REMASTERED by Dan Beaumont. ATLAS 10A rocket. WIKIPEDIA INFO CUT: Convair XSM-16A/X-11/SM-65A Atlas[edit]

The Convair XSM-16A (later X-11) was the first testbed for what became the Atlas missile. Later the Convair X-12 became a second, more advanced testbed. A total of 12 X-11's were built and tested. The first three were involved in static tests only. X-11 Number 4 and 6, were destroyed in launch accidents. All others performed successful test flights. The test series began on June 11, 1957 and ended on June 3, 1958.

It was developed into the SM-65A Atlas, or Atlas A,[8] which was the first full-scale prototype of the Atlas missile, which first flew on 11 June 1957. Unlike later versions of the Atlas missile, the Atlas A did not feature the stage and a half design. Instead, the booster engines were fixed in place, and the sustainer engine was omitted.

The Atlas A conducted eight test flights, of which four were successful. All test flights were conducted from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, at either Launch Complex 12 or Launch Complex 14.[8] Atlas A flights were powered by a single engine consisting of two large thrust chambers fed by a single set of turbopumps.

Convair X-12/SM-65B Atlas[edit]

The Convair X-12 was the second, more advanced testbed for the Atlas rocket program. It was designed with 2 engines, the booster engine used on the predecessor X-11 plus a sustainer engine. This combination of booster plus sustainer engines was designated the MA-1 engine system. MA-1 was used in Atlas B and Atlas C. MA-1 was the direct predecessor of the MA-2 engine system of Atlas D which in turn was the direct predecessor of the MA-5 engine system used in Atlas Agena and Atlas Centaur launch vehicles. The first flight of X-12 (Atlas B) was in July 1958. The X-12 pioneered the use of these 1.5 stage rocket engines that became a hallmark of the Atlas rocket program. It was also the first rocket to achieve a flight distance that could be considered intercontinental when it flew 6,325 miles (10,180 km).

Atlas B was first flown on 19 July 1958, and was the first version of the Atlas rocket to use the stage and a half design. Ten flights were made. Nine of these were sub-orbital test flights of the Atlas as an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, with five successful missions and four failures. The seventh flight, launched on 18 December 1958, was used to place the SCORE satellite into low Earth orbit, the first orbital launch conducted by an Atlas rocket.

All Atlas-B launches were conducted from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, at Launch Complexes 11, 13 and 14.[8]

BWI

Dec. 19, 2013

One of Northrop's small fleet of electronic testbeds.

It was manufactured in 1966. Based on the registeration number, this aircraft belonged to Westinghouse, before Northrop bought the company in 1996. So, it has been with the company for quite a while. Note on the side of the fuselage the outline of a large fairing that has been removed.

Looking remarkably intact in this time-warp image of over 60 years ago is the prototype Brown Boveri Gas Turbine locomotive 18000 which spent its working life hauling express passenger trains from Paddington before being withdrawn in late 1960. The machine, as is perhaps inevitable with prototypes, proved neither reliable nor cheap to run. After withdrawal the locomotive was kept at Swindon Works for four years before being repatriated to mainland europe where the gas turbine was removed and the locomotive used as a testbed for experiments on rail-wheel interaction. Once these experiments were concluded the locomotive was put on display in Vienna in 1975 and was eventually secured for preservation in the UK in the early 1990s initially being stored at Crewe.

Although there is no realistic possibility of re-instating the original type of power unit, it is still good to see that the locomotive is safely in preservation. Externally, some repairs are needed, to be followed by a repaint to the original livery of black and silver. Internally, there is a good deal of conservation to be undertaken. The intention is to use 18000 as the focal point of a display relating to the post WW2 business plan for the 1950s, published by the GWR under the title 'NEXT STATION', of which the new gas turbine electric locomotive was an important part. (With thanks to the Didcot Railway Centre website for the above information).

For my video; youtu.be/eUlucDselyU?si=MM26sDQkerDxrGbM,

MSA (Minesweeper Auxiliary) Brolga (1102) was a minesweeper operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) between 1988 and 2003. Launched in 1975 by Australian Shipbuilding Industries, the ship was designed for the Department of Transport as the lighthouse tender Lumen. Originally operating as a supply vessel for lighthouses around northern Queensland and the Torres Strait, the transition in lighthouse lights from acetylene gas to solar power meant there was less demand for the vessel, and by 1988, the Department of Transport was looking to sell the ship.

Around this time, the RAN was looking to acquire vessels under the Craft of Opportunity Program, to serve as auxiliary minesweepers and technology testbeds.

Following the sale, Brolga was relocated to Fremantle in February 2004. At the time of the sale, the new owner stated the intention of using her as a mothership for a fishing fleet.

Later converted to a diving and salvage platform, the renamed Retriever 1 was suspected to be linked to the disappearance of conman Peter Foster in January 2007. She was detained and searched multiple times by Vanuatuan police, and three of the ship's eight crew were arrested on immigration and firearms charges. Three crew members were charged with harbouring Foster, but they denied the charges. However, according to Andrew Kelman, head of Transnational Crimes Unit for Vanuatu, Peter Foster had claimed he had been on the boat and had tried to make a deal with Kelman implicating the crew

Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Porsche 356 Coupé (1950) at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.

This early 356 was gifted to Ferdinand Porsche on his 75th birthday. It was later used as a testbed by the company.

Porsche 356 (1950-)

1,086 litre flat-4 engine

29 kW at 4000 rpm

Kerb weight: 810 kg

Vmax: 140 km/h

Airfix Lancaster B.II built as Metrovick F.2 testbed LL735

Honeywell International, Boeing 757-225, msn 22194 L/n 5, reg N757HW. The 5th 757 ever built is used by Honeywell as a flying testbed for electronics, engines (hung on a pylon at the right nose fuselage, etc. Seen static and flying display at Egyptian Airshow held a El Alamein International airport (DBB / HEAL)

Piction ID: 83163104 Filename: perma_002719.tif Title: Convair B-36 Nuclear Testbed--Perman Collection Image--Please tag these photos so information can be recorded.---Note: This material may be protected by Copyright Law (Title 17 U.S.C.)--Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum

787-8 Dreamliner Testbed. Broken up at KPAE April 2018

F-111A.

Wright Patterson AFB,

May 1968.

Preserved at Chanute Air Museum, Rantoul AVN Complex, Illinois

Unique testbed loco 47901 in Triple Grey with Construction Branding at Westbury on 25th May 1989, taken during the Westbury diversions for Waterloo / Salisbury to Yeovil / Exeter services, due to engineering works between Salisbury and Yeovil, which meant services were diverted via Westbury.

USS Texas (BB-35) is a museum ship and former United States Navy New York-class battleship. She was launched on 18 May 1912 and commissioned on 12 March 1914.

Texas served in Mexican waters following the 'Tampico Incident' but saw no action there, and made numerous sorties into the North Sea during World War I without engaging the enemy, though she did fire in anger for the first time when shooting medium-caliber guns at supposed submarines (no evidence exists that suggests these were anything more than waves). In World War II, Texas escorted war convoys across the Atlantic and later shelled Vichy French forces in the North African Landings and German-held beaches in the Normandy Landings before being transferred to the Pacific Theater late in 1944 to provide naval gunfire support during the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. She was the only Allied battleship that took part in all four of these amphibious landings. Texas was decommissioned in 1948, having earned a total of five battle stars for service in World War II.

Texas was also a technological testbed: the first US battleship to mount anti-aircraft guns, the first US warship to control gunfire with directors and range-keepers, the first US battleship to launch an aircraft, and one of the first US Navy warships to receive production radar.

Texas was the first US battleship to become a permanent museum ship." -- Wikipedia

Pima Air & Space Museum

Not really but it looks good. Its been done with a Nokia mirror app. Its x2 Eurofighter P2E jets mirrored together.

P2E HISTORY

BAE Systems is to begin flight trials of the Phase 2 Enhancements (P2E) package for the Eurofighter Typhoon in the coming weeks, Aug 2015

Speaking at the company's Warton facility, Andy Flynn, head of Capability Delivery for the United Kingdom and the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency (NETMA), said that work to upgrade Instrumented Production Aircraft (IPA) 6 to the P2E standard is under way at the site, ahead of the commencement of flight trials in August.

"IPA6 is being upgraded to P2E right now. We expect to do engine ground runs next week, to be followed shortly after by approximately 150 flight trials of the configuration [across the international test fleet]. These will run through to the end of the year," he said.

The P2E is the latest in a number of capability enhancements that are being rolled out for the international Typhoon fleet. The earlier P1E(A) and P1E(B) upgrades laid the foundations for the ongoing development work, and afforded the jet a 'swing-role' air-to-air and air-to-surface capability. With P1E now in service with the operators (in the United Kingdom it was introduced under the Interim Force 2015 capability effort), BAE Systems is now under contract to deliver P2E.

P2E, which forms part of the UK's wider-Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) 2018 capability set, comprises integration of the MBDA Meteor beyond visual range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM), and the MBDA Storm Shadow cruise missile. This phase also includes additional cockpit interface enhancements. "P2E will give the Typhoon the long stick of Meteor and the deep strike of Storm Shadow," Flynn noted.

The single-seat IPA6 testbed will be joined in the P2E flight test campaign by a twin-seat Typhoon that BAE Systems has loaned back from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). This aircraft, British Trainer (BT)017, is currently undergoing its 500-hour servicing at Warton, but should be ready to join IPA6 as a P2E-configured jet before the end of 2015. Besides helping with the trials, BT017 will also be used for operational performance evaluations of the enhanced configuration.

As well as the two BAE Systems aircraft, other testbed platforms will be provided by the other Eurofighter consortium nations of Germany, Italy, and Spain also, with the Italians performing Storm Shadow firings in the United Kingdom later in the year.

According to Steve Kenchington, engineering manager of the Typhoon Development Fleet, the P2E flight test campaign will see the Meteor fired first, due to range availability and other factors, to be followed by Storm Shadow and general P2E development work. "We are now within weeks of firing a Meteor missile," he said, adding: "The firings already done on IPA1 in December [2014] were really just to test the missile itself, whereas these will be concerned with integrating it onto the latest standard Typhoon and to test the missile's interaction with the radar."

Assuming that the flight trials are successful, the P2E configuration should be ready for fielding before the end of 2017. While all the nations will upgrade their aircraft to P2E standard, the United Kindgom is leading the way in further enhancements, with BAE Systems also under contract to deliver the P3E upgrade by the end of 2018.

The key feature of P3E, which will deliver the Typhoon component of the UK's Future Force 2020 capability set, is the integration of the MBDA Dual-Mode Brimstone 2 air-to-surface missile with a precision effect against fast-moving targets. This Brimstone 2 capability, when combined with the already-delivered Raytheon Paveway IV precision-guided bomb, and the Meteor and Storm Shadow, will provide the Royal Air Force (RAF) with its Project Centurion configuration for the Typhoon. This configuration is set to be rolled out in 2018 to ensure that there is no capability gap when the Panavia Tornado GR.4 strike aircraft is retired from service in 2019.

The United Kingdom is currently the only partner nation that is committed to P3E, and BAE Systems has already begun work on developing P4E and even P5E. Although these enhancements are still conceptual, they can loosely be defined by the integration of advanced sensors, including the Euroradar Captor electronically scanned (E-Scan) radar; and advanced weapon systems, such as the MBDA Selective Precision Effects At Range (SPEAR) Capability 3 (Cap 3), and the delivery of an Anti-Fast Inshore Attack Craft (FIAC) capability with the Brimstone 2.

The active electronically scanned array (AESA) E-Scan radar is currently in its Extended Assessment Phase (EAP), with an integration contract having been signed in late 2014. BAE Systems is to shortly fit a developmental but fully functioning E-Scan radar into testbed aircraft IPA5, with the aim of commencing trials before the end of 2015.

While P1E to P3E have been contracted, and P4E and P5E are still being defined, there are a number of other developmental projects under way by BAE Systems and the wider Eurofighter consortium that are all geared at enhancing the Typhoon's capabilities. These include the BAE Systems Striker II next-generation helmet, conformal fuel tanks, the Smart Dispensing System for countermeasures, the Common Weapon Launcher, and others. While not currently under contract to any of the operating nations, any or all of these could be offered for future capability drops at the customer's request.

Arriva London Ltd.:

DW411 was retrofitted with a new driveline, as a testbed for what would become the Wrightbus StreetDeck. The original 6-cyl Cummins ISBe engine was replaced with the Mercedes-Benz (Daimler) OM934. The vehicle caught fire shortly after arrival to the London fleet in 2011, so instead of being written off, she was given a new lease of life, and a slightly different identity!

VDLbus DB300 (Daimler) /

Wrightbus Gemini 2DL (10.5m)

H41/24D - 2011

Clapton Common, Stamford Hill (A107)

Saturday 1st August 2015

GE testbed, apparently classified as a C39-9.

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. Its production was preceded by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X (sometimes referred to as VF-X1) was strictly a conventional/non-transformable jet aircraft, even though it incorporated many structural components and several key technologies that were vital for the transformable VF-1’s successful development that ran in parallel. Therefore, the VF-X was never intended as an air superiority fighter, but rather a flight-capable analogue test bed and proof of concept for the VF-1’s basic layout and major components. In this role, however, the VF-X made vital contributions to systems’ development that were later incorporated into the VF-1’s serial production and sped the program up considerably.

The fighter remained active in many second line units and continued to show its worthiness years later, e. g. through Milia Jenius who would use her old VF-1 fighter in defense of the colonization fleet - 35 years after the type's service introduction.

General characteristics:

Accommodation: One pilot in a Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons

Power Plant:

2x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry/P&W/Roice FF-2001 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, output 650 MW each, rated at 11,500 kg in standard or in overboost (225.63 kN x 2)

4 x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry NBS-1 high-thrust vernier thrusters (1 x counter reverse vernier thruster nozzle mounted on the side of each leg nacelle/air intake, 1 x wing thruster roll control system on each wingtip);

Performance:

Top speed: Mach 2.71 at 10,000 m; Mach 3.87 at 30,000+ m

Thrust-to-weight ratio: empty 3.47; standard T-O 2.49; maximum T-O 1.24

Armament:

None installed, but the VF-X had 4x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, plus a ventral hardpoint for a Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rds/min or other stores like test instruments

The model and its assembly:

Another submission to the “Prototypes” group build at whatifmodelers.com in July 2020. Being a VF-1 fan (and have built maybe twenty o these simple Arii kits), adding a VF-X was, more or less, a must – even more so because I had a suitable Valkyrie Fighter kit at hand for the conversion. As a side note, I have actually built something quite similar from a VF-1D many years ago: a fictional, non-transformable advanced trainer, without knowing about the VF-X at all.

Thanks to the “Macross - Perfect Memory” source book, the differences between the transformable VF-1 and its early testbed were easy to identify:

- Fixed legs with faired ducts from the intakes on (thighs)

- Ankle recesses disappeared

- Less and slightly different panel lines on the back and on the nose

- ventral head unit deleted and a respective fairing installed instead

- Levelled underside (shoulder fairings of the folded arms were cut down)

- Leg attachment points on the nose deleted

- No small, circular vernier thrusters all around the hull

- Some new/different venting grills (created mostly with 0.5mm black decal stripes)

Beyond the changes, the VF-1A was basically built OOB. Thankfully, the VF-X already features the later VF-1’s vectored thrust nozzles/feet, so that no changes had to be made in this respect. A pilot figure was added to the cockpit for the beauty pics, and after the flight scenes had been shot, the canopy remained open on a swing arm for static display. For the same reason, the model was built with the landing gear extended.

As a test aircraft, the underwing pylons and their AMM-1 ordnance were left away and the attachment points hidden with putty. I also omitted the ventral gun pod and left the aircraft clean. However, for the flight scene pictures, I implanted an adapter for a display holder made from wire.

In order to emphasize the test vehicle character of the VF-X, I gave the model a scratched spin recovery parachute installation between the fins, using a real world F-22 testbed as benchmark. It consists of styrene profiles, quite a delicate construction. For the same reason I gave the VF-X a long sensor boom on the nose, which changes the Valkyrie’s look, too. Finally, some small blade antennae were added to the nose and to the spine behind the cockpit.

Painting and markings:

To be honest, I have no idea if there was only a single VF-X prototype in the Macross universe, or more. Just one appears in the TV series in episode #33, and lack of suitable information and my personal lack of Japanese language proficiency prevents any deeper research. However, this would not keep me from inventing a personal interpretation of the canonical VF-X, especially because I do not really like the original livery from the TV series: an overall light grey with some simple black trim and “TEST” written on the (fixed) legs. Yamato did an 1:60 scale toy of the VF-X, but it was/is just a VF-1 with a ventral fairing; they added some shading to the basic grey – but this does not make the aircraft more attractive, IMHO.

When I looked at the original conceptual drawing of the VF-X in the “Macross - Perfect Memory” source book, however, I was immediately reminded of the F-15 prototypes from the Seventies (and this program used a total of twelve machines!). These featured originally a light grey (FS 36375?) overall base, to which bright dayglo orange markings on wings, fins and fuselage were soon added – in a very similar pattern to the VF-X. I think the VF-X livery was actually inspired by this, the time frame matches well with the production of the Macross TV series, too, and that’s what I adapted for my model.

In order to come close to the F-15 prototype livery, I gave “my” VF-X an overall basic coat of RAL 7047 “Telegrau 4”, one of German Telekom’s corporate colors and a very pale grey that can easily be mistaken for white when you do not have a contrast reference.

The cockpit received a medium grey finish, the ejection seat became black with brown cushions; the pilot figure is a 1:100 seated passenger from an architecture supplies, painted like an early VF-1 pilot in a white/blue suit. The jet nozzles/feet were painted with Revell 91 (Iron) and later treated with grinded graphite for a more metallic finish. The landing gear became classic white (I used Revell 301, which is a very pure tone, as contrast to the RAL 7047 on the hull), the air intake ducts and the internal sections of the VG wings were painted with dark grey (Revell 77).

For some diversity I took inspiration from the Yamato VF-X toy and added slightly darker (Humbrol 166, RAF Light Aircraft Grey) areas to the hull and the legs. Next, the panel lines were emphasized through a thinned black ink wash, but I did no panel post shading so that the VF-X would not look too dirty or worn.

Onto this basis I applied the orange dayglo markings. On the wings and fins, these were painted – they were applied with spray paint from a rattle can, involving lots of masking. The leading edges on wings and fins were created with grey decal sheet material, too. At this stage, some surface details and more fake panel lines were added with a soft pencil.

The orange cheatline under the cockpit is a personal addition; I found that some more orange had to be added to the nose for visual balance, and I eventually went for the simple, trimmed stripe (TL Modellbau material) instead of trying to apply decal sheet material around the jagged air intakes (F-15 prototype style). The black “TEST”, “VFX” and “U.N. Spacy” markings were designed at the computer and printed on clear inkjet decal paper. Even though the “real” VF-X does not feature the UNS “kite” insignia, I decided to add them to the model. These come from the OOB sheet, which also provided most (slightly yellowed) stencils.

Finally, the model was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

A rather different VF-1 project (and it is – to my astonishment – #28 in my 1:100 VF-1 Fighter mode collection!!!), with more changes to the basic model kit than one might expect at first sight. VF-X and VF-1 differ considerably from each other, despite identical outlines! However, I like the outcome, and I think that going a different route from the canonical grey/black livery paid out, the bright orange markings really make this VF-X stand out, and it looks IMHO more like a testbed than the “real” aircraft from the TV series.

The Rolls-Royce 747 testbed returns to Tucson International Airport following a mission, note the test engine on the inner pylon.

Isle of Wight

An experimental ship used by the Royal Navy as a testbed for new technologies

By Eduardo Merille

Starting with an NKC-135A Airborne Laser Lab eventual converting to the test program to the Boeing YAL-1A

In 2001, a retired Air India 747-200 was acquired by the Air Force and trucked without its wings from the Mojave Airport to Edwards Air Force Base where the airframe was incorporated into the System Integration Laboratory (SIL) building at Edwards' Birk Flight Test Center, to be used to fit check and test the various components

The Boeing YAL-1 airborne laser testbed was a modified Boeing 747-400F with a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) mounted inside. It was primarily designed to test its feasibility as a missile defense system to destroy tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs) while in boost phase. The aircraft was designated YAL-1A in 2004 by the U.S. Department of Defense

Airbus A350-941

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. Its production was preceded by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X (sometimes referred to as VF-X1) was strictly a conventional/non-transformable jet aircraft, even though it incorporated many structural components and several key technologies that were vital for the transformable VF-1’s successful development that ran in parallel. Therefore, the VF-X was never intended as an air superiority fighter, but rather a flight-capable analogue test bed and proof of concept for the VF-1’s basic layout and major components. In this role, however, the VF-X made vital contributions to systems’ development that were later incorporated into the VF-1’s serial production and sped the program up considerably.

The fighter remained active in many second line units and continued to show its worthiness years later, e. g. through Milia Jenius who would use her old VF-1 fighter in defense of the colonization fleet - 35 years after the type's service introduction.

General characteristics:

Accommodation: One pilot in a Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons

Power Plant:

2x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry/P&W/Roice FF-2001 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, output 650 MW each, rated at 11,500 kg in standard or in overboost (225.63 kN x 2)

4 x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry NBS-1 high-thrust vernier thrusters (1 x counter reverse vernier thruster nozzle mounted on the side of each leg nacelle/air intake, 1 x wing thruster roll control system on each wingtip);

Performance:

Top speed: Mach 2.71 at 10,000 m; Mach 3.87 at 30,000+ m

Thrust-to-weight ratio: empty 3.47; standard T-O 2.49; maximum T-O 1.24

Armament:

None installed, but the VF-X had 4x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, plus a ventral hardpoint for a Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rds/min or other stores like test instruments

The model and its assembly:

Another submission to the “Prototypes” group build at whatifmodelers.com in July 2020. Being a VF-1 fan (and have built maybe twenty o these simple Arii kits), adding a VF-X was, more or less, a must – even more so because I had a suitable Valkyrie Fighter kit at hand for the conversion. As a side note, I have actually built something quite similar from a VF-1D many years ago: a fictional, non-transformable advanced trainer, without knowing about the VF-X at all.

Thanks to the “Macross - Perfect Memory” source book, the differences between the transformable VF-1 and its early testbed were easy to identify:

- Fixed legs with faired ducts from the intakes on (thighs)

- Ankle recesses disappeared

- Less and slightly different panel lines on the back and on the nose

- ventral head unit deleted and a respective fairing installed instead

- Levelled underside (shoulder fairings of the folded arms were cut down)

- Leg attachment points on the nose deleted

- No small, circular vernier thrusters all around the hull

- Some new/different venting grills (created mostly with 0.5mm black decal stripes)

Beyond the changes, the VF-1A was basically built OOB. Thankfully, the VF-X already features the later VF-1’s vectored thrust nozzles/feet, so that no changes had to be made in this respect. A pilot figure was added to the cockpit for the beauty pics, and after the flight scenes had been shot, the canopy remained open on a swing arm for static display. For the same reason, the model was built with the landing gear extended.

As a test aircraft, the underwing pylons and their AMM-1 ordnance were left away and the attachment points hidden with putty. I also omitted the ventral gun pod and left the aircraft clean. However, for the flight scene pictures, I implanted an adapter for a display holder made from wire.

In order to emphasize the test vehicle character of the VF-X, I gave the model a scratched spin recovery parachute installation between the fins, using a real world F-22 testbed as benchmark. It consists of styrene profiles, quite a delicate construction. For the same reason I gave the VF-X a long sensor boom on the nose, which changes the Valkyrie’s look, too. Finally, some small blade antennae were added to the nose and to the spine behind the cockpit.

Painting and markings:

To be honest, I have no idea if there was only a single VF-X prototype in the Macross universe, or more. Just one appears in the TV series in episode #33, and lack of suitable information and my personal lack of Japanese language proficiency prevents any deeper research. However, this would not keep me from inventing a personal interpretation of the canonical VF-X, especially because I do not really like the original livery from the TV series: an overall light grey with some simple black trim and “TEST” written on the (fixed) legs. Yamato did an 1:60 scale toy of the VF-X, but it was/is just a VF-1 with a ventral fairing; they added some shading to the basic grey – but this does not make the aircraft more attractive, IMHO.

When I looked at the original conceptual drawing of the VF-X in the “Macross - Perfect Memory” source book, however, I was immediately reminded of the F-15 prototypes from the Seventies (and this program used a total of twelve machines!). These featured originally a light grey (FS 36375?) overall base, to which bright dayglo orange markings on wings, fins and fuselage were soon added – in a very similar pattern to the VF-X. I think the VF-X livery was actually inspired by this, the time frame matches well with the production of the Macross TV series, too, and that’s what I adapted for my model.

In order to come close to the F-15 prototype livery, I gave “my” VF-X an overall basic coat of RAL 7047 “Telegrau 4”, one of German Telekom’s corporate colors and a very pale grey that can easily be mistaken for white when you do not have a contrast reference.

The cockpit received a medium grey finish, the ejection seat became black with brown cushions; the pilot figure is a 1:100 seated passenger from an architecture supplies, painted like an early VF-1 pilot in a white/blue suit. The jet nozzles/feet were painted with Revell 91 (Iron) and later treated with grinded graphite for a more metallic finish. The landing gear became classic white (I used Revell 301, which is a very pure tone, as contrast to the RAL 7047 on the hull), the air intake ducts and the internal sections of the VG wings were painted with dark grey (Revell 77).

For some diversity I took inspiration from the Yamato VF-X toy and added slightly darker (Humbrol 166, RAF Light Aircraft Grey) areas to the hull and the legs. Next, the panel lines were emphasized through a thinned black ink wash, but I did no panel post shading so that the VF-X would not look too dirty or worn.

Onto this basis I applied the orange dayglo markings. On the wings and fins, these were painted – they were applied with spray paint from a rattle can, involving lots of masking. The leading edges on wings and fins were created with grey decal sheet material, too. At this stage, some surface details and more fake panel lines were added with a soft pencil.

The orange cheatline under the cockpit is a personal addition; I found that some more orange had to be added to the nose for visual balance, and I eventually went for the simple, trimmed stripe (TL Modellbau material) instead of trying to apply decal sheet material around the jagged air intakes (F-15 prototype style). The black “TEST”, “VFX” and “U.N. Spacy” markings were designed at the computer and printed on clear inkjet decal paper. Even though the “real” VF-X does not feature the UNS “kite” insignia, I decided to add them to the model. These come from the OOB sheet, which also provided most (slightly yellowed) stencils.

Finally, the model was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

A rather different VF-1 project (and it is – to my astonishment – #28 in my 1:100 VF-1 Fighter mode collection!!!), with more changes to the basic model kit than one might expect at first sight. VF-X and VF-1 differ considerably from each other, despite identical outlines! However, I like the outcome, and I think that going a different route from the canonical grey/black livery paid out, the bright orange markings really make this VF-X stand out, and it looks IMHO more like a testbed than the “real” aircraft from the TV series.

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. Its production was preceded by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X (sometimes referred to as VF-X1) was strictly a conventional/non-transformable jet aircraft, even though it incorporated many structural components and several key technologies that were vital for the transformable VF-1’s successful development that ran in parallel. Therefore, the VF-X was never intended as an air superiority fighter, but rather a flight-capable analogue test bed and proof of concept for the VF-1’s basic layout and major components. In this role, however, the VF-X made vital contributions to systems’ development that were later incorporated into the VF-1’s serial production and sped the program up considerably.

The fighter remained active in many second line units and continued to show its worthiness years later, e. g. through Milia Jenius who would use her old VF-1 fighter in defense of the colonization fleet - 35 years after the type's service introduction.

General characteristics:

Accommodation: One pilot in a Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons

Power Plant:

2x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry/P&W/Roice FF-2001 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, output 650 MW each, rated at 11,500 kg in standard or in overboost (225.63 kN x 2)

4 x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry NBS-1 high-thrust vernier thrusters (1 x counter reverse vernier thruster nozzle mounted on the side of each leg nacelle/air intake, 1 x wing thruster roll control system on each wingtip);

Performance:

Top speed: Mach 2.71 at 10,000 m; Mach 3.87 at 30,000+ m

Thrust-to-weight ratio: empty 3.47; standard T-O 2.49; maximum T-O 1.24

Armament:

None installed, but the VF-X had 4x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, plus a ventral hardpoint for a Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rds/min or other stores like test instruments

The model and its assembly:

Another submission to the “Prototypes” group build at whatifmodelers.com in July 2020. Being a VF-1 fan (and have built maybe twenty o these simple Arii kits), adding a VF-X was, more or less, a must – even more so because I had a suitable Valkyrie Fighter kit at hand for the conversion. As a side note, I have actually built something quite similar from a VF-1D many years ago: a fictional, non-transformable advanced trainer, without knowing about the VF-X at all.

Thanks to the “Macross - Perfect Memory” source book, the differences between the transformable VF-1 and its early testbed were easy to identify:

- Fixed legs with faired ducts from the intakes on (thighs)

- Ankle recesses disappeared

- Less and slightly different panel lines on the back and on the nose

- ventral head unit deleted and a respective fairing installed instead

- Levelled underside (shoulder fairings of the folded arms were cut down)

- Leg attachment points on the nose deleted

- No small, circular vernier thrusters all around the hull

- Some new/different venting grills (created mostly with 0.5mm black decal stripes)

Beyond the changes, the VF-1A was basically built OOB. Thankfully, the VF-X already features the later VF-1’s vectored thrust nozzles/feet, so that no changes had to be made in this respect. A pilot figure was added to the cockpit for the beauty pics, and after the flight scenes had been shot, the canopy remained open on a swing arm for static display. For the same reason, the model was built with the landing gear extended.

As a test aircraft, the underwing pylons and their AMM-1 ordnance were left away and the attachment points hidden with putty. I also omitted the ventral gun pod and left the aircraft clean. However, for the flight scene pictures, I implanted an adapter for a display holder made from wire.

In order to emphasize the test vehicle character of the VF-X, I gave the model a scratched spin recovery parachute installation between the fins, using a real world F-22 testbed as benchmark. It consists of styrene profiles, quite a delicate construction. For the same reason I gave the VF-X a long sensor boom on the nose, which changes the Valkyrie’s look, too. Finally, some small blade antennae were added to the nose and to the spine behind the cockpit.

Painting and markings:

To be honest, I have no idea if there was only a single VF-X prototype in the Macross universe, or more. Just one appears in the TV series in episode #33, and lack of suitable information and my personal lack of Japanese language proficiency prevents any deeper research. However, this would not keep me from inventing a personal interpretation of the canonical VF-X, especially because I do not really like the original livery from the TV series: an overall light grey with some simple black trim and “TEST” written on the (fixed) legs. Yamato did an 1:60 scale toy of the VF-X, but it was/is just a VF-1 with a ventral fairing; they added some shading to the basic grey – but this does not make the aircraft more attractive, IMHO.

When I looked at the original conceptual drawing of the VF-X in the “Macross - Perfect Memory” source book, however, I was immediately reminded of the F-15 prototypes from the Seventies (and this program used a total of twelve machines!). These featured originally a light grey (FS 36375?) overall base, to which bright dayglo orange markings on wings, fins and fuselage were soon added – in a very similar pattern to the VF-X. I think the VF-X livery was actually inspired by this, the time frame matches well with the production of the Macross TV series, too, and that’s what I adapted for my model.

In order to come close to the F-15 prototype livery, I gave “my” VF-X an overall basic coat of RAL 7047 “Telegrau 4”, one of German Telekom’s corporate colors and a very pale grey that can easily be mistaken for white when you do not have a contrast reference.

The cockpit received a medium grey finish, the ejection seat became black with brown cushions; the pilot figure is a 1:100 seated passenger from an architecture supplies, painted like an early VF-1 pilot in a white/blue suit. The jet nozzles/feet were painted with Revell 91 (Iron) and later treated with grinded graphite for a more metallic finish. The landing gear became classic white (I used Revell 301, which is a very pure tone, as contrast to the RAL 7047 on the hull), the air intake ducts and the internal sections of the VG wings were painted with dark grey (Revell 77).

For some diversity I took inspiration from the Yamato VF-X toy and added slightly darker (Humbrol 166, RAF Light Aircraft Grey) areas to the hull and the legs. Next, the panel lines were emphasized through a thinned black ink wash, but I did no panel post shading so that the VF-X would not look too dirty or worn.

Onto this basis I applied the orange dayglo markings. On the wings and fins, these were painted – they were applied with spray paint from a rattle can, involving lots of masking. The leading edges on wings and fins were created with grey decal sheet material, too. At this stage, some surface details and more fake panel lines were added with a soft pencil.

The orange cheatline under the cockpit is a personal addition; I found that some more orange had to be added to the nose for visual balance, and I eventually went for the simple, trimmed stripe (TL Modellbau material) instead of trying to apply decal sheet material around the jagged air intakes (F-15 prototype style). The black “TEST”, “VFX” and “U.N. Spacy” markings were designed at the computer and printed on clear inkjet decal paper. Even though the “real” VF-X does not feature the UNS “kite” insignia, I decided to add them to the model. These come from the OOB sheet, which also provided most (slightly yellowed) stencils.

Finally, the model was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

A rather different VF-1 project (and it is – to my astonishment – #28 in my 1:100 VF-1 Fighter mode collection!!!), with more changes to the basic model kit than one might expect at first sight. VF-X and VF-1 differ considerably from each other, despite identical outlines! However, I like the outcome, and I think that going a different route from the canonical grey/black livery paid out, the bright orange markings really make this VF-X stand out, and it looks IMHO more like a testbed than the “real” aircraft from the TV series.

C.P.X624 Leonardo Velivoli Aermacchi M-345 HET High Efficiency Trainer at Venegono (VA) QVN LILN Leonardo's facility.

(Almos.C.)

6th B-58 ever built (AF Serial No. 55-0665), used as a AN/ASG-18 and GAR-9 testbed. To accomodate the AN/ASG-18 radar the B-58 was lengthened by approximately 7 feet (the nose is longer than a standard B-58). This aircraft was also used to test launch the GAR-9 (aka Falcon) missile, until that mission was taken over by the YF-12 interceptor version of the Blackbird.

Moved to photo target range at Edwards AFB when testing career was over, now just a derelict hulk.

Google Earth view of site: View Larger Map

This year I plan on attending Brickfair Virginia and like last year, will be participating in a military collaboration themed “eXperimental military”. This is the second set of models which I plan on displaying with many more in the works. From left to right is the Heinkel 178 then, the Gloster E.28 Pioneer. Both of these models represent a milestone in aviation and served as testbeds for the early jet engine. The E.28 was the RAFs test aircraft to test Frank Whittle’s new jet engine. Technically, the British designed and patented the jet first, however the Germans got their jet airborne making its maiden flight in 1939 betting the British to the first jet. The Germans saw the potential in the jet. Hitler wanted an aircraft far superior to anything the allies had and was willing to fund more experimental projects. The British government however, did not see the jet as a viable replacement to propeller driven aircraft which delayed the development of the first British jet fighter. Both countries did end up finally making a jet fighter. Germany made the Me-262 and the British eventually came up with the Meteor.

My models have functioning undercarriages and are scaled to mini figure scale. I plan on contributing more to the collab but thought that this would be a nice addition.

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. Its production was preceded by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X (sometimes referred to as VF-X1) was strictly a conventional/non-transformable jet aircraft, even though it incorporated many structural components and several key technologies that were vital for the transformable VF-1’s successful development that ran in parallel. Therefore, the VF-X was never intended as an air superiority fighter, but rather a flight-capable analogue test bed and proof of concept for the VF-1’s basic layout and major components. In this role, however, the VF-X made vital contributions to systems’ development that were later incorporated into the VF-1’s serial production and sped the program up considerably.

The fighter remained active in many second line units and continued to show its worthiness years later, e. g. through Milia Jenius who would use her old VF-1 fighter in defense of the colonization fleet - 35 years after the type's service introduction.

General characteristics:

Accommodation: One pilot in a Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons

Power Plant:

2x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry/P&W/Roice FF-2001 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, output 650 MW each, rated at 11,500 kg in standard or in overboost (225.63 kN x 2)

4 x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry NBS-1 high-thrust vernier thrusters (1 x counter reverse vernier thruster nozzle mounted on the side of each leg nacelle/air intake, 1 x wing thruster roll control system on each wingtip);

Performance:

Top speed: Mach 2.71 at 10,000 m; Mach 3.87 at 30,000+ m

Thrust-to-weight ratio: empty 3.47; standard T-O 2.49; maximum T-O 1.24

Armament:

None installed, but the VF-X had 4x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, plus a ventral hardpoint for a Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rds/min or other stores like test instruments

The model and its assembly:

Another submission to the “Prototypes” group build at whatifmodelers.com in July 2020. Being a VF-1 fan (and have built maybe twenty o these simple Arii kits), adding a VF-X was, more or less, a must – even more so because I had a suitable Valkyrie Fighter kit at hand for the conversion. As a side note, I have actually built something quite similar from a VF-1D many years ago: a fictional, non-transformable advanced trainer, without knowing about the VF-X at all.

Thanks to the “Macross - Perfect Memory” source book, the differences between the transformable VF-1 and its early testbed were easy to identify:

- Fixed legs with faired ducts from the intakes on (thighs)

- Ankle recesses disappeared

- Less and slightly different panel lines on the back and on the nose

- ventral head unit deleted and a respective fairing installed instead

- Levelled underside (shoulder fairings of the folded arms were cut down)

- Leg attachment points on the nose deleted

- No small, circular vernier thrusters all around the hull

- Some new/different venting grills (created mostly with 0.5mm black decal stripes)

Beyond the changes, the VF-1A was basically built OOB. Thankfully, the VF-X already features the later VF-1’s vectored thrust nozzles/feet, so that no changes had to be made in this respect. A pilot figure was added to the cockpit for the beauty pics, and after the flight scenes had been shot, the canopy remained open on a swing arm for static display. For the same reason, the model was built with the landing gear extended.

As a test aircraft, the underwing pylons and their AMM-1 ordnance were left away and the attachment points hidden with putty. I also omitted the ventral gun pod and left the aircraft clean. However, for the flight scene pictures, I implanted an adapter for a display holder made from wire.

In order to emphasize the test vehicle character of the VF-X, I gave the model a scratched spin recovery parachute installation between the fins, using a real world F-22 testbed as benchmark. It consists of styrene profiles, quite a delicate construction. For the same reason I gave the VF-X a long sensor boom on the nose, which changes the Valkyrie’s look, too. Finally, some small blade antennae were added to the nose and to the spine behind the cockpit.

Painting and markings:

To be honest, I have no idea if there was only a single VF-X prototype in the Macross universe, or more. Just one appears in the TV series in episode #33, and lack of suitable information and my personal lack of Japanese language proficiency prevents any deeper research. However, this would not keep me from inventing a personal interpretation of the canonical VF-X, especially because I do not really like the original livery from the TV series: an overall light grey with some simple black trim and “TEST” written on the (fixed) legs. Yamato did an 1:60 scale toy of the VF-X, but it was/is just a VF-1 with a ventral fairing; they added some shading to the basic grey – but this does not make the aircraft more attractive, IMHO.

When I looked at the original conceptual drawing of the VF-X in the “Macross - Perfect Memory” source book, however, I was immediately reminded of the F-15 prototypes from the Seventies (and this program used a total of twelve machines!). These featured originally a light grey (FS 36375?) overall base, to which bright dayglo orange markings on wings, fins and fuselage were soon added – in a very similar pattern to the VF-X. I think the VF-X livery was actually inspired by this, the time frame matches well with the production of the Macross TV series, too, and that’s what I adapted for my model.

In order to come close to the F-15 prototype livery, I gave “my” VF-X an overall basic coat of RAL 7047 “Telegrau 4”, one of German Telekom’s corporate colors and a very pale grey that can easily be mistaken for white when you do not have a contrast reference.

The cockpit received a medium grey finish, the ejection seat became black with brown cushions; the pilot figure is a 1:100 seated passenger from an architecture supplies, painted like an early VF-1 pilot in a white/blue suit. The jet nozzles/feet were painted with Revell 91 (Iron) and later treated with grinded graphite for a more metallic finish. The landing gear became classic white (I used Revell 301, which is a very pure tone, as contrast to the RAL 7047 on the hull), the air intake ducts and the internal sections of the VG wings were painted with dark grey (Revell 77).

For some diversity I took inspiration from the Yamato VF-X toy and added slightly darker (Humbrol 166, RAF Light Aircraft Grey) areas to the hull and the legs. Next, the panel lines were emphasized through a thinned black ink wash, but I did no panel post shading so that the VF-X would not look too dirty or worn.

Onto this basis I applied the orange dayglo markings. On the wings and fins, these were painted – they were applied with spray paint from a rattle can, involving lots of masking. The leading edges on wings and fins were created with grey decal sheet material, too. At this stage, some surface details and more fake panel lines were added with a soft pencil.

The orange cheatline under the cockpit is a personal addition; I found that some more orange had to be added to the nose for visual balance, and I eventually went for the simple, trimmed stripe (TL Modellbau material) instead of trying to apply decal sheet material around the jagged air intakes (F-15 prototype style). The black “TEST”, “VFX” and “U.N. Spacy” markings were designed at the computer and printed on clear inkjet decal paper. Even though the “real” VF-X does not feature the UNS “kite” insignia, I decided to add them to the model. These come from the OOB sheet, which also provided most (slightly yellowed) stencils.

Finally, the model was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

A rather different VF-1 project (and it is – to my astonishment – #28 in my 1:100 VF-1 Fighter mode collection!!!), with more changes to the basic model kit than one might expect at first sight. VF-X and VF-1 differ considerably from each other, despite identical outlines! However, I like the outcome, and I think that going a different route from the canonical grey/black livery paid out, the bright orange markings really make this VF-X stand out, and it looks IMHO more like a testbed than the “real” aircraft from the TV series.

See this locomotive in the video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3oxDV2lg1s

Having just worked the "Cumbrian Mountaineer" over Shap, preserved London, Midland & Scottish Railway Princess Royal 6201 'Princess Elizabeth' readies itself for departure with empty stock bound for the adjacent sidings on what was her last railtour before overhaul.

The Princess Royal class were a set of 13 4-6-2 Pacific locomotives designed by William Stanier and built at Crewe Works between 1933 and 1935 to be the prime motive power on the West Coast Mainline between London Euston, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, including the famous Royal Scot premier express service. At first, two prototypical locomotives were built in 1933, followed by 11 production locomotives in 1935. These were later complimented by a fleet of 38 Coronation Pacific locomotives built between 1937 and 1948, which later went on to be arguably the most power steam locomotives ever built for the British Railway network.

One of the original prototypes however was retained for use as a testbed for a new Turbine Locomotive project to help improve the efficiency of the engines, later being unofficially dubbed 'Turbomotive'. The engine was fitted with turbines instead of cylinders, with the forward turbine containing 18 rows of blading, resulting in an output of 2,400hp, corresponding to running at 62 mph (100 km/h). The turbine was designed to operate into a maximum back-pressure of 2 psi, allowing a conventional double blast-pipe to provide the boiler draught, and eliminating draught fans, which always seemed to give a disproportionate amount of trouble.

The reverse turbine had 4 rows of blades. It was engaged by a dog clutch, activated when the reverser lever being set to "0". This was originally steam-operated by a small piston and cylinder. This locomotive was later rebuilt as a conventional classmate in 1952, using new mainframes and a spare set of cylinders from one of the Coronation Pacifics, and was numbered 46202, later to be named 'Princess Anne'.

6201, LMS lot number 99, was built at Crewe for the sum of £11,675 (£685,000 today) and named Princess Elizabeth, after the then Duke of York’s eldest daughter, currently our Queen Elizabeth II, leaving the works on 3rd November 1933.

Throughout the years the Princess Royal's continued to ply their trade on the West Coast services, but the years of World War II took their toll on the fleet. The beautiful Crimson Lake was replaced by Wartime Black, and the prestige manner that these locomotives had been accustomed to was stripped away as the railways were rationalised as part of the war effort. Work hours increased, and maintenance turns reduced, meaning these engines were being forced to the very limit of their design to keep Britain moving.

With the end of the war in 1945 the workload began to decrease, but the railways had paid the price. The beauty and lavish luxury of the pre-war companies had been stripped and would never return, with all of Britain's main railway companies now almost bankrupt and working a fleet of very tired engines on a poorly maintained railway network. In 1948 the Labour Government nationalised these companies to create British Railways, hoping to modernise the network and rebuild the overworked system.

The Princess Royals and their more powerful sisters the Coronation Pacifics continued to work hard as the implementation of diesels gathered pace. Early diesels however were underpowered and suffered heavily from reliability issues, meaning on many occasions the steam locomotives that they intended to replace actually came to their rescue!

It was not all plain sailing though for the Princess Royals in the 1950's, as this decade was littered with many fatal accidents. On 21 September 1951, locomotive No.46207 Princess Arthur of Connaught was hauling an express passenger train that was derailed at Weedon, Northamptonshire due to a defective front bogie on the locomotive, resulting in the deaths of 15 people and the injury of 35.

This was followed a year later by what would turn out to be the worst rail accident in the whole of British history. On 8 October 1952, an express passenger train hauled by Coronation Class, 46242 'City of Glasgow' overran signals on a train from Perth to London Euston, striking the rear of a stopped Tring to Euston commuter train at Harrow and Wealdstone station in North London. The ensuing wreckage was then struck by a northbound Liverpool express, hauled by Jubilee Class 45637 'Windward Islands', and recently rebuilt ex-Turbomotive Princess Royal 46202 'Princess Anne', which had only entered service two months earlier. In the chaos that followed, a total of 112 people were killed and 340 were injured, with 46202 obliterated in the accident, the first and only member of the class to be lost in an accident.

The late 50's however began to see the end of these engines as good, reliable diesels began to be introduced to replace them, followed closely by electric traction on the West Coast Mainline out of Euston. In 1961 the first members of the class were withdrawn from service, including 6201, which was placed in store in March 1961, but returned to service in May of that year due to poor diesel reliability.

As more diesels were delivered, in October of the same year 6201 was again placed into storage at Carlisle Kingmoor. However, again in January 1962 6201 was returned to traffic to cover for diesel failures and continued to work until September 1962 where it was once again placed into storage. It was subsequently withdrawn by BR in October 1962 and purchased by Roger Bell. The last of the locomotives to be withdrawn was class premier and original prototype number 62000 'The Princess Royal', which was withdrawn in November 1962 and subsequently scrapped. In all, only two locomotives were preserved, number 6203 'Princess Margaret Rose' and 6201 'Princess Elizabeth'.

46201 was bought by the then Princess Elizabeth Locomotive Society straight from BR service when withdrawn in 1962. Initially kept at the Dowty Railway Preservation Society's premises at Ashchurch in Gloucestershire, and then subsequently at the Bulmers Railway Centre in Hereford. When the Bulmers Centre closed in the 1990s, the loco moved to the East Lancashire Railway. Since April 2009 it has been based at the Crewe Heritage Centre. On 3 June 2012, Princess Elizabeth's whistle signalled the start of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant while the locomotive was standing on Battersea Railway Bridge. The Queen was made aware of the locomotive and waved to the crew on the footplate. On 11 July 2012 Princess Elizabeth hauled the Royal Train from Newport to Hereford and again from Worcester to Oxford as part of the Diamond Jubilee Tour. 6201 was withdrawn from service in July 2012 for a piston and valve examination at the Tyseley Locomotive Works and after repairs, she returned to service on 17 November hauling the "Cumbrian Mountaineer" from Carnforth to Carlisle. She was withdrawn for overhaul at the end of December 2012 having completed her longest period of operation in preservation.

22nd September 2013., RCAF Museum, Trenton, Ontario, Canada

Introduced by Boeing in 1959, the 720 is a smaller capacity, lighter, medium range variant of the 707, one of the most successful airliners of the 20th century. C-FETB is the 720 flying test bed operated by Pratt & Whitney Canada until 2010. One of 154 model 720s manufactured by Boeing between 1959 and 1967, C-FETB is the single remaining operational 720 in the world. On May 9, 2012 the aircraft will make its final flight, traveling from Saint-Hubert to CFB Trenton – the last flight ever of a 720.

Eager to preserve this historically significant test bed, Pratt & Whitney Canada (PWC) and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum (CASM) came to an agreement that will see the 720 go on indefinite loan to the National Air Force Museum of Canada, in Trenton, Ontario.

Aircraft History

The Model 720-023B (construction number 18024) is the 177th Model 707-type airplane made by Boeing Airplane. Rolled out on October 28th, 1960, the airplane, registered as N7538A, flew on January 14th, 1961. It was delivered to American Airlines on February 3rd. This airline operated N7538A until August 1971, when it was put in storage in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Middle East Airlines (MEA), the largest airline in Lebanon, bought the airplane on September 25th, 1971. Re-registered as OD-AFQ, the airplane was delivered to its new owner on September 30th. Like many, if not most MEA airplanes, OD-AFQ was forced to stay away from its main base in Beirut when Israel invaded Lebanon, in June 1982, and occupied a good part of the country until 1985. Based at Orly, an airport near Paris, the airplane occasionally flew passengers for Air France and Air Inter, another French airline.

Pratt & Whitney Canada (PWC) bought the Model 720B in December 1985 and re-registered it as C-FETB (FETB as in Flying Experimental Test Bed) on January 10th, 1986. A series of modification were made after this date.

C-FETB did its flight acceptance flight on October 9th, 1986. A PWC crew flew the airplane across the Atlantic on October 12th.

Known internally as FTB1 (Flying test bed 1), C-FETB was thoroughly modified for its new role between October 1986 and January 1988.

It was equipped to test a variety of engines, for example:

A large turbofan could take the place of the inside / inner engine underneath the right / starboard wing.

A small turbofan could be mounted on the right / starboard side of the forward fuselage.

A turboprop could be mounted in the nose.

The following engine types were tested on C-FETB:

the International Aero Engines (IAE) V2500 turbofan

the Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D turbofan

the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW300 turbofan

the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW500 turbofan

the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW600 turbofan

the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turboprop

the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW100 turboprop

In 1972 Volvo Presented its rolling safety laboratory, the VESC. It was meant to work as both an experimental vehicle and as a testbed for future safety features, such as anti-lock brakes, airbags and telescopic action bumpers. The front end of the car remained almost unchanged into the 240/260 models of 1974. Technical features based on the 140 series.

Volvo Museum

Arendals Skans

405 08 Göteborg

Sweden

July 2012

c/n 0093497942/74-06. At Krasnoyarsk-Yemelyanovo Airport, Russia. Later to Krasair, Remex and then used by Saturn as an engine testbed. Withdrawn from use at Zhukovski by 2007.

Yes! Honest to God, yes! After years of searching I have found myself one of the rarest and most strangest cars you ever did see!

What you're looking at here is the Rolls Royce Camargue, very much the Rolls Royce that time forgot. What can you even say about it? It's one of the most iconic automotive failures in history, and certainly a car that Rolls Royce fans are always very quick to wince at when I mention it at RREC conventions.

So where did this curious car come from? To truly understand this mighty machine you need to go back to 1969, where a massive change in the image and style of the world was starting to hold sway. In the world of autos, the curvature of the 1950's and early 60's was giving way to the angles of the 1970's, the decade that gave us the 'Wedge' sportsers and boxy saloon cars.

Rolls Royce, who at this point were building three cars, the Phantom VI, the Silver Shadow, and the Silver Shadow Two-Door Saloon (later to be known as the Corniche), were looking for a new design that would drastically alter its image from that of the Shadow. Originally, the intention was to use their new brainchild to replace the Two-Door Saloon, but due to financial difficulty within the Rolls Royce company, later followed by bankruptcy after the RB211 Jet Engine project, the company chose instead to save costs and rebrand it as the Corniche instead.

For their new car, Rolls Royce chose not to have it designed in-house like previous models, but went for the first time to Pininfarina of Italy. Throughout the remainder of 1969 the company toyed with many sketches, until in 1970 a final design was chosen and given the go by the Rolls Royce management, with the intention for a launch in either late 1972 or early 1973. Within the company, the project was dubbed "Delta", but was later changed to DY20, with ‘D’ signifying Delta, ‘Y’ signifying it was based on the SY (Silver Shadow) platform, and '20' shortened from 120 which was the car’s wheelbase of 120 inches.

But as mentioned, following the amount of money poured into the new Rolls Royce RB211 Jet Engine Project for the Lockheed Tristar, the company was bankrupt as of the 4th February 1971. The result was that the Motor Car Division, whose future now rested in the hands of the Official Receiver, had to look closely at all aspects of the business. This led to the splitting of the Rolls Royce company, with Rolls Royce Motors Ltd. being founded and placed under the ownership of Vickers, whilst the bankrupt Rolls Royce Ltd. was nationalised.

During this turbulent period, the DY20 project was closely scrutinised and the Receiver gave the go-ahead to commence the project, but following a critical review of the engineering specification for the car, a decision was taken to delay the launch date until 1975.

With development continuing, HJ Mulliner Park Ward, who already built the bodies for the Corniche, were chosen to manufacture the bodies of the DY20 project. In the summer of 1972, the first prototype D1 was released and tested heavily to maintain the standard of reliable excellence that Rolls Royce had been known for. At first the car's initial reception was warm, with people noting that it looked far more futuristic than the Shadow on which it was heavily based. Aside from sharing the same running gear, platform, Rolls Royce V8 engine and a majority of the internal features as the Shadow, the car was endearing in that it was fitted with a new and highly sophisticated bi-level automatic air conditioning system that at that time was the very first car in the world to have such a unit fitted. It was declared that this feature alone was more expensive than a British Leyland Mini! Another change was an instrument board, which many commented wouldn't have looked out of place on the flight deck of a Boeing 747!

Throughout 1972 and 73 more prototypes continued to be released and tested, with Rolls Royce giving paramount assistance to HJ Mulliner Park Ward's staff as they rigorously put these cars together. On the 18 January 1973 the body of the first production prototype, assigned D3, was attached to the front and rear sub frame assemblies on the normal Silver Shadow production line with maximum security in place and, following the production line assembly, the car was delivered to the experimental department to begin a period of intensive development work.

From May 1973 and all through 1974 production increased but still subject to extreme security. The production sequence was shared between MPW and Crewe. Once the body had been produced in the London factory and despatched to Crewe it was ‘finished painted’, attached to the front and rear sub frames and sent in a part built state back to MPW for all trim, general finishing and testing to take place at Hythe Road.

In January 1975, the car was officially launched in Catania, Sicily, and christened the name Camargue, an area situated in the delta of the River Rhône in France. Following a very successful press launch, the car was unveiled to the world on 5 March 1975 and the price quoted was £29,250, which made it the most expensive production car in the world ever at that time. Today, this figure translates out to £272,000. To put the price in perspective with other Rolls-Royce models at the time the Corniche saloon car cost £19,013 and the “Flagship of the Fleet” Phantom VI only cost £21,352!

The car was launched in the United States a year later after delays in fitting the cars with US Specification running gear meant that production didn't begin until August 1975. The cost of these cars in the US was $147,000, which today is about $588,000.

So, after a turbulent development mired in bankruptcy, a complicated building strategy and a delayed launch in America, did Rolls Royce's gamble with an audaciously designed car pay off?

Not in the slightest!

Purists recoiled at the sight of the angular corners and straight lines, with its big round headlights and chunky panels that made it look less like a Rolls Royce and more like a Lincoln Continental. They argued that for much, much less, owners could buy a Corniche or a Shadow which looked twice as good and performed just as well. This was then added to by the fuel crisis of the late 1970's, upon which that 6.75L Rolls Royce V8 soaking up petrol at a gallon every 15 miles looked deeply undesirable.

In all, only 531 of these cars were ever produced during its 11 year lifetime, but with a few variations. In 1985 a specialist hunting car called the Sbarro was reengineered for an Arabian aristocrat, whilst in 1979 two Camargues were used as testbeds for developments that would later find their way into the Silver Spirit/Spur range, including headlights and other features. In 1985 a single Bentley Camargue was also built, identical except for the changed badge and Grille, although many aftermarket conversions are known to exist. The last two cars rolled off the production line on Christmas Eve 1986 bound for Japan, at a price of £83,000.

Today, the Rolls Royce Camargue is a very, very rare car, and you would be hard pressed to find them routinely. In the United States a few continue to roam the countryside, with around 200 of the cars being exported there. Reception of these cars sadly continues to be very critical, with the car often topping people's lists for worst car ever made or ugliest car ever made. Although James May is one of a few people who defend this car, dubbing it "like that pug-faced but well-dressed bloke down the pub", for the most part all people can do is laugh at this car, laugh for the fact that it didn't sell, didn't look good and went through so much trouble to design and build that it was just a rushed embarrassment for the Rolls Royce company.

The reputation of these cars is so bad that in spite of its rarity, owners can't even give these things away, with most that I've seen going for as little as £20,000. But a word of advice, stop laughing, and buy their car! £20,000 for a two-door luxury saloon, a pedigree Rolls Royce, and one that once held the distinction of being the world's most expensive production car, you not only get this car for the cost of an equivalent Ford or Vauxhall, but you also make a saving on the original price tag of £252,000, that's over a quarter of a million pounds!

Me personally, I absolutely adore these cars! Indeed they're not as pretty as other Rollers, but I consider this a car that you not only have to feel sorry for, considering the background troubles that trailed its development from the start, but one that you have to admire as well. I feel that it's a car that's stood the test of time, a bit of automotive history from the 1970's that shows how reckless and ambitious we were with our car construction, like the Aston Martin Lagonda, brash in the extreme, but lovable all the same.

In fact if I had £20,000 right now I'd gladly go out and buy one, not only because I'd be saving a fortune, but also because it's a very personable little car, the kind of car you can't take your eyes off of, the car you could really give a name and love forever.

I'd name mine Christie! :D

During Compatibility and Integration Tests ending August 30, 2013, Lockheed Martin’s GPS III Non-flight Satellite Testbed (GNST) – a full-sized, functional satellite prototype currently residing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) – proved that it could connect with and receive commands from Raytheon’s Launch and Check Out System, part of the next-generation Operational Control System (OCX) that supports the satellite and mitigates risks prior to launch. The GNST was delivered (pictured) to CCAF in July so that facilities and pre-launch activities could be tested, further reducing risk and gaining efficiencies, prior the first GPS III flight satellite’s expected delivery to the U.S. Air Force in 2014 and launch in 2015.

+++ 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 Northrop Grumman-IAI F-24 is the latest reincarnation of the USAF "Lightweight Fighter Program" which dates back to the 1950ies and started with the development of Northrop's F-5 "Freedom Fighter".

International interest for the F-24A is already there: in late 2013 Grumman stated that initial talks have been made with various countries, and potential export candidates from 2015 on are Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Finland, Norway, Australia and Japan.

General F-24A characteristics:

Crew: 1 pilot

Length: 47 ft 4 in (14.4 m)

Wingspan: 27 ft 11.9 in / 8.53 m; with wingtip missiles (26 ft 8 in/ 8.13 m; without wingtip missiles)

Height: 13 ft 10 in (4.20 m)

Wing area: 36.55 m² (392 ft²)

Empty weight: 13.150 lb (5.090 kg)

Loaded weight: 15.480 lb (6.830 kg)

Max. take-off weight: 27.530 lb (12.500 kg)

Powerplant:

1× General Electric F404-GE-402 turbofan with a dry thrust of 11,000 lbf (48.9 kN) and 17,750 lbf (79.2 kN) with afterburner

Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 2+

Combat radius: 300 nmi (345 mi, 556 km); for hi-lo-hi mission with 2 × 330 US gal (1,250 L) drop tanks

Ferry range: 1,490 nmi (1715 mi, 2759 km); with 3 × 330 US gal (1,250 L) drop tanks

Service ceiling: 55,000 ft (16,800 m)

Rate of climb: 52,800 ft/min (255 m/s)

Wing loading: 70.0 lb/ft² (342 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 1.09 (1.35 with loaded weight & 50% fuel)

Armament

1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M199A1 3-barreled Gatling cannon in the lower fuselage with 400 RPG

Eleven external hardpoints (two wingtip tails, six underwing hardpoints, three underfuselage hardpoints) and a total capacity of 11.000 lb (4.994 kg) of missiles (incl. AIM 9 Sidewinder and AIM 120 AMRAAM), bombs, rockets, ECM pods and drop tanks for extended range.

The kit and its assembly:

A spontaneous project. This major kitbash was inspired by fellow user nighthunter at whatifmodelers.com, who came up with a profile of a mashed-up US fighter, created “out of boredom”. The original idea was called F-21C, and it was to be a domestic successor to the IAI Kfirs which had been used by the US as aggressor aircraft in USN and USMC service for a few years.

As a weird(?) coincidence I had many of the necessary ingredients for this fictional aircraft in store, even though some parts and details were later changed. This model here is an interpretation of the original design. The idea was spun further, and the available parts that finally went into the model also had some influence on design and background.

I thank nighthunter for sharing the early ideas, inviting me to take the design to the hardware stage (sort of…) and adapting my feedback into new design sketches, too, which, in return, inspired the model building process.

Well, what went into this thing? To cook up a F-24 à la Dizzyfugu you just need (all in 1:72):

● Fuselage from a Hasegawa X-29, including the cockpit and the landing gear

● Fin and nose cone from an Italeri F-16A

● Inner wings from a (vintage) Hasegawa MiG-21F

● Outer wings from a F-4 (probably a J, Hasegawa or Fujimi)

The wing construction deviates from nighthunter’s original idea. The favorite ingredients would have been F-16XL or simple Mirage III wings, but I found the composite wing to be more attractive and “different”. The big F-16XL wings, despite their benefit of a unique shape, might also have created scale/size problems with a F-20 style fuselage? So I built hybrid wings: The MiG-21 landing gear wells were filled with putty and the F-4 outer wings simply glued onto the MiG inner wing sections, which were simply cut down in span. It sounds like an unlikely combo, but these parts fit together almost perfectly! In order to hide the F-4 origins I modified them to carry wingtip launch rails, though, which were also part of nighthunter’s original design.

The AAW technology detail mentioned in the background came in handy as it explains the complicated wing shape and the fact that the landing gear retracts into the fuselage, not into the wings, which would have been more plausible… Anyway, there’s still room for a simpler export version, with Mirage III or Kfir C.2/7 wings, and maybe canards?

Using the X-29 as basis also made fitting the new wings onto the area-ruled fuselage pretty easy, as I could use the wing root parts from the X-29 to bridge the gap. The original, forward-swept wings were just cut away, and the remains used as consoles for the new hybrid delta wings. Took some SERIOUS putty work, but the result is IMHO fine.

The bigger/square X-29 air intakes were taken over, and they change the look of the aircraft, making it look less F-5-ish than a true F-20 fuselage. For the same reason I kept the large fairing at the fin base, combining it with a bigger F-16 tail, though, as a counter-balance to the new, bigger wings. Again, the F-16 fin was/is part of nighthunter’s idea, so the model stays true to the original concept.

For the same reason I omitted the original X-29 nose, which is rather pointy, sports vanes and a large sensor boom. The F-16 nose was a plausible choice, as the AN/APG-80 is also carried by late Fighting Falcons, and its shape fits well, too.

All around the hull, some small details like radar warning sensors, pitots and air scoops were added. Not really necessary, but such thing add IMHO to the overall impression of such a fictional aircraft beyond the prototype stage.

Cockpit and landing gear were taken OOB, I just added a pilot figure and slightly modified the seat.

The ordnance was puzzled together from the scrap box, the AIM-9Ls come from the same F-4 kit which donated its outer wings, the AIM-120s come from an Italeri NATO weapons kit. The drop tanks belong to an F-16.

Painting and markings:

At first I considered an F-24I in IAF markings, or even a Japanese aircraft, but then reverted to one of nighthunter’s initial, simple ideas: an USAF aircraft in the “Hill II” paint scheme (F-16 style), made up from three shades of gray (FS 36118, 36270 and 36375) with low-viz markings and stencils. Dutch/Turkish NF-5A/Bs in the “Hill II” scheme were used as design benchmarks, too. It’s a simple livery, but on this delta wing aircraft it looks pretty interesting. I used enamels, what I had at hand: Humbrol 127 and 126, and Modelmaster's 1723.

A light black ink wash was applied, in order to em,phasize the engraved panel lines, in contrast to that, panels were manually highlighted through dry-brushed, lighter shades of gray (Humbrol 27, 166 and 167).

“Hill II” also adds to a generic, realistic touch for this whif. Doing an exotic air force thing is rather easy, but creating a convincing whif for a huge military machinery like the USAF’s takes more subtlety, I think.

The cockpit was painted in medium Gray (Dark Gull Grey, FS 36231, Humbrol 140), as well as the radome. The landing gear and the air intakes were painted white. The radome was painted with Revell 47 and dry-brushed with Humbrol 140.

Decals were puzzled together from various USAF aircraft, including sheets from an Airfix F-117, an Italeri F-15E and even an Academy OV-10D.

Tadah: a hardware tribute to an idea, born from boredom - and the aircraft does not look even bad at all? What I wanted to achieve was to make the F-24 neither look like a F-20, nor a Saab Gripen clone, as the latter comes close in overall shape, size and design.

On July 19, 2013, Lockheed Martin’s full-sized, functional GPS III satellite prototype arrived at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), Fla. Lockheed Martin delivered the GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST) to the Cape so that CCAFS’s facilities and pre-launch processes could be tested, further reducing risk and gaining efficiencies, prior the first GPS III flight satellite’s expected delivery to the U.S. Air Force in 2014 and launch in 2015.

+++ 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:

The Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force began as the "Korean Aviation Society" in 1945. It was organized along the lines of flying clubs in the Soviet Union. In 1946, the society became a military organization and became an aviation division of the Korean People's Army (KPA). It became a branch of the army in its own right in November 1948. The KPAF incorporated much of the original Soviet air tactics, as well as North Korean experience from the UN bombings during the Korean War.

The rugged aircraft was not retired, though, and found use as ground attack aircraft (despite its limited payload of around 2 tons) and as an advanced fighter trainer. Total production numbers are uncertain, but less than 100 W-1s were produced until 1969, with no further variants becoming known. In 1990, probably forty were still operational, and even after 2000 some KPAAF W-1s were still flying.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 10.73 m (35 ft 2 in)

Wingspan: 12.16 m (39 ft 10½ in)

Height: 4.46 m (14 ft 7½ in)

Wing area: 23.8 m² (256 sq ft)

Aspect ratio: 7.3

Empty weight: 4,142 kg (9,132 lb)

Gross weight: 7,404 kg (16,323 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 7,900 kg (17,417 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Wopen WP-5 (Rolls-Royce Nene Mk.104B) centrifugal-flow turbojet

with 26.5 kN (5,950 lbf) thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 940 km/h (580 mph, 510 kn) at sea level

Maximum speed: Mach 0.76

Cruise speed: 750 km/h (470 mph, 400 kn)

Maximum Mach number: M0.83

Combat range: 450 km (280 mi, 240 nmi)

Ferry range: 920 km (570 mi, 500 nmi)

Service ceiling: 13,000 m (43,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 38 m/s (7,500 ft/min)

Take-off run: 783 m (2,569 ft)

Landing run: 910 m (2,986 ft)

Armament:

4× 23 mm (0.906 in) Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 autocannon with 100 rounds per gun

2× underwing hardpoints for 2.000 kg of payload, including a variety of unguided iron bombs such

as 2× 250 kg (500 lb) bombs, napalm tanks, pods with unguided missiles, or 2× 350 l (92 US

gal; 77 imp gal) drop tanks for extended range.

The kit and its assembly:

I always thought that the tubby Dassault Ouragan had something “Soviet-ish” about it, looking much like one of the obscure early Yakowlew jet fighter prototypes (e .g. the straight-wing Yak-25 [first use of this designation in 1947] or the swept-wing Yak-30) around 1950. With this idea I had stashed away a Heller Ouragan for a while, and recently wondered about an indigenous North-Korean aircraft that could have emerged after the Korean War? The Ouragan looked like a good basis, and so this project started as a simple conversion of the Heller kit.

While most of the airframe was retained, I made some cosmetic changes to change the aircraft’s looks and add a Warsaw Pact flavor. The characteristic wing tip tanks disappeared, and the wings’ ends were rounded off. The fin tip was extended with a piece of 1.5 mm styrene sheet and a different fin shape was sculpted from it. The original stabilizers were replaced with what I think are stabilizers from a VEB Plasticart 1:100 An-24 – they better match the wing shape than the OOB parts!

The cockpit was taken OOB, I just replaced the ejection seat with a different piece from a KP 1:72 MiG-19. The air intake was modified with the opening from a Heller 1:72 F-84G, extending and narrowing it slightly, even though the internal splitter plate (which also bears the front wheel well) was retained. The landing gear was also basically taken OOB, but the main wheels were now mounted on the outside position (with an adaptation of the covers), and the front wheel was moved 3 mm further forward, to compensate for the slightly longer nose section, and its cover was modified accordingly. The flaps were lowered, primarily because this modification is easy to realize on this kit and it makes the simple aircraft look “livelier”, and the canopy was cut into three parts for open display.

Pylons were added under the wings, together with drop tanks from a Hobby Boss 1:72 MiG-15. The same source provided the swept antenna mast behind the cockpit and the small but characteristic altimeter sensors under the wings. As a final twist of “Sovietization” I added small fences to the wings, made from styrene profiles – they would not be necessary on the aircraft’s straight wings, but they help change the model’s overall look. 😉

Building the Heller Ouragan was a straightforward affair, even though the plastic of the recent re-boxing I used was pretty soft and took long to cure after gluing parts together. A real problem occurred when I tried to close the fuselage halves, though, because the parts did not align well behind the cockpit, as if they were warped? The walls were rather thin, too, and as a result a lot of PSR went into the spine and the ventral area behind the wings, which mismatched badly. The rather thin material in these areas did not help much, either. I have built the Ouragan before, and I do not remember these massive troubles?!

Painting and markings:

I initially considered a North-Korean night fighter camouflage from the Korea War, but since the aircraft would have been introduced into service after the open hostilities, I rather settled for a very dry NMF finish with minimal markings. Therefore, the model received an overall coat with “White Aluminum” from the rattle can and a light overall rubbing treatment with graphite to emphasize the raised panel lines and add a slightly irregular metallic shine to the paint. Since they had disappeared through PSR, I also added/recreated some panel lines with a soft pencil.

The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey and Soviet cockpit turquoise, the landing gear and its wells became metallic-grey (Humbrol 56). The areas around the exhaust and the guns were painted with Revell 91 (Iron), the only color contrasts are red trim tabs.

The large KPAAF roundels with a white background came from a Cutting Edge MiG-15 sheet, the large red tactical code was left over from an unidentifiable “Eastern Bloc” model’s decal sheet. After some more graphite treatment around the guns and the tail section the model was sealed with a coat of semi-gloss acrylic varnish (Italeri), resulting in a nice metallic shine that looks better than expected on this uniform aircraft.

Well, this converted Ouragan looks pretty dull at first sight, due to its simple livery. But this makes it pretty plausible, and the small cosmetic changes add a serious Soviet-esque touch to the aircraft.

+++ 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:

The Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force began as the "Korean Aviation Society" in 1945. It was organized along the lines of flying clubs in the Soviet Union. In 1946, the society became a military organization and became an aviation division of the Korean People's Army (KPA). It became a branch of the army in its own right in November 1948. The KPAF incorporated much of the original Soviet air tactics, as well as North Korean experience from the UN bombings during the Korean War.

The rugged aircraft was not retired, though, and found use as ground attack aircraft (despite its limited payload of around 2 tons) and as an advanced fighter trainer. Total production numbers are uncertain, but less than 100 W-1s were produced until 1969, with no further variants becoming known. In 1990, probably forty were still operational, and even after 2000 some KPAAF W-1s were still flying.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 10.73 m (35 ft 2 in)

Wingspan: 12.16 m (39 ft 10½ in)

Height: 4.46 m (14 ft 7½ in)

Wing area: 23.8 m² (256 sq ft)

Aspect ratio: 7.3

Empty weight: 4,142 kg (9,132 lb)

Gross weight: 7,404 kg (16,323 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 7,900 kg (17,417 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Wopen WP-5 (Rolls-Royce Nene Mk.104B) centrifugal-flow turbojet

with 26.5 kN (5,950 lbf) thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 940 km/h (580 mph, 510 kn) at sea level

Maximum speed: Mach 0.76

Cruise speed: 750 km/h (470 mph, 400 kn)

Maximum Mach number: M0.83

Combat range: 450 km (280 mi, 240 nmi)

Ferry range: 920 km (570 mi, 500 nmi)

Service ceiling: 13,000 m (43,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 38 m/s (7,500 ft/min)

Take-off run: 783 m (2,569 ft)

Landing run: 910 m (2,986 ft)

Armament:

4× 23 mm (0.906 in) Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 autocannon with 100 rounds per gun

2× underwing hardpoints for 2.000 kg of payload, including a variety of unguided iron bombs such

as 2× 250 kg (500 lb) bombs, napalm tanks, pods with unguided missiles, or 2× 350 l (92 US

gal; 77 imp gal) drop tanks for extended range.

The kit and its assembly:

I always thought that the tubby Dassault Ouragan had something “Soviet-ish” about it, looking much like one of the obscure early Yakowlew jet fighter prototypes (e .g. the straight-wing Yak-25 [first use of this designation in 1947] or the swept-wing Yak-30) around 1950. With this idea I had stashed away a Heller Ouragan for a while, and recently wondered about an indigenous North-Korean aircraft that could have emerged after the Korean War? The Ouragan looked like a good basis, and so this project started as a simple conversion of the Heller kit.

While most of the airframe was retained, I made some cosmetic changes to change the aircraft’s looks and add a Warsaw Pact flavor. The characteristic wing tip tanks disappeared, and the wings’ ends were rounded off. The fin tip was extended with a piece of 1.5 mm styrene sheet and a different fin shape was sculpted from it. The original stabilizers were replaced with what I think are stabilizers from a VEB Plasticart 1:100 An-24 – they better match the wing shape than the OOB parts!

The cockpit was taken OOB, I just replaced the ejection seat with a different piece from a KP 1:72 MiG-19. The air intake was modified with the opening from a Heller 1:72 F-84G, extending and narrowing it slightly, even though the internal splitter plate (which also bears the front wheel well) was retained. The landing gear was also basically taken OOB, but the main wheels were now mounted on the outside position (with an adaptation of the covers), and the front wheel was moved 3 mm further forward, to compensate for the slightly longer nose section, and its cover was modified accordingly. The flaps were lowered, primarily because this modification is easy to realize on this kit and it makes the simple aircraft look “livelier”, and the canopy was cut into three parts for open display.

Pylons were added under the wings, together with drop tanks from a Hobby Boss 1:72 MiG-15. The same source provided the swept antenna mast behind the cockpit and the small but characteristic altimeter sensors under the wings. As a final twist of “Sovietization” I added small fences to the wings, made from styrene profiles – they would not be necessary on the aircraft’s straight wings, but they help change the model’s overall look. 😉

Building the Heller Ouragan was a straightforward affair, even though the plastic of the recent re-boxing I used was pretty soft and took long to cure after gluing parts together. A real problem occurred when I tried to close the fuselage halves, though, because the parts did not align well behind the cockpit, as if they were warped? The walls were rather thin, too, and as a result a lot of PSR went into the spine and the ventral area behind the wings, which mismatched badly. The rather thin material in these areas did not help much, either. I have built the Ouragan before, and I do not remember these massive troubles?!

Painting and markings:

I initially considered a North-Korean night fighter camouflage from the Korea War, but since the aircraft would have been introduced into service after the open hostilities, I rather settled for a very dry NMF finish with minimal markings. Therefore, the model received an overall coat with “White Aluminum” from the rattle can and a light overall rubbing treatment with graphite to emphasize the raised panel lines and add a slightly irregular metallic shine to the paint. Since they had disappeared through PSR, I also added/recreated some panel lines with a soft pencil.

The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey and Soviet cockpit turquoise, the landing gear and its wells became metallic-grey (Humbrol 56). The areas around the exhaust and the guns were painted with Revell 91 (Iron), the only color contrasts are red trim tabs.

The large KPAAF roundels with a white background came from a Cutting Edge MiG-15 sheet, the large red tactical code was left over from an unidentifiable “Eastern Bloc” model’s decal sheet. After some more graphite treatment around the guns and the tail section the model was sealed with a coat of semi-gloss acrylic varnish (Italeri), resulting in a nice metallic shine that looks better than expected on this uniform aircraft.

Well, this converted Ouragan looks pretty dull at first sight, due to its simple livery. But this makes it pretty plausible, and the small cosmetic changes add a serious Soviet-esque touch to the aircraft.

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 Northrop Grumman-IAI F-24 is the latest reincarnation of the USAF "Lightweight Fighter Program" which dates back to the 1950ies and started with the development of Northrop's F-5 "Freedom Fighter".

International interest for the F-24A is already there: in late 2013 Grumman stated that initial talks have been made with various countries, and potential export candidates from 2015 on are Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Finland, Norway, Australia and Japan.

General F-24A characteristics:

Crew: 1 pilot

Length: 47 ft 4 in (14.4 m)

Wingspan: 27 ft 11.9 in / 8.53 m; with wingtip missiles (26 ft 8 in/ 8.13 m; without wingtip missiles)

Height: 13 ft 10 in (4.20 m)

Wing area: 36.55 m² (392 ft²)

Empty weight: 13.150 lb (5.090 kg)

Loaded weight: 15.480 lb (6.830 kg)

Max. take-off weight: 27.530 lb (12.500 kg)

Powerplant

1× General Electric F404-GE-402 turbofan with a dry thrust of 11,000 lbf (48.9 kN) and 17,750 lbf (79.2 kN) with afterburner

Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 2

Combat radius: 300 nmi (345 mi, 556 km); for hi-lo-hi mission with 2 × 330 US gal (1,250 L) drop tanks

Ferry range: 1,490 nmi (1715 mi, 2759 km); with 3 × 330 US gal (1,250 L) drop tanks

Service ceiling: 55,000 ft (16,800 m)

Rate of climb: 52,800 ft/min (255 m/s)

Wing loading: 70.0 lb/ft² (342 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 1.09 (1.35 with loaded weight & 50% fuel)

Armament

1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M199A1 3-barreled Gatling cannon in the lower fuselage with 400 RPG

Eleven external hardpoints (two wingtip tails, six underwing hardpoints, three underfuselage hardpoints) and a total capacity of 11.000 lb (4.994 kg) of missiles (incl. AIM 9 Sidewinder and AIM 120 AMRAAM), bombs, rockets, ECM pods and drop tanks for extended range.

The kit and its assembly:

A spontaneous project. This major kitbash was inspired by fellow user nighthunter at whatifmodelers.com, who came up with a profile of a mashed-up US fighter, created “out of boredom”. The original idea was called F-21C, and it was to be a domestic successor to the IAI Kfirs which had been used by the US as aggressor aircraft in USN and USMC service for a few years.

As a weird(?) coincidence I had many of the necessary ingredients for this fictional aircraft in store, even though some parts and details were later changed. This model here is an interpretation of the original design. The idea was spun further, and the available parts that finally went into the model also had some influence on design and background.

I thank nighthunter for sharing the early ideas, inviting me to take the design to the hardware stage (sort of…) and adapting my feedback into new design sketches, too, which, in return, inspired the model building process.

Well, what went into this thing? To cook up a F-24 à la Dizzyfugu you just need (all in 1:72):

● Fuselage from a Hasegawa X-29, including the cockpit and the landing gear

● Fin and nose cone from an Italeri F-16A

● Inner wings from a (vintage) Hasegawa MiG-21F

● Outer wings from a F-4 (probably a J, Hasegawa or Fujimi)

The wing construction deviates from nighthunter’s original idea. The favorite ingredients would have been F-16XL or simple Mirage III wings, but I found the composite wing to be more attractive and “different”. The big F-16XL wings, despite their benefit of a unique shape, might also have created scale/size problems with a F-20 style fuselage? So I built hybrid wings: The MiG-21 landing gear wells were filled with putty and the F-4 outer wings simply glued onto the MiG inner wing sections, which were simply cut down in span. It sounds like an unlikely combo, but these parts fit together almost perfectly! In order to hide the F-4 origins I modified them to carry wingtip launch rails, though, which were also part of nighthunter’s original design.

The AAW technology detail mentioned in the background came in handy as it explains the complicated wing shape and the fact that the landing gear retracts into the fuselage, not into the wings, which would have been more plausible… Anyway, there’s still room for a simpler export version, with Mirage III or Kfir C.2/7 wings, and maybe canards?

Using the X-29 as basis also made fitting the new wings onto the area-ruled fuselage pretty easy, as I could use the wing root parts from the X-29 to bridge the gap. The original, forward-swept wings were just cut away, and the remains used as consoles for the new hybrid delta wings. Took some SERIOUS putty work, but the result is IMHO fine.

The bigger/square X-29 air intakes were taken over, and they change the look of the aircraft, making it look less F-5-ish than a true F-20 fuselage. For the same reason I kept the large fairing at the fin base, combining it with a bigger F-16 tail, though, as a counter-balance to the new, bigger wings. Again, the F-16 fin was/is part of nighthunter’s idea, so the model stays true to the original concept.

For the same reason I omitted the original X-29 nose, which is rather pointy, sports vanes and a large sensor boom. The F-16 nose was a plausible choice, as the AN/APG-80 is also carried by late Fighting Falcons, and its shape fits well, too.

All around the hull, some small details like radar warning sensors, pitots and air scoops were added. Not really necessary, but such thing add IMHO to the overall impression of such a fictional aircraft beyond the prototype stage.

Cockpit and landing gear were taken OOB, I just added a pilot figure and slightly modified the seat.

The ordnance was puzzled together from the scrap box, the AIM-9Ls come from the same F-4 kit which donated its outer wings, the AIM-120s come from an Italeri NATO weapons kit. The drop tanks belong to an F-16.

Painting and markings:

At first I considered an F-24I in IAF markings, or even a Japanese aircraft, but then reverted to one of nighthunter’s initial, simple ideas: an USAF aircraft in the “Hill II” paint scheme (F-16 style), made up from three shades of gray (FS 36118, 36270 and 36375) with low-viz markings and stencils. Dutch/Turkish NF-5A/Bs in the “Hill II” scheme were used as design benchmarks, too. It’s a simple livery, but on this delta wing aircraft it looks pretty interesting. I used enamels, what I had at hand: Humbrol 127 and 126, and Modelmaster's 1723.

A light black ink wash was applied, in order to em,phasize the engraved panel lines, in contrast to that, panels were manually highlighted through dry-brushed, lighter shades of gray (Humbrol 27, 166 and 167).

“Hill II” also adds to a generic, realistic touch for this whif. Doing an exotic air force thing is rather easy, but creating a convincing whif for a huge military machinery like the USAF’s takes more subtlety, I think.

The cockpit was painted in medium Gray (Dark Gull Grey, FS 36231, Humbrol 140), as well as the radome. The landing gear and the air intakes were painted white. The radome was painted with Revell 47 and dry-brushed with Humbrol 140.

Decals were puzzled together from various USAF aircraft, including sheets from an Airfix F-117, an Italeri F-15E and even an Academy OV-10D.

Tadah: a hardware tribute to an idea, born from boredom - and the aircraft does not look even bad at all? What I wanted to achieve was to make the F-24 neither look like a F-20, nor a Saab Gripen clone, as the latter comes close in overall shape, size and design.

Flight AIB62OW

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Sweden required a strong air defense, utilizing the newly developed jet propulsion technology. The original concept had been designed around a mostly straight wing, but after Swedish engineers had obtained German research data on swept-wing designs, the prototype was altered to incorporate a 25° sweep. In order to make the wing as thin as possible, Saab elected to locate the retractable undercarriage in the aircraft's fuselage rather than into the wings.

While the second P29G was used for high speed trials, the first machine remained in its original guise and took over low speed handling tests. Thanks to the unique wing switch mechanism, the supersonic research program could be held within a very tight schedule and lasted until late 1959. Thereafter, the P29Gs’ potential was of little use anymore, and the engine use agreement with the USA put an end to further use of the two aircraft, so that both P29Gs were retired from service in 1960. The 1st machine, outfitted with standard J29F wings and stripped off of its engines, remained in use as an instructional air at Malmslätt air base 1969, while the second machine was mothballed. However, both airframes were eventually scrapped in 1970.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 11.66 m (38 ft 2 in) fuselage only,

13,97 m (45 ft 9 in) with pitot boom

Wingspan: varied*; 11.0 m (36 ft 1 in) with standard 25° sweep wings,

10.00 m (32 ft 9 ¾ in) with experimental 45° wings

Height: 4.54m (14 ft 10 ½ in)

Wing area: varied*; 24.15 m² (260.0 ft²) with standard 25° sweep wings

22.5 m² (242.2 ft²) with experimental 45° wings

Empty weight: 5,220 kg (11,500 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 8,510 kg (18,744 lb)

Powerplant:

2× Westinghouse J34-WE-42 turbojets, each rated at 3,400 lbf (15 kN) dry thrust

and 4,200 lbf (19 kN) with full afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1.367 km/h (849 mph) were achieved*

Range: 790 km (490 mi)

Service ceiling: up to 17,250 m (56,500 ft)*

Rate of climb: up to 45 m/s (8,850 ft/min)*

*Varying figures due to different tested wing configurations

Armament:

None installed; provisions for 4x 20mm Hispano Mark V autocannon in the lower front fuselage.

Depending on the mounted wing type, various external loads could be carried, including a wide range of light bombs, 75 mm (3 in) air-to-air rockets, 145 mm (5.8 in) anti-armor rockets, 150 mm (6 in) HE (high-explosive) rockets or 180 mm (7.2 in) HE anti-ship rockets. Due to the lack of complex wiring or fuel plumbing, no guided weapons or drop tanks could be mounted, though.

The kit and its assembly:

Sweden is a prolific whiffing territory, and the Saab 29 offers some interesting options. This highly modified Tunnan, which is actually rather a kitbashing than a mere model kit modification, is/was a submission to the “More or less engines” group build at whatifmodelers.com in summer 2019.

I actually had the idea of a two-engine J29 in the back of my mind for a long time, spawned by a resin conversion set for the Hasegawa B-47 Stratojet kit that came with new intakes and exhaust sections for the four engine pods. The single engine pod parts had been spent a long time ago, but the twin engine parts were still waiting for a good use. Could the exhaust fit under/into a Tunnan…?

I even had a Matchbox J29 stashed away for this experiment long ago, as well as some donor parts like the wings, and the GB eventually offered the right motivation to put those things together that no one would expect to work.

So I pulled out all the stuff and started – a rather straightforward affair. Work started with the fuselage, which was, together with the (very nice) cockpit assembled OOB at first, the nose filled with as much lead as possible and with the lower rear section cut away, so the B-47 resin jet nozzles would end up at the same position as the original RM2B exhaust. Due to the pen nib fairing between them, though, the profile of the modified tail became (visually) more massive, and I had to fill some gaps under the tail boom (with styrene sheet and putty). The twin engines also turned out to be wider than expected – I had hoped for straight flanks, but the fuselage shape ended up with considerable bulges behind the landing gear wells. These were created with parts from drop tank halves and blended into the rest of the lower hill with PSR work. In the same wake the area under the fin was sculpted and re-created, too.

At that point it became clear that I had to do more on the fuselage, esp. the front end, in order to keep the aircraft visually balance. A convenient solution became an F-100 air intake, which I grafted onto the nose instead of the original circular and round-lipped orifice – with its sharp lip the Super Sabre piece was even a plausible change! The fuselage shapes and diameters differed considerably, though, more PSR became necessary.

Next came the wings: I had already set apart a pair of trapezoid wings with a 45° sweep angle – these were left over from a PM Model Ta 183 conversion some time ago. With their odd shape and size they were a perfect match for my project, even more so due to the fact that I could keep the original J29 wing attachment points, I just had to shorten and modify the trailing edge area on the fuselage. The result was very conclusive.

With the new nose and the wings in place, the overall proportions became clearer: still tail-heavy, but not unpleasant. At this time I was also certain that I had to modify the tail surfaces. The fin was too small and did not have enough sweep for the overall look, and the stabilizer, with its thick profile, rounded edges and the single, continuous rudder did not look supersonic at all. What followed was a long search in the donor banks for suitable replacements, and I eventually came up with a MiG-15 fin (Hobby Boss) which was later clipped at the top for a less recognizable profile. The stabilizers were more challenging, though. My solution eventually became a pair of modified stabilizers from a Matchbox Buccaneer(!), attached to the MiG-15 fin.

The design problems did not stop here, though: the landing gear caused some more headaches. I wanted to keep the OOB parts, but especially the main legs would leave the aircraft with a very goofy look through a short wheelbase and a rear axis position too much forward. In an attempt to save the situation I attached swing arms to the OOB struts, moving the axis maybe 5mm backwards and widening the track by 2mm at the same time. Not much in total, but it helped (a little, even though the aircraft is still very tail-heavy)

As a final addition – since the original, wing-mounted pitots of the J29 were gone now and would not go well with the wing-switching idea – I gave the P29G a large, nose-mounted pitot and sensor boom, placed on top of the nose. This part come, like the air intake, from an F-100.

Painting and markings:

I tend to be conservative when it comes to liveries for what-if models, and the P29G is no exception. At first, I thought that this build could become an operational supersonic daylight interceptor (the J29G), so that I could give the model full military markings and maybe a camouflage paint scheme. However, this idea would not work: the potential real life window for such an aircraft, based on the Saab 29, would be very narrow. And aircraft development in the late Fifties made quantum leaps within a very short period of time: While the J29A entered service, work on the Mach 2 Saab 35 was already underway – nobody would have accepted (or needed) a Mach 1 fighter, based on late Forties technology, at that time anymore, and there was the all-weather Saab J32B around, too. The update program with new wings and a more powerful afterburner engine was all that could be done to exploit the Tunnan’s potential, resulting in the (real world’s) J29E and F variants.

I eventually decided that the J29G would only be a prototype/research aircraft, consequently called P29G, and through this decision I became more or less settled upon a NMF finish with some colorful markings. Consequently, the model was painted with various shades of metal colors, primarily Polished Aluminum Metallizer from Humbrol, but also with Humbrol 191 and Matt Aluminum Metallizer as well as ModelMaster Steel Metallizer. Around the exhaust section, I also used Revell 91 (Iron) and ModelMaster Exhaust Metallizer. Some single panels and details were painted with Revell 99 (Aluminum), and I also used generic decal material in silver to simulate some smaller access panels. Grey decal sheet was used to simulate covers for the cannon nozzles.

The cockpit interior was painted, according to Saab 29 standard, in a dark greenish-grey (Revell 67), and bluish grey was used inside of the landing gear wells (Revell 57). The pitot boom received black and white stripes.

For markings I let myself get inspired from the real world Saab 29 and 32 prototypes, which were all marked with a colored “U” tactical code on the fin and also on the front fuselage, simply meaning “Utverding” (= “Test”). I found four red decals, and I also gave the aircraft a yellow cheatline, lent from an Airfix F-86D decal sheet. The Swedish roundels come from a generic aftermarket sheet, most stencils were taken from the Revell OOB sheet and a Printscale J29 sheet.

Before the model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic varnish from Italeri, some grinded graphite was rubbed onto the rear fuselage, adding a metallic shine and simulating exhaust stains.

A thorough conversion – this has rather evolved into a kitbashing than just a kit conversion: not much from the original Matchbox J29 has been left over. But I like the outcome, even though things developed gradually from the simple idea of changing the number of engines on the Tunnan. One thing led to another. The resulting aircraft looks quite plausible, even though I am not totally happy with the landing gear, which appears to be rather far forward, despite surgical measures to mend the situation. The Ta 183 wings are a very good match, though, and I cannot help but recognize a certain French look, maybe due to the cruciform tail and the oval air intake? The P29G could also, with Argentinian marking, have become a revised version of the FMA Pulqui II?

c/n 18835/408. At New York-JFK Airport. New to Pan Am as N404PA in 1965. To American Eagle in 1980 and reposessed in 1981 and stored at Marana. Converted to a flying testbed for the Air Force Systems Command by 1995. Operated by MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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The C111 was a series of experimental automobiles produced by Mercedes-Benz in the 1960s and 1970s. The company was experimenting with new engine technologies, including Wankel engines, Diesel engines, and turbochargers, and used the basic C111 platform as a testbed. Other experimental features included multi-link rear suspension, gullwing doors and a luxurious interior with leather trim and air conditioning.

The first version of the C111 was completed in 1969. The car used a fiberglass body shell and with a mid-mounted three-rotor direct fuel injected Wankel engine (code named M950F). The next C111 appeared in 1970. It used a four-rotor engine producing 370 hp (275 kW). The car reportedly could reach a speed of 290 km/h (180 mph).

The company decided not to adopt the Wankel engine and turned to Diesel experiments for the second and third C111. The C111-IID produced 190 horsepower (140 kW) and was based on the 240D 3.0 W115 model OM617 engine. The C111-III was powered by a 230 horsepower (170 kW) @ 4,500rpm straight-5 OM617 turbodiesel which broke nine diesel and gas speed records. With more aerodynamic bodywork that gave it an air drag coefficient of .19, the C111 eventually reached 200 mph (322 km/h) at Nardò in 1978, and averaged 14.7mpg@ 316 km/h (195.4 mph) over a 12-hour cruise. A later 500 hp (372 kW) 4.8 L twin KKK-turbocharged V8 version set another record, with an average lap-speed of 403.78 km/h (250.958 mph). It was achieved by Dr. Hans Leibold in 1 minute, 56.67 seconds on May 5, 1979.

Mercedes-Benz introduced the C112 at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1991 as a to be produced sports car. The car used a mid-mounted 6.0 L V12 engine. But after accepting 700 deposits, the company decided not to proceed with production.

Resplendent in her 'Raspberry Ripple' MoD(PE) colours, DERA's 'Active Control Technology' test-bed BAe Harrier T.4 XW175 in the static park at the RNAS Yeovilton 2000 'Air Day'

With it's lineage going back to the 'Flying Bedstead' the unique VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) Harrier 'Jump-Jet' was developed from the earlier P.1127 and then the Kestrel.

XW175 was the second two-seater Harrier ever to fly and was used for the VAAC (Vectored thrust Aircraft Advanced flight Control) programme for many years down at Boscombe Down.

Now retired she resides at at the RAF Museum at Cosford.

For more on this unique aircraft's testing check out the following link for an insight by the then BAe's Chief Test-pilot - John Farley, on the Harrier programme:

myweb.tiscali.co.uk/hawkerassociation/hanewsletters/hanew...

Scanned 35mm transparency

Best viewed on black by pressing L

Once the fastest production car in the world, the Jaguar XK120 was Jaguar's first new product following the end of the war, being designed in those dark final days of the conflict and being developed over the next three years, making its début in 1948.

The XK120 was launched in open two-seater form at the 1948 London Motor Show as a testbed and show car for the new Jaguar XK engine. The display car was the first prototype, chassis number 670001. It looked almost identical to the production cars except that the straight outer pillars of its windscreen would be curved on the production version. The roadster caused a sensation, which persuaded Jaguar founder and design boss William Lyons to put it into production.

Beginning in 1948, the first 242 cars wore wood-framed open 2-seater bodies with aluminium panels. Production switched to the 112lb heavier all-steel in early 1950. The "120" in the name referred to the aluminium car's 120 mph top speed, which made it the world's fastest production car at the time of its launch. Engine models ranged from a 160bhp DOHC Straight-6 Double SU H6 low end model, to the fastest version which was powered by a 210bhp DOHC Straight-6 Double SU H8, giving the car a top speed of 124mph, which in 1949 was a spectacular feat when compared to the Austins and Morris' of the time.

On 30 May 1949, on the empty Ostend-Jabbeke motorway in Belgium, a prototype XK120 timed by the officials of the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium achieved an average of runs in opposing directions of 132.6 mph with the windscreen replaced by just one small aeroscreen and a catalogued alternative top gear ratio, and 135 mph with a passenger-side tonneau cover in place. In 1950 and 1951, at a banked oval track in France, XK120 roadsters averaged over 100 mph for 24 hours and over 130 mph for an hour, and in 1952 a fixed-head coupé took numerous world records for speed and distance when it averaged 100 mph for a week.

The Motor magazine road-tested an XK120 roadster in November 1949. This pre-production car, chassis number 670001, road-registered as HKV 455, was the first prototype built. It was also the 1948 London Motor Show display model, and had been driven by Prince Bira in the 1949 Silverstone Production Car Race. The magazine reported a top speed of 124.6 mph, acceleration from 0–60 mph in 10.0 seconds and fuel consumption of 19.8 miles per imperial gallon. The car as tested cost £1263 including taxes.

In 1949 the first production roadster, chassis number 670003, was delivered to famous actor Clark Gable.

The XK120 was ultimately available in two open versions, first as an open 2-seater described in the US market as the roadster, then also as a drophead coupé from 1953; and also as a closed, or fixed head coupé from 1951.

Production of the car ended in 1954 after 12,055 examples were constructed, being replaced by the Jaguar XK140. Today you'd be hard pressed to find XK120's on a regular basis, but if you attend car shows like me you'd be likely to find at least one show up.

Most notably though, the car returned to the centre stage of modern motoring through a spectacularly organised and choreographed race between the presenters of Top Gear on their Race to the North, a competition set in a hypothetical 1949 between the primary modes of transport at the time, with James May in the Jaguar XK120, Richard Hammond on a Vincent Blackshadow motorbike, and Jeremy Clarkson on the rebuilt Peppercorn A1 Pacific number 60163 'Tornado'.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Sweden required a strong air defense, utilizing the newly developed jet propulsion technology. The original concept had been designed around a mostly straight wing, but after Swedish engineers had obtained German research data on swept-wing designs, the prototype was altered to incorporate a 25° sweep. In order to make the wing as thin as possible, Saab elected to locate the retractable undercarriage in the aircraft's fuselage rather than into the wings.

While the second P29G was used for high speed trials, the first machine remained in its original guise and took over low speed handling tests. Thanks to the unique wing switch mechanism, the supersonic research program could be held within a very tight schedule and lasted until late 1959. Thereafter, the P29Gs’ potential was of little use anymore, and the engine use agreement with the USA put an end to further use of the two aircraft, so that both P29Gs were retired from service in 1960. The 1st machine, outfitted with standard J29F wings and stripped off of its engines, remained in use as an instructional air at Malmslätt air base 1969, while the second machine was mothballed. However, both airframes were eventually scrapped in 1970.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 11.66 m (38 ft 2 in) fuselage only,

13,97 m (45 ft 9 in) with pitot boom

Wingspan: varied*; 11.0 m (36 ft 1 in) with standard 25° sweep wings,

10.00 m (32 ft 9 ¾ in) with experimental 45° wings

Height: 4.54m (14 ft 10 ½ in)

Wing area: varied*; 24.15 m² (260.0 ft²) with standard 25° sweep wings

22.5 m² (242.2 ft²) with experimental 45° wings

Empty weight: 5,220 kg (11,500 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 8,510 kg (18,744 lb)

Powerplant:

2× Westinghouse J34-WE-42 turbojets, each rated at 3,400 lbf (15 kN) dry thrust

and 4,200 lbf (19 kN) with full afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1.367 km/h (849 mph) were achieved*

Range: 790 km (490 mi)

Service ceiling: up to 17,250 m (56,500 ft)*

Rate of climb: up to 45 m/s (8,850 ft/min)*

*Varying figures due to different tested wing configurations

Armament:

None installed; provisions for 4x 20mm Hispano Mark V autocannon in the lower front fuselage.

Depending on the mounted wing type, various external loads could be carried, including a wide range of light bombs, 75 mm (3 in) air-to-air rockets, 145 mm (5.8 in) anti-armor rockets, 150 mm (6 in) HE (high-explosive) rockets or 180 mm (7.2 in) HE anti-ship rockets. Due to the lack of complex wiring or fuel plumbing, no guided weapons or drop tanks could be mounted, though.

The kit and its assembly:

Sweden is a prolific whiffing territory, and the Saab 29 offers some interesting options. This highly modified Tunnan, which is actually rather a kitbashing than a mere model kit modification, is/was a submission to the “More or less engines” group build at whatifmodelers.com in summer 2019.

I actually had the idea of a two-engine J29 in the back of my mind for a long time, spawned by a resin conversion set for the Hasegawa B-47 Stratojet kit that came with new intakes and exhaust sections for the four engine pods. The single engine pod parts had been spent a long time ago, but the twin engine parts were still waiting for a good use. Could the exhaust fit under/into a Tunnan…?

I even had a Matchbox J29 stashed away for this experiment long ago, as well as some donor parts like the wings, and the GB eventually offered the right motivation to put those things together that no one would expect to work.

So I pulled out all the stuff and started – a rather straightforward affair. Work started with the fuselage, which was, together with the (very nice) cockpit assembled OOB at first, the nose filled with as much lead as possible and with the lower rear section cut away, so the B-47 resin jet nozzles would end up at the same position as the original RM2B exhaust. Due to the pen nib fairing between them, though, the profile of the modified tail became (visually) more massive, and I had to fill some gaps under the tail boom (with styrene sheet and putty). The twin engines also turned out to be wider than expected – I had hoped for straight flanks, but the fuselage shape ended up with considerable bulges behind the landing gear wells. These were created with parts from drop tank halves and blended into the rest of the lower hill with PSR work. In the same wake the area under the fin was sculpted and re-created, too.

At that point it became clear that I had to do more on the fuselage, esp. the front end, in order to keep the aircraft visually balance. A convenient solution became an F-100 air intake, which I grafted onto the nose instead of the original circular and round-lipped orifice – with its sharp lip the Super Sabre piece was even a plausible change! The fuselage shapes and diameters differed considerably, though, more PSR became necessary.

Next came the wings: I had already set apart a pair of trapezoid wings with a 45° sweep angle – these were left over from a PM Model Ta 183 conversion some time ago. With their odd shape and size they were a perfect match for my project, even more so due to the fact that I could keep the original J29 wing attachment points, I just had to shorten and modify the trailing edge area on the fuselage. The result was very conclusive.

With the new nose and the wings in place, the overall proportions became clearer: still tail-heavy, but not unpleasant. At this time I was also certain that I had to modify the tail surfaces. The fin was too small and did not have enough sweep for the overall look, and the stabilizer, with its thick profile, rounded edges and the single, continuous rudder did not look supersonic at all. What followed was a long search in the donor banks for suitable replacements, and I eventually came up with a MiG-15 fin (Hobby Boss) which was later clipped at the top for a less recognizable profile. The stabilizers were more challenging, though. My solution eventually became a pair of modified stabilizers from a Matchbox Buccaneer(!), attached to the MiG-15 fin.

The design problems did not stop here, though: the landing gear caused some more headaches. I wanted to keep the OOB parts, but especially the main legs would leave the aircraft with a very goofy look through a short wheelbase and a rear axis position too much forward. In an attempt to save the situation I attached swing arms to the OOB struts, moving the axis maybe 5mm backwards and widening the track by 2mm at the same time. Not much in total, but it helped (a little, even though the aircraft is still very tail-heavy)

As a final addition – since the original, wing-mounted pitots of the J29 were gone now and would not go well with the wing-switching idea – I gave the P29G a large, nose-mounted pitot and sensor boom, placed on top of the nose. This part come, like the air intake, from an F-100.

Painting and markings:

I tend to be conservative when it comes to liveries for what-if models, and the P29G is no exception. At first, I thought that this build could become an operational supersonic daylight interceptor (the J29G), so that I could give the model full military markings and maybe a camouflage paint scheme. However, this idea would not work: the potential real life window for such an aircraft, based on the Saab 29, would be very narrow. And aircraft development in the late Fifties made quantum leaps within a very short period of time: While the J29A entered service, work on the Mach 2 Saab 35 was already underway – nobody would have accepted (or needed) a Mach 1 fighter, based on late Forties technology, at that time anymore, and there was the all-weather Saab J32B around, too. The update program with new wings and a more powerful afterburner engine was all that could be done to exploit the Tunnan’s potential, resulting in the (real world’s) J29E and F variants.

I eventually decided that the J29G would only be a prototype/research aircraft, consequently called P29G, and through this decision I became more or less settled upon a NMF finish with some colorful markings. Consequently, the model was painted with various shades of metal colors, primarily Polished Aluminum Metallizer from Humbrol, but also with Humbrol 191 and Matt Aluminum Metallizer as well as ModelMaster Steel Metallizer. Around the exhaust section, I also used Revell 91 (Iron) and ModelMaster Exhaust Metallizer. Some single panels and details were painted with Revell 99 (Aluminum), and I also used generic decal material in silver to simulate some smaller access panels. Grey decal sheet was used to simulate covers for the cannon nozzles.

The cockpit interior was painted, according to Saab 29 standard, in a dark greenish-grey (Revell 67), and bluish grey was used inside of the landing gear wells (Revell 57). The pitot boom received black and white stripes.

For markings I let myself get inspired from the real world Saab 29 and 32 prototypes, which were all marked with a colored “U” tactical code on the fin and also on the front fuselage, simply meaning “Utverding” (= “Test”). I found four red decals, and I also gave the aircraft a yellow cheatline, lent from an Airfix F-86D decal sheet. The Swedish roundels come from a generic aftermarket sheet, most stencils were taken from the Revell OOB sheet and a Printscale J29 sheet.

Before the model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic varnish from Italeri, some grinded graphite was rubbed onto the rear fuselage, adding a metallic shine and simulating exhaust stains.

A thorough conversion – this has rather evolved into a kitbashing than just a kit conversion: not much from the original Matchbox J29 has been left over. But I like the outcome, even though things developed gradually from the simple idea of changing the number of engines on the Tunnan. One thing led to another. The resulting aircraft looks quite plausible, even though I am not totally happy with the landing gear, which appears to be rather far forward, despite surgical measures to mend the situation. The Ta 183 wings are a very good match, though, and I cannot help but recognize a certain French look, maybe due to the cruciform tail and the oval air intake? The P29G could also, with Argentinian marking, have become a revised version of the FMA Pulqui II?