was liquid-cooled and typically connected with an annular radiator around the propeller shaft. Compared with the contemporary BMW 801 and Daimler-Benz DB 605, the 222 was a huge leap in performance. It had only a slightly larger displacement figure than the 801's 41.8 L (2,550.8 in³), and about 25% more than the 605's 35.7 L (2,178.5 in³), but delivered considerably more power: 1,850 kW (2,500 hp) compared to 1,193 kW (1,600 hp) in the 801 and 1,119 kW (1,500 hp) in the 605. Such was the projected performance of the engine compared to contemporary designs that many developments of wartime Luftwaffe piston-engined aircraft designs were based on it, at least as an option. Notable among these was the entire “Bomber B” program, which looked to replace all existing Luftwaffe bombers with a new twin-engine design that was larger, faster and more heavily armed than any aircraft in their inventory.
However, the engine’s development was protracted and complex, so that the project had been shelved and revived several times in the course of the following years. Junkers did not give up on it, though, and, towards late 1944, a functional variant finally emerged. Using the original 46.4 litre displacement A/B design, Junkers added a new two-stage supercharger including a trio of aftercoolers, one per pair of neighboring cylinder banks for high-altitude use, and produced the 222E and F-series. Although sea-level performance was unchanged at 1,850 kW (2,500 hp), the engine was able to produce 1,439 kW (1,930 hp) at 9,000 m (29,530 ft). A further attempt for even higher altitude performance resulted in the turbocharged 222G and H.
Both of these new engines were earmarked for the Ta 152, resulting in two projects: the new Ta 152J-1 for medium altitudes with the Jumo 222E and a short wing span and the Ta 152K-1 high altitude fighter with the Jumo 222 G and long wings.
The engineers expected a phenomenal performance, superior to any piston engine fighter both Axis and Allies forces had fielded to date, and the aircraft would furthermore carry a potent cannon armament.
However, integrating the massive engine into the slender Ta 152 airframe resulted in a thorough redesign of the complete front section. The cowling had to be widened considerably and a new four-blade propeller was mounted in order to exploit the incremental power. The Ta 152 J’s wing was based on the earlier C model but had its span extended further to 11.65 m in order cope with the aircraft’s higher weight. The Ta 152 K used the former H model’s high altitude wings.
Further changes were less visible, including a completely new engine mount and reinforcements of the airframe’s internal structure. Due to the lack of light-weight materials, these were mostly done with steel, what raised overall weight of the aircraft considerably – the empty Ta 152J weighed 4,175 kg (9,205 lb), more than half a ton than the Fw 190D-9 with 3,490 kg (7,694 lb), and at full TOW the new aircraft almost weighed roundabout 5 tons.
Another Achilles heel of the new design turned out to be the Jumo 222’s high fuel consumption and the fighter’s resulting short legs. With internal fuel, range was limited to only 835 km (519 mi) instead of 2.000 km (1.242 mi) for the Ta 152H, what confined the fighter to short, local interception duties or strike attacks close to the front lines.
In order to counter this flaw and to avoid a draggy, ventral drop tank, the Ta 152J was outfitted with attachment points for a pair of so-called “Doppelreiter” (lit. “twin riders”) auxiliary slipper tanks on the wings’ upper surfaces.
These conformal tanks had originally been developed for the Fw 190A-7 fighter in 1943 and they offered several operational benefits. They could be easily mounted (a team of 2 or 3 engineers had them in place in less than 10 minutes), held 2x 270l of additional fuel and their aerodynamic shape did hardly impair the aircraft’s performance at all. In fact, they could even be carried when the aircraft was engaging in a dogfight and did not have to be jettisoned at all. With the “Doppelreiter” tanks, the range could be extended to almost 1.500 km (900 mi), and this could be further improved by an additional standard 300 l drop tank under the fuselage.
Initial stability problems through semi-filled tanks and sloshing fuel had, since the initial tests with the Fw 190 A-7, been fixed through an internal chamber system. In this modified form, the Ta 152 J-2 entered service in late 1945.
However, the “Doppelreiter” tanks were not a viable option for Ta 152 K’s long wings and the type’s turbocharged Jumo 222G remained troublesome. As a result, the K variant was held back and focus returned to the older Ta 152H for high altitude duties.
The Ta 152 J-2 remained the only production variant with the new engine, though, because the complex Jumo 222 was hard to manufacture and resources had become increasingly scarce by mid-1945. Consequentially, even though production of the Ta 152 J started in late 1945, the fighter’s production numbers remained low and only a small number of aircraft were finished and eventually reached front line units in serviceable condition. Probably only 30 machines went operational, with 30 more in the production lines in a more or less uncompleted condition. But those which countered bomber raids proved to be highly effective at the Western front and over Northern Germany against medium bombers and their escort fighters coming in from Great Britain.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 10.29 m (33 ft 8¾ in)
Wingspan: 11.65 m (38 ft 2 in)
Height: 3.35 m (11 ft 0 in)
Wing area: 19.80 m² (212.42 ft²)
Empty weight: 4,175 kg (9,205 lb)
Loaded weight: 6,054 kg (13,346 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,995 kg (15,422 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Junkers Jumo 222E liquid-cooled, 24-cylinder six-row inline piston engine
with a two-stage supercharger, rated at 2,500 hp (1,850 kW) at sea level
and 1,930 hp (1,439 kW) at 9,000 m (29,530 ft), driving a four-blade propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 760 km/h (408 knots, 470 mph) at 6,600 m (21,655 ft)
Range: 835 km (519 mi) with internal fuel only
1.480 km (919 mi) with Doppelreiter auxiliary tanks
Service ceiling: 12,600 m (41,500 ft)
Rate of climb: 22.1 m/s (4,360 ft/min)
Armament:
2× 20 mm (0.787 in) MG 151 cannons with 250 RPG above the engine
2x 30mm (1.181 in) MK 103 in the wing roots with 150 RPG
1x ventral hardpoint for a 500 kg (1,102 lb) SC 500 bomb or a 300l drop tank
Attachment points for a pair of “Doppelreiter” 270 l conformal slipper tanks above the wings
The kit and its assembly:
This is a what-if model, but, as usual, it is rooted in reality – to be precise in the German late-war plans to mate the Ta 152(H) with the mighty Jumo 222 engine. I do not know what the official service designation would have been, but this combo would have resulted in a powerful fighter – AFAIK, German engineers’ calculations indicated a performance that would have been comparable with the post-WWII F4U-5!
Creating a model of such this paper aircraft called for some serious conversion work and ended almost in a kitbashing. The starting point became a (cheap) Mistercraft Fw 190D-9 kit, and I originally planned this model to be a Fw 190 variant, but eventually this turned into a Ta 152, since it would better match up with the late war time frame.
The Mastercraft/Mistercraft kit appears to be an indigenous mold and not a re-issue of a vintage kit. At first glance the parts look pretty crisp, but the kit has some serious fit and flash issues. Another selling point is the detailed decal set, which comes in three sheets and encompasses a lot of stencils – even though the instructions where to place them are not consistent, and there are even 1:48 scale(!) markings included. But that’s a Mastercraft/Mistercraft standard, anyway…
Well, the basis was sound and the kit would, in any event, be thoroughly modified. From the OOB kit, fuselage, wings and stabilizers were taken, as well as the landing gear and some other bits.
The wings were extended, in order to keep overall proportions with the new, much more massive engine cowling balanced (see below). Not an easy stunt, but I was lucky to have recently bought a set of resin Doppelreiter tanks from Airmodel which were just perfect to cover the cuts and seams on the upper wing surfaces. Inside of the wings, a styrene strip secured stability while the lower wing surface was sculpted with putty and the trailing edge of the outer wing panels was cut down by 1 mm, so that the wings’ outlines match again. Some further PSR work was necessary to blend the slipper tanks into the wings, forming the upper side of the modifications, but in the end the whole thing looks quite good.
The fuselage lost both its original engine and the tail. The latter is a donor part from a Frog Ta 152H (Revell re-boxing), but mating it with the Mistercraft Fw 190D was not easy because the fuselage shapes of the two kits are totally different! I also used the Mistercraft stabilizers because they were markedly bigger than the same parts from the Ta 152 kit!
The Jumo 222 front end was simulated with parts from the spares box, and it is a bit exaggerated. Actually, the Jumo 222 was hardly bigger (in both length and diameter) than the Fw 190D’s Jumo 213 V12 engine! The cowling and the radiator for my conversion came from a Frog He 219 engine nacelle (Revell re-boxing, too) which is utterly dubious. The nacelle parts were turned upside down and integrated into the slender Fw 190 front fuselage with several layers of putty.
Inside of the cowling, a radiator plate from an Italeri Fw 190D was mounted, together with a styrene tube adapter for the new propeller. The latter was scratched, using a drop tank as spinner and single propeller blades from the Mistercraft Fw 190D, plus one donor blade from the Frog Ta 152H kit, which had to be trimmed in order to match the other blades. But with some paint, no one will tell the small differences…
Once the bigger engine was integrated into the fuselage, the exhaust system had to be added. In real life, the Jumo 222 would have featured three clusters with two rows of four exhaust stubs, distributed evenly around the cowling. Using a drawing of this arrangement as benchmark, I started with square cuts for the cluster openings. From the back side, styrene sheet closed the gaps and offered a basis for the exhaust stubs. These were improvised with H0 scale roofing shingles – each of the 24 exhaust stubs was cut individually into shape and size and then glued into the respective openings on the upper flanks and under the engine. Finally, styrene sheet was used to create small spoilers and heat shields. The result is certainly not perfect, but comes close to what the real world arrangement would basically have looked like. In a final step, two air intakes for the two-stage supercharger, scratched from sprue material, were added to the flanks.
The cockpit remained OOB, simple as it is, as well as the landing gear, but the canopy was modified in order to allow a presentation in open position. This meant that the OOB canopy had to be cut in two parts and that the model’s spine had to be cut away, making place for a donor canopy (the late, bulged variant, IIRC from an Italeri Fw 190D-9). Internally the fuselage gap was filled with putty and the headrest had to be modified, too, but the conversion turned out to look better than expected.
As a small cosmetic improvement, the molded gun barrel stumps in the wing roots were replaced with hollow steel needles, and the outer guns were completely removed.
Painting and markings:
I wanted a typical “German”, yet improvised look, as if the machine had been rushed to a service unit after minimal exterior decoration. I found a late war Fw 190F as a benchmark for my design, which basically carried a standard paint scheme of RLM 74 and 75 from above (wing surfaces and spine), but the undersides camouflage (typically in RLM 76) was completely missing. Instead, the aircraft was left in bare metal, and it carried only very simple and minimal markings.
I adapted this scheme for my build with RLM 74 and 75 for the upper wing surfaces, but the spine was painted with RLM 75 and 81 (all from Modelmaster’s Authentic line). The NMF areas were painted with Steel Metallizer instead of aluminum. I went for this darker tone because I wanted a rather weathered and unpolished look. Some camouflage mottles with thinned RLM 75 and 81 were added to the flanks and the fin, too.
The landing gear covers as well as the undersides of the Doppelreiter tanks’ rear extensions were painted with RLM 76, while the undersides of the rudders on wings and stabilizers were painted with a greenish grey (similar to RAF Sky and frequently misidentified as RLM 84, a tone that never officially existed). The fin’s rudder was painted in a rusty red (Humbrol 70) – again a typical German primer tone for metal replacement parts.
The cockpit interior became RLM 66 (a very dark grey, Humbrol 67), while the landing gear became RLM 02 (Revell 45) – all classic Luftwaffe tones for the intended era.
The markings were puzzled together from various sources, including the OOB sheets from the Mistercraft kit plus aftermarket material from TL Modellbau and Sky Models.
While most of this build was improvised, I like the beefy and purposeful look of this über-Ta 152. It’s certainly not 100% what the potential real thing would have looked like, but, after all, it’s intended to be a whif model plane. The massive engine changes the look considerably, even though in a subtle way since the original silhouette remains intact. But if you place a standard Fw 190 next to it, the overall growth becomes recognizable – as if you place an early Spitfire next to one of its post-war, Griffon-powered evolutions that only share the general outlines. The shaggy look due to the NMF undersides might look strange, but many late-war builds arrived in a similar, unfinished fashionat the front line units.
Tama Mastercraft Bell Brass 14 X 6.5
Tama Artstar South American Cordia 14 X 6.5
Tama Mastercraft Seamless Steel 14 X 6.5
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The history of the PZL P.11 started in 1929, when a talented designer, Zygmunt Puławski, designed an all-metal, metal-covered monoplane fighter, the P.1. While most of the world's forces were still using biplanes, the new P.1 used a high-mounted gull wing to give the pilot an excellent view. A second prototype, the P.6, was completed the next year. The design generated intense interest around the world, the layout becoming known as the "Polish wing" or "Puławski wing". A further improvement, the PZL P.7, was built for the Polish Air Force in a series of 150.
After designing the P.7, Puławski started further variants with larger engines, leading eventually to the P.11. The first P.11/I prototype flew in August 1931, after Puławski's death in an air crash. It was followed by two slightly modified prototypes, the P.11/II and the P.11/III. The first variant ordered by the Polish Air Force was the P.11a, considered an interim model and built in a series of 30. Otherwise similar to the P.7, it mounted the 575 hp (429 kW) Bristol Mercury IV S2 radial engine produced in Poland under licence.
The final variant for the Polish air force, the P.11c had a new, refined fuselage, with the engine lowered in the nose to give the pilot a better view. The central part of the wings was also modified. Production of the P.11c started in 1934 and 175 were produced. The first series of approximately 50 P.11c aircraft were fitted with Mercury V S2 of 600 hp (447 kW), the rest with Mercury VI S2 of 630 hp (470 kW).
Apart from Poland, Romania showed interest in the new design. Even before the P.11a entered service with the Polish air force, 50 aircraft designated P.11b were ordered for the Romanian Air Force, while an agreement for license production was agreed. Deliveries of Polish-built P.11bs to Romania commenced in October 1933. They were fitted with Gnome-Rhone 9Krsd Mistral 595 hp (444 kW) engines, otherwise they were similar to the P.11a.
After the P.11c had been developed, the Romanians decided to switch the license production to the new model. As a result, from 1936 IAR built 70 aircraft as the IAR P.11f, powered by the Romanian-built IAR-K-9 engine, which was a heavily modified version of the Gnome-Rhone 9K giving 640 hp (480 kW).
The Romanians then produced another Polish fighter, the PZL P.24, developed from the P.11 exclusively for export. Greece, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Hungary and Republican Spain were interested in buying the P.11, but finally Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey bought the P.24 instead.
Hungary bought thirty aircraft from Bulgarian license production, designated PZL.11m. These machines were powered by a slightly weaker Bristol Jupiter VIIF 9-cylinder radial engine, rated at 520 hp (388 kW), which had also powered the PZL.7. This lack of power was compensated by a new three blade metal propeller with variable pitch – a very innovative solution at the time, and it improved rate of climb and acceleration considerably, as well as endurance. Furthermore, the PZL.11m received armament of Italian origin: four 7.7mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns.
When the P.11 entered service in 1934, as a counterpart to the British Gloster Gauntlet and German Heinkel He 51, it was arguably the most advanced fighter in the world. However, due to the quick progress in aircraft technology, the P.11 was obsolete by 1939, overtaken by cantilever designs with retractable landing gear such as the British Supermarine Spitfire and German Messerschmitt Bf 109.
Hungary’s PZL.11hs even saw short, hot action during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, when the country’s northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, were taken over by Germany in March 1939 under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. The incorporation of the Sudetenland into Germany left the rest of Czechoslovakia weak and it became powerless to resist subsequent occupation.
On 16 March 1939, the German Wehrmacht moved into the remainder of Czechoslovakia and, from Prague Castle, Bohemia and Moravia were declared as German protectorates. The occupation ended with the surrender of Germany following World War II.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 7.55 m (24 ft 9 in)
Wingspan: 10.719 m (35 ft 2 in)
Height: 2.85 m (9 ft 4 in)
Wing area: 17.9 m2 (193 sq ft)
Empty weight: 1,147 kg (2,529 lb)
Gross weight: 1,630 kg (3,594 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 1,800 kg (3,968 lb)
Powerplant:
1 × Bristol Jupiter VIIF 9-cylinder radial engine, 520 hp (388 kW)
Performance:
Maximum speed: 390 km/h (242 mph; 211 kn) at 5,000 m (16,404 ft),
300 km/h (186 mph) at sea level
Stall speed: 98 km/h (61 mph; 53 kn)
Range: 800 km (435 mi; 378 nmi)
Service ceiling: 8,000 m (26,247 ft) absolute ceiling 11,000 m (36,089 ft)
Time to altitude: 5,000 m (16,404 ft) in 5.2 minutes
7,000 m (22,966 ft) in 11.5 minutes
Wing loading: 91.1 kg/m2 (18.7 lb/sq ft)
Power/mass: 0.279 kW/kg (0.166 hp/lb)
Armament:
4× 7.7 mm (.303 in) Breda-SAFAT machine guns with 500rpg
The kit and its assembly:
This quickie whif was a rather short notice build – I had a surplus Mastercraft PZL.11c in my stash, originally part of a cheap lot, and for a long time no idea what to do with it …until I read an article about the Hungarian/Czech clash right before the outbreak of WWII, with very detailed army and air force activities, including profiles and pics of some aircraft of that era.
That spawned the idea to build a Hungarian PZL.11 from the kit, more or less based on a Fiat CR.32bis (aircraft V.107) in Hungarian service with a very attractive paint scheme as “design benchmark”.
The PZL.11 was built almost OOB – the kit is simple, but has very nice surface details. Fit is mediocre, though, especially the stabilizers puzzled me. The only thing I changed is the propeller; instead of a two blade wood piece I installed a three-bladed alternative (from a Matchbox Provost, coupled with a spinner from an Italeri La-5) for a modernized/different look.
Painting and markings:
This is an individual interpretation of a real aircraft’s paint scheme - I found VERY contradictive sources about the potential paint scheme. MKHL aircraft began to be camouflaged in a three-tone scheme from October of 1938. The upper surfaces received irregular, undulating patches of Green/Grey/Brown, while the undersides were painted light Grey-Blue.
As no specific official camouflage patterns were issued, a wide variety of styles and colors resulted, depending as much on the means available in every case, as on the particular tastes of the maintenance personnel detached to do the job. I also guess that many foreign aircraft like the Italian CR.32s or He 70 reconnaissance bombers simply kept their home countries schemes/colors and were successively re-painted with whatever was at hand.
I based my scheme on a CR.32’s profile in a magazine, and I assume that the print colors are brighter than the real Hungarian aircraft – on other profiles of the same machine it looks as if it was painted in RLM 61, 62, 63 and 65! Anyway, I liked the more saturated colors, so I went for this more decorative option.
The colors I used are Olive Green (RAL 6003 from Modelmaster), Dark Green (FS 34079; Humbrol 116) and Brown (Modelmaster), with Pastel Blue (Humbrol 44) undersides. The latter tone is also found as irregular patches on the upper surfaces, it really looks wild and colorful – esp. in combination with the Hungarian national markings.
Personally, I think that the typical Hungarian paint scheme of the time was just a crude addition of paint on top of the original bare metal/aluminum finish of many aircraft, but pics are difficult to interpret.
A quickie, finished in the course of three evenings and some finishing touches before the fourth day's breakfast - the colors are certainly totally wrong, but it's a whif aircraft after all. ;)
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
Although the performance increases of jet-powered aircraft introduced towards the end of World War II over their piston-powered ancestors were breathtaking, there were those at the time who believed that much more was possible. As far back as 1943, the British Ministry of Aircraft Production had issued a specification designated "E.24/43" for a supersonic experimental jet aircraft that would be able to achieve 1,600 KPH (1,000 MPH).
Beginning in 1946, a design team at English Electric (EE) under W.E.W. "Teddy" Petter began design studies for a supersonic fighter, leading to award of a Ministry of Supply (MoS) contract in 1947 under specification "ER.103" for a design study on an experimental aircraft that could achieve Mach 1.2.
The MoS liked the EE concepts, and in early 1949 awarded the company a contract under specification "F.23/49" for two flying prototypes and one ground-test prototype of the "P.1".
The P.1 was defined as a supersonic research aircraft, though the design had provisions for armament and a radar gunsight. It incorporate advanced and unusual design features, such as twin turbojet engines mounted one above the other to reduce aircraft frontal area; and strongly swept wings, with the wingtip edges at a right angle to the fuselage, giving a wing configuration like that of a delta wing with the rear inner corners cut out. The aircraft featured an elliptical intake in the nose.
The P.1's performance was so outstanding that the decision was quickly made to proceed on an operational version that would be capable of Mach 2. In fact, the second P.1 prototype featured items such as a bulged belly tank and fit of twin Aden Mark 4 30 millimeter revolver-type cannon, bringing it closer to operational specification.
Orders were placed for three "P.1B" prototypes for a production interceptor and the original P.1 was retroactively designated "P.1A". The P.1B featured twin Rolls-Royce Avon afterburning engines and a larger tailfin. An airborne intercept (AI) radar was carried in the air intake shock cone, which was changed from elliptical to circular. The cockpit was raised for a better field of view and the P.1B was armed with two Aden cannon in the upper nose, plus a pack under the cockpit that could either support two De Havilland Blue Jay (later Firestreak) heat-seeking AAMs or 44 Microcell 5 centimeter (2 inch) unguided rockets.
The initial P.1B prototype performed its first flight on 4 April 1957 and the type entered RAF service as EE Lightning F.1. RAF Number 74 Squadron at Coltishall was the first full service unit, with the pilots acquiring familiarization with the type during late 1960 and the squadron declared operational in 1961.
However, while the Lightning was developed further into more and more advanced versions. Its concept was also the basis for another research aircraft that would also be developed into a high performance interceptor: the P.6/1, which later became the “Levin” fighter.
P.6 encompassed a total of four different layouts for a Mach 2+ research aircraft, tendering to ER.134T from 1952. P.6/1 was the most conservative design and it relied heavily on existing (and already proven) P.1 Lightning components, primarily the aerodynamic surfaces. The most obvious difference was a new fuselage of circular diameter, housing a single Rolls Royce RB.106 engine.
The RB.106 was a two-shaft design with two axial flow compressors each driven by its own single stage turbine and reheat. It was of similar size to the Rolls-Royce Avon, but it produced about twice the thrust at 21,750 lbf (96.7 kN) in the initial version. The two-shaft layout was relatively advanced for the era; the single-shaft de Havilland Gyron matched it in power terms, while the two-spool Bristol Olympus was much less powerful at the then-current state of development. Apart from being expected to power other British aircraft such as those competing for Operational Requirement F.155, it was also selected to be the powerplant for the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow and led to the Orenda Iroquois engine, which even reach 30.000 lbf (130 kN).
The P.6/1 was eventually chosen by the MoS for further development because it was regarded as the least risky and costly alternative. Beyond its test bed role for the RB.106 the P.6/1 was also seen as a potential basis for a supersonic strategic air-to-ground missile (similar to the massive Soviet AS-3 ‘Kangaroo’ cruise missile) and the starting point for an operational interceptor that would be less complex than the Lightning, but with a comparable if not improved performance but a better range.
In 1955 English Electric received a go ahead for two P.6/1 research aircraft prototypes. Despite a superficial similarity to the Lightning, the P.6/1’s internal structure was very different. The air duct, for instance, was bifurcated and led around on both sides of the cockpit tub and the front wheel well instead of below it. Further down, the duct ran below the wing main spar and directly fed the RB.106.
The rear fuselage was area-ruled, the main landing gear retracted, just like the Lightning’s, outwards into the wings, while the front wheel retracted backwards into a well that was placed further aft than on the Lightning. The upper fuselage behind the main wings spar carried fuel tanks, more fuel was carried in wing tanks.
Both research machines were ready in 1958 and immediately started with aerodynamic and material tests for the MoS, reaching top speeds of Mach 2.5 and altitudes of 60.000 ft. and more.
In parallel, work on the fighter version, now called “Levin”, had started. The airframe was basically the same as the P.6/1’s. Biggest visible changes were a wider air intake with a bigger central shock cone (primarily for a radar dish), a shorter afterburner section and an enlarged fin with area increased by 15% that had become necessary in order to compensate instability through the new nose layout and the potential carriage of external ordnance, esp. under the fuselage. This bigger fin was taken over to the Lightning F.3 that also initially suffered from longitudal instability due to the new Red Top missiles.
The Levin carried armament and avionics similar to the Lightning, including the Ferranti-developed AI.23 monopulse radar. The aircraft was to be fully integrated into a new automatic intercept system developed by Ferranti, Elliot, and BAC. It would have turned the fighters into something like a "manned missile" and greatly simplified intercepts.
Anyway, the Levin’s weapon arrangement was slightly different from the Lightning: the Levin’s armament comprised theoretically a mix of up to four 30mm Aden cannons and/or up to four of the new Red Top AAMs, or alternatively the older Firestreak. The guns were mounted in the upper nose flanks (similar to the early Lightning arrangement, but set further back), right under the cockpit hatch, while a pair of AAMs was carried on wing tip launch rails. Two more AAMs could be carried on pylons under the lower front fuselage, similar to the Lightning’s standard configuration, even though there was no interchangeable module. Since this four-missile arrangement would not allow any cannon to be carried anymore and caused excessive drag, the typical payload was limited to two Aden cannons and the single pair of wing-tip missiles.
Despite its proven Lightning ancestry, the development of the Levin went through various troubles. While the RB.106 worked fine in the research P.6/1, it took until 1962 that a fully reliable variant for the interceptor could be cleared for service. Meanwhile the Lightning had already evolved into the F.3 variant and political discussions circled around the end of manned military aircraft. To make matters even worse, the RAF refused to buy the completely automatic intercept system, despite the fact that it had been fully engineered at a cost of 1.4 million pounds and trialed in one of the P.1Bs.
Eventually, the Levin F.1 finally entered service in 1964, together with the Lightning F.3. While the Lightning was rather seen as a point defense interceptor, due to the type’s limited range: If a Lightning F.3 missed its target on its first pass, it almost never had enough fuel to make a second attempt without topping off from a tanker, which would give an intruder plenty of time to get to its target and then depart… The Lightning’s flight endurance was less than 2 hours (in the F.2A, other variants even less), and it was hoped that the Levin had more potential through a longer range. Anyway, in service, the Levin’s range in clean configuration was only about 8% better than the Lightning’s. The Levin F.1’s flight endurance was about 2 ½ hours – an improvement, but not as substantial as expected.
In order to improve the range on both fighters, English Electric developed a new, stiffened wing for the carriage of a pair of jettisonable overwing ferry tanks with a capacity of 1,182 liters (312 US gallons / 260 Imperial gallons, so-called “Overburgers”). The new wing also featured a kinked leading edge, providing better low-speed handling. From mid 1965 onwards, all Levins were directly produced in this F.2 standard, and during regular overhauls the simpler F.1 machines were successively updated. The Lightning introduced the kinked wing with the F.3A variant and it was later introduced with the F.2A and F.6A variants.
Levin production comprised 21 original F.1 airframes, plus 34 F.2 fighters, and production was stopped in 1967. A trainer version was not produced, the Lightning trainers were deemed sufficient for conversion since the Levin and the Lightning shared similar handling characteristics.
The Levin served only with RAF 29 and 65 Squadron, the latter re-instated in 1970 as a dedicated fighter squadron. When in November 1984 the Tornado squadrons began to form, the Levin was gradually phased out and replaced until April 1987 by the Tornado F.3.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length w/o pitot: 51 ft 5 in (15,70 m), 55 ft 8 in (16.99 m) overall
Wingspan incl. wingtip launch rails: 34 ft 9 in (10.54 m)
Height: 19 ft 7 in (5.97 m)
Wing area: 474.5 ft² (44.08 m²)
Empty weight: 8937 kg (lb)
Loaded weight: 13,570 kg (29,915)
Max. takeoff weight: 15,210 kg (33,530 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Rolls-Royce RB.106-10S afterburning turbojet,
rated at 20,000 lbf (89 kN) dry and 26,000 lbf (116 kN) with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed:
- 1,150 km/h (620 kn, 715 mph, Mach 0.94) at sea level
- 2,230 km/h (1.202 kn, 1,386 mph, Mach 2.1;), clean with 2× Red Top AAMs at high altitude
- Mach 2.4 absolute top speed in clean configuration at 50.000 ft.
Range: 1,650 km (890 nmi, 1,025 mi) on internal fuel
Combat radius: 500 km (312 mi); clean, with a pair of wing tip Red Top AAMs
Ferry range: 1,270 mi (1.100 NM/ 2.040 km) with overwing tanks
Service ceiling: 16,760 m (55,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 136.7 m/s (27,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 76 lb/ft² (370 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 0.78
Takeoff roll: 950 m (3,120 ft)
Landing roll: 700 m (2,300 ft)
Armament:
2× 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannons with 120 RPG in the upper front fuselage
2× wing tip hardpoints for mounting air-to-air missiles (2 Red Top of Firestreak AAMs)
2× overwing pylon stations for 260 gal ferry tanks
Optional, but rarely used: 2× hardpoints under the front fuselage for mounting air-to-air missiles
(2 Red Top of Firestreak AAMs)
The kit and its assembly:
Another contribution to the Cold War GB at whatifmodelers.com, and the realization of a project I had on the agenda for long. The EE P.6/1 was a real project for a Mach 2+ research aircraft, as described above, but it never went off the drawing board. Its engine, the RB.106, also never saw the light of day, even though its later career as the Canadian Orenda Iroquois for the stillborn CF-105.
Building this aircraft as a model appears simple, because it’s a classic Lightning (actually a F.1 with the un-kinked wing and the small fin), just with a single engine and a rather tubular fuselage. But creating this is not easy at all…
I did not want to replicate the original P.6/1, but rather a service aircraft based on the research aircraft. Therefore I used parts from a Lightning F.6 (a vintage NOVO/Frog kit). For the fuselage I settled for a Su-17, from a MasterCraft kit. The kit’s selling point was its small price tag and the fuselage construction: the VG mechanism is hidden under a separate spine piece, and I wanted to transplant the Lightning’s spine and cockpit frame, so I thought that this would make things easier.
Nope.
Putting the parts from the VERY different kits/aircraft together was a major surgery feat, with several multiple PSR sessions on the fuselage, the air intake section (opened and fitted with both an internal splitter and a bulkhead to the cockpit section), the wings, the stabilizers, the fin… This model deserves the title “kitbash” like no other, because no major sections had ever been intended to be glued together, and in the intended position!
The landing gear was more or less taken OOB, but the main struts had to be elongated by 2mm – somehow the model turned out to be a low-riding tail sitter! The cockpit interior was improvised, too, consisting of a Su-17 cockpit tub, a scratched dashboard and a Martin Baker ejection seat from an Italeri Bae Hawk trainer.
Since most of the fuselage surface consists of various materials (styrene and two kinds of putty), I did not dare to engrave panel lines – after all the PSR work almost any surface detail was gone. I rather went for a graphic solution (see below). Some antennae and air scoops were added, though.
The overwing tanks come OOB from the NOVO kit, as well as the Red Top missiles, which ended up on improvised wing tip launch rails, based on design sketches for Lightning derivatives with this layout.
Colors and markings:
There are several “classic” RAF options, but I settled for a low-viz Eighties livery taken from BAC Lightnings. There’s a surprising variety of styles, and my version is a mix of several real world aircraft.
I settled for Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces (Modelmaster Authentic) with a high waterline, a fuselage completely in Medium Sea Grey (Humbrol 165 – had to be applied twice because the first tin I used was obviously old and the paint ended up in a tone not unlike PRU Blue!) and Light aircraft Grey underwing surfaces (Humbrol 166). The leading edges under the wings are Dark Sea Grey, too.
The cockpit interior was painted in dark grey (Humbrol 32 with some dry-brushing), while the landing gear is Aluminum (Humbrol 56).
Once the basic painting was done I had to deal with the missing panel lines on the fuselage and those raised lines that were sanded away during the building process. I decided to simulate these with a soft pencil, after the whole kit was buffed with a soft cotton cloth and some grinded graphite. This way, the remaining raised panel lines were emphasized, and from these the rest was drawn up. A ruler and masking tape were used as guidance for straight lines, and this worked better than expected, with good results.
As a next step, the newly created panels were highlighted with dry-brushed lighter tones of the basic paints (FS 36492 and WWII Italian Blue Grey from Modelmaster, and Humbrol 126), more for a dramatic than a weathered effect. The gun ports and the exhaust section were painted with Modelmaster Metallizer (Titanium and Magnesium).
The decals come from several Xtradecal aftermarket sheets, including a dedicated Lightning stencils sheet, another Lightning sheet with various squadron markings and a sheet for RAF Tornado ADVs.
The code number “XS970” was earmarked to a TSR.2, AFAIK, but since it was never used on a service aircraft it would be a good option for the Levin.
The kit received a coat of matt acrylic varnish from the rattle can – jn this case the finish was intended to bear a slight shine.
This was a project with LOTS of effort, but you hardly recognize it – it’s a single engine Lightning, so what? But welding the Lightning and Su-17 parts together for something that comes close to the P.6/1 necessitated LOTS of body work and improvisation, carving it from wood would probably have been the next complicated option. Except for the surprisingly long tail I am very happy with the result, despite the model’s shaggy origins, and the low-viz livery suits the sleek aircraft IMHO very well.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (NATO reporting name: "Farmer") was a Soviet second-generation, single-seat, twin jet-engine fighter aircraft. It was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. A comparable U.S. "Century Series" fighter was the North American F-100 Super Sabre, although the MiG-19 would primarily oppose the more modern McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Republic F-105 Thunderchief over North Vietnam. Furthermore, the North American YF-100 Super Sabre prototype appeared approximately one year after the MiG-19, making the MiG-19 the first operational supersonic jet in the world.
On 20 April 1951, OKB-155 was given the order to develop the MiG-17 into a new fighter called "I-340", also known as "SM-1". It was to be powered by two Mikulin AM-5 non-afterburning jet engines, a scaled-down version of the Mikulin AM-3, with 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) of thrust. The I-340 was supposed to attain 1,160 km/h (725 mph, Mach 0.97) at 2,000 m (6,562 ft), 1,080 km/h (675 mph, Mach 1.0) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft), climb to 10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 2.9 minutes, and have a service ceiling of no less than 17,500 m (57,415 ft).
After several prototypes with many detail improvements, the ministers of the Soviet Union issued the order #286-133 to start serial production on February 17, 1954, at the factories in Gorkiy and Novosibirsk. Factory trials were completed on September 12 the same year, and government trials started on September 30.
Initial enthusiasm for the aircraft was dampened by several problems. The most alarming of these was the danger of a midair explosion due to overheating of the fuselage fuel tanks located between the engines. Deployment of airbrakes at high speeds caused a high-g pitch-up. Elevators lacked authority at supersonic speeds. The high landing speed of 230 km/h (145 mph), compared to 160 km/h (100 mph) for the MiG-15, combined with the lack of a two-seat trainer version, slowed pilot transition to the type. Handling problems were addressed with the second prototype, "SM-9/2", which added a third ventral airbrake and introduced all-moving tailplanes with a damper to prevent pilot-induced oscillations at subsonic speeds. It flew on 16 September 1954, and entered production as the MiG-19S.
Approximately 5,500 MiG-19's were produced, first in the USSR and in Czechoslovakia as the Avia S-105, but mainly in the People's Republic of China as the Shenyang J-6. The aircraft saw service with a number of other national air forces, including those of Cuba, North Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan, and North Korea. The aircraft saw combat during the Vietnam War, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1971 Bangladesh War.
However, jet fighter development made huge leaps in the 1960s, and OKB MiG was constantly trying to improve the MiG-19's performance, esp. against fast and high-flying enemies, primarily bombers but also spy planes like the U-2.
As the MiG-19S was brought into service with the Soviet air forces in mid-1956, the OKB MiG was continuing the refinement of the SM-1/I-340 fighter. One of these evolutionary paths was the SM-12 (literally, “SM-1, second generation”) family of prototypes, the ultimate extrapolation of the basic MiG-19 design, which eventually led to the MiG-19bis interceptor that filled the gap between the MiG-19S and the following, highly successful MiG-21.
The SM-12 first saw life as an exercise in drag reduction by means of new air intake configurations, since the MiG-19’s original intake with rounded lips became inefficient at supersonic speed (its Western rival, the North American F-100, featured a sharp-lipped nose air intake from the start). The first of three prototypes, the SM-12/1, was essentially a MiG-19S with an extended and straight-tapered nose with sharp-lipped orifice and a pointed, two-position shock cone on the intake splitter. The simple arrangement proved to be successful and was further refined.
The next evolutionary step, the SM-12/3, differed from its predecessors primarily in two new R3-26 turbojets developed from the earlier power plant by V. N. Sorokin. These each offered an afterburning thrust of 3,600kg, enabling the SM-12/3 to attain speeds ranging between 1,430km/h at sea level, or Mach=1.16, and 1,930km/h at 12,000m, or Mach=1.8, and an altitude of between 17,500 and 18,000m during its test program. This outstanding performance prompted further development with a view to production as a point defense interceptor.
Similarly powered by R3-26 engines, and embodying major nose redesign with a larger orifice permitting introduction of a substantial two-position conical centerbody for a TsD-30 radar, a further prototype was completed as the SM-12PM. Discarding the wing root NR-30 cannon of preceding prototypes, the SM-12PM was armed with only two K-5M (RS-2U) beam-riding missiles and entered flight test in 1957. This configuration would become the basis for the MiG-19bis interceptor that eventually was ordered into limited production (see below).
However, the SM-12 development line did not stop at this point. At the end of 1958, yet another prototype, the SM-12PMU, joined the experimental fighter family. This had R3M-26 turbojets uprated to 3.800kg with afterburning, but these were further augmented by a U-19D accelerator, which took the form of a permanent ventral pack containing an RU-013 rocket motor and its propellant tanks. Developed by D. D. Sevruk, the RU-013 delivered 3,000kg of additional thrust, and with the aid of this rocket motor, the SM-12PMU attained an altitude of 24,000m and a speed of Mach=1.69. But this effort was to no avail: the decision had been taken meanwhile to manufacture the Ye-7 in series as the MiG-21, and further development of the SM-12 series was therefore discontinued.
Nevertheless, since full operational status of the new MiG-21 was expected to remain pending for some time, production of a modified SM-12PM was ordered as a gap filler. Not only would this fighter bridge the performance gap to the Mach 2-capable MiG-21, it also had the benefit of being based on proven technologies and would not require a new basic pilot training.
The new aircraft received the official designation MiG-19bis. Compared with the SM-12PM prototype, the MiG-19bis differed in some details and improvements. The SM-12PM’s most significant shortfall was its short range – at full power, it had only a range of 750 km! This could be mended through an additional fuel tank in an enlarged dorsal fairing behind the cockpit. With this internal extra fuel, range could be extended by a further 200 - 250km range, but drop tanks had typically to be carried, too, in order to extend the fighter’ combat radius with two AAMs to 500 km. Specifically for the MiG-19bis, new, supersonic drop tanks (PTB-490) were designed, and these were later adapted for the MiG-21, too.
The air intake shock cone was re-contoured and the shifting mechanism improved: Instead of a simple, conical shape, the shock cone now had a more complex curvature with two steps and the intake orifice area was widened to allow a higher airflow rate. The air intake’s efficiency was further optimized through gradual positions of the shock cone.
As a positive side effect, the revised shock cone offered space for an enlarged radar dish, what improved detection range and resolution. The TsD-30 radar for the fighter’s missile-only armament was retained, even though the K-5’s effective range of only 2–6 km (1¼ – 3¾ mi) made it only suitable against slow and large targets like bombers. All guns were deleted in order to save weight or make room for the electronic equipment. The tail section was also changed because the R3M-26 engines and their afterburners were considerably longer than the MiG-19's original RM-5 engines. The exhausts now markedly protruded from the tail section, and the original, characteristic pen nib fairing between the two engines had been modified accordingly.
Production started in 1960, but only a total of roundabout 180 MiG-19bis, which received the NATO code "Farmer F", were built and the Soviet Union remained the only operator of the type. The first aircraft entered Soviet Anti-Air Defense in early 1961, and the machines were concentrated in PVO interceptor units around major sites like Moscow, Sewastopol at the Black Sea and Vladivostok in the Far East.
With the advent of the MiG-21, though, their career did not last long. Even though many machines were updated to carry the K-13 (the IR-guided AA-2 "Atoll") as well as the improved K-55 AAMs, with no change of the type’s designation, most MiG-19bis were already phased out towards the late 1960s and quickly replaced by 2nd generation MiG-21s as well as heavier and more capable Suchoj interceptors like the Su-9, -11 and -15. By 1972, all MiG-19bis had been retired.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 13.54 m (44 ft 4 in), fuselage only with shock cone in forward position
15.48 m (50 8 ½ in) including pitot
Wingspan: 9 m (29 ft 6 in)
Height: 3.8885 m (12 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 25 m² (269 ft²)
Empty weight: 5,210 kg (11,475 lb)
Loaded weight: 7,890 kg (17,380 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 9,050 kg (19,935 lb)
Fuel capacity: 2,450 l (556 imp gal; 647 US gal) internal;
plus 760 l (170 imp gal; 200 US gal) with 2 drop tanks
Powerplant:
2× Sorokin R3M-26 turbojets, rated at 37.2 kN (8,370 lbf) thrust each with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,380km/h at sea level (Mach=1.16)
1,850km/h at 12,000m (Mach=1.8)
Range: 1,250 km (775 mi; 750 nmi) at 14,000 m (45,000 ft) with 2 × 490 l drop tanks
Combat range: 500 km (312 mi; 270 nmi)
Ferry range: 2,000 km (1,242 mi; 690 nmi)
Service ceiling: 19,750 m (64,690 ft)
Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 353.3 kg/m² (72.4 lb/ft²)
Thrust/weight: 0.86
Armament:
No internal guns.
4× underwing pylons; typically, a pair of PTB-490 drop tanks were carried on the outer pylon pair,
plus a pair of air-to air missiles on the inner pair: initially two radar-guided Kaliningrad K-5M (RS-2US)
AAMs, later two radar-guided K-55 or IR-guided Vympel K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll') AAMs
The kit and its assembly:
Another submission for the 2018 Cold War Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and again the opportunity to build a whiffy model from the project list. But it’s as fictional as one might think, since the SM-12 line of experimental “hybrid” fighters between the MiG-19 and the MiG-21 was real. But none of these aircraft ever made it into serial production, and in real life the MiG-21 showed so much potential that the attempts to improve the MiG-19 were stopped and no operational fighter entered production or service.
However, the SM-12, with its elongated nose and the central shock cone, makes a nice model subject, and I imagined what a service aircraft might have looked like? It would IMHO have been close, if not identical, to the SM-12PM, since this was the most refined pure jet fighter in the development family.
The basis for the build was a (dead cheap) Mastercraft MiG-19, which is a re-edition of the venerable Kovozávody Prostějov (KP) kit – as a tribute to modern tastes, it comes with (crudely) engraved panel, but it has a horrible fit all over. For instance, there was a 1mm gap between the fuselage and the right wing, the wing halves’ outlines did not match at all and it is questionable if the canopy actually belongs to the kit at all? PSR everywhere. I also had a Plastyk version of this kit on the table some time ago, but it was of a much better quality! O.K., the Mastercraft kit comes cheap, but it’s, to be honest, not a real bargain.
Even though the result would not be crisp I did some mods and changes. Internally, a cockpit tub was implanted (OOB there’s just a wacky seat hanging in mid air) plus some serious lead weight in the nose section for a proper stance.
On the outside, the new air intake is the most obvious change. I found a Su-17 intake (from a Mastercraft kit, too) and used a piece from a Matchbox B-17G’s dorsal turret to elongate the nose – it had an almost perfect diameter and a mildly conical shape. Some massive PSR work was necessary to blend the parts together, though.
The tail received new jet nozzles, scratched from steel needle protection covers, and the tail fairing was adjusted according to the real SM-12’s shape.
Ordnance was adapted, too: the drop tanks come from a Mastercraft MiG-21, and these supersonic PTB-490 tanks were indeed carried by the real SM-12 prototypes because the uprated engines were very thirsty and the original, teardrop-shaped MiG-19 tanks simply too draggy for the much faster SM-12. As a side note, the real SM-12’s short range was one of the serious factors that prevented the promising type’s production in real life. In order to overcome the poor range weakness I added an enlarged spine (half of a drop tank), inspired by the MiG-21 SMT, that would house an additional internal fuel tank.
The R2-SU/K-5 AAMs come from a vintage Mastercraft Soviet aircraft weapon set, which carries a pair of these 1st generation AAMs. While the molds seem to be a bit soft, the missiles look pretty convincing. Their pylons were taken from the kit (OOB they carry unguided AAM pods and are placed behind the main landing gear wells), just reversed and placed on the wings’ leading edges – similar to the real SM-12’s arrangement.
Painting and markings:
No surprises. In the Sixties, any PVO aircraft was left in bare metal, so there was hardly an alternative to a NMF finish.
Painting started with an all-over coat with acrylic Revell 99 (Aluminum), just the spine tank became light grey (Revell 371) for some contrast, and I painted some di-electric covers in a deep green (Revell 48).
The cockpit interior was painted with a bright mix of Revell 55 and some 48, while the landing gear wells and the back section of the cockpit were painted in a bluish grey (Revell 57).
The landing gear was painted in Steel (unpolished Modelmaster metallizer) and received classic, bright green wheel discs (Humbrol 2). As a small, unusual highlight the pitot boom under the chin received red and white stripes – seen on occasional MiG-19S fighters in Soviet service, and the anti-flutter booms on the stabilizers became bright red, too.
After the basic painting was done the kit received a black ink wash. Once this had dried and wiped off with a soft cotton cloth, post shading with various metallizer tones was added in order to liven up the uniform aircraft (including Humbrol’s matt and polished aluminum, and the exhaust section was treated with steel). Some panel lines were emphasized with a thin pencil.
Decals were puzzled together from various sources, a Guards badge and a few Russian stencils were added, too. Finally, the kit was sealed with a coat of sheen acrylic varnish (a 2:1 mix of Italeri matt and semi-gloss varnish).
The K-5 missiles, last but not least, were painted in aluminum, too, but their end caps (both front and tail section) became off-white.
The Mastercraft kit on which this conversion was based is crude, so I did not have high expectations concerning the outcome. But the new nose blends nicely into the MiG-19 fuselage, and the wide spine is a subtle detail that makes the aircraft look more “beefy” and less MiG-19-ish. The different drop tanks – even though they are authentic – visually add further speed. And despite many flaws, I am quite happy with the result of roundabout a week’s work.
One of the World's best riders, Harley Clifford during a pro tour stop in 2011.
Check out his sponsors,
Monster Energy, Liquid Force, MasterCraft Boat Company, Oakley, BodyGlove, Buywake, and Polaroid Action Cameras.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (NATO reporting name: "Farmer") was a Soviet second-generation, single-seat, twin jet-engine fighter aircraft. It was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. A comparable U.S. "Century Series" fighter was the North American F-100 Super Sabre, although the MiG-19 would primarily oppose the more modern McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Republic F-105 Thunderchief over North Vietnam. Furthermore, the North American YF-100 Super Sabre prototype appeared approximately one year after the MiG-19, making the MiG-19 the first operational supersonic jet in the world.
On 20 April 1951, OKB-155 was given the order to develop the MiG-17 into a new fighter called "I-340", also known as "SM-1". It was to be powered by two Mikulin AM-5 non-afterburning jet engines, a scaled-down version of the Mikulin AM-3, with 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) of thrust. The I-340 was supposed to attain 1,160 km/h (725 mph, Mach 0.97) at 2,000 m (6,562 ft), 1,080 km/h (675 mph, Mach 1.0) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft), climb to 10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 2.9 minutes, and have a service ceiling of no less than 17,500 m (57,415 ft).
After several prototypes with many detail improvements, the ministers of the Soviet Union issued the order #286-133 to start serial production on February 17, 1954, at the factories in Gorkiy and Novosibirsk. Factory trials were completed on September 12 the same year, and government trials started on September 30.
Initial enthusiasm for the aircraft was dampened by several problems. The most alarming of these was the danger of a midair explosion due to overheating of the fuselage fuel tanks located between the engines. Deployment of airbrakes at high speeds caused a high-g pitch-up. Elevators lacked authority at supersonic speeds. The high landing speed of 230 km/h (145 mph), compared to 160 km/h (100 mph) for the MiG-15, combined with the lack of a two-seat trainer version, slowed pilot transition to the type. Handling problems were addressed with the second prototype, "SM-9/2", which added a third ventral airbrake and introduced all-moving tailplanes with a damper to prevent pilot-induced oscillations at subsonic speeds. It flew on 16 September 1954, and entered production as the MiG-19S.
Approximately 5,500 MiG-19's were produced, first in the USSR and in Czechoslovakia as the Avia S-105, but mainly in the People's Republic of China as the Shenyang J-6. The aircraft saw service with a number of other national air forces, including those of Cuba, North Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan, and North Korea. The aircraft saw combat during the Vietnam War, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1971 Bangladesh War.
However, jet fighter development made huge leaps in the 1960s, and OKB MiG was constantly trying to improve the MiG-19's performance, esp. against fast and high-flying enemies, primarily bombers but also spy planes like the U-2.
As the MiG-19S was brought into service with the Soviet air forces in mid-1956, the OKB MiG was continuing the refinement of the SM-1/I-340 fighter. One of these evolutionary paths was the SM-12 (literally, “SM-1, second generation”) family of prototypes, the ultimate extrapolation of the basic MiG-19 design, which eventually led to the MiG-19bis interceptor that filled the gap between the MiG-19S and the following, highly successful MiG-21.
The SM-12 first saw life as an exercise in drag reduction by means of new air intake configurations, since the MiG-19’s original intake with rounded lips became inefficient at supersonic speed (its Western rival, the North American F-100, featured a sharp-lipped nose air intake from the start). The first of three prototypes, the SM-12/1, was essentially a MiG-19S with an extended and straight-tapered nose with sharp-lipped orifice and a pointed, two-position shock cone on the intake splitter. The simple arrangement proved to be successful and was further refined.
The next evolutionary step, the SM-12/3, differed from its predecessors primarily in two new R3-26 turbojets developed from the earlier power plant by V. N. Sorokin. These each offered an afterburning thrust of 3,600kg, enabling the SM-12/3 to attain speeds ranging between 1,430km/h at sea level, or Mach=1.16, and 1,930km/h at 12,000m, or Mach=1.8, and an altitude of between 17,500 and 18,000m during its test program. This outstanding performance prompted further development with a view to production as a point defense interceptor.
Similarly powered by R3-26 engines, and embodying major nose redesign with a larger orifice permitting introduction of a substantial two-position conical centerbody for a TsD-30 radar, a further prototype was completed as the SM-12PM. Discarding the wing root NR-30 cannon of preceding prototypes, the SM-12PM was armed with only two K-5M (RS-2U) beam-riding missiles and entered flight test in 1957. This configuration would become the basis for the MiG-19bis interceptor that eventually was ordered into limited production (see below).
However, the SM-12 development line did not stop at this point. At the end of 1958, yet another prototype, the SM-12PMU, joined the experimental fighter family. This had R3M-26 turbojets uprated to 3.800kg with afterburning, but these were further augmented by a U-19D accelerator, which took the form of a permanent ventral pack containing an RU-013 rocket motor and its propellant tanks. Developed by D. D. Sevruk, the RU-013 delivered 3,000kg of additional thrust, and with the aid of this rocket motor, the SM-12PMU attained an altitude of 24,000m and a speed of Mach=1.69. But this effort was to no avail: the decision had been taken meanwhile to manufacture the Ye-7 in series as the MiG-21, and further development of the SM-12 series was therefore discontinued.
Nevertheless, since full operational status of the new MiG-21 was expected to remain pending for some time, production of a modified SM-12PM was ordered as a gap filler. Not only would this fighter bridge the performance gap to the Mach 2-capable MiG-21, it also had the benefit of being based on proven technologies and would not require a new basic pilot training.
The new aircraft received the official designation MiG-19bis. Compared with the SM-12PM prototype, the MiG-19bis differed in some details and improvements. The SM-12PM’s most significant shortfall was its short range – at full power, it had only a range of 750 km! This could be mended through an additional fuel tank in an enlarged dorsal fairing behind the cockpit. With this internal extra fuel, range could be extended by a further 200 - 250km range, but drop tanks had typically to be carried, too, in order to extend the fighter’ combat radius with two AAMs to 500 km. Specifically for the MiG-19bis, new, supersonic drop tanks (PTB-490) were designed, and these were later adapted for the MiG-21, too.
The air intake shock cone was re-contoured and the shifting mechanism improved: Instead of a simple, conical shape, the shock cone now had a more complex curvature with two steps and the intake orifice area was widened to allow a higher airflow rate. The air intake’s efficiency was further optimized through gradual positions of the shock cone.
As a positive side effect, the revised shock cone offered space for an enlarged radar dish, what improved detection range and resolution. The TsD-30 radar for the fighter’s missile-only armament was retained, even though the K-5’s effective range of only 2–6 km (1¼ – 3¾ mi) made it only suitable against slow and large targets like bombers. All guns were deleted in order to save weight or make room for the electronic equipment. The tail section was also changed because the R3M-26 engines and their afterburners were considerably longer than the MiG-19's original RM-5 engines. The exhausts now markedly protruded from the tail section, and the original, characteristic pen nib fairing between the two engines had been modified accordingly.
Production started in 1960, but only a total of roundabout 180 MiG-19bis, which received the NATO code "Farmer F", were built and the Soviet Union remained the only operator of the type. The first aircraft entered Soviet Anti-Air Defense in early 1961, and the machines were concentrated in PVO interceptor units around major sites like Moscow, Sewastopol at the Black Sea and Vladivostok in the Far East.
With the advent of the MiG-21, though, their career did not last long. Even though many machines were updated to carry the K-13 (the IR-guided AA-2 "Atoll") as well as the improved K-55 AAMs, with no change of the type’s designation, most MiG-19bis were already phased out towards the late 1960s and quickly replaced by 2nd generation MiG-21s as well as heavier and more capable Suchoj interceptors like the Su-9, -11 and -15. By 1972, all MiG-19bis had been retired.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 13.54 m (44 ft 4 in), fuselage only with shock cone in forward position
15.48 m (50 8 ½ in) including pitot
Wingspan: 9 m (29 ft 6 in)
Height: 3.8885 m (12 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 25 m² (269 ft²)
Empty weight: 5,210 kg (11,475 lb)
Loaded weight: 7,890 kg (17,380 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 9,050 kg (19,935 lb)
Fuel capacity: 2,450 l (556 imp gal; 647 US gal) internal;
plus 760 l (170 imp gal; 200 US gal) with 2 drop tanks
Powerplant:
2× Sorokin R3M-26 turbojets, rated at 37.2 kN (8,370 lbf) thrust each with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,380km/h at sea level (Mach=1.16)
1,850km/h at 12,000m (Mach=1.8)
Range: 1,250 km (775 mi; 750 nmi) at 14,000 m (45,000 ft) with 2 × 490 l drop tanks
Combat range: 500 km (312 mi; 270 nmi)
Ferry range: 2,000 km (1,242 mi; 690 nmi)
Service ceiling: 19,750 m (64,690 ft)
Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 353.3 kg/m² (72.4 lb/ft²)
Thrust/weight: 0.86
Armament:
No internal guns.
4× underwing pylons; typically, a pair of PTB-490 drop tanks were carried on the outer pylon pair,
plus a pair of air-to air missiles on the inner pair: initially two radar-guided Kaliningrad K-5M (RS-2US)
AAMs, later two radar-guided K-55 or IR-guided Vympel K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll') AAMs
The kit and its assembly:
Another submission for the 2018 Cold War Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and again the opportunity to build a whiffy model from the project list. But it’s as fictional as one might think, since the SM-12 line of experimental “hybrid” fighters between the MiG-19 and the MiG-21 was real. But none of these aircraft ever made it into serial production, and in real life the MiG-21 showed so much potential that the attempts to improve the MiG-19 were stopped and no operational fighter entered production or service.
However, the SM-12, with its elongated nose and the central shock cone, makes a nice model subject, and I imagined what a service aircraft might have looked like? It would IMHO have been close, if not identical, to the SM-12PM, since this was the most refined pure jet fighter in the development family.
The basis for the build was a (dead cheap) Mastercraft MiG-19, which is a re-edition of the venerable Kovozávody Prostějov (KP) kit – as a tribute to modern tastes, it comes with (crudely) engraved panel, but it has a horrible fit all over. For instance, there was a 1mm gap between the fuselage and the right wing, the wing halves’ outlines did not match at all and it is questionable if the canopy actually belongs to the kit at all? PSR everywhere. I also had a Plastyk version of this kit on the table some time ago, but it was of a much better quality! O.K., the Mastercraft kit comes cheap, but it’s, to be honest, not a real bargain.
Even though the result would not be crisp I did some mods and changes. Internally, a cockpit tub was implanted (OOB there’s just a wacky seat hanging in mid air) plus some serious lead weight in the nose section for a proper stance.
On the outside, the new air intake is the most obvious change. I found a Su-17 intake (from a Mastercraft kit, too) and used a piece from a Matchbox B-17G’s dorsal turret to elongate the nose – it had an almost perfect diameter and a mildly conical shape. Some massive PSR work was necessary to blend the parts together, though.
The tail received new jet nozzles, scratched from steel needle protection covers, and the tail fairing was adjusted according to the real SM-12’s shape.
Ordnance was adapted, too: the drop tanks come from a Mastercraft MiG-21, and these supersonic PTB-490 tanks were indeed carried by the real SM-12 prototypes because the uprated engines were very thirsty and the original, teardrop-shaped MiG-19 tanks simply too draggy for the much faster SM-12. As a side note, the real SM-12’s short range was one of the serious factors that prevented the promising type’s production in real life. In order to overcome the poor range weakness I added an enlarged spine (half of a drop tank), inspired by the MiG-21 SMT, that would house an additional internal fuel tank.
The R2-SU/K-5 AAMs come from a vintage Mastercraft Soviet aircraft weapon set, which carries a pair of these 1st generation AAMs. While the molds seem to be a bit soft, the missiles look pretty convincing. Their pylons were taken from the kit (OOB they carry unguided AAM pods and are placed behind the main landing gear wells), just reversed and placed on the wings’ leading edges – similar to the real SM-12’s arrangement.
Painting and markings:
No surprises. In the Sixties, any PVO aircraft was left in bare metal, so there was hardly an alternative to a NMF finish.
Painting started with an all-over coat with acrylic Revell 99 (Aluminum), just the spine tank became light grey (Revell 371) for some contrast, and I painted some di-electric covers in a deep green (Revell 48).
The cockpit interior was painted with a bright mix of Revell 55 and some 48, while the landing gear wells and the back section of the cockpit were painted in a bluish grey (Revell 57).
The landing gear was painted in Steel (unpolished Modelmaster metallizer) and received classic, bright green wheel discs (Humbrol 2). As a small, unusual highlight the pitot boom under the chin received red and white stripes – seen on occasional MiG-19S fighters in Soviet service, and the anti-flutter booms on the stabilizers became bright red, too.
After the basic painting was done the kit received a black ink wash. Once this had dried and wiped off with a soft cotton cloth, post shading with various metallizer tones was added in order to liven up the uniform aircraft (including Humbrol’s matt and polished aluminum, and the exhaust section was treated with steel). Some panel lines were emphasized with a thin pencil.
Decals were puzzled together from various sources, a Guards badge and a few Russian stencils were added, too. Finally, the kit was sealed with a coat of sheen acrylic varnish (a 2:1 mix of Italeri matt and semi-gloss varnish).
The K-5 missiles, last but not least, were painted in aluminum, too, but their end caps (both front and tail section) became off-white.
The Mastercraft kit on which this conversion was based is crude, so I did not have high expectations concerning the outcome. But the new nose blends nicely into the MiG-19 fuselage, and the wide spine is a subtle detail that makes the aircraft look more “beefy” and less MiG-19-ish. The different drop tanks – even though they are authentic – visually add further speed. And despite many flaws, I am quite happy with the result of roundabout a week’s work.
This was half my evening yesterday - trying to replace the glass/digitizer on someone's iPhone 3G...
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (NATO reporting name: "Farmer") was a Soviet second-generation, single-seat, twin jet-engine fighter aircraft. It was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. A comparable U.S. "Century Series" fighter was the North American F-100 Super Sabre, although the MiG-19 would primarily oppose the more modern McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Republic F-105 Thunderchief over North Vietnam. Furthermore, the North American YF-100 Super Sabre prototype appeared approximately one year after the MiG-19, making the MiG-19 the first operational supersonic jet in the world.
On 20 April 1951, OKB-155 was given the order to develop the MiG-17 into a new fighter called "I-340", also known as "SM-1". It was to be powered by two Mikulin AM-5 non-afterburning jet engines, a scaled-down version of the Mikulin AM-3, with 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) of thrust. The I-340 was supposed to attain 1,160 km/h (725 mph, Mach 0.97) at 2,000 m (6,562 ft), 1,080 km/h (675 mph, Mach 1.0) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft), climb to 10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 2.9 minutes, and have a service ceiling of no less than 17,500 m (57,415 ft).
After several prototypes with many detail improvements, the ministers of the Soviet Union issued the order #286-133 to start serial production on February 17, 1954, at the factories in Gorkiy and Novosibirsk. Factory trials were completed on September 12 the same year, and government trials started on September 30.
Initial enthusiasm for the aircraft was dampened by several problems. The most alarming of these was the danger of a midair explosion due to overheating of the fuselage fuel tanks located between the engines. Deployment of airbrakes at high speeds caused a high-g pitch-up. Elevators lacked authority at supersonic speeds. The high landing speed of 230 km/h (145 mph), compared to 160 km/h (100 mph) for the MiG-15, combined with the lack of a two-seat trainer version, slowed pilot transition to the type. Handling problems were addressed with the second prototype, "SM-9/2", which added a third ventral airbrake and introduced all-moving tailplanes with a damper to prevent pilot-induced oscillations at subsonic speeds. It flew on 16 September 1954, and entered production as the MiG-19S.
Approximately 5,500 MiG-19's were produced, first in the USSR and in Czechoslovakia as the Avia S-105, but mainly in the People's Republic of China as the Shenyang J-6. The aircraft saw service with a number of other national air forces, including those of Cuba, North Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan, and North Korea. The aircraft saw combat during the Vietnam War, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1971 Bangladesh War.
However, jet fighter development made huge leaps in the 1960s, and OKB MiG was constantly trying to improve the MiG-19's performance, esp. against fast and high-flying enemies, primarily bombers but also spy planes like the U-2.
As the MiG-19S was brought into service with the Soviet air forces in mid-1956, the OKB MiG was continuing the refinement of the SM-1/I-340 fighter. One of these evolutionary paths was the SM-12 (literally, “SM-1, second generation”) family of prototypes, the ultimate extrapolation of the basic MiG-19 design, which eventually led to the MiG-19bis interceptor that filled the gap between the MiG-19S and the following, highly successful MiG-21.
The SM-12 first saw life as an exercise in drag reduction by means of new air intake configurations, since the MiG-19’s original intake with rounded lips became inefficient at supersonic speed (its Western rival, the North American F-100, featured a sharp-lipped nose air intake from the start). The first of three prototypes, the SM-12/1, was essentially a MiG-19S with an extended and straight-tapered nose with sharp-lipped orifice and a pointed, two-position shock cone on the intake splitter. The simple arrangement proved to be successful and was further refined.
The next evolutionary step, the SM-12/3, differed from its predecessors primarily in two new R3-26 turbojets developed from the earlier power plant by V. N. Sorokin. These each offered an afterburning thrust of 3,600kg, enabling the SM-12/3 to attain speeds ranging between 1,430km/h at sea level, or Mach=1.16, and 1,930km/h at 12,000m, or Mach=1.8, and an altitude of between 17,500 and 18,000m during its test program. This outstanding performance prompted further development with a view to production as a point defense interceptor.
Similarly powered by R3-26 engines, and embodying major nose redesign with a larger orifice permitting introduction of a substantial two-position conical centerbody for a TsD-30 radar, a further prototype was completed as the SM-12PM. Discarding the wing root NR-30 cannon of preceding prototypes, the SM-12PM was armed with only two K-5M (RS-2U) beam-riding missiles and entered flight test in 1957. This configuration would become the basis for the MiG-19bis interceptor that eventually was ordered into limited production (see below).
However, the SM-12 development line did not stop at this point. At the end of 1958, yet another prototype, the SM-12PMU, joined the experimental fighter family. This had R3M-26 turbojets uprated to 3.800kg with afterburning, but these were further augmented by a U-19D accelerator, which took the form of a permanent ventral pack containing an RU-013 rocket motor and its propellant tanks. Developed by D. D. Sevruk, the RU-013 delivered 3,000kg of additional thrust, and with the aid of this rocket motor, the SM-12PMU attained an altitude of 24,000m and a speed of Mach=1.69. But this effort was to no avail: the decision had been taken meanwhile to manufacture the Ye-7 in series as the MiG-21, and further development of the SM-12 series was therefore discontinued.
Nevertheless, since full operational status of the new MiG-21 was expected to remain pending for some time, production of a modified SM-12PM was ordered as a gap filler. Not only would this fighter bridge the performance gap to the Mach 2-capable MiG-21, it also had the benefit of being based on proven technologies and would not require a new basic pilot training.
The new aircraft received the official designation MiG-19bis. Compared with the SM-12PM prototype, the MiG-19bis differed in some details and improvements. The SM-12PM’s most significant shortfall was its short range – at full power, it had only a range of 750 km! This could be mended through an additional fuel tank in an enlarged dorsal fairing behind the cockpit. With this internal extra fuel, range could be extended by a further 200 - 250km range, but drop tanks had typically to be carried, too, in order to extend the fighter’ combat radius with two AAMs to 500 km. Specifically for the MiG-19bis, new, supersonic drop tanks (PTB-490) were designed, and these were later adapted for the MiG-21, too.
The air intake shock cone was re-contoured and the shifting mechanism improved: Instead of a simple, conical shape, the shock cone now had a more complex curvature with two steps and the intake orifice area was widened to allow a higher airflow rate. The air intake’s efficiency was further optimized through gradual positions of the shock cone.
As a positive side effect, the revised shock cone offered space for an enlarged radar dish, what improved detection range and resolution. The TsD-30 radar for the fighter’s missile-only armament was retained, even though the K-5’s effective range of only 2–6 km (1¼ – 3¾ mi) made it only suitable against slow and large targets like bombers. All guns were deleted in order to save weight or make room for the electronic equipment. The tail section was also changed because the R3M-26 engines and their afterburners were considerably longer than the MiG-19's original RM-5 engines. The exhausts now markedly protruded from the tail section, and the original, characteristic pen nib fairing between the two engines had been modified accordingly.
Production started in 1960, but only a total of roundabout 180 MiG-19bis, which received the NATO code "Farmer F", were built and the Soviet Union remained the only operator of the type. The first aircraft entered Soviet Anti-Air Defense in early 1961, and the machines were concentrated in PVO interceptor units around major sites like Moscow, Sewastopol at the Black Sea and Vladivostok in the Far East.
With the advent of the MiG-21, though, their career did not last long. Even though many machines were updated to carry the K-13 (the IR-guided AA-2 "Atoll") as well as the improved K-55 AAMs, with no change of the type’s designation, most MiG-19bis were already phased out towards the late 1960s and quickly replaced by 2nd generation MiG-21s as well as heavier and more capable Suchoj interceptors like the Su-9, -11 and -15. By 1972, all MiG-19bis had been retired.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 13.54 m (44 ft 4 in), fuselage only with shock cone in forward position
15.48 m (50 8 ½ in) including pitot
Wingspan: 9 m (29 ft 6 in)
Height: 3.8885 m (12 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 25 m² (269 ft²)
Empty weight: 5,210 kg (11,475 lb)
Loaded weight: 7,890 kg (17,380 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 9,050 kg (19,935 lb)
Fuel capacity: 2,450 l (556 imp gal; 647 US gal) internal;
plus 760 l (170 imp gal; 200 US gal) with 2 drop tanks
Powerplant:
2× Sorokin R3M-26 turbojets, rated at 37.2 kN (8,370 lbf) thrust each with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,380km/h at sea level (Mach=1.16)
1,850km/h at 12,000m (Mach=1.8)
Range: 1,250 km (775 mi; 750 nmi) at 14,000 m (45,000 ft) with 2 × 490 l drop tanks
Combat range: 500 km (312 mi; 270 nmi)
Ferry range: 2,000 km (1,242 mi; 690 nmi)
Service ceiling: 19,750 m (64,690 ft)
Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 353.3 kg/m² (72.4 lb/ft²)
Thrust/weight: 0.86
Armament:
No internal guns.
4× underwing pylons; typically, a pair of PTB-490 drop tanks were carried on the outer pylon pair,
plus a pair of air-to air missiles on the inner pair: initially two radar-guided Kaliningrad K-5M (RS-2US)
AAMs, later two radar-guided K-55 or IR-guided Vympel K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll') AAMs
The kit and its assembly:
Another submission for the 2018 Cold War Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and again the opportunity to build a whiffy model from the project list. But it’s as fictional as one might think, since the SM-12 line of experimental “hybrid” fighters between the MiG-19 and the MiG-21 was real. But none of these aircraft ever made it into serial production, and in real life the MiG-21 showed so much potential that the attempts to improve the MiG-19 were stopped and no operational fighter entered production or service.
However, the SM-12, with its elongated nose and the central shock cone, makes a nice model subject, and I imagined what a service aircraft might have looked like? It would IMHO have been close, if not identical, to the SM-12PM, since this was the most refined pure jet fighter in the development family.
The basis for the build was a (dead cheap) Mastercraft MiG-19, which is a re-edition of the venerable Kovozávody Prostějov (KP) kit – as a tribute to modern tastes, it comes with (crudely) engraved panel, but it has a horrible fit all over. For instance, there was a 1mm gap between the fuselage and the right wing, the wing halves’ outlines did not match at all and it is questionable if the canopy actually belongs to the kit at all? PSR everywhere. I also had a Plastyk version of this kit on the table some time ago, but it was of a much better quality! O.K., the Mastercraft kit comes cheap, but it’s, to be honest, not a real bargain.
Even though the result would not be crisp I did some mods and changes. Internally, a cockpit tub was implanted (OOB there’s just a wacky seat hanging in mid air) plus some serious lead weight in the nose section for a proper stance.
On the outside, the new air intake is the most obvious change. I found a Su-17 intake (from a Mastercraft kit, too) and used a piece from a Matchbox B-17G’s dorsal turret to elongate the nose – it had an almost perfect diameter and a mildly conical shape. Some massive PSR work was necessary to blend the parts together, though.
The tail received new jet nozzles, scratched from steel needle protection covers, and the tail fairing was adjusted according to the real SM-12’s shape.
Ordnance was adapted, too: the drop tanks come from a Mastercraft MiG-21, and these supersonic PTB-490 tanks were indeed carried by the real SM-12 prototypes because the uprated engines were very thirsty and the original, teardrop-shaped MiG-19 tanks simply too draggy for the much faster SM-12. As a side note, the real SM-12’s short range was one of the serious factors that prevented the promising type’s production in real life. In order to overcome the poor range weakness I added an enlarged spine (half of a drop tank), inspired by the MiG-21 SMT, that would house an additional internal fuel tank.
The R2-SU/K-5 AAMs come from a vintage Mastercraft Soviet aircraft weapon set, which carries a pair of these 1st generation AAMs. While the molds seem to be a bit soft, the missiles look pretty convincing. Their pylons were taken from the kit (OOB they carry unguided AAM pods and are placed behind the main landing gear wells), just reversed and placed on the wings’ leading edges – similar to the real SM-12’s arrangement.
Painting and markings:
No surprises. In the Sixties, any PVO aircraft was left in bare metal, so there was hardly an alternative to a NMF finish.
Painting started with an all-over coat with acrylic Revell 99 (Aluminum), just the spine tank became light grey (Revell 371) for some contrast, and I painted some di-electric covers in a deep green (Revell 48).
The cockpit interior was painted with a bright mix of Revell 55 and some 48, while the landing gear wells and the back section of the cockpit were painted in a bluish grey (Revell 57).
The landing gear was painted in Steel (unpolished Modelmaster metallizer) and received classic, bright green wheel discs (Humbrol 2). As a small, unusual highlight the pitot boom under the chin received red and white stripes – seen on occasional MiG-19S fighters in Soviet service, and the anti-flutter booms on the stabilizers became bright red, too.
After the basic painting was done the kit received a black ink wash. Once this had dried and wiped off with a soft cotton cloth, post shading with various metallizer tones was added in order to liven up the uniform aircraft (including Humbrol’s matt and polished aluminum, and the exhaust section was treated with steel). Some panel lines were emphasized with a thin pencil.
Decals were puzzled together from various sources, a Guards badge and a few Russian stencils were added, too. Finally, the kit was sealed with a coat of sheen acrylic varnish (a 2:1 mix of Italeri matt and semi-gloss varnish).
The K-5 missiles, last but not least, were painted in aluminum, too, but their end caps (both front and tail section) became off-white.
The Mastercraft kit on which this conversion was based is crude, so I did not have high expectations concerning the outcome. But the new nose blends nicely into the MiG-19 fuselage, and the wide spine is a subtle detail that makes the aircraft look more “beefy” and less MiG-19-ish. The different drop tanks – even though they are authentic – visually add further speed. And despite many flaws, I am quite happy with the result of roundabout a week’s work.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (NATO reporting name: "Farmer") was a Soviet second-generation, single-seat, twin jet-engine fighter aircraft. It was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. A comparable U.S. "Century Series" fighter was the North American F-100 Super Sabre, although the MiG-19 would primarily oppose the more modern McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Republic F-105 Thunderchief over North Vietnam. Furthermore, the North American YF-100 Super Sabre prototype appeared approximately one year after the MiG-19, making the MiG-19 the first operational supersonic jet in the world.
On 20 April 1951, OKB-155 was given the order to develop the MiG-17 into a new fighter called "I-340", also known as "SM-1". It was to be powered by two Mikulin AM-5 non-afterburning jet engines, a scaled-down version of the Mikulin AM-3, with 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) of thrust. The I-340 was supposed to attain 1,160 km/h (725 mph, Mach 0.97) at 2,000 m (6,562 ft), 1,080 km/h (675 mph, Mach 1.0) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft), climb to 10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 2.9 minutes, and have a service ceiling of no less than 17,500 m (57,415 ft).
After several prototypes with many detail improvements, the ministers of the Soviet Union issued the order #286-133 to start serial production on February 17, 1954, at the factories in Gorkiy and Novosibirsk. Factory trials were completed on September 12 the same year, and government trials started on September 30.
Initial enthusiasm for the aircraft was dampened by several problems. The most alarming of these was the danger of a midair explosion due to overheating of the fuselage fuel tanks located between the engines. Deployment of airbrakes at high speeds caused a high-g pitch-up. Elevators lacked authority at supersonic speeds. The high landing speed of 230 km/h (145 mph), compared to 160 km/h (100 mph) for the MiG-15, combined with the lack of a two-seat trainer version, slowed pilot transition to the type. Handling problems were addressed with the second prototype, "SM-9/2", which added a third ventral airbrake and introduced all-moving tailplanes with a damper to prevent pilot-induced oscillations at subsonic speeds. It flew on 16 September 1954, and entered production as the MiG-19S.
Approximately 5,500 MiG-19's were produced, first in the USSR and in Czechoslovakia as the Avia S-105, but mainly in the People's Republic of China as the Shenyang J-6. The aircraft saw service with a number of other national air forces, including those of Cuba, North Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan, and North Korea. The aircraft saw combat during the Vietnam War, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1971 Bangladesh War.
However, jet fighter development made huge leaps in the 1960s, and OKB MiG was constantly trying to improve the MiG-19's performance, esp. against fast and high-flying enemies, primarily bombers but also spy planes like the U-2.
As the MiG-19S was brought into service with the Soviet air forces in mid-1956, the OKB MiG was continuing the refinement of the SM-1/I-340 fighter. One of these evolutionary paths was the SM-12 (literally, “SM-1, second generation”) family of prototypes, the ultimate extrapolation of the basic MiG-19 design, which eventually led to the MiG-19bis interceptor that filled the gap between the MiG-19S and the following, highly successful MiG-21.
The SM-12 first saw life as an exercise in drag reduction by means of new air intake configurations, since the MiG-19’s original intake with rounded lips became inefficient at supersonic speed (its Western rival, the North American F-100, featured a sharp-lipped nose air intake from the start). The first of three prototypes, the SM-12/1, was essentially a MiG-19S with an extended and straight-tapered nose with sharp-lipped orifice and a pointed, two-position shock cone on the intake splitter. The simple arrangement proved to be successful and was further refined.
The next evolutionary step, the SM-12/3, differed from its predecessors primarily in two new R3-26 turbojets developed from the earlier power plant by V. N. Sorokin. These each offered an afterburning thrust of 3,600kg, enabling the SM-12/3 to attain speeds ranging between 1,430km/h at sea level, or Mach=1.16, and 1,930km/h at 12,000m, or Mach=1.8, and an altitude of between 17,500 and 18,000m during its test program. This outstanding performance prompted further development with a view to production as a point defense interceptor.
Similarly powered by R3-26 engines, and embodying major nose redesign with a larger orifice permitting introduction of a substantial two-position conical centerbody for a TsD-30 radar, a further prototype was completed as the SM-12PM. Discarding the wing root NR-30 cannon of preceding prototypes, the SM-12PM was armed with only two K-5M (RS-2U) beam-riding missiles and entered flight test in 1957. This configuration would become the basis for the MiG-19bis interceptor that eventually was ordered into limited production (see below).
However, the SM-12 development line did not stop at this point. At the end of 1958, yet another prototype, the SM-12PMU, joined the experimental fighter family. This had R3M-26 turbojets uprated to 3.800kg with afterburning, but these were further augmented by a U-19D accelerator, which took the form of a permanent ventral pack containing an RU-013 rocket motor and its propellant tanks. Developed by D. D. Sevruk, the RU-013 delivered 3,000kg of additional thrust, and with the aid of this rocket motor, the SM-12PMU attained an altitude of 24,000m and a speed of Mach=1.69. But this effort was to no avail: the decision had been taken meanwhile to manufacture the Ye-7 in series as the MiG-21, and further development of the SM-12 series was therefore discontinued.
Nevertheless, since full operational status of the new MiG-21 was expected to remain pending for some time, production of a modified SM-12PM was ordered as a gap filler. Not only would this fighter bridge the performance gap to the Mach 2-capable MiG-21, it also had the benefit of being based on proven technologies and would not require a new basic pilot training.
The new aircraft received the official designation MiG-19bis. Compared with the SM-12PM prototype, the MiG-19bis differed in some details and improvements. The SM-12PM’s most significant shortfall was its short range – at full power, it had only a range of 750 km! This could be mended through an additional fuel tank in an enlarged dorsal fairing behind the cockpit. With this internal extra fuel, range could be extended by a further 200 - 250km range, but drop tanks had typically to be carried, too, in order to extend the fighter’ combat radius with two AAMs to 500 km. Specifically for the MiG-19bis, new, supersonic drop tanks (PTB-490) were designed, and these were later adapted for the MiG-21, too.
The air intake shock cone was re-contoured and the shifting mechanism improved: Instead of a simple, conical shape, the shock cone now had a more complex curvature with two steps and the intake orifice area was widened to allow a higher airflow rate. The air intake’s efficiency was further optimized through gradual positions of the shock cone.
As a positive side effect, the revised shock cone offered space for an enlarged radar dish, what improved detection range and resolution. The TsD-30 radar for the fighter’s missile-only armament was retained, even though the K-5’s effective range of only 2–6 km (1¼ – 3¾ mi) made it only suitable against slow and large targets like bombers. All guns were deleted in order to save weight or make room for the electronic equipment. The tail section was also changed because the R3M-26 engines and their afterburners were considerably longer than the MiG-19's original RM-5 engines. The exhausts now markedly protruded from the tail section, and the original, characteristic pen nib fairing between the two engines had been modified accordingly.
Production started in 1960, but only a total of roundabout 180 MiG-19bis, which received the NATO code "Farmer F", were built and the Soviet Union remained the only operator of the type. The first aircraft entered Soviet Anti-Air Defense in early 1961, and the machines were concentrated in PVO interceptor units around major sites like Moscow, Sewastopol at the Black Sea and Vladivostok in the Far East.
With the advent of the MiG-21, though, their career did not last long. Even though many machines were updated to carry the K-13 (the IR-guided AA-2 "Atoll") as well as the improved K-55 AAMs, with no change of the type’s designation, most MiG-19bis were already phased out towards the late 1960s and quickly replaced by 2nd generation MiG-21s as well as heavier and more capable Suchoj interceptors like the Su-9, -11 and -15. By 1972, all MiG-19bis had been retired.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 13.54 m (44 ft 4 in), fuselage only with shock cone in forward position
15.48 m (50 8 ½ in) including pitot
Wingspan: 9 m (29 ft 6 in)
Height: 3.8885 m (12 ft 9 in)
Wing area: 25 m² (269 ft²)
Empty weight: 5,210 kg (11,475 lb)
Loaded weight: 7,890 kg (17,380 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 9,050 kg (19,935 lb)
Fuel capacity: 2,450 l (556 imp gal; 647 US gal) internal;
plus 760 l (170 imp gal; 200 US gal) with 2 drop tanks
Powerplant:
2× Sorokin R3M-26 turbojets, rated at 37.2 kN (8,370 lbf) thrust each with afterburning
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,380km/h at sea level (Mach=1.16)
1,850km/h at 12,000m (Mach=1.8)
Range: 1,250 km (775 mi; 750 nmi) at 14,000 m (45,000 ft) with 2 × 490 l drop tanks
Combat range: 500 km (312 mi; 270 nmi)
Ferry range: 2,000 km (1,242 mi; 690 nmi)
Service ceiling: 19,750 m (64,690 ft)
Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 353.3 kg/m² (72.4 lb/ft²)
Thrust/weight: 0.86
Armament:
No internal guns.
4× underwing pylons; typically, a pair of PTB-490 drop tanks were carried on the outer pylon pair,
plus a pair of air-to air missiles on the inner pair: initially two radar-guided Kaliningrad K-5M (RS-2US)
AAMs, later two radar-guided K-55 or IR-guided Vympel K-13 (AA-2 'Atoll') AAMs
The kit and its assembly:
Another submission for the 2018 Cold War Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and again the opportunity to build a whiffy model from the project list. But it’s as fictional as one might think, since the SM-12 line of experimental “hybrid” fighters between the MiG-19 and the MiG-21 was real. But none of these aircraft ever made it into serial production, and in real life the MiG-21 showed so much potential that the attempts to improve the MiG-19 were stopped and no operational fighter entered production or service.
However, the SM-12, with its elongated nose and the central shock cone, makes a nice model subject, and I imagined what a service aircraft might have looked like? It would IMHO have been close, if not identical, to the SM-12PM, since this was the most refined pure jet fighter in the development family.
The basis for the build was a (dead cheap) Mastercraft MiG-19, which is a re-edition of the venerable Kovozávody Prostějov (KP) kit – as a tribute to modern tastes, it comes with (crudely) engraved panel, but it has a horrible fit all over. For instance, there was a 1mm gap between the fuselage and the right wing, the wing halves’ outlines did not match at all and it is questionable if the canopy actually belongs to the kit at all? PSR everywhere. I also had a Plastyk version of this kit on the table some time ago, but it was of a much better quality! O.K., the Mastercraft kit comes cheap, but it’s, to be honest, not a real bargain.
Even though the result would not be crisp I did some mods and changes. Internally, a cockpit tub was implanted (OOB there’s just a wacky seat hanging in mid air) plus some serious lead weight in the nose section for a proper stance.
On the outside, the new air intake is the most obvious change. I found a Su-17 intake (from a Mastercraft kit, too) and used a piece from a Matchbox B-17G’s dorsal turret to elongate the nose – it had an almost perfect diameter and a mildly conical shape. Some massive PSR work was necessary to blend the parts together, though.
The tail received new jet nozzles, scratched from steel needle protection covers, and the tail fairing was adjusted according to the real SM-12’s shape.
Ordnance was adapted, too: the drop tanks come from a Mastercraft MiG-21, and these supersonic PTB-490 tanks were indeed carried by the real SM-12 prototypes because the uprated engines were very thirsty and the original, teardrop-shaped MiG-19 tanks simply too draggy for the much faster SM-12. As a side note, the real SM-12’s short range was one of the serious factors that prevented the promising type’s production in real life. In order to overcome the poor range weakness I added an enlarged spine (half of a drop tank), inspired by the MiG-21 SMT, that would house an additional internal fuel tank.
The R2-SU/K-5 AAMs come from a vintage Mastercraft Soviet aircraft weapon set, which carries a pair of these 1st generation AAMs. While the molds seem to be a bit soft, the missiles look pretty convincing. Their pylons were taken from the kit (OOB they carry unguided AAM pods and are placed behind the main landing gear wells), just reversed and placed on the wings’ leading edges – similar to the real SM-12’s arrangement.
Painting and markings:
No surprises. In the Sixties, any PVO aircraft was left in bare metal, so there was hardly an alternative to a NMF finish.
Painting started with an all-over coat with acrylic Revell 99 (Aluminum), just the spine tank became light grey (Revell 371) for some contrast, and I painted some di-electric covers in a deep green (Revell 48).
The cockpit interior was painted with a bright mix of Revell 55 and some 48, while the landing gear wells and the back section of the cockpit were painted in a bluish grey (Revell 57).
The landing gear was painted in Steel (unpolished Modelmaster metallizer) and received classic, bright green wheel discs (Humbrol 2). As a small, unusual highlight the pitot boom under the chin received red and white stripes – seen on occasional MiG-19S fighters in Soviet service, and the anti-flutter booms on the stabilizers became bright red, too.
After the basic painting was done the kit received a black ink wash. Once this had dried and wiped off with a soft cotton cloth, post shading with various metallizer tones was added in order to liven up the uniform aircraft (including Humbrol’s matt and polished aluminum, and the exhaust section was treated with steel). Some panel lines were emphasized with a thin pencil.
Decals were puzzled together from various sources, a Guards badge and a few Russian stencils were added, too. Finally, the kit was sealed with a coat of sheen acrylic varnish (a 2:1 mix of Italeri matt and semi-gloss varnish).
The K-5 missiles, last but not least, were painted in aluminum, too, but their end caps (both front and tail section) became off-white.
The Mastercraft kit on which this conversion was based is crude, so I did not have high expectations concerning the outcome. But the new nose blends nicely into the MiG-19 fuselage, and the wide spine is a subtle detail that makes the aircraft look more “beefy” and less MiG-19-ish. The different drop tanks – even though they are authentic – visually add further speed. And despite many flaws, I am quite happy with the result of roundabout a week’s work.