#vodkaphotos #cosplay #madmaxfuryroad #capable

To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.

 

William Hazlitt

+++ 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 Wasp was a transonic British jet-powered fighter aircraft that was developed by Folland for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Wasp’s origins could be traced back to a privately funded 1952 concept for a bigger and more capable day fighter aircraft than Folland’s very light Midget/Gnat. The Wasp’s development had been continued until the Gnat’s service introduction, and by then it had evolved under the handle “Fo-145” into a supersonic aircraft that took advantage of the new Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire turbojet engine, swept wings and area rule. The aircraft was built with the minimum airframe size to take the reheated Saphire and a radar system that would allow it to deploy the new de Havilland Blue Jay (later Firestreak) guided air-to-air missile. In this form the aircraft was expected to surpass the Royal Air Force’s contemporary day fighter, the only gun-armed Hawker Hunter, which had been in service since 1954, while using basically the same engine as its F.2 variant, in both performance and armament aspects. The missile-armed Wasp was also expected to replace the disappointing Supermarine Swift and the Fairey Fireflash AAMs that had been developed for it.

The Wasp strongly resembled the smaller Gnat, with a similar but much thinner shoulder mounted wing, with a sweep of 35° at quarter chord, but the new aircraft featured some innovations. Beyond the area-ruled fuselage, the aircraft had full-span leading edge slats and trailing edge flaps with roll control achieved using spoilers rather than traditional ailerons. Anticipating supersonic performance, the tailplane was all-moving. The cockpit had been raised and offered the pilot a much better all-round field of view.

 

The Wasp was armed with four 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannon, located under the air intakes. Each gun had a provision of 125 rounds, from form a mutual ventral ammunition bay that could be quickly replaced. Four underwing hardpoints could carry an ordnance load of up to 4.000 lb, and the Wasp’s main armament consisted of up to four IR-guided “Firestreak” AAMs. To effectively deploy them, however, a radar system was necessary. For launch, the missile seeker was slaved to the Wasp’s AI.Mk.20 X-band radar until lock was achieved and the weapon was launched, leaving the interceptor free to acquire another target. The AI.Mk.20 had been developed by EKCO since 1953 under the development label “Green Willow” for the upcoming EE Lightning interceptor, should the latter’s more complex and powerful Ferranti AIRPASS system fail. A major advantage of the AI.Mk.20 was that it had been designed as a single unit so it could be fit into the nose of smaller single-seat fighters, despite its total weight of roughly 400 lb (200 kg). For the Firestreak AAM, EKCO had developed a spiral-scan radar with a compact 18 in (460 mm) antenna that offered an effective range of about 10 miles (16 km), although only against targets very close to the centerline of the radar. The radar’s maximum detection range was 25 mi (40 km) and the system also acted as a ranging radar, providing range input to the gyro gunsight for air-to-air gunnery.

Beyond Firestreaks, the Wasp could also carry drop tanks (which were area-ruled and coulc only be carried on the inner pair of pylons), SNEB Pods with eighteen 68 mm (2.68 in) unguided rocket projectiles against air and ground targets, or iron bombs of up to 1.000 lb caliber. Other equipment included a nose-mounted, and a forward-facing gun camera.

 

The Royal Air Force was sufficiently impressed to order two prototypes. Since the afterburning version of the Sapphire was not ready yet, the first prototype flew on 30 July 1954 with a non-afterburning engine, an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Sa.6 with 8,000 lbf (35.59 kN). In spite of this lack of power the aircraft nevertheless nearly reached Mach 1 in its maiden flight. The second prototype, equipped with the intended Sapphire Sa.7 afterburning engine with 11,000 lbf (48.9 kN) thrust engine, showed the aircraft’s full potential. The Wasp turned out to have very good handling, and the RAF officially ordered sixty Folland Fo-145 day-fighters under the designation “Wasp F.Mk.1”. The only changes from the prototypes were small leading-edge extensions at the wing roots, improving low speed handling, esp. during landings and at high angles of incidence in flight.

 

Most Wasps were delivered to RAF Germany frontline units, including No. 20 and 92 Squadrons based in Northern Germany. However, the Wasp’s active service did not last long, because technological advancements quickly rendered the aircraft obsolete in its original interceptor role. The Wasp’s performance had not turned out as significantly superior to the Hunter as expected. Range was rather limited, and the aircraft turned out to be underpowered, since the reheated Sapphire Sa6 did not develop as much power as expected. The AI.Mk.20 radar was rather weak and capricious, too, and the Firestreak was an operational nightmare. The missile was, due to its solid Magpie rocket motor and the ammonia coolant for the IR seeker head, highly toxic and RAF armorers had to wear some form of CRBN protection to safely mount the missile onto an aircraft. Furthermore, unlike modern missiles, Firestreak’s effectiveness was very limited since it could only be fired outside cloud - and over Europe or in winter, skies were rarely clear.

 

Plans for a second production run of the Folland Wasp with a more powerful Sapphire Sa7R engine with a raised thrust of 12,300 lbf (54.7 kN) and updated avionics were not carried out. During the 1960s, following the successful introduction of the supersonic English Electric Lightning in the interceptor role, the Wasp, as well as the older but more prosperous and versatile Hunter, transitioned to being operated as a fighter-bomber, advanced trainer and for tactical photo reconnaissance missions.

This led to a limited MLU program for the F.Mk.1s and conversions of the remaining airframes into two new variants: the new main version was the GR.Mk.2, a dedicated CAS/ground attack variant, which had its radar removed and replaced with ballast, outwardly recognizable through a solid metal nose which replaced the original fiberglass radome. Many of these machines also had two of the 30mm guns removed to save weight. Furthermore, a handful Wasps were converted into PR.Mk.3s. These had as set of five cameras in a new nose section with various windows, and all the guns and the ammunition bay were replaced with an additional fuel tank, operating as pure, unarmed reconnaissance aircraft. When Folland was integrated into the Hawker Siddeley Group in 1963 the aircraft’s official name was changed accordingly, even though the Folland name heritage persisted.

 

Most of these aircraft remained allocated to RAF Germany units and retired towards the late Sixties, but four GR.Mk.2s were operated by RAF No. 57 (Reserve) Squadron and based at No. 3 Flying Training School at Cranwell, where they were flown as adversaries in dissimilar aerial combat training. The last of the type was withdrawn from service in 1969, but one aircraft remained flying with the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down until 24 January 1975.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 45 ft 10.5 in (13.983 m)

Wingspan: 31 ft 7.5 in (9.639 m)

Height: 13 ft 2.75 in (4.0323 m)

Wing area: 250 sq ft (23 m2)

Empty weight: 13,810 lb (6,264 kg)

Gross weight: 21,035 lb (9,541 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 23,459 lb (10,641 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Sa.6, producing 7,450 lbf (33.1 kN) thrust at 8,300 rpm,

military power dry, and 11,000 lbf (48.9 kN) with afterburner

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 631 kn (726 mph, 1,169 km/h) / M1.1 at 35,000 ft (10,668 m)

654 kn (753 mph; 1,211 km/h) at sea level

Cruise speed: 501 kn (577 mph, 928 km/h)

Range: 1,110 nmi (1,280 mi, 2,060 km)

Service ceiling: 49,000 ft (15,000 m)

Rate of climb: 16,300 ft/min (83 m/s)

Wing loading: 84 lb/sq ft (410 kg/m2)

Thrust/weight: 0.5

 

Armament:

4× 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannon, 125 rounds per gun

4× underwing hardpoints for a total external ordnance of 4.000 lb, including Firestreak AAMs,

SNEB pods, bombs of up to 1.000 lb caliber or two 125 imp gal (570 l) drop tanks

  

The kit and its assembly

This kit travesty is a remake of a simple but brilliant idea of fellow modeler chrisonord at whatifmodellers’com (www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=48434.msg899420#m...), who posted his own build in late 2020: a Grumman Tiger in standard contemporary RAF colors as Folland Wasp GR.Mk.2. The result looked like a highly credible “big brother” or maybe successor of Folland’s diminutive Midge/Gnat fighter, something in the Hawker Hunter’s class. I really like the idea a lot and decided that it was, one and a half years later, to build my personal interpretation of the subject – also because I had a Hasegawa F11F kit in The Stash™ without a proper plan.

 

The Tiger was built basically OOB – a simple and straightforward affair that goes together well, just the fine, raised panel lines show the mould’s age. The only changes I made: the arrester hook disappeared under PSR, small stabilizer fins (from an Italeri BAe Hawk) were added under the tail section, and I replaced the Tiger’s rugged twin wheel front landing gear with a single wheel alternative, left over from a Matchbox T-2 Buckeye. On the main landing gear, the rearward-facing stabilizing struts were deleted (for a lighter look of a land-based aircraft) and their wells filled with putty. A late modification were additional swing arms for the main landing gear, though: once the kit could sit on its own three feet, the stance was odd and low, esp. under the tail – probably due to the new front wheel. As a remedy I glued additional swing arm elements, made from 1mm steel wire, under the original struts, what moved the main wheel a little backwards and raised the main landing gear my 1mm. Does not sound like much, but it was enough to lift the tail and give the aircraft a more convincing stance and ground clearance.

 

The area-ruled drop tanks and their respective pylons were taken from the Hasegawa kit. For a special “British” touch – because the Tiger had a radome (into which no radar was ever fitted, though) – I added a pair of Firestreak AAMs on the outer underwing stations, procured from a Gomix Gloster Javelin (which comes with four of these, plus pylons).

  

Painting and markings:

Since the RAF theme was more or less settled, paintwork revolved around more or less authentical colors and markings. The Wasp received a standard RAF day fighter scheme from the late Fifties, with upper camouflage in RAF Dark Green/Dark Sea Grey and Light Aircraft Grey undersides with a low waterline. I used Humbrol 163, 106 and 166, respectively – Ocean Grey was used because I did not have the proper 164 at hand, but 106 also offered the benefit of a slightly better contrast to the murky Dark Green. A black ink washing was applied plus some panel post-shading. The silver leading edges on wings, stabilizers and fin were created with decal sheet material, avoiding the inconvenience of masking.

 

The cockpit interior was painted in a very dark grey (Revell 09, Anthracite) while the landing gear, wheels and wells received a greyish-metallic finish (Humbrol 56, Aluminum Dope). The air intakes’ interior became bright aluminum (Revell 99), the area around the jet nozzle was painted with Revell 91 (Iron metallic) and later treated with graphite for a dark metallic shine. The drop tanks were camouflaged, the Firestreaks became white so that they would stand out well and add to a certain vintage look.

 

The decals were a mix from various sources. The No. 20 Squadron badges and the Type D high-viz roundels on the wings were left over from an Airfix Hawker Hunter. The fuselage roundels came from an Italeri BAe Hawk sheet, IIRC. The bent fin flash, all the stencils as well as the serial code (which was puzzled together from two real serials and was AFAIK not allocated to any real RAF aircraft) came from an Xtradecal Supermarine Swift sheet. The individual red “B” letter came from a Matchbox A.W. Meteor night fighter.

 

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish – I considered a glossy finish, since this was typical for RAF aircraft in the Fifties, but eventually just gave the radome a light shine.

  

Basically a simple project, and quickly done in just a couple of days. However, chrisonord’s great eye for similarities makes this “Tiger in disguise” a great fictional aircraft model with only little effort, it’s IMHO very convincing. And the RAF colors and markings suit the F11F very well.

The F-105 was designed as a supersonic, single-seat, fighter-bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons or heavy bomb loads at supersonic speeds. The F-105D variant was an all-weather fighter-bomber version, fitted with mono-pulse and Doppler radar for night or bad weather operations. The original weapons bay, designed for nuclear stores, was sealed and fitted with additional fuel tanks. Bombs were carried on multiple weapons racks on the centerline of the fuselage, and on wing pylons. The aircraft was fitted with a retractable in-flight refueling probe. The first F-105D flew on 9 June 1959 and 610 F-105Ds were eventually built.

  

This aircraft has served in several F-105 units around the world and is restored to its 1967 Vietnam-era 388th Tactical Fighter Wing, 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron camouflage as it flew during its assignment to Korat RTAB, Thailand. This jet also was briefly assigned to the 355 TFW located at Takhli RTAB in 1968. After this "Thud" finished its combat tour-which certainly included missions supporting Operation "Rolling Thunder," "Steel Tiger," and "Barrel Roll"-it returned stateside and began more than a decade assigned to the District of Columbia Air National Guard and was transferred to the Air and Space Museum in late 1981.

+++ 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:

Eager to expand its market and partly to replace the USA as supplier of military equipment in Asia, Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) was looking in the early 1990s to export its Kfir fighters to the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Kfir (Hebrew: כְּפִיר‎, "Lion Cub") was an Israeli all-weather multirole combat aircraft based on the French Dassault Mirage 5, with Israeli avionics and an Israeli-built version of the General Electric J79 turbojet engine. The Kfir program originated in the quest to develop a more capable version of the IAI Nesher, an unlicensed Mirage 6 copy which was already in series production. After General De Gaulle embargoed the sale of arms to Israel, the IAF feared that it might lose qualitative superiority over its adversaries in the future, which were receiving increasingly advanced Soviet aircraft. The main and most advanced type of aircraft available to the IAF was the Mirage, but a severe problem developed due to the Mirage fleet's depletion due to attrition after the Six-Day War. Domestic production would avoid the problem of the embargo completely; efforts to reverse engineer and reproduce components of the Mirage were aided by Israeli espionage efforts to obtain technical assistance and blueprints from third party Mirage operators.

 

Two powerplants were initially selected for trials: the General Electric J79 turbojet and the Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan. In the end, the J79 was selected, not least because it was the same engine used on the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, which the Israelis began to acquire from the United States in 1969, along with a license to produce the J79 themselves. The J79 was clearly superior to the original French Atar 09, providing a dry thrust of 49 kN (11,000 lbf) and an afterburning thrust of 83.4 kN (18,750 lbf).

In order to accommodate the new powerplant on the Mirage III's airframe, and to deliver the added cooling required by the J79, the aircraft's rear fuselage was slightly shortened and widened, its air intakes were enlarged, and a large air inlet was installed at the base of the vertical stabilizer, so as to supply the extra cooling needed for the afterburner. The engine itself was encased in a titanium heatshield.

 

The Kfir entered service with the IAF in 1975. The role of the Kfir as the IAF's primary air superiority asset was short-lived, as the first F-15 Eagle fighters from the United States were delivered to Israel in 1976. The Kfir's first recorded combat action took place on November 9, 1977, during an Israeli air strike on a training camp at Tel Azia, in Lebanon. By the time of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982 (Operation “Peace for Galilee”) the IAF was able to use both its F-15s and F-16s for air superiority roles, leaving the Kfirs to carry out unescorted strike missions, and the aircraft were upgraded accordingly to C.2 status first and later to C.7 status, with upgraded avionics and a HOTAs cockpit. During the second half of the 1990s the Kfirs were withdrawn from active duty in the IAF, after almost twenty years of continuous service. The type was offered for export, too, even though commercial success was limited. Major foreign Kfir operators became Colombia, Ecuador, and Sri Lanka.

 

Negotiations with Taiwan about a Kfir procurement had started in the mid-Eighties, when the ROCAF was looking for a more capable replacement for the country’s ageing Northrop F-5E fleet. The most favored type was the new American F-16, which promised improvements in almost any aspect. But due to the F-16’s novelty and the political brisance of Taiwan’s relationship with China, Taiwan’s request was declined. Into this situation Israel chimed in and offered 40 new Kfir C.7 fighter bombers, in a deal estimated to have been worth US$ 400 million to $1 billion. The Bush Administration, in an apparent move to mollify Jerusalem, approved the marketing of Kfir jet fighter in Taiwan containing a U.S.-built General Electric engine, but this proposal fell through at the end of March 1992 – apparently at the height of a highly sensitive dispute between Israel and the United States over intelligence reports that Israel had sold U.S. weapons technology to China without Washington’s approval. At the same time, the United States also was reported to have signed an agreement to provide $320 million for the second phase of the Arrow project--an anti-missile missile being developed in Israel with U.S. funding as part of the Administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative. The State Department and the plane’s manufacturer, Israel Aircraft Industries, declined to discuss the Kfir deal. However, officials from both countries said privately that Israel, which was retiring the planes in favor of the more modern US-made F-16 fighter, presented Taiwan with a new official offer to sell 20 refurbished Kfir C.2s from IAF stock, even though the value of this deal remained undisclosed.

 

This offer was accepted and greenlighted by the USA, and even neighboring China appeared to believe that the Kfirs, based on the 1950s French Mirage fighter, did not pose any serious threat. In addition, the Chinese were reluctant to stand in the way of the transaction so as not to upset their own defense cooperation with Israel. However, the weekly Defense News later quoted a senior Taiwanese procurement official as saying that his country was, despite a “reasonable package price”, unlikely to buy more Kfirs--because it still preferred the F-16 and would continue negotiations with the USA. In fact, just after having signed the contract with IAI, Taiwan ordered, after more than 10 years of rejection, no less than 150 F-16A/B-20 fighter aircraft from the USA, 60 Dassault Mirage 2000 multi-role aircraft from France and launched its own indigenous fighter program, the AIDC Ching-Kuo, too.

 

The ROCAF Kfirs arrived between early 1993 and mid-1994, and they were subsequently upgraded by AIDC at Taichung with indigenous technology that would expand the fighter bombers’ capabilities. Primarily, avionics and cockpit equipment were upgraded, including a retrofitted MFT monitor in the cockpit, an improved HUD, a new Martin Baker Mk. 10 ejection seat and the ability to carry smart weapons, including AGM-65 Maverick missiles and laser-guided Paveway bombs. For the latter, Taiwan procured twelve used AN/AVQ-23E electro-optical laser designator targeting pods from Great Britain, which had formerly been used by the RAF’s Blackburn Buccaneers during the Gulf War and had just been retired. The pods had limited capabilities, though, and were only able to direct laser-guided bombs to target in daylight, visual conditions.

 

The modernized aircraft received a tactical three-color paint scheme and were allocated to 7th Group, 7th Wing at Chih Hang Air Base in the Taitung Province in South-Eastern Taiwan, where they replaced the unit’s F-5Es in the fighter bomber role. Nevertheless, the ROCAF Tiger IIs remained in service – in fact for more than 30 more years! The Kfirs’ primary mission became quick strikes against ground and especially sea targets. For the latter mission, the AGM-84 Harpoon ASM and later the indigenous Hsiung Feng II missile were integrated, too. However, due to the Kfir’s phenomenal climbing capabilities, the machines were also on frequent QRA for interception missions over Taiwan’s coastlines.

 

However, the machines remained, due to escalating maintenance problems and reaching the airframes’ end of life after more than thirty years, only active until 2006. The remaining sixteen machines were eventually returned to Israel and superseded by new F-16C/D fighters.

  

General characteristics

Crew: One

Length (incl. pitot): 15.73 m (51 ft 6 1/4 in)

Wingspan: 8.22 m (26 ft 11½ in)

Height: 4.61 m (14 ft 11 3/4 in)

Wing area: 34.8 m² (374.6 sq ft)

Empty weight: 7,285 kg (16,060 lb)

Loaded weight: 11,603 kg (25,580 lb) with two 500 L drop tanks, two AAMs

Max. take-off weight: 16,200 kg (35,715 lb)

 

Powerplant:

1× General Electric J-79-J1E turbojet (IAl Bedek-built) with a dry thrust of 52.9 kN (11,890 lb st)

and 79.62 kN (17,900 lb st) with afterburner

 

Performance

Maximum speed: 2,440 km/h (2 Mach, 1,317 knots, 1,516 mph) above 11,000 m (36,000 ft)

Combat radius: 768 km (415 nmi, 477 mi) in ground attack configuration, hi-lo-hi profile,

with seven 500 lb bombs, two AAMs, two 1,300 L drop tanks

Service ceiling: 17,680 m (58,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 233 m/s (45,950 ft/min)

 

Armament:

2× Rafael-built 30 mm (1.18 in) DEFA 553 cannons, 140 RPG

9× hardpoints under the wings and fuselage for up to 5,775 kg (12,730 lb) of payload

  

The kit and its assembly:

Another IAI Kfir, and – weird as it seems – the story of Taiwan procuring the Israeli fighter instead of the early F-16 is actually real! And it was a great basis to produce a what-if model of such an aircraft, had it ever entered ROCAF service.

The kit is the Italeri Kfir C.2/7 kit, which is rather simple and not as crisp as the Hasegawa alternative. It also has its assembly issues. The outlines are OK and the kit comes with fine recessed surface details, but fit is so-so and there are some weak spots: the fuselage/wing seams, the complex intersections under the air intakes that run right through the gun ports, sinkholes on the wings’ upper surface and an integral cockpit tub/front landing gear well piece that won’t fit properly. The Hasegawa kit’s fit is better, but the Italeri Kfir is detail-wise not worse – and it’s cheaper.

 

The only changes are four additional underwing pylons (from two different F-16 kits) and their ordnance. The Paveway bombs come from the Italeri NATO weapons set, the Pave Spike laser pod from a Hasegawa set, and the ALQ-119 pod was left over from a Revell F-16 kit. The OOB Shafrir AAMs were replaced by more modern AIM-9J Sidewinders. The ventral pylon was left away.

Inside of the cockpit the original Martin Baker Mk. 5 ejection seat was replaced with a more modern Mk. 10, and a monitor and a HUD screen were added to the dashboard.

  

Painting and markings:

I did not want a grey low-viz livery, and since the ROCAF had operated many US-built aircraft (including the F-5Es) in USAF SEA scheme colors, I adapted it for the Kfir, too. However, finding a suitable pattern was not easy. I looked into many options, including the official USAF F-102 and F-106 SEA patterns or the Belgian Mirage Vs’ tricolor scheme, but did not like any of them so that I developed my own and created a four-side profile as benchmark.

 

The paints became Humbrol 117 (FS 34102), 118 (FS 30118) and 116 (FS 34079). The underside became Humbrol 28 (FS 36622), with a wavy, low waterline. The landing gear and the air intakes became classic white, while the cockpit tub was kept in medium grey. Very straightforward and “realistic”.

After basic painting was done the model received an over washing with thinned black ink and some post-shading with lighter shades of the camouflage tones. FS 34079’s shading was moved into a more bluish tone for a better contrast to the lighter FS 34102.

 

The markings are a mix from various sources. The roundels and the serial numbers came from a BestFong sheet for Taiwanese F-5s, the unit markings from an Xtradecal F-5E sheet. Most stencils were taken from the Kfir’s OOB sheet.

 

The Paveway bombs were painted in two different shades of olive drab, the Sidewinders became standard white with black heads. The ALG-119 pos was, for some color contrast, painted in light grey (FS 36375), and the Pave Spike pod, simulating a 2nd hand AN/AVQ-23E pod from RAF stock, became Dark Green. I even considered a livery in Desert Pink (check Gulf War Buccaneers that carried them), but found that to look too exotic.

 

+++ 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:

Eager to expand its market and partly to replace the USA as supplier of military equipment in Asia, Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) was looking in the early 1990s to export its Kfir fighters to the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Kfir (Hebrew: כְּפִיר‎, "Lion Cub") was an Israeli all-weather multirole combat aircraft based on the French Dassault Mirage 5, with Israeli avionics and an Israeli-built version of the General Electric J79 turbojet engine. The Kfir program originated in the quest to develop a more capable version of the IAI Nesher, an unlicensed Mirage 6 copy which was already in series production. After General De Gaulle embargoed the sale of arms to Israel, the IAF feared that it might lose qualitative superiority over its adversaries in the future, which were receiving increasingly advanced Soviet aircraft. The main and most advanced type of aircraft available to the IAF was the Mirage, but a severe problem developed due to the Mirage fleet's depletion due to attrition after the Six-Day War. Domestic production would avoid the problem of the embargo completely; efforts to reverse engineer and reproduce components of the Mirage were aided by Israeli espionage efforts to obtain technical assistance and blueprints from third party Mirage operators.

 

Two powerplants were initially selected for trials: the General Electric J79 turbojet and the Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan. In the end, the J79 was selected, not least because it was the same engine used on the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, which the Israelis began to acquire from the United States in 1969, along with a license to produce the J79 themselves. The J79 was clearly superior to the original French Atar 09, providing a dry thrust of 49 kN (11,000 lbf) and an afterburning thrust of 83.4 kN (18,750 lbf).

In order to accommodate the new powerplant on the Mirage III's airframe, and to deliver the added cooling required by the J79, the aircraft's rear fuselage was slightly shortened and widened, its air intakes were enlarged, and a large air inlet was installed at the base of the vertical stabilizer, so as to supply the extra cooling needed for the afterburner. The engine itself was encased in a titanium heatshield.

 

The Kfir entered service with the IAF in 1975. The role of the Kfir as the IAF's primary air superiority asset was short-lived, as the first F-15 Eagle fighters from the United States were delivered to Israel in 1976. The Kfir's first recorded combat action took place on November 9, 1977, during an Israeli air strike on a training camp at Tel Azia, in Lebanon. By the time of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982 (Operation “Peace for Galilee”) the IAF was able to use both its F-15s and F-16s for air superiority roles, leaving the Kfirs to carry out unescorted strike missions, and the aircraft were upgraded accordingly to C.2 status first and later to C.7 status, with upgraded avionics and a HOTAs cockpit. During the second half of the 1990s the Kfirs were withdrawn from active duty in the IAF, after almost twenty years of continuous service. The type was offered for export, too, even though commercial success was limited. Major foreign Kfir operators became Colombia, Ecuador, and Sri Lanka.

 

Negotiations with Taiwan about a Kfir procurement had started in the mid-Eighties, when the ROCAF was looking for a more capable replacement for the country’s ageing Northrop F-5E fleet. The most favored type was the new American F-16, which promised improvements in almost any aspect. But due to the F-16’s novelty and the political brisance of Taiwan’s relationship with China, Taiwan’s request was declined. Into this situation Israel chimed in and offered 40 new Kfir C.7 fighter bombers, in a deal estimated to have been worth US$ 400 million to $1 billion. The Bush Administration, in an apparent move to mollify Jerusalem, approved the marketing of Kfir jet fighter in Taiwan containing a U.S.-built General Electric engine, but this proposal fell through at the end of March 1992 – apparently at the height of a highly sensitive dispute between Israel and the United States over intelligence reports that Israel had sold U.S. weapons technology to China without Washington’s approval. At the same time, the United States also was reported to have signed an agreement to provide $320 million for the second phase of the Arrow project--an anti-missile missile being developed in Israel with U.S. funding as part of the Administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative. The State Department and the plane’s manufacturer, Israel Aircraft Industries, declined to discuss the Kfir deal. However, officials from both countries said privately that Israel, which was retiring the planes in favor of the more modern US-made F-16 fighter, presented Taiwan with a new official offer to sell 20 refurbished Kfir C.2s from IAF stock, even though the value of this deal remained undisclosed.

 

This offer was accepted and greenlighted by the USA, and even neighboring China appeared to believe that the Kfirs, based on the 1950s French Mirage fighter, did not pose any serious threat. In addition, the Chinese were reluctant to stand in the way of the transaction so as not to upset their own defense cooperation with Israel. However, the weekly Defense News later quoted a senior Taiwanese procurement official as saying that his country was, despite a “reasonable package price”, unlikely to buy more Kfirs--because it still preferred the F-16 and would continue negotiations with the USA. In fact, just after having signed the contract with IAI, Taiwan ordered, after more than 10 years of rejection, no less than 150 F-16A/B-20 fighter aircraft from the USA, 60 Dassault Mirage 2000 multi-role aircraft from France and launched its own indigenous fighter program, the AIDC Ching-Kuo, too.

 

The ROCAF Kfirs arrived between early 1993 and mid-1994, and they were subsequently upgraded by AIDC at Taichung with indigenous technology that would expand the fighter bombers’ capabilities. Primarily, avionics and cockpit equipment were upgraded, including a retrofitted MFT monitor in the cockpit, an improved HUD, a new Martin Baker Mk. 10 ejection seat and the ability to carry smart weapons, including AGM-65 Maverick missiles and laser-guided Paveway bombs. For the latter, Taiwan procured twelve used AN/AVQ-23E electro-optical laser designator targeting pods from Great Britain, which had formerly been used by the RAF’s Blackburn Buccaneers during the Gulf War and had just been retired. The pods had limited capabilities, though, and were only able to direct laser-guided bombs to target in daylight, visual conditions.

 

The modernized aircraft received a tactical three-color paint scheme and were allocated to 7th Group, 7th Wing at Chih Hang Air Base in the Taitung Province in South-Eastern Taiwan, where they replaced the unit’s F-5Es in the fighter bomber role. Nevertheless, the ROCAF Tiger IIs remained in service – in fact for more than 30 more years! The Kfirs’ primary mission became quick strikes against ground and especially sea targets. For the latter mission, the AGM-84 Harpoon ASM and later the indigenous Hsiung Feng II missile were integrated, too. However, due to the Kfir’s phenomenal climbing capabilities, the machines were also on frequent QRA for interception missions over Taiwan’s coastlines.

 

However, the machines remained, due to escalating maintenance problems and reaching the airframes’ end of life after more than thirty years, only active until 2006. The remaining sixteen machines were eventually returned to Israel and superseded by new F-16C/D fighters.

  

General characteristics

Crew: One

Length (incl. pitot): 15.73 m (51 ft 6 1/4 in)

Wingspan: 8.22 m (26 ft 11½ in)

Height: 4.61 m (14 ft 11 3/4 in)

Wing area: 34.8 m² (374.6 sq ft)

Empty weight: 7,285 kg (16,060 lb)

Loaded weight: 11,603 kg (25,580 lb) with two 500 L drop tanks, two AAMs

Max. take-off weight: 16,200 kg (35,715 lb)

 

Powerplant:

1× General Electric J-79-J1E turbojet (IAl Bedek-built) with a dry thrust of 52.9 kN (11,890 lb st)

and 79.62 kN (17,900 lb st) with afterburner

 

Performance

Maximum speed: 2,440 km/h (2 Mach, 1,317 knots, 1,516 mph) above 11,000 m (36,000 ft)

Combat radius: 768 km (415 nmi, 477 mi) in ground attack configuration, hi-lo-hi profile,

with seven 500 lb bombs, two AAMs, two 1,300 L drop tanks

Service ceiling: 17,680 m (58,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 233 m/s (45,950 ft/min)

 

Armament:

2× Rafael-built 30 mm (1.18 in) DEFA 553 cannons, 140 RPG

9× hardpoints under the wings and fuselage for up to 5,775 kg (12,730 lb) of payload

  

The kit and its assembly:

Another IAI Kfir, and – weird as it seems – the story of Taiwan procuring the Israeli fighter instead of the early F-16 is actually real! And it was a great basis to produce a what-if model of such an aircraft, had it ever entered ROCAF service.

The kit is the Italeri Kfir C.2/7 kit, which is rather simple and not as crisp as the Hasegawa alternative. It also has its assembly issues. The outlines are OK and the kit comes with fine recessed surface details, but fit is so-so and there are some weak spots: the fuselage/wing seams, the complex intersections under the air intakes that run right through the gun ports, sinkholes on the wings’ upper surface and an integral cockpit tub/front landing gear well piece that won’t fit properly. The Hasegawa kit’s fit is better, but the Italeri Kfir is detail-wise not worse – and it’s cheaper.

 

The only changes are four additional underwing pylons (from two different F-16 kits) and their ordnance. The Paveway bombs come from the Italeri NATO weapons set, the Pave Spike laser pod from a Hasegawa set, and the ALQ-119 pod was left over from a Revell F-16 kit. The OOB Shafrir AAMs were replaced by more modern AIM-9J Sidewinders. The ventral pylon was left away.

Inside of the cockpit the original Martin Baker Mk. 5 ejection seat was replaced with a more modern Mk. 10, and a monitor and a HUD screen were added to the dashboard.

  

Painting and markings:

I did not want a grey low-viz livery, and since the ROCAF had operated many US-built aircraft (including the F-5Es) in USAF SEA scheme colors, I adapted it for the Kfir, too. However, finding a suitable pattern was not easy. I looked into many options, including the official USAF F-102 and F-106 SEA patterns or the Belgian Mirage Vs’ tricolor scheme, but did not like any of them so that I developed my own and created a four-side profile as benchmark.

 

The paints became Humbrol 117 (FS 34102), 118 (FS 30118) and 116 (FS 34079). The underside became Humbrol 28 (FS 36622), with a wavy, low waterline. The landing gear and the air intakes became classic white, while the cockpit tub was kept in medium grey. Very straightforward and “realistic”.

After basic painting was done the model received an over washing with thinned black ink and some post-shading with lighter shades of the camouflage tones. FS 34079’s shading was moved into a more bluish tone for a better contrast to the lighter FS 34102.

 

The markings are a mix from various sources. The roundels and the serial numbers came from a BestFong sheet for Taiwanese F-5s, the unit markings from an Xtradecal F-5E sheet. Most stencils were taken from the Kfir’s OOB sheet.

 

The Paveway bombs were painted in two different shades of olive drab, the Sidewinders became standard white with black heads. The ALG-119 pos was, for some color contrast, painted in light grey (FS 36375), and the Pave Spike pod, simulating a 2nd hand AN/AVQ-23E pod from RAF stock, became Dark Green. I even considered a livery in Desert Pink (check Gulf War Buccaneers that carried them), but found that to look too exotic.

 

+++ 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 Wasp was a transonic British jet-powered fighter aircraft that was developed by Folland for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Wasp’s origins could be traced back to a privately funded 1952 concept for a bigger and more capable day fighter aircraft than Folland’s very light Midget/Gnat. The Wasp’s development had been continued until the Gnat’s service introduction, and by then it had evolved under the handle “Fo-145” into a supersonic aircraft that took advantage of the new Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire turbojet engine, swept wings and area rule. The aircraft was built with the minimum airframe size to take the reheated Saphire and a radar system that would allow it to deploy the new de Havilland Blue Jay (later Firestreak) guided air-to-air missile. In this form the aircraft was expected to surpass the Royal Air Force’s contemporary day fighter, the only gun-armed Hawker Hunter, which had been in service since 1954, while using basically the same engine as its F.2 variant, in both performance and armament aspects. The missile-armed Wasp was also expected to replace the disappointing Supermarine Swift and the Fairey Fireflash AAMs that had been developed for it.

The Wasp strongly resembled the smaller Gnat, with a similar but much thinner shoulder mounted wing, with a sweep of 35° at quarter chord, but the new aircraft featured some innovations. Beyond the area-ruled fuselage, the aircraft had full-span leading edge slats and trailing edge flaps with roll control achieved using spoilers rather than traditional ailerons. Anticipating supersonic performance, the tailplane was all-moving. The cockpit had been raised and offered the pilot a much better all-round field of view.

 

The Wasp was armed with four 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannon, located under the air intakes. Each gun had a provision of 125 rounds, from form a mutual ventral ammunition bay that could be quickly replaced. Four underwing hardpoints could carry an ordnance load of up to 4.000 lb, and the Wasp’s main armament consisted of up to four IR-guided “Firestreak” AAMs. To effectively deploy them, however, a radar system was necessary. For launch, the missile seeker was slaved to the Wasp’s AI.Mk.20 X-band radar until lock was achieved and the weapon was launched, leaving the interceptor free to acquire another target. The AI.Mk.20 had been developed by EKCO since 1953 under the development label “Green Willow” for the upcoming EE Lightning interceptor, should the latter’s more complex and powerful Ferranti AIRPASS system fail. A major advantage of the AI.Mk.20 was that it had been designed as a single unit so it could be fit into the nose of smaller single-seat fighters, despite its total weight of roughly 400 lb (200 kg). For the Firestreak AAM, EKCO had developed a spiral-scan radar with a compact 18 in (460 mm) antenna that offered an effective range of about 10 miles (16 km), although only against targets very close to the centerline of the radar. The radar’s maximum detection range was 25 mi (40 km) and the system also acted as a ranging radar, providing range input to the gyro gunsight for air-to-air gunnery.

Beyond Firestreaks, the Wasp could also carry drop tanks (which were area-ruled and coulc only be carried on the inner pair of pylons), SNEB Pods with eighteen 68 mm (2.68 in) unguided rocket projectiles against air and ground targets, or iron bombs of up to 1.000 lb caliber. Other equipment included a nose-mounted, and a forward-facing gun camera.

 

The Royal Air Force was sufficiently impressed to order two prototypes. Since the afterburning version of the Sapphire was not ready yet, the first prototype flew on 30 July 1954 with a non-afterburning engine, an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Sa.6 with 8,000 lbf (35.59 kN). In spite of this lack of power the aircraft nevertheless nearly reached Mach 1 in its maiden flight. The second prototype, equipped with the intended Sapphire Sa.7 afterburning engine with 11,000 lbf (48.9 kN) thrust engine, showed the aircraft’s full potential. The Wasp turned out to have very good handling, and the RAF officially ordered sixty Folland Fo-145 day-fighters under the designation “Wasp F.Mk.1”. The only changes from the prototypes were small leading-edge extensions at the wing roots, improving low speed handling, esp. during landings and at high angles of incidence in flight.

 

Most Wasps were delivered to RAF Germany frontline units, including No. 20 and 92 Squadrons based in Northern Germany. However, the Wasp’s active service did not last long, because technological advancements quickly rendered the aircraft obsolete in its original interceptor role. The Wasp’s performance had not turned out as significantly superior to the Hunter as expected. Range was rather limited, and the aircraft turned out to be underpowered, since the reheated Sapphire Sa6 did not develop as much power as expected. The AI.Mk.20 radar was rather weak and capricious, too, and the Firestreak was an operational nightmare. The missile was, due to its solid Magpie rocket motor and the ammonia coolant for the IR seeker head, highly toxic and RAF armorers had to wear some form of CRBN protection to safely mount the missile onto an aircraft. Furthermore, unlike modern missiles, Firestreak’s effectiveness was very limited since it could only be fired outside cloud - and over Europe or in winter, skies were rarely clear.

 

Plans for a second production run of the Folland Wasp with a more powerful Sapphire Sa7R engine with a raised thrust of 12,300 lbf (54.7 kN) and updated avionics were not carried out. During the 1960s, following the successful introduction of the supersonic English Electric Lightning in the interceptor role, the Wasp, as well as the older but more prosperous and versatile Hunter, transitioned to being operated as a fighter-bomber, advanced trainer and for tactical photo reconnaissance missions.

This led to a limited MLU program for the F.Mk.1s and conversions of the remaining airframes into two new variants: the new main version was the GR.Mk.2, a dedicated CAS/ground attack variant, which had its radar removed and replaced with ballast, outwardly recognizable through a solid metal nose which replaced the original fiberglass radome. Many of these machines also had two of the 30mm guns removed to save weight. Furthermore, a handful Wasps were converted into PR.Mk.3s. These had as set of five cameras in a new nose section with various windows, and all the guns and the ammunition bay were replaced with an additional fuel tank, operating as pure, unarmed reconnaissance aircraft. When Folland was integrated into the Hawker Siddeley Group in 1963 the aircraft’s official name was changed accordingly, even though the Folland name heritage persisted.

 

Most of these aircraft remained allocated to RAF Germany units and retired towards the late Sixties, but four GR.Mk.2s were operated by RAF No. 57 (Reserve) Squadron and based at No. 3 Flying Training School at Cranwell, where they were flown as adversaries in dissimilar aerial combat training. The last of the type was withdrawn from service in 1969, but one aircraft remained flying with the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down until 24 January 1975.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 45 ft 10.5 in (13.983 m)

Wingspan: 31 ft 7.5 in (9.639 m)

Height: 13 ft 2.75 in (4.0323 m)

Wing area: 250 sq ft (23 m2)

Empty weight: 13,810 lb (6,264 kg)

Gross weight: 21,035 lb (9,541 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 23,459 lb (10,641 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Sa.6, producing 7,450 lbf (33.1 kN) thrust at 8,300 rpm,

military power dry, and 11,000 lbf (48.9 kN) with afterburner

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 631 kn (726 mph, 1,169 km/h) / M1.1 at 35,000 ft (10,668 m)

654 kn (753 mph; 1,211 km/h) at sea level

Cruise speed: 501 kn (577 mph, 928 km/h)

Range: 1,110 nmi (1,280 mi, 2,060 km)

Service ceiling: 49,000 ft (15,000 m)

Rate of climb: 16,300 ft/min (83 m/s)

Wing loading: 84 lb/sq ft (410 kg/m2)

Thrust/weight: 0.5

 

Armament:

4× 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannon, 125 rounds per gun

4× underwing hardpoints for a total external ordnance of 4.000 lb, including Firestreak AAMs,

SNEB pods, bombs of up to 1.000 lb caliber or two 125 imp gal (570 l) drop tanks

  

The kit and its assembly

This kit travesty is a remake of a simple but brilliant idea of fellow modeler chrisonord at whatifmodellers’com (www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=48434.msg899420#m...), who posted his own build in late 2020: a Grumman Tiger in standard contemporary RAF colors as Folland Wasp GR.Mk.2. The result looked like a highly credible “big brother” or maybe successor of Folland’s diminutive Midge/Gnat fighter, something in the Hawker Hunter’s class. I really like the idea a lot and decided that it was, one and a half years later, to build my personal interpretation of the subject – also because I had a Hasegawa F11F kit in The Stash™ without a proper plan.

 

The Tiger was built basically OOB – a simple and straightforward affair that goes together well, just the fine, raised panel lines show the mould’s age. The only changes I made: the arrester hook disappeared under PSR, small stabilizer fins (from an Italeri BAe Hawk) were added under the tail section, and I replaced the Tiger’s rugged twin wheel front landing gear with a single wheel alternative, left over from a Matchbox T-2 Buckeye. On the main landing gear, the rearward-facing stabilizing struts were deleted (for a lighter look of a land-based aircraft) and their wells filled with putty. A late modification were additional swing arms for the main landing gear, though: once the kit could sit on its own three feet, the stance was odd and low, esp. under the tail – probably due to the new front wheel. As a remedy I glued additional swing arm elements, made from 1mm steel wire, under the original struts, what moved the main wheel a little backwards and raised the main landing gear my 1mm. Does not sound like much, but it was enough to lift the tail and give the aircraft a more convincing stance and ground clearance.

 

The area-ruled drop tanks and their respective pylons were taken from the Hasegawa kit. For a special “British” touch – because the Tiger had a radome (into which no radar was ever fitted, though) – I added a pair of Firestreak AAMs on the outer underwing stations, procured from a Gomix Gloster Javelin (which comes with four of these, plus pylons).

  

Painting and markings:

Since the RAF theme was more or less settled, paintwork revolved around more or less authentical colors and markings. The Wasp received a standard RAF day fighter scheme from the late Fifties, with upper camouflage in RAF Dark Green/Dark Sea Grey and Light Aircraft Grey undersides with a low waterline. I used Humbrol 163, 106 and 166, respectively – Ocean Grey was used because I did not have the proper 164 at hand, but 106 also offered the benefit of a slightly better contrast to the murky Dark Green. A black ink washing was applied plus some panel post-shading. The silver leading edges on wings, stabilizers and fin were created with decal sheet material, avoiding the inconvenience of masking.

 

The cockpit interior was painted in a very dark grey (Revell 09, Anthracite) while the landing gear, wheels and wells received a greyish-metallic finish (Humbrol 56, Aluminum Dope). The air intakes’ interior became bright aluminum (Revell 99), the area around the jet nozzle was painted with Revell 91 (Iron metallic) and later treated with graphite for a dark metallic shine. The drop tanks were camouflaged, the Firestreaks became white so that they would stand out well and add to a certain vintage look.

 

The decals were a mix from various sources. The No. 20 Squadron badges and the Type D high-viz roundels on the wings were left over from an Airfix Hawker Hunter. The fuselage roundels came from an Italeri BAe Hawk sheet, IIRC. The bent fin flash, all the stencils as well as the serial code (which was puzzled together from two real serials and was AFAIK not allocated to any real RAF aircraft) came from an Xtradecal Supermarine Swift sheet. The individual red “B” letter came from a Matchbox A.W. Meteor night fighter.

 

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish – I considered a glossy finish, since this was typical for RAF aircraft in the Fifties, but eventually just gave the radome a light shine.

  

Basically a simple project, and quickly done in just a couple of days. However, chrisonord’s great eye for similarities makes this “Tiger in disguise” a great fictional aircraft model with only little effort, it’s IMHO very convincing. And the RAF colors and markings suit the F11F very well.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

The Wasp was a transonic British jet-powered fighter aircraft that was developed by Folland for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Wasp’s origins could be traced back to a privately funded 1952 concept for a bigger and more capable day fighter aircraft than Folland’s very light Midget/Gnat. The Wasp’s development had been continued until the Gnat’s service introduction, and by then it had evolved under the handle “Fo-145” into a supersonic aircraft that took advantage of the new Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire turbojet engine, swept wings and area rule. The aircraft was built with the minimum airframe size to take the reheated Saphire and a radar system that would allow it to deploy the new de Havilland Blue Jay (later Firestreak) guided air-to-air missile. In this form the aircraft was expected to surpass the Royal Air Force’s contemporary day fighter, the only gun-armed Hawker Hunter, which had been in service since 1954, while using basically the same engine as its F.2 variant, in both performance and armament aspects. The missile-armed Wasp was also expected to replace the disappointing Supermarine Swift and the Fairey Fireflash AAMs that had been developed for it.

The Wasp strongly resembled the smaller Gnat, with a similar but much thinner shoulder mounted wing, with a sweep of 35° at quarter chord, but the new aircraft featured some innovations. Beyond the area-ruled fuselage, the aircraft had full-span leading edge slats and trailing edge flaps with roll control achieved using spoilers rather than traditional ailerons. Anticipating supersonic performance, the tailplane was all-moving. The cockpit had been raised and offered the pilot a much better all-round field of view.

 

The Wasp was armed with four 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannon, located under the air intakes. Each gun had a provision of 125 rounds, from form a mutual ventral ammunition bay that could be quickly replaced. Four underwing hardpoints could carry an ordnance load of up to 4.000 lb, and the Wasp’s main armament consisted of up to four IR-guided “Firestreak” AAMs. To effectively deploy them, however, a radar system was necessary. For launch, the missile seeker was slaved to the Wasp’s AI.Mk.20 X-band radar until lock was achieved and the weapon was launched, leaving the interceptor free to acquire another target. The AI.Mk.20 had been developed by EKCO since 1953 under the development label “Green Willow” for the upcoming EE Lightning interceptor, should the latter’s more complex and powerful Ferranti AIRPASS system fail. A major advantage of the AI.Mk.20 was that it had been designed as a single unit so it could be fit into the nose of smaller single-seat fighters, despite its total weight of roughly 400 lb (200 kg). For the Firestreak AAM, EKCO had developed a spiral-scan radar with a compact 18 in (460 mm) antenna that offered an effective range of about 10 miles (16 km), although only against targets very close to the centerline of the radar. The radar’s maximum detection range was 25 mi (40 km) and the system also acted as a ranging radar, providing range input to the gyro gunsight for air-to-air gunnery.

Beyond Firestreaks, the Wasp could also carry drop tanks (which were area-ruled and coulc only be carried on the inner pair of pylons), SNEB Pods with eighteen 68 mm (2.68 in) unguided rocket projectiles against air and ground targets, or iron bombs of up to 1.000 lb caliber. Other equipment included a nose-mounted, and a forward-facing gun camera.

 

The Royal Air Force was sufficiently impressed to order two prototypes. Since the afterburning version of the Sapphire was not ready yet, the first prototype flew on 30 July 1954 with a non-afterburning engine, an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Sa.6 with 8,000 lbf (35.59 kN). In spite of this lack of power the aircraft nevertheless nearly reached Mach 1 in its maiden flight. The second prototype, equipped with the intended Sapphire Sa.7 afterburning engine with 11,000 lbf (48.9 kN) thrust engine, showed the aircraft’s full potential. The Wasp turned out to have very good handling, and the RAF officially ordered sixty Folland Fo-145 day-fighters under the designation “Wasp F.Mk.1”. The only changes from the prototypes were small leading-edge extensions at the wing roots, improving low speed handling, esp. during landings and at high angles of incidence in flight.

 

Most Wasps were delivered to RAF Germany frontline units, including No. 20 and 92 Squadrons based in Northern Germany. However, the Wasp’s active service did not last long, because technological advancements quickly rendered the aircraft obsolete in its original interceptor role. The Wasp’s performance had not turned out as significantly superior to the Hunter as expected. Range was rather limited, and the aircraft turned out to be underpowered, since the reheated Sapphire Sa6 did not develop as much power as expected. The AI.Mk.20 radar was rather weak and capricious, too, and the Firestreak was an operational nightmare. The missile was, due to its solid Magpie rocket motor and the ammonia coolant for the IR seeker head, highly toxic and RAF armorers had to wear some form of CRBN protection to safely mount the missile onto an aircraft. Furthermore, unlike modern missiles, Firestreak’s effectiveness was very limited since it could only be fired outside cloud - and over Europe or in winter, skies were rarely clear.

 

Plans for a second production run of the Folland Wasp with a more powerful Sapphire Sa7R engine with a raised thrust of 12,300 lbf (54.7 kN) and updated avionics were not carried out. During the 1960s, following the successful introduction of the supersonic English Electric Lightning in the interceptor role, the Wasp, as well as the older but more prosperous and versatile Hunter, transitioned to being operated as a fighter-bomber, advanced trainer and for tactical photo reconnaissance missions.

This led to a limited MLU program for the F.Mk.1s and conversions of the remaining airframes into two new variants: the new main version was the GR.Mk.2, a dedicated CAS/ground attack variant, which had its radar removed and replaced with ballast, outwardly recognizable through a solid metal nose which replaced the original fiberglass radome. Many of these machines also had two of the 30mm guns removed to save weight. Furthermore, a handful Wasps were converted into PR.Mk.3s. These had as set of five cameras in a new nose section with various windows, and all the guns and the ammunition bay were replaced with an additional fuel tank, operating as pure, unarmed reconnaissance aircraft. When Folland was integrated into the Hawker Siddeley Group in 1963 the aircraft’s official name was changed accordingly, even though the Folland name heritage persisted.

 

Most of these aircraft remained allocated to RAF Germany units and retired towards the late Sixties, but four GR.Mk.2s were operated by RAF No. 57 (Reserve) Squadron and based at No. 3 Flying Training School at Cranwell, where they were flown as adversaries in dissimilar aerial combat training. The last of the type was withdrawn from service in 1969, but one aircraft remained flying with the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down until 24 January 1975.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 45 ft 10.5 in (13.983 m)

Wingspan: 31 ft 7.5 in (9.639 m)

Height: 13 ft 2.75 in (4.0323 m)

Wing area: 250 sq ft (23 m2)

Empty weight: 13,810 lb (6,264 kg)

Gross weight: 21,035 lb (9,541 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 23,459 lb (10,641 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Sa.6, producing 7,450 lbf (33.1 kN) thrust at 8,300 rpm,

military power dry, and 11,000 lbf (48.9 kN) with afterburner

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 631 kn (726 mph, 1,169 km/h) / M1.1 at 35,000 ft (10,668 m)

654 kn (753 mph; 1,211 km/h) at sea level

Cruise speed: 501 kn (577 mph, 928 km/h)

Range: 1,110 nmi (1,280 mi, 2,060 km)

Service ceiling: 49,000 ft (15,000 m)

Rate of climb: 16,300 ft/min (83 m/s)

Wing loading: 84 lb/sq ft (410 kg/m2)

Thrust/weight: 0.5

 

Armament:

4× 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannon, 125 rounds per gun

4× underwing hardpoints for a total external ordnance of 4.000 lb, including Firestreak AAMs,

SNEB pods, bombs of up to 1.000 lb caliber or two 125 imp gal (570 l) drop tanks

  

The kit and its assembly

This kit travesty is a remake of a simple but brilliant idea of fellow modeler chrisonord at whatifmodellers’com (www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=48434.msg899420#m...), who posted his own build in late 2020: a Grumman Tiger in standard contemporary RAF colors as Folland Wasp GR.Mk.2. The result looked like a highly credible “big brother” or maybe successor of Folland’s diminutive Midge/Gnat fighter, something in the Hawker Hunter’s class. I really like the idea a lot and decided that it was, one and a half years later, to build my personal interpretation of the subject – also because I had a Hasegawa F11F kit in The Stash™ without a proper plan.

 

The Tiger was built basically OOB – a simple and straightforward affair that goes together well, just the fine, raised panel lines show the mould’s age. The only changes I made: the arrester hook disappeared under PSR, small stabilizer fins (from an Italeri BAe Hawk) were added under the tail section, and I replaced the Tiger’s rugged twin wheel front landing gear with a single wheel alternative, left over from a Matchbox T-2 Buckeye. On the main landing gear, the rearward-facing stabilizing struts were deleted (for a lighter look of a land-based aircraft) and their wells filled with putty. A late modification were additional swing arms for the main landing gear, though: once the kit could sit on its own three feet, the stance was odd and low, esp. under the tail – probably due to the new front wheel. As a remedy I glued additional swing arm elements, made from 1mm steel wire, under the original struts, what moved the main wheel a little backwards and raised the main landing gear my 1mm. Does not sound like much, but it was enough to lift the tail and give the aircraft a more convincing stance and ground clearance.

 

The area-ruled drop tanks and their respective pylons were taken from the Hasegawa kit. For a special “British” touch – because the Tiger had a radome (into which no radar was ever fitted, though) – I added a pair of Firestreak AAMs on the outer underwing stations, procured from a Gomix Gloster Javelin (which comes with four of these, plus pylons).

  

Painting and markings:

Since the RAF theme was more or less settled, paintwork revolved around more or less authentical colors and markings. The Wasp received a standard RAF day fighter scheme from the late Fifties, with upper camouflage in RAF Dark Green/Dark Sea Grey and Light Aircraft Grey undersides with a low waterline. I used Humbrol 163, 106 and 166, respectively – Ocean Grey was used because I did not have the proper 164 at hand, but 106 also offered the benefit of a slightly better contrast to the murky Dark Green. A black ink washing was applied plus some panel post-shading. The silver leading edges on wings, stabilizers and fin were created with decal sheet material, avoiding the inconvenience of masking.

 

The cockpit interior was painted in a very dark grey (Revell 09, Anthracite) while the landing gear, wheels and wells received a greyish-metallic finish (Humbrol 56, Aluminum Dope). The air intakes’ interior became bright aluminum (Revell 99), the area around the jet nozzle was painted with Revell 91 (Iron metallic) and later treated with graphite for a dark metallic shine. The drop tanks were camouflaged, the Firestreaks became white so that they would stand out well and add to a certain vintage look.

 

The decals were a mix from various sources. The No. 20 Squadron badges and the Type D high-viz roundels on the wings were left over from an Airfix Hawker Hunter. The fuselage roundels came from an Italeri BAe Hawk sheet, IIRC. The bent fin flash, all the stencils as well as the serial code (which was puzzled together from two real serials and was AFAIK not allocated to any real RAF aircraft) came from an Xtradecal Supermarine Swift sheet. The individual red “B” letter came from a Matchbox A.W. Meteor night fighter.

 

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish – I considered a glossy finish, since this was typical for RAF aircraft in the Fifties, but eventually just gave the radome a light shine.

  

Basically a simple project, and quickly done in just a couple of days. However, chrisonord’s great eye for similarities makes this “Tiger in disguise” a great fictional aircraft model with only little effort, it’s IMHO very convincing. And the RAF colors and markings suit the F11F very well.

The fetching of these oxen was a subject which was capable of great poetical embellishments, owing to the distant regions into which it carried the hero.

The story runs as follows: Geryon, the monster with three bodies, lived in the fabulous island of Erytheia (the reddish), so called because it lay under the rays of the setting sun in the west. Geryones kept a herd of red oxen, which fed together with those of Hades, and were guarded by the giant Eurytion and the two-headed dog Orthrus.

Heracles was commanded by Eurystheus to fetch those oxen of Geryon. He traversed Europe, and, having passed through the countries of several savage nations, he at length arrived in Libya. On the frontiers of Libya and Europe he erected two pillars (Calpe and Abyla) on the two sides of the straits of Gibraltar, which were hence called the pillars of Heracles. As on his journey Heracles was annoyed by the heat of the sun, he shot at Helios, who so much admired his boldness, that he presented him with a golden cup, in which he sailed across the ocean to Erytheia.

He there slew Eurytion, his dog, and Geryon, and sailed with his booty to Tartessus, where he returned the golden cup (boat) to Helios.

The depicted scene shows Heracles, supported by Athena, fighting against the triple Geryon. The giant Eurysteus, slain by Heracles, lies on the ground. On the amphora’s neck: Dionysius.

 

Attic white ground black-figured amphora

Attibuted to “The Class of the Cabinet des Medailles 218"

About 550-500 BC

From Athens

Paris, Musée du Louvre

  

+++ 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:

Eager to expand its market and partly to replace the USA as supplier of military equipment in Asia, Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) was looking in the early 1990s to export its Kfir fighters to the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Kfir (Hebrew: כְּפִיר‎, "Lion Cub") was an Israeli all-weather multirole combat aircraft based on the French Dassault Mirage 5, with Israeli avionics and an Israeli-built version of the General Electric J79 turbojet engine. The Kfir program originated in the quest to develop a more capable version of the IAI Nesher, an unlicensed Mirage 6 copy which was already in series production. After General De Gaulle embargoed the sale of arms to Israel, the IAF feared that it might lose qualitative superiority over its adversaries in the future, which were receiving increasingly advanced Soviet aircraft. The main and most advanced type of aircraft available to the IAF was the Mirage, but a severe problem developed due to the Mirage fleet's depletion due to attrition after the Six-Day War. Domestic production would avoid the problem of the embargo completely; efforts to reverse engineer and reproduce components of the Mirage were aided by Israeli espionage efforts to obtain technical assistance and blueprints from third party Mirage operators.

 

Two powerplants were initially selected for trials: the General Electric J79 turbojet and the Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan. In the end, the J79 was selected, not least because it was the same engine used on the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, which the Israelis began to acquire from the United States in 1969, along with a license to produce the J79 themselves. The J79 was clearly superior to the original French Atar 09, providing a dry thrust of 49 kN (11,000 lbf) and an afterburning thrust of 83.4 kN (18,750 lbf).

In order to accommodate the new powerplant on the Mirage III's airframe, and to deliver the added cooling required by the J79, the aircraft's rear fuselage was slightly shortened and widened, its air intakes were enlarged, and a large air inlet was installed at the base of the vertical stabilizer, so as to supply the extra cooling needed for the afterburner. The engine itself was encased in a titanium heatshield.

 

The Kfir entered service with the IAF in 1975. The role of the Kfir as the IAF's primary air superiority asset was short-lived, as the first F-15 Eagle fighters from the United States were delivered to Israel in 1976. The Kfir's first recorded combat action took place on November 9, 1977, during an Israeli air strike on a training camp at Tel Azia, in Lebanon. By the time of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982 (Operation “Peace for Galilee”) the IAF was able to use both its F-15s and F-16s for air superiority roles, leaving the Kfirs to carry out unescorted strike missions, and the aircraft were upgraded accordingly to C.2 status first and later to C.7 status, with upgraded avionics and a HOTAs cockpit. During the second half of the 1990s the Kfirs were withdrawn from active duty in the IAF, after almost twenty years of continuous service. The type was offered for export, too, even though commercial success was limited. Major foreign Kfir operators became Colombia, Ecuador, and Sri Lanka.

 

Negotiations with Taiwan about a Kfir procurement had started in the mid-Eighties, when the ROCAF was looking for a more capable replacement for the country’s ageing Northrop F-5E fleet. The most favored type was the new American F-16, which promised improvements in almost any aspect. But due to the F-16’s novelty and the political brisance of Taiwan’s relationship with China, Taiwan’s request was declined. Into this situation Israel chimed in and offered 40 new Kfir C.7 fighter bombers, in a deal estimated to have been worth US$ 400 million to $1 billion. The Bush Administration, in an apparent move to mollify Jerusalem, approved the marketing of Kfir jet fighter in Taiwan containing a U.S.-built General Electric engine, but this proposal fell through at the end of March 1992 – apparently at the height of a highly sensitive dispute between Israel and the United States over intelligence reports that Israel had sold U.S. weapons technology to China without Washington’s approval. At the same time, the United States also was reported to have signed an agreement to provide $320 million for the second phase of the Arrow project--an anti-missile missile being developed in Israel with U.S. funding as part of the Administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative. The State Department and the plane’s manufacturer, Israel Aircraft Industries, declined to discuss the Kfir deal. However, officials from both countries said privately that Israel, which was retiring the planes in favor of the more modern US-made F-16 fighter, presented Taiwan with a new official offer to sell 20 refurbished Kfir C.2s from IAF stock, even though the value of this deal remained undisclosed.

 

This offer was accepted and greenlighted by the USA, and even neighboring China appeared to believe that the Kfirs, based on the 1950s French Mirage fighter, did not pose any serious threat. In addition, the Chinese were reluctant to stand in the way of the transaction so as not to upset their own defense cooperation with Israel. However, the weekly Defense News later quoted a senior Taiwanese procurement official as saying that his country was, despite a “reasonable package price”, unlikely to buy more Kfirs--because it still preferred the F-16 and would continue negotiations with the USA. In fact, just after having signed the contract with IAI, Taiwan ordered, after more than 10 years of rejection, no less than 150 F-16A/B-20 fighter aircraft from the USA, 60 Dassault Mirage 2000 multi-role aircraft from France and launched its own indigenous fighter program, the AIDC Ching-Kuo, too.

 

The ROCAF Kfirs arrived between early 1993 and mid-1994, and they were subsequently upgraded by AIDC at Taichung with indigenous technology that would expand the fighter bombers’ capabilities. Primarily, avionics and cockpit equipment were upgraded, including a retrofitted MFT monitor in the cockpit, an improved HUD, a new Martin Baker Mk. 10 ejection seat and the ability to carry smart weapons, including AGM-65 Maverick missiles and laser-guided Paveway bombs. For the latter, Taiwan procured twelve used AN/AVQ-23E electro-optical laser designator targeting pods from Great Britain, which had formerly been used by the RAF’s Blackburn Buccaneers during the Gulf War and had just been retired. The pods had limited capabilities, though, and were only able to direct laser-guided bombs to target in daylight, visual conditions.

 

The modernized aircraft received a tactical three-color paint scheme and were allocated to 7th Group, 7th Wing at Chih Hang Air Base in the Taitung Province in South-Eastern Taiwan, where they replaced the unit’s F-5Es in the fighter bomber role. Nevertheless, the ROCAF Tiger IIs remained in service – in fact for more than 30 more years! The Kfirs’ primary mission became quick strikes against ground and especially sea targets. For the latter mission, the AGM-84 Harpoon ASM and later the indigenous Hsiung Feng II missile were integrated, too. However, due to the Kfir’s phenomenal climbing capabilities, the machines were also on frequent QRA for interception missions over Taiwan’s coastlines.

 

However, the machines remained, due to escalating maintenance problems and reaching the airframes’ end of life after more than thirty years, only active until 2006. The remaining sixteen machines were eventually returned to Israel and superseded by new F-16C/D fighters.

  

General characteristics

Crew: One

Length (incl. pitot): 15.73 m (51 ft 6 1/4 in)

Wingspan: 8.22 m (26 ft 11½ in)

Height: 4.61 m (14 ft 11 3/4 in)

Wing area: 34.8 m² (374.6 sq ft)

Empty weight: 7,285 kg (16,060 lb)

Loaded weight: 11,603 kg (25,580 lb) with two 500 L drop tanks, two AAMs

Max. take-off weight: 16,200 kg (35,715 lb)

 

Powerplant:

1× General Electric J-79-J1E turbojet (IAl Bedek-built) with a dry thrust of 52.9 kN (11,890 lb st)

and 79.62 kN (17,900 lb st) with afterburner

 

Performance

Maximum speed: 2,440 km/h (2 Mach, 1,317 knots, 1,516 mph) above 11,000 m (36,000 ft)

Combat radius: 768 km (415 nmi, 477 mi) in ground attack configuration, hi-lo-hi profile,

with seven 500 lb bombs, two AAMs, two 1,300 L drop tanks

Service ceiling: 17,680 m (58,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 233 m/s (45,950 ft/min)

 

Armament:

2× Rafael-built 30 mm (1.18 in) DEFA 553 cannons, 140 RPG

9× hardpoints under the wings and fuselage for up to 5,775 kg (12,730 lb) of payload

  

The kit and its assembly:

Another IAI Kfir, and – weird as it seems – the story of Taiwan procuring the Israeli fighter instead of the early F-16 is actually real! And it was a great basis to produce a what-if model of such an aircraft, had it ever entered ROCAF service.

The kit is the Italeri Kfir C.2/7 kit, which is rather simple and not as crisp as the Hasegawa alternative. It also has its assembly issues. The outlines are OK and the kit comes with fine recessed surface details, but fit is so-so and there are some weak spots: the fuselage/wing seams, the complex intersections under the air intakes that run right through the gun ports, sinkholes on the wings’ upper surface and an integral cockpit tub/front landing gear well piece that won’t fit properly. The Hasegawa kit’s fit is better, but the Italeri Kfir is detail-wise not worse – and it’s cheaper.

 

The only changes are four additional underwing pylons (from two different F-16 kits) and their ordnance. The Paveway bombs come from the Italeri NATO weapons set, the Pave Spike laser pod from a Hasegawa set, and the ALQ-119 pod was left over from a Revell F-16 kit. The OOB Shafrir AAMs were replaced by more modern AIM-9J Sidewinders. The ventral pylon was left away.

Inside of the cockpit the original Martin Baker Mk. 5 ejection seat was replaced with a more modern Mk. 10, and a monitor and a HUD screen were added to the dashboard.

  

Painting and markings:

I did not want a grey low-viz livery, and since the ROCAF had operated many US-built aircraft (including the F-5Es) in USAF SEA scheme colors, I adapted it for the Kfir, too. However, finding a suitable pattern was not easy. I looked into many options, including the official USAF F-102 and F-106 SEA patterns or the Belgian Mirage Vs’ tricolor scheme, but did not like any of them so that I developed my own and created a four-side profile as benchmark.

 

The paints became Humbrol 117 (FS 34102), 118 (FS 30118) and 116 (FS 34079). The underside became Humbrol 28 (FS 36622), with a wavy, low waterline. The landing gear and the air intakes became classic white, while the cockpit tub was kept in medium grey. Very straightforward and “realistic”.

After basic painting was done the model received an over washing with thinned black ink and some post-shading with lighter shades of the camouflage tones. FS 34079’s shading was moved into a more bluish tone for a better contrast to the lighter FS 34102.

 

The markings are a mix from various sources. The roundels and the serial numbers came from a BestFong sheet for Taiwanese F-5s, the unit markings from an Xtradecal F-5E sheet. Most stencils were taken from the Kfir’s OOB sheet.

 

The Paveway bombs were painted in two different shades of olive drab, the Sidewinders became standard white with black heads. The ALG-119 pos was, for some color contrast, painted in light grey (FS 36375), and the Pave Spike pod, simulating a 2nd hand AN/AVQ-23E pod from RAF stock, became Dark Green. I even considered a livery in Desert Pink (check Gulf War Buccaneers that carried them), but found that to look too exotic.

 

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera (/kaɪˈrɒptərə/; from the Greek χείρ - cheir, "hand" and πτερόν - pteron, "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, can only glide for short distances. Bats do not flap their entire forelimbs, as birds do, but instead flap their spread-out digits, which are very long and covered with a thin membrane or patagium.

 

Bats are the second largest order of mammals (after the rodents), representing about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with about 1,240 bat species divided into two suborders: the less specialized and largely fruit-eating megabats, or flying foxes, and the highly specialized and echolocating microbats. About 70% of bat species are insectivores. Most of the rest are frugivores, or fruit eaters. A few species, such as the fish-eating bat, feed from animals other than insects, with the vampire bats being hematophagous, or feeding on blood.

 

Bats are present throughout most of the world, with the exception of extremely cold regions. They perform vital ecological roles of pollinating flowers and dispersing fruit seeds; many tropical plant species depend entirely on bats for the distribution of their seeds. Bats are economically important, as they consume insect pests, reducing the need for pesticides. The smallest bat is the Kitti's hog-nosed bat, measuring 29–34 mm in length, 15 cm across the wings and 2–2.6 g in mass. It is also arguably the smallest extant species of mammal, with the Etruscan shrew being the other contender. The largest species of bat are a few species of Pteropus (fruit bats or flying foxes) and the giant golden-crowned flying fox with a weight up to 1.6 kg and wingspan up to 1.7 m.

 

CLASSIFICATION AND EVOLUTION

Bats are mammals. In many languages, the word for "bat" is cognate with the word for "mouse": for example, chauve-souris ("bald-mouse") in French, murciélago ("blind mouse") in Spanish, saguzahar ("old mouse") in Basque, летучая мышь ("flying mouse") in Russian, slijepi miš ("blind mouse") in Bosnian, nahkhiir ("leather mouse") in Estonian, vlermuis (winged mouse) in Afrikaans, from the Dutch word vleermuis (from Middle Dutch "winged mouse"). An older English name for bats is flittermouse, which matches their name in other Germanic languages (for example German Fledermaus and Swedish fladdermus). Bats were formerly thought to have been most closely related to the flying lemurs, treeshrews, and primates, but recent molecular cladistics research indicates that they actually belong to Laurasiatheria, a diverse group also containing Carnivora and Artiodactyla.

 

The two traditionally recognized suborders of bats are:

 

- Megachiroptera (megabats)

- Microchiroptera (microbats/echolocating bats)

 

Not all megabats are larger than microbats. The major distinctions between the two suborders are:

 

- Microbats use echolocation; with the exception of the Rousettus genus, megabats do not.

- Microbats lack the claw at the second finger of the forelimb.

- The ears of microbats do not close to form a ring; the edges are separated from each other at the base of the ear.

- Microbats lack underfur; they are either naked or have guard hairs.

 

Megabats eat fruit, nectar, or pollen. Most microbats eat insects; others may feed on fruit, nectar, pollen, fish, frogs, small mammals, or the blood of animals. Megabats have well-developed visual cortices and show good visual acuity, while microbats rely on echolocation for navigation and finding prey.

 

The phylogenetic relationships of the different groups of bats have been the subject of much debate. The traditional subdivision between Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera reflects the view that these groups of bats have evolved independently of each other for a long time, from a common ancestor already capable of flight. This hypothesis recognized differences between microbats and megabats and acknowledged that flight has only evolved once in mammals. Most molecular biological evidence supports the view that bats form a single or monophyletic group.

 

Researchers have proposed alternative views of chiropteran phylogeny and classification, but more research is needed.

 

In the 1980s, a hypothesis based on morphological evidence was offered that stated the Megachiroptera evolved flight separately from the Microchiroptera. The so-called flying primates theory proposes that, when adaptations to flight are removed, the Megachiroptera are allied to primates by anatomical features not shared with Microchiroptera. One example is that the brains of megabats show a number of advanced characteristics that link them to primates. Although recent genetic studies strongly support the monophyly of bats, debate continues as to the meaning of available genetic and morphological evidence.

 

Genetic evidence indicates that megabats originated during the early Eocene and should be placed within the four major lines of microbats.

 

Consequently, two new suborders based on molecular data have been proposed. The new suborder of Yinpterochiroptera includes the Pteropodidae, or megabat family, as well as the Rhinolophidae, Hipposideridae, Craseonycteridae, Megadermatidae, and Rhinopomatidae families The other new suborder, Yangochiroptera, includes all of the remaining families of bats (all of which use laryngeal echolocation). These two new suborders are strongly supported by statistical tests. Teeling (2005) found 100% bootstrap support in all maximum likelihood analyses for the division of Chiroptera into these two modified suborders. This conclusion is further supported by a 15-base-pair deletion in BRCA1 and a seven-base-pair deletion in PLCB4 present in all Yangochiroptera and absent in all Yinpterochiroptera. Perhaps most convincingly, a phylogenomic study by Tsagkogeorga et al (2013) showed that the two new proposed suborders were supported by analyses of thousands of genes.

 

The chiropteran phylogeny based on molecular evidence is controversial because microbat paraphyly implies that one of two seemingly unlikely hypotheses occurred. The first suggests that laryngeal echolocation evolved twice in Chiroptera, once in Yangochiroptera and once in the rhinolophoids. The second proposes that laryngeal echolocation had a single origin in Chiroptera, was subsequently lost in the family Pteropodidae (all megabats), and later evolved as a system of tongue-clicking in the genus Rousettus.

 

Analyses of the sequence of the "vocalization" gene, FoxP2, were inconclusive as to whether laryngeal echolocation was secondarily lost in the pteropodids or independently gained in the echolocating lineages. However, analyses of the "hearing" gene, Prestin seemed to favor the independent gain in echolocating species rather than a secondary loss in the pteropodids.

 

In addition to Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, the names Pteropodiformes and Vespertilioniformes have also been proposed for these suborders. Under this new proposed nomenclature, the suborder Pteropodiformes includes all extant bat families more closely related to the genus Pteropus than the genus Vespertilio, while the suborder Vespertilioniformes includes all extant bat families more closely related to the genus Vespertilio than to the genus Pteropus.

 

Little fossil evidence is available to help map the evolution of bats, since their small, delicate skeletons do not fossilize very well. However, a Late Cretaceous tooth from South America resembles that of an early microchiropteran bat. Most of the oldest known, definitely identified bat fossils were already very similar to modern microbats. These fossils, Icaronycteris, Archaeonycteris, Palaeochiropteryx and Hassianycteris, are from the early Eocene period, 52.5 million years ago. Archaeopteropus, formerly classified as the earliest known megachiropteran, is now classified as a microchiropteran.

 

Bats were formerly grouped in the superorder Archonta, along with the treeshrews (Scandentia), colugos (Dermoptera), and the primates, because of the apparent similarities between Megachiroptera and such mammals. Genetic studies have now placed bats in the superorder Laurasiatheria, along with carnivorans, pangolins, odd-toed ungulates, even-toed ungulates, and cetaceans. A recent study by Zhang et al. places Chiroptera as a sister taxon to the clade Perissodactyla (which includes horses and other odd-toed ungulates). However, the first phylogenomic analysis of bats shows that they are not sisters to Perissodactyla, instead they are sisters to a larger group that includes ungulates and carnivores.

 

Megabats primarily eat fruit or nectar. In New Guinea, they are likely to have evolved for some time in the absence of microbats, which has resulted in some smaller megabats of the genus Nyctimene becoming (partly) insectivorous to fill the vacant microbat ecological niche. Furthermore, some evidence indicates that the fruit bat genus Pteralopex from the Solomon Islands, and its close relative Mirimiri from Fiji, have evolved to fill some niches that were open because there are no nonvolant or nonflying mammals on those islands.

 

FOSSIL BATS

Fossilized remains of bats are few, as they are terrestrial and light-boned. Only an estimated 12% of the bat fossil record is complete at the genus level. Fossil remains of an Eocene bat, Icaronycteris, were found in 1960. Another Eocene bat, Onychonycteris finneyi, was found in the 52-million-year-old Green River Formation in Wyoming, United States, in 2003. This intermediate fossil has helped to resolve a long-standing disagreement regarding whether flight or echolocation developed first in bats. The shape of the rib cage, faceted infraspious fossa of the scapula, manus morphology, robust clavicle, and keeled sternum all indicated Onychonycteris was capable of powered flight. However, the well-preserved skeleton showed that the small cochlea of the inner ear did not have the morphology necessary to echolocate. O. finneyi lacked an enlarged orbical apophysis on the malleus, and a stylohyal element with an expanded paddle-like cranial tip - both of which are characteristics linked to echolocation in other prehistoric and extant bat species. Because of these absences, and the presence of characteristics necessary for flight, Onychonycteris provides strong support for the “flight first” hypothesis in the evolution of flight and echolocation in bats.

 

The appearance and flight movement of bats 52.5 million years ago were different from those of bats today. Onychonycteris had claws on all five of its fingers, whereas modern bats have at most two claws appearing on two digits of each hand. It also had longer hind legs and shorter forearms, similar to climbing mammals that hang under branches such as sloths and gibbons. This palm-sized bat had short, broad wings, suggesting it could not fly as fast or as far as later bat species. Instead of flapping its wings continuously while flying, Onychonycteris likely alternated between flaps and glides while in the air. Such physical characteristics suggest that this bat did not fly as much as modern bats do, rather flying from tree to tree and spending most of its waking day climbing or hanging on the branches of trees. The distinctive features noted on the Onychonycteris fossil also support the claim that mammalian flight most likely evolved in arboreal gliders, rather than terrestrial runners. This model of flight development, commonly known as the "trees-down" theory, implies that bats attained powered flight by taking advantage of height and gravity, rather than relying on running speeds fast enough for a ground-level take off.

 

The mid-Eocene genus Necromantis is one of the earliest examples of bats specialised to hunt vertebrate prey, as well as one of the largest bats of its epoch.

 

HABITATS

Flight has enabled bats to become one of the most widely distributed groups of mammals. Apart from the Arctic, the Antarctic and a few isolated oceanic islands, bats exist all over the world. Bats are found in almost every habitat available on Earth. Different species select different habitats during different seasons, ranging from seasides to mountains and even deserts, but bat habitats have two basic requirements: roosts, where they spend the day or hibernate, and places for foraging. Most temperate species additionally need a relatively warm hibernation shelter. Bat roosts can be found in hollows, crevices, foliage, and even human-made structures, and include "tents" the bats construct by biting leaves.

 

The United States is home to an estimated 45 to 48 species of bats. The three most common species are Myotis lucifugus (little brown bat), Eptesicus fuscus (big brown bat), and Tadarida brasiliensis (Mexican free-tailed bat). The little and the big brown bats are common throughout the northern two-thirds of the country, while the Mexican free-tailed bat is the most common species in the southwest, sometimes even appearing in portions of the Southeast.

 

ANATOMY

WINGS

The finger bones of bats are much more flexible than those of other mammals, owing to their flattened cross-section and to low levels of minerals, such as calcium, near their tips. In 2006, Sears et al. published a study that traces the elongation of manual bat digits, a key feature required for wing development, to the upregulation of bone morphogenetic proteins (Bmps). During embryonic development, the gene controlling Bmp signaling, Bmp2, is subjected to increased expression in bat forelimbs - resulting in the extension of the offspring's manual digits. This crucial genetic alteration helps create the specialized limbs required for volant locomotion. Sears et al. (2006) also studied the relative proportion of bat forelimb digits from several extant species and compared these with a fossil of Lcaronycteris index, an early extinct species from approximately 50 million years ago. The study found no significant differences in relative digit proportion, suggesting that bat wing morphology has been conserved for over 50 million years.The wings of bats are much thinner and consist of more bones than the wings of birds, allowing bats to maneuver more accurately than the latter, and fly with more lift and less drag. By folding the wings in toward their bodies on the upstroke, they save 35 percent energy during flight. The membranes are also delicate, ripping easily; however, the tissue of the bat's membrane is able to regrow, such that small tears can heal quickly. The surface of their wings is equipped with touch-sensitive receptors on small bumps called Merkel cells, also found on human fingertips. These sensitive areas are different in bats, as each bump has a tiny hair in the center, making it even more sensitive and allowing the bat to detect and collect information about the air flowing over its wings, and to fly more efficiently by changing the shape of its wings in response. An additional kind of receptor cell is found in the wing membrane of species that use their wings to catch prey. This receptor cell is sensitive to the stretching of the membrane. The cells are concentrated in areas of the membrane where insects hit the wings when the bats capture them.

 

OTHER

The teeth of microbats resemble insectivorans. They are very sharp to bite through the hardened armor of insects or the skin of fruit.

 

Mammals have one-way valves in their veins to prevent the blood from flowing backwards, but bats also have one-way valves in their arteries.

 

The tube-lipped nectar bat (Anoura fistulata) has the longest tongue of any mammal relative to its body size. This is beneficial to them in terms of pollination and feeding. Their long, narrow tongues can reach deep into the long cup shape of some flowers. When the tongue retracts, it coils up inside its rib cage.

 

Bats possess highly adapted lung systems to cope with the pressures of powered-flight. Flight is an energetically taxing aerobic activity and requires large amounts of oxygen to be sustained. In bats, the relative alveolar surface area and pulmonary capillary blood volume are significantly larger than most other small quadrupedal mammals.

 

ECHOLOCATION

Bat echolocation is a perceptual system where ultrasonic sounds are emitted specifically to produce echoes. By comparing the outgoing pulse with the returning echoes, the brain and auditory nervous system can produce detailed images of the bat's surroundings. This allows bats to detect, localize, and even classify their prey in complete darkness. At 130 decibels in intensity, bat calls are some of the most intense, airborne animal sounds.

 

To clearly distinguish returning information, bats must be able to separate their calls from the echoes that they receive. Microbats use two distinct approaches.

 

Low duty cycle echolocation: Bats can separate their calls and returning echoes by time. Bats that use this approach time their short calls to finish before echoes return. This is important because these bats contract their middle ear muscles when emitting a call, so they can avoid deafening themselves. The time interval between the call and echo allows them to relax these muscles, so they can clearly hear the returning echo. The delay of the returning echoes provides the bat with the ability to estimate the range to their prey.

 

High duty cycle echolocation: Bats emit a continuous call and separate pulse and echo in frequency. The ears of these bats are sharply tuned to a specific frequency range. They emit calls outside of this range to avoid self-deafening. They then receive echoes back at the finely tuned frequency range by taking advantage of the Doppler shift of their motion in flight. The Doppler shift of the returning echoes yields information relating to the motion and location of the bat's prey. These bats must deal with changes in the Doppler shift due to changes in their flight speed. They have adapted to change their pulse emission frequency in relation to their flight speed so echoes still return in the optimal hearing range.

 

The new Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera classification of bats, supported by molecular evidence, suggests two possibilities for the evolution of echolocation. It may have been gained once in a common ancestor of all bats and was then subsequently lost in the Old World fruit bats, only to be regained in the horseshoe bats, or echolocation evolved independently in both the Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera lineages.

 

Two groups of moths exploit a bat sense to echolocate: tiger moths produce ultrasonic signals to warn the bats that they (the moths) are chemically protected or aposematic, other moth species produce signals to jam bat echolocation. Many moth species have a hearing organ called a tympanum, which responds to an incoming bat signal by causing the moth's flight muscles to twitch erratically, sending the moth into random evasive maneuvers.

 

In addition to echolocating prey, bat ears are sensitive to the fluttering of moth wings, the sounds produced by tymbalate insects, and the movement of ground-dwelling prey, such as centipedes, earwigs, etc. The complex geometry of ridges on the inner surface of bat ears helps to sharply focus not only echolocation signals, but also to passively listen for any other sound produced by the prey. These ridges can be regarded as the acoustic equivalent of a Fresnel lens, and may be seen in a large variety of unrelated animals, such as the aye-aye, lesser galago, bat-eared fox, mouse lemur, and others.

 

By repeated scanning, bats can mentally construct an accurate image of the environment in which they are moving and of their prey item.

 

OTHER SENSES

Although the eyes of most microbat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor visual acuity, no species is blind. Microbats use vision to navigate, especially for long distances when beyond the range of echolocation, and species that are gleaners - that is, ones that attempt to swoop down from above to ambush tasty insects like crickets on the ground or moths up a tree - often have eyesight about as good as a rat's. Some species have been shown to be able to detect ultraviolet light, and most cave dwelling species have developed the ability to utilize very dim light. They also have high-quality senses of smell and hearing. Bats hunt at night, reducing competition with birds, minimizing contact with certain predators, and travel large distances (up to 800 km) in their search for food. Megabat species often have excellent eyesight as good as, if not better than, human vision; they need this for the warm climates they live in and the very social world they occupy, where relations and friends need to be distinguished from other bats in the colony. This eyesight is, unlike its microbat relations, adapted to both night and daylight vision and enables the bat to have some colour vision whereas the microbat sees in blurred shades of grey.

 

BEHAVIOUR

Most microbats are nocturnal and are active at twilight. A large portion of bats migrate hundreds of kilometres to winter hibernation dens, while some pass into torpor in cold weather, rousing and feeding when warm weather allows for insects to be active. Others retreat to caves for winter and hibernate for six months. Bats rarely fly in rain, as the rain interferes with their echolocation, and they are unable to locate their food.

 

The social structure of bats varies, with some leading solitary lives and others living in caves colonized by more than a million bats. The fission-fusion social structure is seen among several species of bats. The term "fusion" refers to a large numbers of bats that congregate in one roosting area, and "fission" refers to breaking up and the mixing of subgroups, with individual bats switching roosts with others and often ending up in different trees and with different roostmates.

 

Studies also show that bats make all kinds of sounds to communicate with others. Scientists in the field have listened to bats and have been able to associate certain sounds with certain behaviours that bats make after the sounds are made.

 

Insectivores make up 70% of bat species and locate their prey by means of echolocation. Of the remainder, most feed on fruits. Only three species sustain themselves with blood.

 

Some species even prey on vertebrates. The leaf-nosed bats (Phyllostomidae) of Central America and South America, and the two bulldog bat (Noctilionidae) species feed on fish. At least two species of bat are known to feed on other bats: the spectral bat, also known as the American false vampire bat, and the ghost bat of Australia. One species, the greater noctule bat, catches and eats small birds in the air.

 

Predators of bats include bat hawks, bat falcons and even spiders.

 

REPRODUCTION

Most bats have a breeding season, which is in the spring for species living in a temperate climate. Bats may have one to three litters in a season, depending on the species and on environmental conditions, such as the availability of food and roost sites. Females generally have one offspring at a time, which could be a result of the mother's need to fly to feed while pregnant. Female bats nurse their young until they are nearly adult size, because a young bat cannot forage on its own until its wings are fully developed.

 

Female bats use a variety of strategies to control the timing of pregnancy and the birth of young, to make delivery coincide with maximum food ability and other ecological factors. Females of some species have delayed fertilization, in which sperm is stored in the reproductive tract for several months after mating. In many such cases, mating occurs in the fall, and fertilization does not occur until the following spring. Other species exhibit delayed implantation, in which the egg is fertilized after mating, but remains free in the reproductive tract until external conditions become favorable for giving birth and caring for the offspring.

 

In yet another strategy, fertilization and implantation both occur, but development of the fetus is delayed until favorable conditions prevail, during the delayed development the mother still gives the fertilized egg nutrients, and oxygenated blood to keep it alive. However, this process can go for a long period of time, because of the advanced gas exchange system. All of these adaptations result in the pup being born during a time of high local production of fruit or insects.

 

At birth, the wings are too small to be used for flight. Young microbats become independent at the age of six to eight weeks, while megabats do not until they are four months old.

 

LIFE EXPECTANCY

A single bat can live over 20 years, but bat population growth is limited by the slow birth rate.

 

HUNTING, FEEDING AND DRINKING

Newborn bats rely on the milk from their mothers. When they are a few weeks old, bats are expected to fly and hunt on their own. It is up to them to find and catch their prey, along with satisfying their thirst.

 

HUNTING

Most bats are nocturnal creatures. Their daylight hours are spent grooming and sleeping; they hunt during the night. The means by which bats navigate while finding and catching their prey in the dark was unknown until the 1790s, when Lazzaro Spallanzani conducted a series of experiments on a group of blind bats. These bats were placed in a room in total darkness, with silk threads strung across the room. Even then, the bats were able to navigate their way through the room. Spallanzani concluded the bats were not using their eyes to fly through complete darkness, but something else.

 

Spallanzani decided the bats were able to catch and find their prey through the use of their ears. To prove this theory, Spallanzani plugged the ears of the bats in his experiment. To his pleasure, he found that the bats with plugged ears were not able to fly with the same amount of skill and precision as they were able to without their ears plugged. Unfortunately for Spallanzani, the twin concepts of sound waves and acoustics would not be understood for another century and he could not explain why specifically the bats were crashing into walls and the threads that he'd strung up around the room, and because of the methodology Spallanzani used, many of his test subjects died.

 

It was thus well known through the nineteenth century that the chiropteran ability to navigate had something to do with hearing, but how they accomplish this was not proven conclusively until the 1930s, by Donald R. Griffin, a biology student at Harvard University. Using a locally native species, the little brown bat, he discovered that bats use echolocation to locate and catch their prey. When bats fly, they produce a constant stream of high-pitched sounds. When the sound waves produced by these sounds hit an insect or other animal, the echoes bounce back to the bat, and guide them to the source.

 

FEEDING AND DIET

The majority of food consumed by bats includes insects, fruits and flower nectar, vertebrates and blood. Almost three-fourths of the world's bats are insect eaters. Bats consume both aerial and ground-dwelling insects. Each bat is typically able to consume one-third of its body weight in insects each night, and several hundred insects in a few hours. This means that a group of a thousand bats could eat four tons of insects each year. If bats were to become extinct, it has been calculated that the insect population would reach an alarmingly high number.

 

VITAMIN C

In a test of 34 bat species from six major families of bats, including major insect- and fruit-eating bat families, all were found to have lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C, and this loss may derive from a common bat ancestor, as a single mutation. However, recent results show that there are at least two species of bat, the frugivorous bat (Rousettus leschenaultii) and insectivorous bat (Hipposideros armiger), that have retained their ability to produce vitamin C. In fact, the whole Chiroptera are in the process of losing the ability to synthesize Vc which most of them have already lost.

 

AERIAL INSECTIVORES

Watching a bat catch and eat an insect is difficult. The action is so fast that all one sees is a bat rapidly change directions, and continue on its way. Scientist Frederick A. Webster discovered how bats catch their prey. In 1960, Webster developed a high-speed camera that was able to take one thousand pictures per second. These photos revealed the fast and precise way in which bats catch insects. Occasionally, a bat will catch an insect in mid-air with its mouth, and eat it in the air. However, more often than not, a bat will use its tail membrane or wings to scoop up the insect and trap it in a sort of "bug net". Then, the bat will take the insect back to its roost. There, the bat will proceed to eat said insect, often using its tail membrane as a kind of napkin, to prevent its meal from falling to the ground. One common insect prey is Helicoverpa zea, a moth that causes major agricultural damage.

 

FORAGE GLEANERS

These bats typically fly down and grasp their prey off the ground with their teeth, and take it to a nearby perch to eat it. Generally, these bats do not use echolocation to locate their prey. Instead, they rely on the sounds produced by the insects. Some make unique sounds, and almost all make some noise while moving through the environment.

 

FRUITS AND FLOWER NECTAR

Fruit eating, or frugivory, is a specific habit found in two families of bats. Megachiropterans and microchiropterans both include species of bat that feed on fruits. These bats feed on the juices of sweet fruits, and fulfill the needs of some seeds to be dispersed. The fruits preferred by most fruit-eating bats are fleshy and sweet, but not particularly strong smelling or colorful. To get the juice of these fruits, bats pull the fruit off the trees with their teeth, and fly back to their roosts with the fruit in their mouths. There, the bats will consume the fruit in a specific way. To do this, the bats crush open the fruit and eat the parts that satisfy their hunger. The remainder of the fruit, the seeds and pulp, are spat onto the ground. These seeds take root and begin to grow into new fruit trees. Over 150 types of plants depend on bats in order to reproduce.Some bats prefer the nectar of flowers to insects or other animals. These bats have evolved specifically for this purpose. For example, these bats possess long muzzles and long, extensible tongues covered in fine bristles that aid them in feeding on particular flowers and plants.[68] When they sip the nectar from these flowers, pollen gets stuck to their fur, and is dusted off when the bats take flight, thus pollinating the plants below them. The rainforest is said to be the most benefitted of all the biomes where bats live, because of the large variety of appealing plants. Because of their specific eating habits, nectar-feeding bats are more prone to extinction than any other type of bat. However, bats benefit from eating fruits and nectar just as much as from eating insects.

 

VERTEBRATES

A small group of carnivorous bats feed on other vertebrates and are considered the top carnivores of the bat world. These bats typically eat a variety of animals, but normally consume frogs, lizards, birds, and sometimes other bats. For example, one vertebrate predator, Trachops cirrhosus, is particularly skilled at catching frogs. These bats locate large groups of frogs by distinguishing their mating calls from other sounds around them. They follow the sounds to the source and pluck them from the surface of the water with their sharp canine teeth. Another example is the greater noctule bat, which is believed to catch birds on the wing.

 

Also, several species of bat feed on fish. These types of bats are found on almost all continents. They use echolocation to detect tiny ripples in the water's surface to locate fish. From there, the bats swoop down low, inches from the water, and use specially enlarged claws on their hind feet to grab the fish out of the water. The bats then take the fish to a feeding roost and consume the animal.

 

BLOOD

A few species of bats exclusively consume blood as their diet. This type of diet is referred to as hematophagy, and three species of bats exhibit this behavior. These species are the common, the white-winged, and the hairy-legged vampire bats. The common vampire bat typically consumes the blood of mammals, while the hairy-legged and white-winged vampires feed on the blood of birds. These species live only in Mexico, Central, and South America, with a presence also on the Island of Trinidad.

 

DEFECATION

Bat dung, or guano, is so rich in nutrients that it is mined from caves, bagged, and used by farmers to fertilize their crops. During the U.S. Civil War, guano was used to make gunpowder.

 

To survive hibernation months, some species build up large reserves of body fat, both as fuel and as insulation.

 

DRINKING

In 1960, Frederic A. Webster discovered bats' method of drinking water using a high-speed camera and flashgun that could take 1,000 photos per second. Webster's camera captured a bat skimming the surface of a body of water, and lowering its jaw to get just one drop of water. It then skimmed again to get a second drop of water, and so on, until it has had its fill. A bat's precision and control during flight is very fine, and it almost never misses. Other bats, such as the flying fox or fruit bat, gently skim the water's surface, then land nearby to lick water from chest fur.

 

WIKIPEDIA

+++ 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 Lockheed F-94 Starfire was a first-generation jet aircraft of the United States Air Force. It was developed from the twin-seat Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star in the late 1940s as an all-weather, day/night interceptor, replacing the propeller-driven North American F-82 Twin Mustang in this role. The system was designed to overtake the F-80 in terms of performance, but more so to intercept the new high-level Soviet bombers capable of nuclear attacks on America and her Allies - in particular, the new Tupelov Tu-4. The F-94 was furthermore the first operational USAF fighter equipped with an afterburner and was the first jet-powered all-weather fighter to enter combat during the Korean War in January 1953.

 

The initial production model was the F-94A, which entered operational service in May 1950. Its armament consisted of four 0.50 in (12.7 mm) M3 Browning machine guns mounted in the fuselage with the muzzles exiting under the radome for the APG-33 rader, a derivative from the AN/APG-3, which directed the Convair B-36's tail guns and had a range of up to 20 miles (32 km). Two 165 US Gallon (1,204 litre) drop tanks, as carried by the F-80 and T-33, were carried on the wingtips. Alternatively, these could be replaced by a pair of 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs under the wings, giving the aircraft a secondary fighter bomber capability. 109 were produced.

 

The subsequent F-94B, which entered service in January 1951, was outwardly virtually identical to the F-94A. The Allison J33 turbojet had a number of modifications made, though, which made it a very reliable engine. The pilot was provided with a more roomy cockpit and the canopy was replaced by a canopy with a bow frame in the center between the two crew members, as well as a new Instrument Landing System (ILS). However, this new variant’s punch with just four machine guns remained weak, and, in order to improve the load of fire, wing-mounted pods with two additional pairs with machine guns were introduced – but these hardly improved the interceptor’s effectiveness. 356 of the F-94B were built.

 

The following F-94C was extensively modified and initially designated F-97, but it was ultimately decided just to treat it as a new version of the F-94. USAF interest was lukewarm, since aircraft technology developed at a fast pace in the Fifties. Lockheed funded development themselves, converting two F-94B airframes to YF-94C prototypes for evaluation with a completely new, much thinner wing, a swept tail surface and a more powerful Pratt & Whitney J48, a license-built version of the afterburning Rolls-Royce Tay, which produced a dry thrust of 6,350 pounds-force (28.2 kN) and approximately 8,750 pounds-force (38.9 kN) with afterburning. Instead of machine guns, the new variant was exclusively armed with more effective unguided air-to-air missiles.

Eventually, the type was adopted for USAF service, since it was the best interim solution for an all-weather fighter at that time, but it still had to rely on Ground Control Interception Radar (GCI) sites to vector the interceptor to intruding aircraft.

 

Anyway, The F-94C's introduction and the availability of more effective Northrop F-89C/D Scorpion and the North American F-86D Sabre interceptors led to a quick relegation of the earlier F-94 variants from mid-1954 onwards to second line units and Air National Guards. By 1955 most of them had been phased out of USAF service. However, some of these relatively young surplus machines were subsequently exported to friendly nations, esp. to NATO countries in dire need for all-weather interceptors at the organization’s outer frontiers where Soviet bomber attacks had to be expected.

 

One of these foreign operators was Greece. In 1952, Greece was admitted to NATO and the country’s Air Force was, with US assistance, rebuilt and organized according to NATO standards. New aircraft were introduced, namely jet fighters which meant a thorough modernization. The first types flown by the Hellenic Air Force were the Republic F-84G Thunderjet (about 100 examples) and the Lockheed F-94B Starfire (about thirty aircraft).

The Hellenic F-94Bs represented the USAF’s standard, but for their second life they were modified to carry, as an alternative to the type’s standard machine gun pods under the wings, a pair of pods with unguided air-to-air missiles, similar to the F-94C. Their designation remained unchanged, though.

This first generation of jets in Hellenic service became operational in 1955 and played an important role within NATO's defense strategy in the south-eastern Europe in the following years. They also took part in Operation Deep Water, a 1957 NATO naval exercise held in the Mediterranean Sea that simulated protecting the Dardanelles from a Soviet invasion and featured a simulated nuclear air strike in the Gallipoli area, reflecting NATO's nuclear umbrella policy to offset the Soviet Union's numerical superiority of ground forces in Europe.

 

In the late 1960s, the F-84 fighters were replaced by the Canadair Sabre 2 from British and Canadian surplus stocks and the Hellenic Air Force acquired new jet aircraft. These included the Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter and the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger. The latter entered service in service 1969 and gradually replaced the F-94Bs in the all-weather interceptor role until 1971.

In the mid-1970s the Hellenic Air Force was further modernized with deliveries of the Dassault Mirage F1CG fleet, Vought A-7Hs (including a number of TA-7Hs) and the first batch of McDonnell-Douglas F-4E Phantom IIs, upgraded versions of which still serve today.

 

After their replacement through the F-102 the Hellenic F-94Bs were still used as advanced trainers, primarily for aspiring WSOs but also for weapon training against ground targets. But by the mid Seventies, all Hellenic F-94Bs had been phased out.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 2

Length: 40 ft 1 in (12.24 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft 9 in (12.16 m)

Height: 12 ft. 2 (3.73 m)

Wing area: 234' 8" sq ft (29.11 m²)

Empty weight: 10,064 lb (4,570 kg)

Loaded weight: 15,330 lb (6,960 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 24,184 lb (10,970 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Allison J33-A-33 turbojet, rated at 4,600 lbf (20.4 kN) continuous thrust

and 6,000 lbf (26.6 kN) thrust with afterburner

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 630 mph (1,014 km/h) at height and in level flight

Range: 930 mi (813 nmi, 1,500 km) in combat configuration with two drop tanks

Ferry range: 1,457 mi (1,275 nmi, 2,345 km)

Service ceiling: 42,750 ft (14,000 m)

Rate of climb: 6,858 ft/min (34.9 m/s)

Wing loading: 57.4 lb/ft² (384 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.48

 

Armament:

4x 0.5"0 (12.7 mm) machine guns in the lower nose section

2x 165 US Gallon (1,204 litre) drop tanks on the wing tips

2x underwing hardpoints for

- two pods with a pair of 0.5" (12.7 mm) machine guns each, or

- two pods with a total of 24× 2.75” (70 mm) Mk 4/Mk 40 Folding-Fin Aerial Rockets, or

- two 1.000 lb (454 kg) bombs (instead of the wing tip drop tanks)

  

The kit and its assembly:

This is a rather simple entry for the 2018 "Cold War" GB at whatifmodelers.com, in the form of a more or less OOB-built Heller F-94B in a fictional guise. The original inspiration was the idea of a camouflaged F-94, since all USAF machines had been left in bare metal finish with more or less colorful additions and markings.

 

That said, the kit was built almost completely OOB and did – except for some sinkholes and standard PSR work – not pose any problem. In fact, the old Heller Starfire model is IMHO a pretty good representation of the aircraft. O.K., its age might show, but almost anything you could ask for at 1:72 scale is there, including a decent, detailed cockpit. I just added a wire pitot under the nose and opened the gun ports, plus some machine gun barrels inside made from hollow steel needles. The main wheels had to be replaced due to sinkholes, and they appeared to be rather narrow for this massive aircraft, too. I found decent replacements from a Tamiya 1:100 F-105D.

  

Painting and markings:

Even though the F-94 never wore camouflage in real life, I chose to add some (more) color to this Hellenic Starfire. In fact, the RHAF adopted several schemes for its early jet types, including grey undersides to otherwise NMF machines grey/green NATO colors, all-around ADC Grey, the so-called Aegean Grey or the USAF's South East Asia scheme. I chose the latter, since I expected an unusual look, and the colors would be a good match for the Hellenic landscape, too.

 

The basic colors (FS 30219, 34227, 34279 and 36622) all come from Humbrol (118, 117, 116 and 28, respectively), and for the pattern I adapted the USAF’s recommendation for the C-123 Provider transport aircraft. Beyond a black ink wash and some post-shading for weathering effects the whole surface of the kit received a wet-sanding treatment for additional wear-and-tear effects, exploiting the fact that the kit is molded in silver plastic which, in the end, shines through here and there. The result is a shaggy look, but it’s not rotten and neglected.

 

The machine gun pods received black front ends (against glare), which was also added to the tip tanks’ front end inside surfaces. The radome and the fin tip were painted with a mix of Humbrol 168 (RAF Hemp) and 28, and the gun ports as well as the afterburner section were painted with Steel Metallizer.

 

Using a 340th Mira’s early F-84G for further inspiration, I decided to add some bright squadron markings to the aircraft in the form of yellow-black-checkered tip tanks. These were created with black decal squares (cut from TL Modellbau generic material) over a painted, yellow base (Humbrol 69). I considered even more markings, e.g. a checkered fin rudder or an ornamental decoration, but eventually rejected this idea in favor of the aircraft’s camouflage theme.

 

Other decals come primarily from a HiScale F-84G sheet. Some elements were taken from the Heller OOB sheet and some additional stencils were gathered from various sources, including an Xtradecal T-33 and a PrintScale F-102 sheet.

 

After some soot stains around the exhaust were added with graphite, the kit was sealed under a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

  

An interesting result, since a camouflaged F-94 is literally unusual. I am positively surprised how good the aircraft looks in the USAF SEA livery.

+++ 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 Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair II was a carrier-capable subsonic light attack aircraft introduced to replace the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. The A-7 airframe design was based on the successful supersonic Vought F-8 Crusader, although it was somewhat smaller and rounded off. The Corsair II initially entered service with the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. It was later adopted by the United States Air Force, including the Air National Guard, to replace the Douglas A-1 Skyraider and North American F-100 Super Sabre. The aircraft was also exported to several foreign countries, including Greece, Portugal, Thailand and New Zealand.

 

For the latter operator, the Corsair II was part of a major modernization campaign in the early 1970s. For instance, in 1970 14 McDonnell Douglas A-4 Skyhawks were purchased to replace the Vampire FB5's, which had been the primary light attack aircraft for the RNZAF for years, but the type was hopelessly outdated.

Furthermore New Zealand was also looking for a replacement of its similarly ageing Canberra fleet. These 31 aircraft were also phased out of service in mid 1970, and the A-7 chosen as the RNZAFs new fighter bomber because of its proven all-weather strike capability and advances avionics.

 

The RNZAF bought and operated 22 LTV A-7 Corsair II aircraft primarily in the coastal defense/anti-ship and sea patrol roles, air interdiction and air defense roles being secondary duties. The RNZAF Corsair II was very similar to the US Navy’s A-7E, even though the machines would only be operated form land bases. Designated A-7N, the machines featured an AN/APN-190 navigational radar with a Doppler groundspeed and drift detector plus an AN/APQ-128 terrain following radar. For the deployment of smart weapons, the machines were outfitted with a Pave Penny laser target acquisition system under the air intake lip, similar to the USAF’s A-7D, and could carry a wide range of weaponry and sensors, including AN/AAR-45 FLIR pods for an improved all-weather performance. Against enemy ships and large ground targets, visually guided smart bombs (AGM-62 and the more modern GBU-8 HOBOS) were bought, as well as AGM-65 Maverick against smaller, high priority targets.

 

Active service lasted between 1975 and 1999, and the A-7Ns were originally allocated between RNZAF 2 and 75 Squadron at Ohakea, where they were operated together with A-4K and TA-4K. The latter were also emplyed for A-7N pilot conversion training, since the RNZAF did not operate any Corsair II two seaters.

Several times the Squadron deployed to Clark Air Base in the Philippines and to Hawaii with both of the Corsair IIs and Skyhawks to exercise with the United States Air Force. Furthermore, the annual deployments as part of the Five Power Defence Agreement (called Exercise Vanguard) had the Squadron visit Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to practice with those countries. Two RNZAF A-7s of 75 Squadron even made visits to Great Britain.

 

In the early Nineties the Corsair IIs started to suffer from numerous maintenance and logistic problems due to the lack of spare parts and general financial problems. This also prevented a major avionics update and the procurement of AGM-84 Harpoon missiles for the A-7Ns and the RNZAF P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft. The maintenance situation became so dire that several aircraft were cannibalized for spare parts to service other fighters. In 1992 only sixteen A-7Ns remained operational. This resulted in the available fighters no longer being assigned and dedicated to one specific squadron, but shared and assigned to one of the RNZAF combat squadrons (2, 14 and 75 Squadron, respectively), as needed.

 

During its 24 years of duty in the RNZAF, the A-7 fleet suffered 8 severe accidents with aircraft losses (and two pilots being killed). Nevertheless, the introduction of the A-7 was seen as a success due to the evolution that it allowed the Air Force in aircraft maintenance, with focus in modern computer and electronic systems, and in the steady qualification of pilots and technicians.

 

In 1999, the National Government selected an order of 28 F-16A/B Fighting Falcon aircraft to replace the complete fleet of A-4 Skyhawks and A-7 Corsair IIs, but this procurement plan was cancelled in 2001 following election by the incoming Labour Government under Helen Clark. This was followed by the disbanding of several fixed wing aircraft squadrons, with the consequence of removing the RNZAF's air combat capability. The last A-7 flight in RNZAF service took place on 1st of October 2001. Subsequently, most of the RNZAF's fighter pilots left New Zealand to serve in the Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal Air Force.

 

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 46 ft 2 in (14.06 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft 9 in (11.8 m), 23 ft 9 in (7.24 m) wings folded

Height: 16 ft 1 in (4.9 m)

Wing area: 374.9 sq ft (34.83 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 65A007 root and tip

Empty weight: 19,127 lb (8,676 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 41,998 lb (19,050 kg) overload condition.

Fuel capacity: 1,338 US gal (5,060 l; 1,114 imp gal) (10,200 lb (4,600 kg)) internal

 

Powerplant:

1 × Allison TF41-A-2 non-afterburning turbofan engine, 15,000 lbf (66.7 kN) thrust

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 600 kn (690 mph; 1,111 km/h) at Sea level

Range: 1,070 nmi; 1,231 mi (1,981 km) maximum internal fuel

Ferry range: 1,342 nmi; 1,544 mi (2,485 km) with maximum internal and external fuel

Service ceiling: 42,000 ft (13,000 m)

Wing loading: 77.4 lb/sq ft (378 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.50

Take-off run: 1,705 ft (519.7 m) at 42,000 lb (19,000 kg)

 

Armament:

1× M61A1 Vulcan 20 mm (0.787 in) rotary cannon with 1,030 rounds

6× under-wing and 2× fuselage pylon stations (for mounting AIM-9 Sidewinder AAMs only)

with a total ordnance capacity of 15,000 lb (6,803.9 kg)

  

The kit and its assembly:

An idea that had been lingering on my project list for some years, and a recent build of an RNZAF A-7 by fellow modeler KiwiZac at whatifmodelers.com eventually triggered this build, a rather simple alternative livery whif. I had this idea on the agenda for some time, though, already written up a background story (which was accidently deleted early last year and sent the project into hiatus - until now) and had the kit as well as decals collected and stashed away.

 

The basis is the Hobby Boss A-7, which is available in a wide range of variant in 1:72 scale. Not cheap, but IMHO the best Corsair II kit at the moment, because it is full of ample surface details, goes together nicely and features a complete air intake, a good cockpit tub and even some maintenance covers that can be displayed in open position, in case you want to integrate the kit in a diorama. In my case it’s the A-7E kit, because I wanted a late variant and the US Navy’s refueling probe instead of the A-7D’s dorsal adapter for the USAF refueling boom system.

 

For the fictional RNZAF A-7N no fundamental changes were made. I just deliberately used OOB parts like the A-7D’s Pave Penny laser targeting pod under the air intake. As a personal addition I lowered the flaps slightly for a more lively look. Around the hull, some blade antennae were changed or added, and I installed the pair of pitots in front of the windscreen (made from thin wire).

 

The FLIR pod came with the kit, as well as the drop tank under the inner starboards wing pylon and the AIM-9Bs. Only the GBU-8s were externally sourced, from one of the Hasegawa USAF ordnance sets.

 

For the finalized kit on display I mounted the maintenance covers in open position, but for the beauty pics they were provisionally placed in closed position onto the kit’s flanks. The covers had to be modified for this stunt, but since their fit is very good and tight they easily stayed in place, even for the flight scenes!

 

Painting and markings:

This was the more interesting part – I wanted „something special“ for the fictional RNZAF Corsair II. Upon delivery, the USAF SEA scheme would certainly have been the most appropriate camouflage – the A-4K’s were painted this way and the aforementioned inspiring build by KiwiZac was finished this way.

 

Anyway, my plan had been from the start a machine in late service with low-viz markings similar to the A-4Ks, which received an attractive three-tone wrap-around scheme (in FS 34102, 34079 and 36081) or a simple all-around coat of FS 34079.

 

Both of these schemes could have been a sensible choice for this project, but… no! Too obvious, too simple for my taste. I rather wanted something that makes you wonder and yet make the aircraft look authentic and RNZAF-esque.

 

While digging for options and alternatives I stumbled upon the RNZAF’s C-130 Hercules transporters, which, like Canadian machines, carry a wrap-around scheme in two tones of grey (a light blue grey and a darker tone with a reddish hue) and a deep olive green tone that comes close to Dark Slate Grey, together with low-viz markings. A pretty unique scheme! Not as murky as the late A-4Ks and IMHO also well suited for the naval/coastal environment that the machine would patrol.

 

I was not able to positively identify the original tones on the CAF and RNZAF Hercs, so I interpreted various aircraft pictures. I settled upon Humbrol 163 (RAF Dark Green) 125 (FS 36118, Gunship Grey) and Revell 57 (RAL 7000, similar to FS 35237, but lighter and “colder”). For the wraparound scheme I used the C-130s as benchmark.

 

The cockpit became Dark Gull Grey (Humbrol 140) while the landing gear and the air intake duct became – behind 5mm of grey around the intake lip - white. The maintenance hatches’ interior was painted with a mix of Humbrol 81 and 38, for a striking zinc chromate primer look.

 

After a light black ink wash the kit received some panel post-shading for more contrast esp. between the dark colors and a slightly worn and sun-bleached look, since the aircraft would be depicted towards the end of its active service life.

 

Decals were the most challenging task, though: finding suitable RNZAF roundels is not easy, and I was happy when Xtradecal released an appropriate sheet that offers kiwi roundels for all positions (since motifs for port and starboard have to be mirrored). The Kiwi squadron emblem actually belongs to an RNZAF A-4K (from an Old Models sheet). The serial codes were puzzled together from single letter (TL Modellbau), most stencils come from the Hobby Boss OOB sheet.

  

A simple build, yet a very interesting topic and in the end also an IMHO very cool-looking aircraft in its fictional livery. Building the Hobby Boss A-7 was easy, despite some inherent flaws of the kit (e .g. totally blank dashboard and side consoles, and even no decals included!). The paint scheme lent from the RNZAF Hercs suits the SLUF well, though.

+++ 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 Wasp was a transonic British jet-powered fighter aircraft that was developed by Folland for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Wasp’s origins could be traced back to a privately funded 1952 concept for a bigger and more capable day fighter aircraft than Folland’s very light Midget/Gnat. The Wasp’s development had been continued until the Gnat’s service introduction, and by then it had evolved under the handle “Fo-145” into a supersonic aircraft that took advantage of the new Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire turbojet engine, swept wings and area rule. The aircraft was built with the minimum airframe size to take the reheated Saphire and a radar system that would allow it to deploy the new de Havilland Blue Jay (later Firestreak) guided air-to-air missile. In this form the aircraft was expected to surpass the Royal Air Force’s contemporary day fighter, the only gun-armed Hawker Hunter, which had been in service since 1954, while using basically the same engine as its F.2 variant, in both performance and armament aspects. The missile-armed Wasp was also expected to replace the disappointing Supermarine Swift and the Fairey Fireflash AAMs that had been developed for it.

The Wasp strongly resembled the smaller Gnat, with a similar but much thinner shoulder mounted wing, with a sweep of 35° at quarter chord, but the new aircraft featured some innovations. Beyond the area-ruled fuselage, the aircraft had full-span leading edge slats and trailing edge flaps with roll control achieved using spoilers rather than traditional ailerons. Anticipating supersonic performance, the tailplane was all-moving. The cockpit had been raised and offered the pilot a much better all-round field of view.

 

The Wasp was armed with four 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannon, located under the air intakes. Each gun had a provision of 125 rounds, from form a mutual ventral ammunition bay that could be quickly replaced. Four underwing hardpoints could carry an ordnance load of up to 4.000 lb, and the Wasp’s main armament consisted of up to four IR-guided “Firestreak” AAMs. To effectively deploy them, however, a radar system was necessary. For launch, the missile seeker was slaved to the Wasp’s AI.Mk.20 X-band radar until lock was achieved and the weapon was launched, leaving the interceptor free to acquire another target. The AI.Mk.20 had been developed by EKCO since 1953 under the development label “Green Willow” for the upcoming EE Lightning interceptor, should the latter’s more complex and powerful Ferranti AIRPASS system fail. A major advantage of the AI.Mk.20 was that it had been designed as a single unit so it could be fit into the nose of smaller single-seat fighters, despite its total weight of roughly 400 lb (200 kg). For the Firestreak AAM, EKCO had developed a spiral-scan radar with a compact 18 in (460 mm) antenna that offered an effective range of about 10 miles (16 km), although only against targets very close to the centerline of the radar. The radar’s maximum detection range was 25 mi (40 km) and the system also acted as a ranging radar, providing range input to the gyro gunsight for air-to-air gunnery.

Beyond Firestreaks, the Wasp could also carry drop tanks (which were area-ruled and coulc only be carried on the inner pair of pylons), SNEB Pods with eighteen 68 mm (2.68 in) unguided rocket projectiles against air and ground targets, or iron bombs of up to 1.000 lb caliber. Other equipment included a nose-mounted, and a forward-facing gun camera.

 

The Royal Air Force was sufficiently impressed to order two prototypes. Since the afterburning version of the Sapphire was not ready yet, the first prototype flew on 30 July 1954 with a non-afterburning engine, an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Sa.6 with 8,000 lbf (35.59 kN). In spite of this lack of power the aircraft nevertheless nearly reached Mach 1 in its maiden flight. The second prototype, equipped with the intended Sapphire Sa.7 afterburning engine with 11,000 lbf (48.9 kN) thrust engine, showed the aircraft’s full potential. The Wasp turned out to have very good handling, and the RAF officially ordered sixty Folland Fo-145 day-fighters under the designation “Wasp F.Mk.1”. The only changes from the prototypes were small leading-edge extensions at the wing roots, improving low speed handling, esp. during landings and at high angles of incidence in flight.

 

Most Wasps were delivered to RAF Germany frontline units, including No. 20 and 92 Squadrons based in Northern Germany. However, the Wasp’s active service did not last long, because technological advancements quickly rendered the aircraft obsolete in its original interceptor role. The Wasp’s performance had not turned out as significantly superior to the Hunter as expected. Range was rather limited, and the aircraft turned out to be underpowered, since the reheated Sapphire Sa6 did not develop as much power as expected. The AI.Mk.20 radar was rather weak and capricious, too, and the Firestreak was an operational nightmare. The missile was, due to its solid Magpie rocket motor and the ammonia coolant for the IR seeker head, highly toxic and RAF armorers had to wear some form of CRBN protection to safely mount the missile onto an aircraft. Furthermore, unlike modern missiles, Firestreak’s effectiveness was very limited since it could only be fired outside cloud - and over Europe or in winter, skies were rarely clear.

 

Plans for a second production run of the Folland Wasp with a more powerful Sapphire Sa7R engine with a raised thrust of 12,300 lbf (54.7 kN) and updated avionics were not carried out. During the 1960s, following the successful introduction of the supersonic English Electric Lightning in the interceptor role, the Wasp, as well as the older but more prosperous and versatile Hunter, transitioned to being operated as a fighter-bomber, advanced trainer and for tactical photo reconnaissance missions.

This led to a limited MLU program for the F.Mk.1s and conversions of the remaining airframes into two new variants: the new main version was the GR.Mk.2, a dedicated CAS/ground attack variant, which had its radar removed and replaced with ballast, outwardly recognizable through a solid metal nose which replaced the original fiberglass radome. Many of these machines also had two of the 30mm guns removed to save weight. Furthermore, a handful Wasps were converted into PR.Mk.3s. These had as set of five cameras in a new nose section with various windows, and all the guns and the ammunition bay were replaced with an additional fuel tank, operating as pure, unarmed reconnaissance aircraft. When Folland was integrated into the Hawker Siddeley Group in 1963 the aircraft’s official name was changed accordingly, even though the Folland name heritage persisted.

 

Most of these aircraft remained allocated to RAF Germany units and retired towards the late Sixties, but four GR.Mk.2s were operated by RAF No. 57 (Reserve) Squadron and based at No. 3 Flying Training School at Cranwell, where they were flown as adversaries in dissimilar aerial combat training. The last of the type was withdrawn from service in 1969, but one aircraft remained flying with the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down until 24 January 1975.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 45 ft 10.5 in (13.983 m)

Wingspan: 31 ft 7.5 in (9.639 m)

Height: 13 ft 2.75 in (4.0323 m)

Wing area: 250 sq ft (23 m2)

Empty weight: 13,810 lb (6,264 kg)

Gross weight: 21,035 lb (9,541 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 23,459 lb (10,641 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Sa.6, producing 7,450 lbf (33.1 kN) thrust at 8,300 rpm,

military power dry, and 11,000 lbf (48.9 kN) with afterburner

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 631 kn (726 mph, 1,169 km/h) / M1.1 at 35,000 ft (10,668 m)

654 kn (753 mph; 1,211 km/h) at sea level

Cruise speed: 501 kn (577 mph, 928 km/h)

Range: 1,110 nmi (1,280 mi, 2,060 km)

Service ceiling: 49,000 ft (15,000 m)

Rate of climb: 16,300 ft/min (83 m/s)

Wing loading: 84 lb/sq ft (410 kg/m2)

Thrust/weight: 0.5

 

Armament:

4× 30 mm (1.18 in) ADEN cannon, 125 rounds per gun

4× underwing hardpoints for a total external ordnance of 4.000 lb, including Firestreak AAMs,

SNEB pods, bombs of up to 1.000 lb caliber or two 125 imp gal (570 l) drop tanks

  

The kit and its assembly

This kit travesty is a remake of a simple but brilliant idea of fellow modeler chrisonord at whatifmodellers’com (www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=48434.msg899420#m...), who posted his own build in late 2020: a Grumman Tiger in standard contemporary RAF colors as Folland Wasp GR.Mk.2. The result looked like a highly credible “big brother” or maybe successor of Folland’s diminutive Midge/Gnat fighter, something in the Hawker Hunter’s class. I really like the idea a lot and decided that it was, one and a half years later, to build my personal interpretation of the subject – also because I had a Hasegawa F11F kit in The Stash™ without a proper plan.

 

The Tiger was built basically OOB – a simple and straightforward affair that goes together well, just the fine, raised panel lines show the mould’s age. The only changes I made: the arrester hook disappeared under PSR, small stabilizer fins (from an Italeri BAe Hawk) were added under the tail section, and I replaced the Tiger’s rugged twin wheel front landing gear with a single wheel alternative, left over from a Matchbox T-2 Buckeye. On the main landing gear, the rearward-facing stabilizing struts were deleted (for a lighter look of a land-based aircraft) and their wells filled with putty. A late modification were additional swing arms for the main landing gear, though: once the kit could sit on its own three feet, the stance was odd and low, esp. under the tail – probably due to the new front wheel. As a remedy I glued additional swing arm elements, made from 1mm steel wire, under the original struts, what moved the main wheel a little backwards and raised the main landing gear my 1mm. Does not sound like much, but it was enough to lift the tail and give the aircraft a more convincing stance and ground clearance.

 

The area-ruled drop tanks and their respective pylons were taken from the Hasegawa kit. For a special “British” touch – because the Tiger had a radome (into which no radar was ever fitted, though) – I added a pair of Firestreak AAMs on the outer underwing stations, procured from a Gomix Gloster Javelin (which comes with four of these, plus pylons).

  

Painting and markings:

Since the RAF theme was more or less settled, paintwork revolved around more or less authentical colors and markings. The Wasp received a standard RAF day fighter scheme from the late Fifties, with upper camouflage in RAF Dark Green/Dark Sea Grey and Light Aircraft Grey undersides with a low waterline. I used Humbrol 163, 106 and 166, respectively – Ocean Grey was used because I did not have the proper 164 at hand, but 106 also offered the benefit of a slightly better contrast to the murky Dark Green. A black ink washing was applied plus some panel post-shading. The silver leading edges on wings, stabilizers and fin were created with decal sheet material, avoiding the inconvenience of masking.

 

The cockpit interior was painted in a very dark grey (Revell 09, Anthracite) while the landing gear, wheels and wells received a greyish-metallic finish (Humbrol 56, Aluminum Dope). The air intakes’ interior became bright aluminum (Revell 99), the area around the jet nozzle was painted with Revell 91 (Iron metallic) and later treated with graphite for a dark metallic shine. The drop tanks were camouflaged, the Firestreaks became white so that they would stand out well and add to a certain vintage look.

 

The decals were a mix from various sources. The No. 20 Squadron badges and the Type D high-viz roundels on the wings were left over from an Airfix Hawker Hunter. The fuselage roundels came from an Italeri BAe Hawk sheet, IIRC. The bent fin flash, all the stencils as well as the serial code (which was puzzled together from two real serials and was AFAIK not allocated to any real RAF aircraft) came from an Xtradecal Supermarine Swift sheet. The individual red “B” letter came from a Matchbox A.W. Meteor night fighter.

 

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish – I considered a glossy finish, since this was typical for RAF aircraft in the Fifties, but eventually just gave the radome a light shine.

  

Basically a simple project, and quickly done in just a couple of days. However, chrisonord’s great eye for similarities makes this “Tiger in disguise” a great fictional aircraft model with only little effort, it’s IMHO very convincing. And the RAF colors and markings suit the F11F very well.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

 

Some background:

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 (Russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-19) (NATO reporting name: "Farmer") was a Soviet second-generation, single-seat, twin jet-engined fighter aircraft. It was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. It was, more oe less, the counterpart of the North American F-100 Super Sabre, although the MiG-19 would primarily oppose the more modern McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Republic F-105 Thunderchief over North Vietnam.

 

On 20 April 1951, OKB-155 was given the order to develop the MiG-17 into a new fighter called "I-340", which was to be powered by two Mikulin AM-5 non-afterburning jet engines (a scaled-down version of the Mikulin AM-3) with 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) of thrust. The I-340 was supposed to attain 1,160 km/h (725 mph, Mach 1) at 2,000 m (6,562 ft), 1,080 km/h (675 mph, Mach 0.97) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft), climb to 10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 2.9 minutes, and have a service ceiling of no less than 17,500 m (57,415 ft).

The new fighter, internally designated "SM-1", was designed around the "SI-02" airframe (a MiG-17 prototype) modified to accept two engines in a side-by-side arrangement and was completed in March 1952.

 

Initial enthusiasm for the aircraft was dampened by several problems. The most alarming of these was the danger of a midair explosion due to overheating of the fuselage fuel tanks located between the engines. Deployment of airbrakes at high speeds caused a high-g pitch-up. Elevators lacked authority at supersonic speeds. The high landing speed of 230 km/h (145 mph) (compared to 160 km/h (100 mph) in the MiG-15), combined with absence of a two-seat trainer version, slowed pilot transition to the type. Handling problems were addressed with the second prototype, "SM-9/2", which added a third ventral airbrake and introduced all-moving tailplanes with a damper to prevent pilot-induced oscillations at subsonic speeds. It flew on 16 September 1954, and entered production as the MiG-19S.

 

Approximately 5.500 MiG-19s were produced, first in the USSR and in Czechoslovakia as the Avia S-105, but mainly in the People's Republic of China as the Shenyang J-6. The aircraft saw service with a number of other national air forces, including those of Cuba, North Vietnam, Egypt, Pakistan, and North Korea. The aircraft saw combat during the Vietnam War, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1971 Bangladesh War.

 

All Soviet-built MiG-19 variants were single-seaters only, although the Chinese later developed the JJ-6 trainer version of the Shenyang J-6. Among the original "Farmer" variants were also several radar-equipped all-weather fighters and the MiG-19R, a reconnaissance version of the MiG-19S with cameras replacing the nose cannon in a canoe-shaped fairing under the forward fuselage and powered by uprated RD-9BF-1 engines with about 10% more dry thrust and an improved afterburner system.

 

The MiG19R was intended for low/medium altitude photo reconnaissance. Four AFA-39 daylight cameras (one facing forward, one vertical and two obliquely mounted) were carried. Nighttime operations were only enabled through flare bombs, up to four could be carried on four hardpoints under the wings, even though the outer "wet" pylons were frequently occupied by a pair of 800l drop tanks.

 

The MiG-19R was not produced in large numbers and only a few were operated outside of the Soviet Union. The NATO reporting name remained unchanged (Farmer C). A recon variant of the MiG-19 stayed on many air forces' agendas, even though only the original, Soviet type was actually produced. Czechoslovakia developed an indigenous reconnaissance variant, but it did not enter series production, as well as Chinese J-6 variants, which only reached the prototype stage.

 

One of the MiG-19R's few foreign operators was the Polish Navy. The Polish Air Force had received a total of 22 MiG-19P and 14 MiG-19PM interceptors in 1957 (locally dubbed Lim-7), and at that time photo reconnaissance for both Air Force and Navy was covered by a version of the MiG-17 (Lim-5R). Especially the Polish Navy was interested in a faster aircraft for quick identification missions over the Baltic Sea, and so six MiG-19R from Soviet stock were bought in 1960 for the Polish Navy air arm.

 

Anyway, Poland generally regarded the MiG-19 family only as an interim solution until more potent types like the MiG-21 became available. Therefore, most of the fighters were already sold to Bulgaria in 1965/66, and any remaining Farmer fighters in Polish Air Force Service were phased out by 1974.

 

The Polish Navy MiG-19R were kept in service until 1982 through the 3rd Group of the 7th Polish Naval Squadron (PLS), even though only a quartet remained since two Lim-7R, how the type was called in Poland, had been lost through accidents during the early 70ies. Ironically, the older Lim6R (a domestic photo reconnaissance variant of the license-built MiG-17 fighter bomber) was even kept in service until the late 80ies, but eventually all these aircraft were replaced by MiG-21R and Su-22M4R.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 12.54 m (41 ft)

Wingspan: 9.0 m (29 ft 6 in)

Height: 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in)

Wing area: 25.0 m² (270 ft²)

Empty weight: 5,447 kg (11,983 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 7,560 kg (16,632 lb)

 

Powerplant:

2× Tumansky RD-9BF-1 afterburning turbojets, 31.9 kN (7,178 lbf) each

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1.500 km/h (930 mph)

Range: 1,390 km (860 mi) 2,200 km with external tanks

Service ceiling: 17,500 m (57,400 ft)

Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,425 ft/min)

Wing loading: 302.4 kg/m² (61.6 lb/ft²)

Thrust/weight: 0.86

 

Armament:

2x 30 mm NR-30 cannons in the wing roots with 75 RPG

4x underwing pylons, with a maximum load of 1.000 kg (2.205 lb);

typically only 2 drop tanks were carried, or pods with flare missiles

  

The kit and its assembly:

Again, a rather subtle whif. The MiG-19R existed, but was only produced in small numbers and AFAIK only operated by the Soviet Union. Conversions of license-built machines in Czechoslovakia and China never went it beyond prototype stage.

 

Beyond that, there’s no kit of the recon variant, even pictures of real aircraft are hard to find for refefence – so I decided to convert a vintage Kovozavody/KP Models MiG-19S fighter from the pile into this exotic Farmer variant.

 

Overall, the old KP kit is not bad at all, even though you get raised details, lots of flash and mediocre fit, the pilot's seat is rather funny. Yes, today’s standards are different, but anything you could ask for is there. The kit is more complete than a lot of more modern offerings and the resulting representation of a MiG-19 is IMHO good.

 

Mods I made are minimal. Most prominent feature is the camera fairing in place of the fuselage cannon, scratched from a massive weapon pylon (Academy F-104G). Probably turned out a bit too large and pronounced, but it’s whifworld, after all!

 

Other detail changes include new main wheels (from a Revell G.91), some added/scratched details in the cockpit with an opened canopy, and extra air scoops on the fuselage for the uprated engines. The drop tanks are OOB, I just added the small stabilizer pylons from styrene sheet.

 

Other pimp additions are scratched cannons (made from Q-Tips!), and inside of the exhausts the rear wall was drilled up and afterburner dummies (wheels from a Panzer IV) inserted - even though you can hardly see that at all...

  

Painting and markings:

This is where the fun actually begins. ANY of the few MiG-19 in Polish service I have ever seen was left in a bare metal finish, and the Polish Navy actually never operated the type.

 

Anyway, the naval forces make a good excuse for a camouflaged machine – and the fact that the naval service used rather complex patterns with weird colors on its machines (e. g. on MiG-17, MiG-15 UTI or PZL Iskras and An-2) made this topic even more interesting, and colorful.

 

My paint scheme is a mix of various real world aircraft “designs”. Four(!) upper colors were typical. I ended up with:

• Dark Grey (FS 36118, Modelmaster)

• Dark Green (RAF Dark Green, Modelmaster)

• Blue-Green-Grey (Fulcrum Green-Grey, Modelmaster)

• Greenish Ochre (a mix of Humbrol 84 and Zinc Chromate Green, Modelmaster)

 

Plus…

• Light Blue undersides (FS 35414, Modelmaster, also taken into the air intake)

  

The pattern was basically lent from an Iskra trainer and translated onto the swept wing MiG. The scheme is in so far noteworthy because the stabilizers carry the upper camo scheme on the undersides, too!?

 

I only did light shading and weathering, since all Polish Navy service aircraft I found had a arther clean and pristine look. A light black ink wash helped to emphasize the many fine raised panel lines, as well as some final overall dry painting with light grey.

 

The cockpit interior was painted in the notorious “Russian Cockpit Blue-Green” (Modelmaster), dashboard and are behind the seat were painted medium grey (FS 36231). The landing gear wells were kept in Aluminum (Humbrol 56), while the struts received a lighter acrylic Aluminum from Revell.

The wheel discs were painted bright green (Humbrol 131), but with the other shocking colors around that does not stand out at all…! The engine nozzles were treated with Modelmaster Metallizer, including Steel, Gun Metal and Titanium, plus some grinded graphite which adds an extra metallic shine.

 

The national “checkerboard” markings were puzzled together from various old decal sheets; the red tactical code was made with single digit decals (from a Begemot MiG-29 sheet); the squadron marking on the fin is fictional, the bird scaring eyes are a strange but als typical addition and I added some few stencils.

 

Finally, all was sealed under a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Revell).

  

In the end, not a simple whif with only little conversion surgery. But the paint scheme is rather original, if not psychedelic – this MiG looks as if a six-year-old had painted it, but it’s pretty true to reality and I can imagine that it is even very effective in an environment like the Baltic Sea.

Grey Hawk - Mach 8-10 - 7th / 8th Gen Hypersonic Super Fighter Aircraft, IO Aircraft www.ioaircraft.com

 

New peek, very little is posted or public. Grey Hawk - Mach 8-10 Hypersonic 7th/8th Gen Super Fighter. This is not a graphics design, but ready to be built this moment. Heavy CFD, Design Work, Systems, etc.

 

All technologies developed and refined. Can out maneuver an F22 or SU-35 all day long subsonically, and no missile on earth could catch it. Lots of details omitted intentionally, but even internal payload capacity is double the F-22 Raptor. - www.ioaircraft.com/hypersonic.php

 

Length: 60'

Span: 30'

Engines: 2 U-TBCC (Unified Turbine Based Combined Cycle)

2 360° Thrust Vectoring Center Turbines

 

Fuel: Kero / Hydrogen

Payload: Up to 4 2,000 LBS JDAM's Internally

Up to 6 2,000 LBS JDAM's Externally

Range: 5,000nm + Aerial Refueling Capable

www.ioaircraft.com/hypersonic.php

 

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Unified Turbine Based Combined Cycle. Current technologies and what Lockheed is trying to force on the Dept of Defense, for that low speed Mach 5 plane DOD gave them $1 billion to build and would disintegrate above Mach 5, is TBCC. 2 separate propulsion systems in the same airframe, which requires TWICE the airframe space to use.

 

Unified Turbine Based Combined Cycle is 1 propulsion system cutting that airframe deficit in half, and also able to operate above Mach 10 up to Mach 15 in atmosphere, and a simple nozzle modification allows for outside atmosphere rocket mode, ie orbital capable.

 

Additionally, Reaction Engines maximum air breather mode is Mach 4.5, above that it will explode in flight from internal pressures are too high to operate. Thus, must switch to non air breather rocket mode to operate in atmosphere in hypersonic velocities. Which as a result, makes it not feasible for anything practical. It also takes an immense amount of fuel to function.

 

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Advanced Additive Manufacturing for Hypersonic Aircraft

 

Utilizing new methods of fabrication and construction, make it possible to use additive manufacturing, dramatically reducing the time and costs of producing hypersonic platforms from missiles, aircraft, and space capable craft. Instead of aircraft being produced in piece, then bolted together; small platforms can be produced as a single unit and large platforms can be produces in large section and mated without bolting. These techniques include using exotic materials and advanced assembly processes, with an end result of streamlining the production costs and time for hypersonic aircraft; reducing months of assembly to weeks. Overall, this process greatly reduced the cost for producing hypersonic platforms. Even to such an extent that a Hellfire missile costs apx $100,000 but by utilizing our technologies, replacing it with a Mach 8-10 hypersonic missile of our physics/engineering and that missile would cost roughly $75,000 each delivered.

 

Materials used for these manufacturing processes are not disclosed, but overall, provides a foundation for extremely high stresses and thermodynamics, ideal for hypersonic platforms. This specific methodology and materials applications is many decades ahead of all known programs. Even to the extend of normalized space flight and re-entry, without concern of thermodynamic failure.

 

*Note, most entities that are experimenting with additive manufacturing for hypersonic aircraft, this makes it mainstream and standardized processes, which also applies for mass production.

 

What would normally be measured in years and perhaps a decade to go from drawing board to test flights, is reduced to singular months and ready for production within a year maximum.

 

Unified Turbine Based Combined Cycle (U-TBCC)

 

To date, the closest that NASA and industry have achieved for turbine based aircraft to fly at hypersonic velocities is by mounting a turbine into an aircraft and sharing the inlet with a scramjet or rocket based motor. Reaction Engines Sabre is not able to achieve hypersonic velocities and can only transition into a non air breathing rocket for beyond Mach 4.5

 

However, utilizing Unified Turbine Based Combine Cycle also known as U-TBCC, the two separate platforms are able to share a common inlet and the dual mode ramjet/scramjet is contained within the engine itself, which allows for a much smaller airframe footprint, thus engingeers are able to then design much higher performance aerial platforms for hypersonic flight, including the ability for constructing true single stage to orbit aircraft by utilizing a modification/version that allows for transition to outside atmosphere propulsion without any other propulsion platforms within the aircraft. By transitioning and developing aircraft to use Unified Turbine Based Combined Cycle, this propulsion system opens up new options to replace that airframe deficit for increased fuel capacity and/or payload.

 

Enhanced Dynamic Cavitation

 

Dramatically Increasing the efficiency of fuel air mixture for combustion processes at hypersonic velocities within scramjet propulsion platforms. The aspects of these processes are non disclosable.

 

Dynamic Scramjet Ignition Processes

 

For optimal scramjet ignition, a process known as Self Start is sought after, but in many cases if the platform becomes out of attitude, the scramjet will ignite. We have already solved this problem which as a result, a scramjet propulsion system can ignite at lower velocities, high velocities, at optimal attitude or not optimal attitude. It doesn't matter, it will ignite anyways at the proper point for maximum thrust capabilities at hypersonic velocities.

 

Hydrogen vs Kerosene Fuel Sources

 

Kerosene is an easy fuel to work with, and most western nations developing scramjet platforms use Kerosene for that fact. However, while kerosene has better thermal properties then Hydrogen, Hydrogen is a far superior fuel source in scramjet propulsion flight, do it having a much higher efficiency capability. Because of this aspect, in conjunction with our developments, it allows for a MUCH increased fuel to air mixture, combustion, thrust; and ability for higher speeds; instead of very low hypersonic velocities in the Mach 5-6 range. Instead, Mach 8-10 range, while we have begun developing hypersonic capabilities to exceed 15 in atmosphere within less then 5 years.

 

Conforming High Pressure Tank Technology for CNG and H2.

 

As most know in hypersonics, Hydrogen is a superior fuel source, but due to the storage abilities, can only be stored in cylinders thus much less fuel supply. Not anymore, we developed conforming high pressure storage technology for use in aerospace, automotive sectors, maritime, etc; which means any overall shape required for 8,000+ PSI CNG or Hydrogen. For hypersonic platforms, this means the ability to store a much larger volume of hydrogen vs cylinders.

 

As an example, X-43 flown by Nasa which flew at Mach 9.97. The fuel source was Hydrogen, which is extremely more volatile and combustible then kerosene (JP-7), via a cylinder in the main body. If it had used our technology, that entire section of the airframe would had been an 8,000 PSI H2 tank, which would had yielded 5-6 times the capacity. While the X-43 flew 11 seconds under power at Mach 9.97, at 6 times the fuel capacity would had yielded apx 66 seconds of fuel under power at Mach 9.97. If it had flew slower, around Mach 6, same principles applied would had yielded apx 500 seconds of fuel supply under power (slower speeds required less energy to maintain).

 

Enhanced Fuel Mixture During Shock Train Interaction

 

Normally, fuel injection is conducted at the correct insertion point within the shock train for maximum burn/combustion. Our methodologies differ, since almost half the fuel injection is conducted PRE shock train within the isolator, so at the point of isolator injection the fuel enhances the combustion process, which then requires less fuel injection to reach the same level of thrust capabilities.

 

Improved Bow Shock Interaction

 

Smoother interaction at hypersonic velocities and mitigating heat/stresses for beyond Mach 6 thermodynamics, which extraordinarily improves Type 3, 4, and 5 shock interaction.

 

6,000+ Fahrenheit Thermal Resistance

 

To date, the maximum thermal resistance was tested at AFRL in the spring of 2018, which resulted in a 3,200F thermal resistance for a short duration. This technology, allows for normalized hypersonic thermal resistance of 3,000-3,500F sustained, and up to 6,500F resistance for short endurance, ie 90 seconds or less. 10-20 minute resistance estimate approximately 4,500F +/- 200F.

  

*** This technology advancement also applies to Aerospike rocket engines, in which it is common for Aerospike's to exceed 4,500-5,000F temperatures, which results in the melting of the reversed bell housing. That melting no longer ocurrs, providing for stable combustion to ocurr for the entire flight envelope

 

Scramjet Propulsion Side Wall Cooling

 

With old technologies, side wall cooling is required for hypersonic flight and scramjet propulsion systems, otherwise the isolator and combustion regions of a scramjet would melt, even using advanced ablatives and ceramics, due to their inability to cope with very high temperatures. Using technology we have developed for very high thermodynamics and high stresses, side wall cooling is no longer required, thus removing that variable from the design process and focusing on improved ignition processes and increasing net thrust values.

 

Lower Threshold for Hypersonic Ignition

 

Active and adaptive flight dynamics, resulting in the ability for scramjet ignition at a much lower velocity, ie within ramjet envelope, between Mach 2-4, and seamless transition from supersonic to hypersonic flight, ie supersonic ramjet (scramjet). This active and dynamic aspect, has a wide variety of parameters for many flight dynamics, velocities, and altitudes; which means platforms no longer need to be engineered for specific altitude ranges or preset velocities, but those parameters can then be selected during launch configuration and are able to adapt actively in flight.

 

Dramatically Improved Maneuvering Capabilities at Hypersonic Velocities

 

Hypersonic vehicles, like their less technologically advanced brethren, use large actuator and the developers hope those controls surfaces do not disintegrate in flight. In reality, it is like rolling the dice, they may or may not survive, hence another reason why the attempt to keep velocities to Mach 6 or below. We have shrunken down control actuators while almost doubling torque and response capabilities specifically for hypersonic dynamics and extreme stresses involved, which makes it possible for maximum input authority for Mach 10 and beyond.

 

Paradigm Shift in Control Surface Methodologies, Increasing Control Authority (Internal Mechanical Applications)

 

To date, most control surfaces for hypersonic missile platforms still use fins, similar to lower speed conventional missiles, and some using ducted fins. This is mostly due to lack of comprehension of hypersonic velocities in their own favor. Instead, the body itself incorporates those control surfaces, greatly enhancing the airframe strength, opening up more space for hardware and fuel capacity; while simultaneously enhancing the platforms maneuvering capabilities.

 

A scramjet missile can then fly like conventional missile platforms, and not straight and level at high altitudes, losing velocity on it's decent trajectory to target. Another added benefit to this aspect, is the ability to extend range greatly, so if anyone elses hypersonic missile platform were developed for 400 mile range, falling out of the sky due to lack of glide capabilities; our platforms can easily reach 600+ miles, with minimal glide deceleration.

 

Is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.

Iraq is bordered by Jordan to the west, Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south. Iraq has a narrow section of coastline measuring 58 km (35 miles) on the northern Persian Gulf. The capital city, Baghdad (Arabic: بغداد‎ Baġdād), is in the center-east of the country.

Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through the centre of Iraq, flowing from northwest to southeast. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the steppe and desert landscape that covers most of Western Asia.

Historically, the territory comprising Iraq was known in Europe by the Greek toponym 'Mesopotamia' (Land between the rivers). Iraq has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the 6th millennium BC. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is identified as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of writing and the wheel.

Throughout its long history, Iraq has been the center of the Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid and Abbasid empires, and part of the Achaemenid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Mongol, Ottoman and British empires. The Kingdom of Iraq was founded in 1932.

Beginning with an invasion in 2003, Iraq came under military occupation by a multinational coalition of forces, mainly American and British.

The occupation ended when sovereignty was transferred to the Iraqi Interim Government June 2004. As of January 2010, 112,000 US troops remain in the country. A new Constitution of Iraq has since been approved by referendum and a new Government of Iraq has been elected. There is a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq by 31 December 2011.

 

History

Please go to :

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iraq

 

Geography

The geography of Iraq is diverse and falls into four main regions: the desert (west of the Euphrates River), Upper Mesopotamia (between the upper Tigris and Euphrates rivers), the northern highlands of Iraqi Kurdistan, and Lower Mesopotamia, the alluvial plain at the head of the Persian Gulf.

The mountains in the northeast are an extension of the alpine system that runs eastward from the Balkans through southern Turkey, northern Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, eventually reaching the Himalayas. The desert is in the southwest and central provinces along the borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan and geographically belongs with the Arabian Peninsula.

Iraq holds a special distinction in the history of geography: a clay tablet generally accepted as "the earliest known map" was unearthed in 1930 during the excavation of Ga-Sur at Nuzi Yorghan Tepe, near the towns of Harran and Kirkuk, 200 miles (322 km) north of the site of Babylon. The tablet, measuring 6.8 in × 7.6 in (173 mm × 193 mm), is usually dated from the dynasty of Sargon of Akkad between 2,300-2,500 BC; an even earlier date for the tablet was promulgated by archeologist Leo Bagrow, placing it in the Agade Period (3,800 BC).

 

Other Info

Oficial Name:

جمهوريّة العراق-Jumhūriyyat ul-ʿIrāq

Jomhūrī-ye Īrāq

kur: کۆمارا ئیراقێ / Komara Îraqê

 

Independence:

Ottoman Empire, October 1, 1919

- from the United Kingdom, October 3, 1932

 

Area:

434.128km2

 

Inhabitants:

26.900.000

 

Languages:

Adyghe [ady] 19,000 in Iraq (1993). Alternate names: West Circassian, Adygey. Classification: North Caucasian, West Caucasian, Circassian

More information.

 

Arabic, Gulf Spoken [afb] 40,000 in Iraq. Population total all countries: 2,338,600. In and around Zubair and on the Fau Peninsula. Also spoken in Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen. Alternate names: Khaliji, Gulf Arabic. Dialects: Zubair-Faau Arabic. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic

More information.

 

Arabic, Judeo-Iraqi [yhd] 100 to 150 in Iraq (1992 H. Mutzafi). Most in Israel. Alternate names: Iraqi Judeo-Arabic, Jewish Iraqi-Baghdadi Arabic, Arabi, Yahudic. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic

More information.

 

Arabic, Mesopotamian Spoken [acm] 11,500,000 in Iraq. Population total all countries: 15,100,000. Tigris and Euphrates clusters are in Iraq. Also spoken in Iran, Jordan, Syria, Turkey (Asia). Alternate names: Mesopotamian Qeltu Arabic, Mesopotamian Gelet Arabic, Baghdadi Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Furati. Dialects: Anatolian Cluster, Tigris Cluster, Euphrates Cluster. Geographical and sectarian divisions correlate with Iraqi dialects. The vernacular standard is forming based on Baghdad speech. There are also Bedouin dialects. Nearly unintelligible to speakers of certain other vernacular Arabic varieties. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic

More information.

 

Arabic, Najdi Spoken [ars] 900,000 in Iraq. Central Najdi is spoken by Bedouin in the western desert, North Najdi by Bedouin in the south between the rivers up to the Syrian border. Dialects: North Najdi (Shammar), Central Najdi. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic

More information.

 

Arabic, North Mesopotamian Spoken [ayp] 5,400,000 in Iraq (1992). Population total all countries: 6,300,000. Along most of the Tigris and part of the Euphrates valleys north of Baghdad. Also spoken in Jordan, Syria, Turkey (Asia). Alternate names: Syro-Mesopotamian Vernacular Arabic, Moslawi, Mesopotamian Qeltu Arabic. Dialects: Very close to Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, but there are important sociolinguistic differences. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic

More information.

 

Arabic, Standard [arb] Middle East, North Africa. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic

More information.

 

Armenian [hye] 60,000 in Iraq. Dialects: Western Armenian. Classification: Indo-European, Armenian

More information.

 

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic [aii] 30,000 in Iraq (1994). Population total all countries: 210,231. Ethnic population: 4,250,000 (1994). Northern Iraq, Baghdad, Basrah, Karkuk, Arbil. Also spoken in Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iran, Italy, Lebanon, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia (Europe), Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey (Asia), United Kingdom, USA. Alternate names: Lishana Aturaya, Suret, Sooreth, Sureth, Suryaya Swadaya, Assyrian, Neo-Syriac, Assyriski, Aisorski, Assyrianci. Dialects: Close linguistically to other Northeastern Aramaic varieties. Inherent intelligibility is hard to estimate due to intense exposure of most speakers throughout the Assyrian diaspora to many dialects, especially to Urmi and Iraqi Koine. Only because of this exposure is actual intelligibility between different dialects as high as 80% to 90%. Subdialects of the Urmian group: Urmi, Sipurghan, Solduz; of the Northern Group: Salamas, Van, Jilu, Gavar, Qudshanis, Upper Barwari, Dez, Baz; of the Central Group: Mar Bishu, Nochiya (Shamezdin), Tergawar, Anhar; of the Western Group: Tkhuma, Lower Barwari, Tal, Lewin. The Sapna cluster includes Aradhin, Tina, Daudiya, Inishke, Benatha. Standard literary Assyrian is based on Urmi. Many speakers have left the original areas and have developed a common spoken and written form based on the prestigious Urmi dialect as spoken by those from Iraq living in Baghdad, Chicago, and elsewhere (Iraqi Koine). Most Christians understand it. The Urmi subdialect of this language is different from the Urmi subdialect of Lishán Didán. All dialects of Western, Northern, and Central Assyrian are spoken in Syria. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, Aramaic, Eastern, Central, Northeastern

More information.

 

Azerbaijani, South [azb] 300,000 to 900,000 in Iraq (1982). Kirkuk City, Arbil, Rowanduz, towns and villages southeast from Kirkuk as far as Al Miqdadiyah, Khanaqin, and Mandali; also several places in the Mosul Region. Dialects: Kirkuk. Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern, Azerbaijani

More information.

 

Bajelani [bjm] 20,000 (1976 Sara). Qasr-e Shirin, Zohab, Bin Qudra, Quratu, north of Khanaqin, also in Mosul Province. Since late 1980s, many have become displaced. Alternate names: Bajalani, Gurani, Chichamachu, Bajoran, Bejwan. Dialects: In the Gurani and Zaza group. Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Northwestern, Zaza-Gorani

More information.

 

Chaldean Neo-Aramaic [cld] 100,000 to 120,000 in Iraq (1994 Mutzafi). Population total all countries: 206,000. Originally in central western and northern Iraqi Kurdistan and some in bordering Turkey. Now in Mosul, Baghdad, Basrah, southeastern Iraqi Kurdistan. Also spoken in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Lebanon, Netherlands, Sweden, Syria, Turkey (Asia), USA. Alternate names: Chaldean, Kildani, Kaldaya, Neo-Chaldean, Modern Chaldean, Sureth, Soorith, Soorath, Suras, Lishana Kaldaya, Fellihi, Fallani. Dialects: Mangesh, Alqosh, Tel Kepe, Tisqopa, Bartille, Shirnak-Chizre (Bohtan), Dihok. High intelligibility of Lishana Deni and Ashirat (western dialect group of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic); little or no intelligibilty with other Northeastern Aramaic varieties. Comprehension among all of these improves with contact. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, Aramaic, Eastern, Central, Northeastern

More information.

 

Domari [rmt] 22,946 in Iraq (2000 WCD). Alternate names: Middle Eastern Romani. Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Central zone, Dom

More information.

 

Farsi, Western [pes] 227,000 in Iraq (1993). Alternate names: Persian. Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Southwestern, Persian

More information.

 

Gurani [hac] 21,099 in Iraq (2000 WCD). Several hundred thousand for group of Gurani speakers in both Iraq and Iran (Blau 1989). Population total all countries: 44,047. Near Halabja, east of Suleimaniye, Topzawa near Tawuq, pockets ('islands') from Mosul to Khanaqin. Also spoken in Iran. Alternate names: Hawrami, Hewrami, Hawramani, Gorani, Macho. Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Northwestern, Zaza-Gorani

More information.

 

Koy Sanjaq Surat [kqd] 800 to 1,000 (1995 H. Mutzafi). Northern Iraq, town of Koi-Sanjaq, and nearby village of Armota. Alternate names: Koi Sanjaq Soorit, Koy Sanjaq Soorit, Koi-Sanjaq Sooret, Koy Sanjaq Sooret. Dialects: Related in certain morphological and lexical respects to Senaya. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, Aramaic, Eastern, Central, Northeastern

More information.

 

Kurdish, Central [ckb] 462,000 in Iraq (2004). Population total all countries: 3,712,000. South of the Great Zab River, in Suleimaniye, Arbil, Kirkuk, and Khanaqin and Mandali provinces. Speakers have also been displaced. Diaspora communities in other areas, including western Europe, USA. Also spoken in Iran. Alternate names: Kurdi, Sorani. Dialects: Hewleri (Arbili), Xoshnaw, Pizhdar, Suleimani (Silemani), Warmawa, Rewandiz, Bingird, Mukri, Kerkuki, Garmiyani. Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Northwestern, Kurdish

More information.

 

Kurdish, Northern [kmr] 2,800,000 in Iraq (2004). Northern Kurdish is spoken north of the Great Zab River, in Dohuk and Mosul provinces. Speech varieties, such as Surchi, sharing elements of both Northern and Central Kurdish, are spoken near the Great Zab River. Many speakers have been displaced since the late 1980s. Alternate names: Behdini, Bahdini, Badinani, Kirmanciya Jori, Kurmanji. Dialects: Surchi, Akre, Amadiye, Barwari Jor, Gulli, Zakho, Sheikhan. Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Northwestern, Kurdish

More information.

 

Kurdish, Southern [sdh] South of Xanaqin, Kirind, and Qorwaq. Dialects: Kolyai, Kermanshahi (Kermanshani), Kalhori, Sanjabi, Maleksh ahi (Maleksh ay), Bayray, Kordali, Feyli, Luri. Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Northwestern, Kurdish

More information.

 

Sarli [sdf] Fewer than 20,000. North of Mosul, also in Kirkuk Province, many are displaced. Alternate names: Sarliya. Dialects: In the Gurani (Gorani) and Zaza group. Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Northwestern, Zaza-Gorani

More information.

 

Shabak [sdb] 10,000 to 20,000 (1989 Blau). In villages of Ali Rach, Yangija, Khazna, Talara, north of Mosul, but since late 1980s, many have become displaced. Dialects: In the Gurani (Gorani) and Zaza group. Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Northwestern, Zaza-Gorani

More information.

  

Extinct languages

Jewish Babylonian Aramaic [tmr] Extinct. Alternate names: Babylonian Talmudic Aramaic. Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, Aramaic, Eastern, Central, Northeastern

 

Capital city:

Bagdad

 

Meaning country name:

From the city of Erech/Uruk (also known as "Warka") near the river Euphrates. Some archaeologists regard Uruk as the first major Sumerian city. Another theory suggests that Iraq derives from Irak, which in older Iranian languages meant the Lesser Iran. Note that the natives of the western part of today's Iran also called their area "the Persian Iraq" for many centuries.

Mesopotamia (ancient name and Greek variant): a loan-translation (Greek meso- (between) and potamos (river)) of the ancient Semitic Beth-Nahrin, "Between the Rivers", a reference to the Tigris and Euphrates.

 

Description Flag:

The flag of Iraq (Arabic: علم العراق) has had four different designs since the establishment of Iraq in 1921. While the current situation is not entirely clear, the version in use at present is a minor variation of the design adopted under the Saddam Hussein government in 1991.

A new national flag was proposed in April 2004 but was never adopted. At the ceremony on 28 June 2004 when the new interim government of Iraq was sworn into office, the stage was backed with a row of flags similar to the 1991 pattern, but wider, with the stars and the Arabic script more loosely spread across the width of the flag. The Arabic text (reading "Allahu Akbar") was also more stylized, in the Arabic Kufic script, unlike the previous text which had been loose handwriting, supposedly that of Saddam Hussein himself. This flag was raised at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, D.C. on 30 June 2004.

Note that, as with other flags containing Arabic script, the flag is displayed with the hoist side on the right, not the left

 

Coat of arms:

The Coat of arms of Iraq includes the golden Eagle of Saladin associated with 20th-century pan-Arabism, with a shield of the Iraqi flag, and holding a scroll below with the Arabic words الجمهورية العراقية (al-Jumhuriya al-`Iraqiya or "The Iraqi Republic)". The original Coat of arms in 1965, did not have the kufic script between the stars and the flag was placed vertically. This version remained in use until replaced by the present version in 2004.

 

Motto:

"Allahu Akbar"- الله أكبر

 

National Anthem: Mawtini : موطني ,“My Homeland”

 

Arab

مَــوطِــنــي مَــوطِــنِــي

الجـلالُ والجـمالُ والسَّــنَاءُ والبَهَاءُ

فـــي رُبَــاكْ فــي رُبَـــاكْ

 

والحـياةُ والنـجاةُ والهـناءُ والر جـاءُ

فــي هـــواكْ فــي هـــواكْ

هـــــلْ أراكْ هـــــلْ أراكْ

سـالِماً مُـنَـعَّـماً غانما مكرما سالما منعما غانما مكرما

هـــــلْ أراكْ فـي عُـــلاكْ

تبـلُـغُ السِّـمَـاكْ تبـلـغُ السِّـمَاك

مَــوطِــنِــي مَــوطِــنِــي

 

مَــوطِــنِــي مَــوطِــنِــي

الشبابُ لنْ يكِلَّ هَمُّهُ أنْ تستَقِـلَّ أو يَبيدْ

نَستقي منَ الـرَّدَى ولنْ نكونَ للعِــدَى

كالعَـبـيـــــدْ كالعَـبـيـــــدْ

 

لا نُريــــــدْ لا نُريــــــدْ

ذُلَّـنَـا المُـؤَبَّـدا وعَيشَـنَا المُنَكَّـدا

لا نُريــــــدْ بـلْ نُعيــــدْ

مَـجـدَنا التّـليـدْ مَـجـدَنا التّليـدْ

مَــوطِــنــي مَــوطِــنِــي

 

مَــوطِــنِــي مَــوطِــنِــي

الحُسَامُ و اليَـرَاعُ لا الكـلامُ والنزاعُ

رَمْــــــزُنا رَمْــــــزُنا

مَـجدُنا و عـهدُنا وواجـبٌ منَ الوَفا

يهُــــــزُّنا يهُــــــزُّنا

 

عِـــــــزُّنا عِـــــــزُّنا

غايةٌ تُـشَــرِّفُ و رايـةٌ ترَفـرِفُ

يا هَـــنَــاكْ فـي عُـــلاكْ

قاهِراً عِـــداكْ قاهِـراً عِــداكْ

مَــوطِــنِــي مَــوطِــنِــي

 

Transliteration

 

mawṭinī mawṭinī

al-ǧalālu wa-l-ǧamālu wa-s-sanā'u wa-l-bahā'u

fī rubāk fī rubāk

wa-l-ḥayātu wa-n-naǧātu wal-hanā'u wa-r-raǧā'u

fī hawāk fī hawāk

hal arāk hal arāk

sālimān munaʿamān wa ġānimān mukarramān

sālimān munaʿamān wa ġānimān mukarramān

hal arāk fī ʿulāk

tabluġu s-simāk tabluġu s-simāk

mawṭinī mawṭinī

mawṭinī mawṭinī

aš-šabābu lan yakilla hammahu an yastaqilla aw yabīd, aw yabid

nastaqī mina r-radá wa lan nakūna li-l-ʿidā' kālʿabīd, kālʿabīd

lā nurīd lā nurīd

ḏullanā mu'abbada wa ʿayšanā munakkada

ḏullanā mu'abbada wa ʿayšanā munakkada

lā nurīd bal nuʿīd

maǧdanā t-talīd maǧdanā t-talīd

mawṭinī mawṭinī

mawṭinī mawṭinī

al-ḥusāmu wa-l-yarāʿu lā l-kalām wa-n-nizāʿu

ramzunā ramzunā

maǧdunā wa ʿahdunā wa wāǧibun ilá l-wafā'

yahuzzunā yahuzzunā

ʿizzunā ʿizzunā

ġāyâtun tušarrifu wa rāyâtun turafrifu

ġāyâtun tušarrifu wa rāyâtun turafrifu

yā hanāk fī ʿulāk

qāhirān ʿidāk qāhirān ʿidāk

mawṭinī mawṭinī

 

English

 

My homeland, My homeland

Majesty and beauty, sublimity and splendor,

Are in your hills, Are in your hills,

Life and deliverance, pleasure and hope

Are in your air, Are in your air

Will I see you? Will I see you?

Safe and comforted, Sound and honored

Will I see you in your eminence?

Reaching to the stars, Reaching to the stars

My homeland, My homeland

My homeland, My homeland

The youth will not tire, 'till your independence

Or they die, Or they die

We will drink from death

And we will not be to our enemies

Like slaves, Like slaves

We do not want, We do not want

An eternal humiliation

Nor a miserable life,

We do not want

But we will bring back

Our great glory, Our great glory

My homeland, My homeland

The sword and the pen

Not the talk nor the quarrel

Are our symbols, Are our symbols

Our glory and our covenant

And a duty to be faithful

Arouse us, Arouse us

Our glory, Our glory

Is an honorable cause

And a waving standard

O, behold you

In your eminence

Victorious over your enemies

Victorious over your enemies

My homeland, My homeland

 

Internet Page:http://www.iraqigovernment.org

www.iraqimage.com

www.iraqtourism.org

 

Iraq in diferent languages

 

eng | ast | cat | frp | glg | ita | jnf | lld | mlt | que | scn | spa | zza: Iraq

afr | bre | cor | csb | dan | dsb | eus | fao | fin | fry | hat | hrv | hsb | hun | ibo | jav | lim | lin | nld | nor | pol | ron | slk | slv | sme | swe | szl | tgl | tpi | tur | wln: Irak

bam | kin | run | smo | swa: Iraki

arg | fra | ina | oci: Iraq; Irak

cym | fur | roh | rup: Irac

deu | ltz | nds: Irak / Irak

est | vor | wol: Iraak

bos | mol: Irak / Ирак

gag | kaa: İrak / Ирак

aze: İraq / Ираг

ces: Irák

cos: Iraccu

crh: Iraq / Ыракъ

epo: Irako

gla: Ioràc; Iarac; Iraq

gle: An Iaráic / An Iaráic; An Iráic / An Iráic

glv: Yn Earack

hau: Iraƙ; Iraq; Bagdaza

haw: ʻIlaka

ind: Irak / عراق

isl: Írak

kmr: Eraq / Әраq / ئەراق; Îraq / Ираq / ئیراق

kur: Îraq / ئیراق; Iraq / ئراق

lat: Iracia; Iraquia; Mesopotamia

lav: Irāka

lit: Irakas

mfe: Lirak

mlg: Iraka

msa: Iraq / عراق

nrm: Babylonîn; Iraq

por: Iraque

rmy: Irak / इराक

slo: Irakia / Иракиа

smg: Ėraks

som: Ciraaq

sqi: Iraku

srd: Iràq

tet: Irake

ton: ʻIulaki

tuk: Yrak / Ырак

uzb: Iroq / Ироқ

vie: I-rắc

vol: Lirakän

abq | alt | bul | che | chm | chv | kbd | kir | kjh | kom | krc | kum | mkd | mon | oss | rus | tyv | udm: Ирак (Irak)

ava: ГӀиракъ (ʿIraq̇)

bak: Ирак / İrak

bel: Ірак / Irak

kaz: Ирак / Ïrak / يراك; Ирақ / Ïraq / يراق

lbe: Иракьул (Iraq̇ul)

srp: Ирак / Irak

tab: Иракь (Iraq̇)

tat: Гыйрак / Ğıyraq

tgk: Ироқ / عراق / Iroq

ukr: Ірак (Irak)

ara: العراق (al-ʿIrāq)

ckb: عیڕاق / ʿÎṟaq; عێڕاق / ʿÊṟaq; ئیڕاق / Îṟaq; ئێڕاق / Êṟaq; عیراق / ʿÎraq; عێراق / ʿÊraq

fas: عراق / Erâq

prs: عراق (ʿErāq)

pus: عراق (ʿIrāq)

snd: عراق (ʿIrāqu)

uig: ئىراق / Iraq / Ирақ

urd: عراق (ʿIrāq)

div: އިރާގް (Irāg)

syr: ܥܪܩ (ʿIraq); ܥܝܪܐܩ (ʿĪrāq)

heb: ערק (ʿIraq); עראק (ʿIrâq); עירק (ʿÎraq); עיראק (ʿÎrâq)

lad: איראק / Irak

yid: איראַק (Irak)

amh: ኢራቅ (Iraḳ)

ell-dhi: Ιράκ (Irák)

ell-kat: Ἰράκ (Irák)

hye: Իրաք (Iraḳ)

kat: ერაყი (Eraqi)

hin: इराक़ (Irāq); इराक (Irāk)

mar: इराक (Irāk)

ben: ইরাক (Irāk)

pan: ਇਰਾਕ (Irāk)

kan: ಇರಾಕ್ (Irāk)

mal: ഇറാഖ് (Iṟākʰ); ഇറാക്ക് (Iṟākk)

tam: ஈராக் (Īrāk); இராக் (Irāk)

tel: ఇరాక్ (Irāk)

zho: 伊拉克 (Yīlākè)

yue: 伊拉克 (Yīlāaihāk)

jpn: イラク (Iraku)

kor: 이라크 (Irakeu)

bod: ཨི་རག་ (I.rag.); ཡི་རག་ (Yi.rag.); ཡི་ལའ་ཁོ་ (Yi.la'.kʰo.)

dzo: ཨི་རཀ་ (I.rak.)

mya: အီရတ္ (Iẏaʿ)

tha: อิรัก (Irâk)

lao: ອີຣັກ (Īlâk)

khm: អ៊ីរ៉ាក់ (Īrak)

 

Front and rear views of the A2 version, capable of pulling the same payloads as the A1.

+++ 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 Lockheed L300 was originally conceived as a military strategic airlifter that served under the designation C-141 Starlifter with the Military Air Transport Service (MATS), its successor organization the Military Airlift Command (MAC), and finally the Air Mobility Command (AMC) of the United States Air Force (USAF).

 

In the early 1960s, the United States Air Force's Military Air Transport Service (MATS) relied on a substantial number of propeller-driven aircraft for strategic airlift, such as the C-124 Globemaster II and C-133 Cargomaster. As these aircraft were mostly obsolescent designs and the Air Force needed the benefits of jet power, the USAF ordered 48 Boeing C-135 Stratolifters as an interim step. The C-135 was a useful stop-gap, but only had side-loading doors and much of the bulky and oversize equipment employed by the U.S. Army would not fit.

 

In the spring of 1960, the Air Force released Specific Operational Requirement 182, calling for a new aircraft that would be capable of performing both strategic and tactical airlift missions. The strategic role demanded that the aircraft be capable of missions with a radius of at least 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km) with a 60,000 pounds (27,000 kg) load. The tactical role required it to be able to perform low-altitude air drops of supplies, as well as carry and drop combat paratroops. Several companies responded to SOR 182, including Boeing, Lockheed, and General Dynamics.

 

Lockheed responded to the requirement with a unique design: the Lockheed Model 300, the first large jet designed from the start to carry freight. The Model 300 had a swept high-mounted wing with four 21,000 pounds-force (93 kN) thrust TF33 turbofan engines pod-mounted below the wings. An important aspect was the cabin's floor height of only 50 inches (130 cm) above the ground, allowing easy access to the cabin through the rear doors. The two rear side doors were designed to allow the aircraft to drop paratroops (in August 1965 the aircraft performed the first paratroop drop from a jet-powered aircraft). The rear cargo doors could be opened in flight for airborne cargo drops. The high-mounted wings gave internal clearance in the cargo compartment of 10 feet (3.0 m) wide, 9 ft (2.7 m) high and 70 ft (21 m) long. The size enabled the Starlifter to carry, for example, a complete LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile in its container. The aircraft was capable of carrying a maximum of 70,847 pounds (32,136 kg) over short distances, and up to 92,000 pounds (42,000 kg) in the version configured to carry the Minuteman, which lacked other equipment. The aircraft could also carry up to 154 troops, 123 paratroops or 80 litter patients.

 

President John F. Kennedy's first official act after his inauguration was to order the development of the Lockheed 300 on 13 March 1961, with a contract for five aircraft for test and evaluation to be designated the C-141. One unusual aspect of the aircraft was that it was designed to meet both military and civil airworthiness standards, since Lockheed hoped to sell the aircraft, much like the C-130 Hercules, to airlines, too. The prototype C-141A (s/n 61-2775) was manufactured and assembled in record time. The prototype was rolled out of the Lockheed factory at Marietta, Georgia on 22 August 1963 and first flew on 17 December, the 60th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight. The company and the Air Force then started an operational testing program and the delivery of 284 C-141 aircraft.

 

The effort to sell the aircraft on the civilian market included some detail changes like a different yoke and cockpit equipment. Two versions were offered: the original aircraft (designated L300-100 StarLifter), based on the C-141’s hull, and a strongly stretched version, 37 feet (11 m) longer than the L300-100, and marketed as the L300-200 SuperstarLifter. Specialized versions like an aerial firefighting water bomber were proposed, too, and an initial L300-100 prototype made a global sales tour (which was later donated to NASA).

Response from the civil market was rather lukewarm, though, and resulted only in orders from Flying Tiger Line and Slick Airways for four aircraft each. Nevertheless, production of the civil StarLifter was launched in 1966, since the differences to the military aircraft were only minimal and Lockheed considered the financial risks to be acceptable. However, only twelve aircraft were initially ordered when production was greenlighted, but there was the expectation to attract more sales once the aircraft proved itself in daily business.

 

Despite a very good service record, this did not happen. To make matters worse, unexpected legal problems seriously threatened the newly introduced transport aircraft: In the early 1970s, strict noise limits for civil aircraft threatened operations, esp. in the USA. Several American L300 operators approached Lockheed for suitable noise reduction modifications, but the company did not react. However, third parties that had developed aftermarket hush kits for other airliners like the Boeing 707 or the Douglas DC-8 chimed in and saw their opportunity, and in 1975 General Electric began discussions with the major L300 operators with a view to fitting the new and considerably quieter Franco-American CFM56 engine to the transport aircraft. Lockheed still remained reluctant, but eventually came on board in the late 1970s and supported the conversion kit with new nacelles and pylons. This engine kit was unofficially baptized the “StarSilencer” program, which was offered as a retrofit kit and as an option for newly built aircraft, which were designated L300-1100 and -1200, respectively.

 

The kit was well received and all operational private L300s were upgraded with the fuel-efficient 22,000 lb (98.5 kN) CFM56-2 high-bypass turbofans until 1984, preventing a premature legal end of operations in wide parts of the world. The benefits of the upgrade were remarkable: The new engines were markedly quieter than the original Pratt & Whitney TF33-P-7 turbofans, and fuel efficiency was improved by 20%, resulting in a higher range. The CFM56s also offered 10% more thrust than the TF33-P-7s’ 20,250 lbf (90.1 kN each) output, and this extra thrust improved the aircraft’s take-off performance, too.

The USAF did not adopt the “StarSilencer” upgrade and rather focused on the fuselage extension program that converted all existing C-141As into C-141Bs from 1979 onwards, so that the aircraft’s payload potential could be better exploited. However, the new CFM56 engines made the L300 more attractive to civil operators, and, beyond the upgrade program for existing airframes, a second wave of orders was placed for both the L300-1100 and -1200: until 1981, when civil L300 production was stopped, eighteen more aircraft had been ordered, primarily for operators in North America and Canada, bringing total production to 40 machines, plus the initial demonstrator prototype.

 

One of these late buyers outside of the American continent was Air Greenland. Founded in 1960 as Grønlandsfly, the airline started its first services with Catalina water planes and within the decade expanded to include DHC-3 Otters as well as Sikorsky S-61 helicopters, some of which remain in active service. Grønlandsfly also picked up a Danish government contract to fly reconnaissance missions regarding the sea ice around Greenland.

During the 1970s, Grønlandsfly upgraded its airliner fleet, and mining in the Uummannaq Fjord opened new business opportunities beyond passenger services. To enter the bulk cargo business for mining companies with routes to Canada, North America and Europe as well as civil freight flights for the U.S. Army in Greenland (e. g. for the USAF’s Sondrestrom and Thule Air Bases), the purchase of a dedicated transport aircraft was considered. This eventually led to the procurement of a single, new L300-1100 StarLifter with CFM56-2 engines in 1980 – at the time, the biggest aircraft operated by Grønlandsfly. Domestic as well as international passenger service flourished, too: By the end of 1979, the number of Grønlandsfly passengers served annually exceeded 60,000 – this was more than the population of Greenland itself! However, the airline’s first true jet airliner, a Boeing 757-200, began operation in May 1998. Before, only propeller-driven aircraft like vintage Douglas DC-4 and DC-6 or the DHC Twin Otter and Dash 7 turboprop aircraft had been the main passenger types. In 1999, the airline already served 282,000 passengers, nearly triple the number at the end of the previous decade.

In 2002 the company rebranded itself, anglicizing its name to Air Greenland and adopting a new logo and livery. The L300-1100 was kept in service and remained, until the introduction of a single Airbus A330 in 2003 (purchased after SAS abandoned its Greenland service and Air Greenland took these over), Air Greenland’s biggest aircraft, with frequent cargo flights for the Maarmorilik zinc and iron mines.

 

StarLifters remained in military duty for over 40 years until the USAF withdrew the last C-141s from service in 2006, after replacing the airlifter with the C-17 Globemaster III. In civil service, however, the L300, despite its small production number, outlasted the C-141. After the military aircraft’s retirement, more than twenty StarLifters were still in private service, most of them operating under harsh climatic conditions and in remote parts of the world.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 4 - 6 (2 pilots, 2 flight engineers, 1 navigator, 1 loadmaster)

Length: 145 ft (44.27 m)

Wingspan: 160 ft 0 in (48.8 m)

Height: 39 ft 3 in (12 m)

Wing area: 3,228 ft² (300 m²)

Empty weight: 136,900 lbs (62,153 kg)

Loaded weight: 323,100 lbs (146,688 kg)

Max Payload, 2.25g: 94,508 lb (42.906 kg)

Max Takeoff Weight, 2.25g: 343,000 lb (155,722 kg)

 

Powerplant:

4× CFM International CFM56-2 high-bypass turbofans, delivering 22,000 lb (98.5 kN) each

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 567 mph (493 kn, 912 km/h)

Cruise speed: 495 mph (430 kn, 800 km/h)

Range: 4,320 mi (2,350 nmi, 6,955 km)

Ferry range: 7,245 mi (6,305 nmi, 11,660 km)

Service ceiling: 41,000 ft (12,500 m)

Rate of climb: 2,600 ft/min (13.2 m/s)

Wing loading: 100.1 lb/ft2 (490 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.25

  

The kit and its assembly:

This is another project I had on my agenda for a long time, it was inspired by a picture of the civilian L300 demonstrator and the question what a StarLifter in civil service could look like? Such a type (like the C-130) would only make sense for bulk cargo transport business, and probably only for rather remote locations, so I went up North with my thoughts and initially considered Air Canada or Buffalo Airways as an operator, but then remembered Air Greenland – a very good fit, and the current livery would make the L300 a colorful bird, too.

 

The basis is Roden’s C-141B kit, AFAIK the only affordable IP kit of this aircraft when I had the idea for this build a while ago; A&A Models released in the meantime a C-141A in June 2021, but it is prohibitively expensive, and Anigrand does a C-141A resin kit. The Roden kit is a sound offering. The parts fit well, even though the seams along the long fuselage and the wing roots need attention and PSR, and at the small 1:144 scale the (engraved) surface details are just fine. It’s not a stellar model, but a sturdy representation with surprisingly massive parts, esp. the fuselage: its walls are almost 3mm thick!

 

However, I did not want to build the stretched USAF version. The original civil L300 had the same fuselage as the C-141A, and I found this option to be more plausible for the haul of singular heavy equipment than the stretched version, and the decision to shorten the C-141B also had logistic reasons, because I’d have to store the model somewhere once finished… And, finally, I think that the original, short C-141 is just looking good. ;-)

 

So, I simply “de-plugged” the fuselage. In real life, the C-141B had two extensions: a 160” plug in front and another 120” insert behind its wings. This translated into 2.8 and 2.1 cm long sections on the model that were simply sawed off from the completed fuselage. Thanks to the massive fuselage walls, gluing the parts back together was an easy task, resulting in a very stable connection. The seams were hidden under some PSR, as well as two windows. The C-141B’s fairing for the refueling receptive was also sanded away. The front plug was easily hidden, but the rear plug called for some body sculpting, because the fuselage has a subtle bulge around the cargo door and its ramp – the shapes in front and behind it don’t differ much, though.

 

Another change for a more fictional civil variant: the engines. This was a lucky coincidence, because I had a complete set of four CFM56 turbofan nacelles left over from my shortened Minicraft DC-8 build a while ago, and the StarLifter lent itself to take these different/more modern engines, esp. for the civilian market. The swap was not as easy as expected, though, because the C-141’s nacelles are much different, have longer pylons and their attachment points in the wings were OOB not compatible at all with the CFM56 pods. I eventually filled the attachment slots in the wings and glued the complete CFM56 nacelles with their short DC-8 pylons directly under the wings, blending these areas with PRS. The engines’ position is now markedly different (higher/closer to the wings and further forward), but the engines’ bigger diameter IMHO justifies this change – and it turned out well.

 

The rest of the Roden model was left OOB, I just added a ventral display adapter for the flight scenes.

  

Painting and markings:

As mentioned above, I was looking for a “bush pilot” operator of suitable size in the Northern hemisphere, and Greenland Air was chosen because of its exoticism and the airline’s distinctive and simple livery. Does anyone know this rather small airline at all? Potential freight for the US Army as well as for private mining companies with lots of heavy equipment made the StarLifter’s operation plausible.

 

To make the plan work I was lucky that Draw Decal does an 1:144 sheet for the airline‘s (sole) Boeing 757, and its simple post-2002 all-red paint scheme was easily adapted to the StarLifter. The fuselage and the nacelles were painted with brushes in Humbrol 19 (Gloss Red, it comes IMHO close to the rich real-world tone), while the wings and the engine pylons became Humbrol 40 (Glossy Light Gull Grey). For some variety I added a medium grey (Humbrol 126, FS 36270) Corroguard panel to the wings’ upper surface, later framed with OOB decals. The white door markings came from a generic PAS decals sheet. All decals were very thin, esp. the Draw Decals sheet, which had to be handled with much care, but they also dried up perfectly and the white print inks turned out to have very good opacity. Adapting the Boeing 757 decals to the very different C-141 hull was also easier than expected, even though the "Air Greenland" tag on the nose ended up quite far forward and the emblem on the fin lots its uppermost white circle.

 

The cockpit, which comes with no interior, was painted in black, while the landing gear wells and struts were painted in a very light grey (Humbrol 196, RAL 7035) with white rims.

 

Panel lines were emphasized with a little black ink, and the cockpit glazing turned out to be a bit foggy - which became only apparent after I added the red around it. In order to hide this flaw I just laid out the window panels with Tamiya "Smoke".

 

Finally the model finally received an overall coat of gloss acrylic varnish from a rattle can.

  

A colorful result, even though the bright red C-141 looks unusual, if not odd. The different engines work well; with the shorter fuselage, the new, wider nacelles change the StarLifter’s look considerably. It looks more modern (at least to me), like a juiced-up Bae 146 or a C-17 on a diet?

 

A round Chinese incense burner that burns coiled incense behind a ceramic mermaid on a Chinese base.

 

Incense is aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burned. The term refers to the material itself, rather than to the aroma that it produces. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, and in therapy, meditation, and ceremony. It may also be used as a simple deodorant or insectifuge.

 

Incense is composed of aromatic plant materials, often combined with essential oils. The forms taken by incense differ with the underlying culture, and have changed with advances in technology and increasing number of uses.

 

Incense can generally be separated into two main types: "indirect-burning" and "direct-burning". Indirect-burning incense (or "non-combustible incense") is not capable of burning on its own, and requires a separate heat source. Direct-burning incense (or "combustible incense") is lit directly by a flame and then fanned or blown out, leaving a glowing ember that smoulders and releases a smoky fragrance. Direct-burning incense is either a paste formed around a bamboo stick, or a paste that is extruded into a stick or cone shape.

 

HISTORY

The word incense comes from Latin incendere meaning "to burn".

 

Combustible bouquets were used by the ancient Egyptians, who employed incense in both pragmatic and mystical capacities. Incense was burnt to counteract or obscure malodorous products of human habitation, but was widely perceived to also deter malevolent demons and appease the gods with its pleasant aroma. Resin balls were found in many prehistoric Egyptian tombs in El Mahasna, giving evidence for the prominence of incense and related compounds in Egyptian antiquity. One of the oldest extant incense burners originates from the 5th dynasty. The Temple of Deir-el-Bahari in Egypt contains a series of carvings that depict an expedition for incense.

 

The Babylonians used incense while offering prayers to divining oracles. Incense spread from there to Greece and Rome.

 

Incense burners have been found in the Indus Civilization (3300–1300 BCE). Evidence suggests oils were used mainly for their aroma. India also adopted techniques from East Asia, adapting the formulation to encompass aromatic roots and other indigenous flora. This was the first usage of subterranean plant parts in incense. New herbs like Sarsaparilla seeds, frankincense, and cypress were used by Indians.

 

At around 2000 BCE, Ancient China began the use of incense in the religious sense, namely for worship. Incense was used by Chinese cultures from Neolithic times and became more widespread in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. The earliest documented use of incense comes from the ancient Chinese, who employed incense composed of herbs and plant products (such as cassia, cinnamon, styrax, and sandalwood) as a component of numerous formalized ceremonial rites. Incense usage reached its peak during the Song dynasty with numerous buildings erected specifically for incense ceremonies.

 

Brought to Japan in the 6th century by Korean Buddhist monks, who used the mystical aromas in their purification rites, the delicate scents of Koh (high-quality Japanese incense) became a source of amusement and entertainment with nobles in the Imperial Court during the Heian Era 200 years later. During the 14th-century Ashikaga shogunate, a samurai warrior might perfume his helmet and armor with incense to achieve an aura of invincibility (as well as to make a noble gesture to whoever might take his head in battle). It wasn't until the Muromachi period during the 15th and 16th century that incense appreciation (kōdō) spread to the upper and middle classes of Japanese society.

 

COMPOSITION

A variety of materials have been used in making incense. Historically there has been a preference for using locally available ingredients. For example, sage and cedar were used by the indigenous peoples of North America. Trading in incense materials comprised a major part of commerce along the Silk Road and other trade routes, one notably called the Incense Route.

 

Local knowledge and tools were extremely influential on the style, but methods were also influenced by migrations of foreigners, such as clergy and physicians.

 

COMBUSTIBLE BASE

The combustible base of a direct burning incense mixture not only binds the fragrant material together but also allows the produced incense to burn with a self-sustained ember, which propagates slowly and evenly through an entire piece of incense with such regularity that it can be used to mark time. The base is chosen such that it does not produce a perceptible smell. Commercially, two types of incense base predominate:

 

Fuel and oxidizer mixtures: Charcoal or wood powder provides the fuel for combustion while an oxidizer such as sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate sustains the burning of the incense. Fragrant materials are added to the base prior to shaping, as in the case of powdered incense materials, or after, as in the case of essential oils. The formula for charcoal-based incense is superficially similar to black powder, though it lacks the sulfur.

Natural plant-based binders: Gums such as Gum Arabic or Gum Tragacanth are used to bind the mixture together. Mucilaginous material, which can be derived from many botanical sources, is mixed with fragrant materials and water. The mucilage from the wet binding powder holds the fragrant material together while the cellulose in the powder combusts to form a stable ember when lit. The dry binding powder usually comprises about 10% of the dry weight in the finished incense. These include:

Makko (incense powder) made from the bark of various trees in the genus Persea (such as Persea thunbergii)

Xiangnan pi (made from the bark of trees of genus Phoebe such as Phoebe nanmu or Persea zuihoensis.

Jigit: a resin based binder used in India

Laha or Dar: bark based powders used in Nepal, Tibet, and other East Asian countries.

 

Typical compositions burn at a temperature between 220 °C and 260 °C.

 

TYPES

Incense is available in various forms and degrees of processing. They can generally be separated into "direct-burning" and "indirect-burning" types. Preference for one form or another varies with culture, tradition, and personal taste. The two differ in their composition due to the former's requirement for even, stable, and sustained burning.

 

INDIRECT-BURNING

Indirect-burning incense, also called "non-combustible incense", is an aromatic material or combination of materials, such as resins, that does not contain combustible material and so requires a separate heat source. Finer forms tend to burn more rapidly, while coarsely ground or whole chunks may be consumed very gradually, having less surface area. Heat is traditionally provided by charcoal or glowing embers. In the West, the best known incense materials of this type are the resins frankincense and myrrh, likely due to their numerous mentions in the Bible. Frankincense means "pure incense", though in common usage refers specifically to the resin of the boswellia tree.

 

Whole: The incense material is burned directly in raw form on top of coal embers.

Powdered or granulated: Incense broken into smaller pieces burns quickly and provides brief but intense odor.

Paste: Powdered or granulated incense material is mixed with a sticky incombustible binder, such as dried fruit, honey, or a soft resin and then formed to balls or small pastilles. These may then be allowed to mature in a controlled environment where the fragrances can commingle and unite. Much Arabian incense, also called "Bukhoor" or "Bakhoor", is of this type, and Japan has a history of kneaded incense, called nerikō or awasekō, made using this method. Within the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, raw frankincense is ground into a fine powder and then mixed with various sweet-smelling essential oils.

 

DIRECT-BURNING

Direct-burning incense, also called "combustible incense", is lit directly by a flame. The glowing ember on the incense will continue to smoulder and burn the rest of the incense without further application of external heat or flame. Direct-burning incense is either extruded, pressed into forms, or coated onto a supporting material. This class of incense is made from a moldable substrate of fragrant finely ground (or liquid) incense materials and odourless binder. The composition must be adjusted to provide fragrance in the proper concentration and to ensure even burning. The following types are commonly encountered, though direct-burning incense can take nearly any form, whether for expedience or whimsy.

 

Coil: Extruded and shaped into a coil without a core, coil incense can burn for an extended period, from hours to days, and is commonly produced and used in Chinese cultures.

 

Cone: Incense in this form burns relatively quickly. Incense cones were invented in Japan in the 1800s.

Cored stick: A supporting core of bamboo is coated with a thick layer of incense material that burns away with the core. Higher-quality variations have fragrant sandalwood cores. This type of incense is commonly produced in India and China. When used in Chinese folk religion, these are sometimes known as "joss sticks".

Dhoop or solid stick: With no bamboo core, dhoop incense is easily broken for portion control. This is the most commonly produced form of incense in Japan and Tibet.

Powder: The loose incense powder used for making indirect burning incense is sometimes burned without further processing. Powder incense is typically packed into long trails on top of wood ash using a stencil and burned in special censers or incense clocks.

Paper: Paper infused with incense, folded accordion style, is lit and blown out. Examples include Carta d'Armenia and Papier d'Arménie.

Rope: The incense powder is rolled into paper sheets, which are then rolled into ropes, twisted tightly, then doubled over and twisted again, yielding a two-strand rope. The larger end is the bight, and may be stood vertically, in a shallow dish of sand or pebbles. The smaller (pointed) end is lit. This type of incense is easily transported and stays fresh for extremely long periods. It has been used for centuries in Tibet and Nepal.

 

Moxa tablets, which are disks of powdered mugwort used in Traditional Chinese medicine for moxibustion, are not incenses; the treatment is by heat rather than fragrance.

Incense sticks may be termed joss sticks, especially in parts of East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Among ethnic Chinese and Chinese-influenced communities these are traditionally burned at temples, before the threshold of a home or business, before an image of a religious divinity or local spirit, or in shrines, large and small, found at the main entrance of every village. Here the earth god is propitiated in the hope of bringing wealth and health to the village. They can also be burned in front of a door or open window as an offering to heaven, or the devas. The word "joss" is derived from the Latin deus (god) via the Portuguese deos through the Javanese dejos, through Chinese pidgin English.

 

PRODUCTION

The raw materials are powdered and then mixed together with a binder to form a paste, which, for direct burning incense, is then cut and dried into pellets. Incense of the Athonite Orthodox Christian tradition is made by powdering frankincense or fir resin, mixing it with essential oils. Floral fragrances are the most common, but citrus such as lemon is not uncommon. The incense mixture is then rolled out into a slab approximately 1 cm thick and left until the slab has firmed. It is then cut into small cubes, coated with clay powder to prevent adhesion, and allowed to fully harden and dry. In Greece this rolled incense resin is called 'Moskolibano', and generally comes in either a pink or green colour denoting the fragrance, with pink being rose and green being jasmine.

 

Certain proportions are necessary for direct-burning incense:

 

Oil content: an excess of oils may prevent incense from smoldering effectively. Resinous materials such as myrrh and frankincense are typically balanced with "dry" materials such as wood, bark and leaf powders.

Oxidizer quantity: Too little oxidizer in gum-bound incense may prevent the incense from igniting, while too much will cause the incense to burn too quickly, without producing fragrant smoke.

Binder: Water-soluble binders such as "makko" ensure that the incense mixture does not crumble when dry, dilute the mixture.

Mixture density: Incense mixtures made with natural binders must not be combined with too much water in mixing, or over-compressed while being formed, which would result in either uneven air distribution or undesirable density in the mixture, causing the incense to burn unevenly, too slowly, or too quickly.

Particulate size: The incense mixture has to be well pulverized with similarly sized particulates. Uneven and large particulates result in uneven burning and inconsistent aroma production when burned.

 

"Dipped" or "hand-dipped" direct-burning incense is created by dipping "incense blanks" made of unscented combustible dust into any suitable kind of essential or fragrance oil. These are often sold in the United States by flea-market and sidewalk vendors who have developed their own styles. This form of incense requires the least skill and equipment to manufacture, since the blanks are pre-formed in China or South East Asia.

 

Incense mixtures can be extruded or pressed into shapes. Small quantities of water are combined with the fragrance and incense base mixture and kneaded into a hard dough. The incense dough is then pressed into shaped forms to create cone and smaller coiled incense, or forced through a hydraulic press for solid stick incense. The formed incense is then trimmed and slowly dried. Incense produced in this fashion has a tendency to warp or become misshapen when improperly dried, and as such must be placed in climate-controlled rooms and rotated several times through the drying process.

 

Traditionally, the bamboo core of cored stick incense is prepared by hand from Phyllostachys heterocycla cv. pubescens since this species produces thick wood and easily burns to ashes in the incense stick. In a process known as "splitting the foot of the incense stick", the bamboo is trimmed to length, soaked, peeled, and split in halves until the thin sticks of bamboo have square cross sections of less than 3mm. This process has been largely replaced by machines in modern incense production.

 

In the case of cored incensed sticks, several methods are employed to coat the sticks cores with incense mixture:

 

Paste rolling: A wet, malleable paste of incense mixture is first rolled into a long, thin coil, using a paddle. Then, a thin stick is put next to the coil and the stick and paste are rolled together until the stick is centered in the mixture and the desired thickness is achieved. The stick is then cut to the desired length and dried.

Powder-coating: Powder-coating is used mainly to produce cored incense of either larger coil (up to 1 meter in diameter) or cored stick forms. A bundle of the supporting material (typically thin bamboo or sandalwood slivers) is soaked in water or a thin water/glue mixture for a short time. The thin sticks are evenly separated, then dipped into a tray of incense powder consisting of fragrance materials and occasionally a plant-based binder. The dry incense powder is then tossed and piled over the sticks while they are spread apart. The sticks are then gently rolled and packed to maintain roundness while more incense powder is repeatedly tossed onto the sticks. Three to four layers of powder are coated onto the sticks, forming a 2 mm thick layer of incense material on the stick. The coated incense is then allowed to dry in open air. Additional coatings of incense mixture can be applied after each period of successive drying. Incense sticks produced in this fashion and burned in temples of Chinese folk religion can have a thickness between 2 and 4 millimeters.

Compression: A damp powder is mechanically formed around a cored stick by compression, similar to the way uncored sticks are formed. This form is becoming more common due to the higher labor cost of producing powder-coated or paste-rolled sticks.

 

BURNING INCENSE

Indirect-burning incense burned directly on top of a heat source or on a hot metal plate in a censer or thurible.

 

In Japan a similar censer called a egōro (柄香炉) is used by several Buddhist sects. The egōro is usually made of brass, with a long handle and no chain. Instead of charcoal, makkō powder is poured into a depression made in a bed of ash. The makkō is lit and the incense mixture is burned on top. This method is known as sonae-kō (religious burning).

 

For direct-burning incense, the tip or end of the incense is ignited with a flame or other heat source until the incense begins to turn into ash at the burning end. The flame is then fanned or blown out, leaving the incense to smolder.

 

CULTURAL VARIATIONS

ARABIAN

In most Arab countries, incense is burned in the form of scented chips or blocks called bakhoor (Arabic: بخور‎ [bɑˈxuːɾ, bʊ-]. Incense is used on special occasions like weddings or on Fridays or generally to perfume the house. The bakhoor is usually burned in a mabkhara, a traditional incense burner (censer) similar to the Somali Dabqaad. It is customary in many Arab countries to pass bakhoor among the guests in the majlis ('congregation'). This is done as a gesture of hospitality.

 

CHINESE

For over two thousand years, the Chinese have used incense in religious ceremonies, ancestor veneration, Traditional Chinese medicine, and daily life. Agarwood (chénxiāng) and sandalwood (tánxiāng) are the two most important ingredients in Chinese incense.

 

Along with the introduction of Buddhism in China came calibrated incense sticks and incense clocks. The first known record is by poet Yu Jianwu (487-551): "By burning incense we know the o'clock of the night, With graduated candles we confirm the tally of the watches." The use of these incense timekeeping devices spread from Buddhist monasteries into Chinese secular society.

Incense-stick burning is an everyday practice in traditional Chinese religion. There are many different types of stick used for different purposes or on different festive days. Many of them are long and thin. Sticks are mostly coloured yellow, red, or more rarely, black. Thick sticks are used for special ceremonies, such as funerals. Spiral incense, with exceedingly long burn times, is often hung from temple ceilings. In some states, such as Taiwan,

 

Singapore, or Malaysia, where they celebrate the Ghost Festival, large, pillar-like dragon incense sticks are sometimes used. These generate so much smoke and heat that they are only burned outside.

 

Chinese incense sticks for use in popular religion are generally odorless or only use the slightest trace of jasmine or rose, since it is the smoke, not the scent, which is important in conveying the prayers of the faithful to heaven. They are composed of the dried powdered bark of a non-scented species of cinnamon native to Cambodia, Cinnamomum cambodianum. Inexpensive packs of 300 are often found for sale in Chinese supermarkets. Though they contain no sandalwood, they often include the Chinese character for sandalwood on the label, as a generic term for incense.

 

Highly scented Chinese incense sticks are used by some Buddhists. These are often quite expensive due to the use of large amounts of sandalwood, agarwood, or floral scents used. The sandalwood used in Chinese incenses does not come from India, its native home, but rather from groves planted within Chinese territory. Sites belonging to Tzu Chi, Chung Tai Shan, Dharma Drum Mountain, Xingtian Temple, or City of Ten Thousand Buddhas do not use incense.

 

INDIAN

Incense sticks, also known as agarbathi (or agarbatti) and joss sticks, in which an incense paste is rolled or moulded around a bamboo stick, are the main forms of incense in India. The bamboo method originated in India, and is distinct from the Nepali/Tibetan and Japanese methods of stick making without bamboo cores. Though the method is also used in the west, it is strongly associated with India.

 

The basic ingredients are the bamboo stick, the paste (generally made of charcoal dust and joss/jiggit/gum/tabu powder – an adhesive made from the bark of litsea glutinosa and other trees), and the perfume ingredients - which would be a masala (spice mix) powder of ground ingredients into which the stick would be rolled, or a perfume liquid sometimes consisting of synthetic ingredients into which the stick would be dipped. Perfume is sometimes sprayed on the coated sticks. Stick machines are sometimes used, which coat the stick with paste and perfume, though the bulk of production is done by hand rolling at home. There are about 5,000 incense companies in India that take raw unperfumed sticks hand-rolled by approximately 200,000 women working part-time at home, and then apply their own brand of perfume, and package the sticks for sale. An experienced home-worker can produce 4,000 raw sticks a day. There are about 50 large companies that together account for up to 30% of the market, and around 500 of the companies, including a significant number of the main ones, including Moksh Agarbatti and Cycle Pure, are based in Mysore.

 

JEWISH TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM

KETORET

Ketoret was the incense offered in the Temple in Jerusalem and is stated in the Book of Exodus to be a mixture of stacte, onycha, galbanum and frankincense.

 

TIBETAN

Tibetan incense refers to a common style of incense found in Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. These incenses have a characteristic "earthy" scent to them. Ingredients vary from cinnamon, clove, and juniper, to kusum flower, ashvagandha, and sahi jeera.

 

Many Tibetan incenses are thought to have medicinal properties. Their recipes come from ancient Vedic texts that are based on even older Ayurvedic medical texts. The recipes have remained unchanged for centuries.

 

JAPANESE

In Japan incense appreciation folklore includes art, culture, history, and ceremony. It can be compared to and has some of the same qualities as music, art, or literature. Incense burning may occasionally take place within the tea ceremony, just like calligraphy, ikebana, and scroll arrangement. The art of incense appreciation, or koh-do, is generally practiced as a separate art form from the tea ceremony, and usually within a tea room of traditional Zen design.

 

Agarwood (沈香 Jinkō) and sandalwood (白檀 byakudan) are the two most important ingredients in Japanese incense. Agarwood is known as "jinkō" in Japan, which translates as "incense that sinks in water", due to the weight of the resin in the wood. Sandalwood is one of the most calming incense ingredients and lends itself well to meditation. It is also used in the Japanese tea ceremony. The most valued Sandalwood comes from Mysore in the state of Karnataka in India.

 

Another important ingredient in Japanese incense is kyara (伽羅). Kyara is one kind of agarwood (Japanese incense companies divide agarwood into 6 categories depending on the region obtained and properties of the agarwood). Kyara is currently worth more than its weight in gold.

 

Some terms used in Japanese incense culture include:

 

Incense arts: [香道, kodo]

Agarwood: [ 沈香 ] – from heartwood from Aquilaria trees, unique, the incense wood most used in incense ceremony, other names are: lignum aloes or aloeswood, gaharu, jinko, or oud.

Censer/Incense burner: [香爐] – usually small and used for heating incense not burning, or larger and used for burning

Charcoal: [木炭] – only the odorless kind is used.

Incense woods: [ 香木 ] – a naturally fragrant resinous wood.

 

USAGE

PRACTICAL

Incense fragrances can be of such great strength that they obscure other less desirable odours. This utility led to the use of incense in funerary ceremonies because the incense could smother the scent of decay. An example, as well as of religious use, is the giant Botafumeiro thurible that swings from the ceiling of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. It is used in part to mask the scent of the many tired, unwashed pilgrims huddled together in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

 

A similar utilitarian use of incense can be found in the post-Reformation Church of England. Although the ceremonial use of incense was abandoned until the Oxford Movement, it was common to have incense (typically frankincense) burned before grand occasions, when the church would be crowded. The frankincense was carried about by a member of the vestry before the service in a vessel called a 'perfuming pan'. In iconography of the day, this vessel is shown to be elongated and flat, with a single long handle on one side. The perfuming pan was used instead of the thurible, as the latter would have likely offended the Protestant sensibilities of the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

The regular burning of direct-burning incense has been used for chronological measurement in incense clocks. These devices can range from a simple trail of incense material calibrated to burn in a specific time period, to elaborate and ornate instruments with bells or gongs, designed to involve multiple senses.

 

Incense made from materials such as citronella can repel mosquitoes and other irritating, distracting, or pestilential insects. This use has been deployed in concert with religious uses by Zen Buddhists who claim that the incense that is part of their meditative practice is designed to keep bothersome insects from distracting the practitioner. Currently, more effective pyrethroid-based mosquito repellent incense is widely available in Asia.

 

Papier d'Arménie was originally sold as a disinfectant as well as for the fragrance.

 

Incense is also used often by people who smoke indoors and do not want the smell to linger.

 

AESTHETIC

Many people burn incense to appreciate its smell, without assigning any other specific significance to it, in the same way that the foregoing items can be produced or consumed solely for the contemplation or enjoyment of the aroma. An example is the kōdō (香道), where (frequently costly) raw incense materials such as agarwood are appreciated in a formal setting.

 

RELIGIOUS

Religious use of incense is prevalent in many cultures and may have roots in the practical and aesthetic uses, considering that many of these religions have little else in common. One common motif is incense as a form of sacrificial offering to a deity. Such use was common in Judaic worship and remains in use for example in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, Taoist and Buddhist Chinese jingxiang (敬香 "offer incense), etc.

 

Aphrodisiac Incense has been used as an aphrodisiac in some cultures. Both ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian mythology suggest the usage of incense by goddesses and nymphs. Incense is thought to heighten sexual desires and sexual attraction.

 

Time-keeper Incense clocks are used to time social, medical and religious practices in parts of eastern Asia. They are primarily used in Buddhism as a timer of mediation and prayer. Different types of incense burn at different rates; therefore, different incense are used for different practices. The duration of burning ranges from minutes to months.

 

Healing stone cleanser Incense is claimed to cleanse and restore energy in healing stones. The technique used is called “smudging” and is done by holding a healing stone over the smoke of burning incense for 20 to 30 seconds. Some people believe that this process not only restores energy but eliminates negative energy.

 

HEALTH RISK FROM INCENSE SMOKE

Incense smoke contains various contaminants including gaseous pollutants, such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and adsorbed toxic pollutants (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and toxic metals). The solid particles range between ~10 and 500 nm. In a comparison, Indian sandalwood was found to have the highest emission rate, followed by Japanese aloeswood, then Taiwanese aloeswood, while Chinese smokeless sandalwood had the least.

 

Research carried out in Taiwan in 2001 linked the burning of incense sticks to the slow accumulation of potential carcinogens in a poorly ventilated environment by measuring the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (including benzopyrene) within Buddhist temples. The study found gaseous aliphatic aldehydes, which are carcinogenic and mutagenic, in incense smoke.

 

A survey of risk factors for lung cancer, also conducted in Taiwan, noted an inverse association between incense burning and adenocarcinoma of the lung, though the finding was not deemed significant.

 

In contrast, epidemiologists at the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society, Aichi Cancer Center in Nagoya, and several other centers found: "No association was found between exposure to incense burning and respiratory symptoms like chronic cough, chronic sputum, chronic bronchitis, runny nose, wheezing, asthma, allergic rhinitis, or pneumonia among the three populations studied: i.e. primary school children, their non-smoking mothers, or a group of older non-smoking female controls. Incense burning did not affect lung cancer risk among non-smokers, but it significantly reduced risk among smokers, even after adjusting for lifetime smoking amount." However, the researchers qualified their findings by noting that incense burning in the studied population was associated with certain low-cancer-risk dietary habits, and concluded that "diet can be a significant confounder of epidemiological studies on air pollution and respiratory health."

 

Although several studies have not shown a link between incense and lung cancer, many other types of cancer have been directly linked to burning incense. A study published in 2008 in the medical journal Cancer found that incense use is associated with a statistically significant higher risk of cancers of the upper respiratory tract, with the exception of nasopharyngeal cancer. Those who used incense heavily also were 80% more likely to develop squamous-cell carcinomas. The link between incense use and increased cancer risk held when the researchers weighed other factors, including cigarette smoking, diet and drinking habits. The research team noted that "This association is consistent with a large number of studies identifying carcinogens in incense smoke, and given the widespread and sometimes involuntary exposure to smoke from burning incense, these findings carry significant public health implications."

 

In 2015, the South China University of Technology found toxicity of incense to Chinese hamsters' ovarian cells to be even higher than cigarettes.

 

Incensole acetate, a component of Frankincense, has been shown to have anxiolytic-like and antidepressive-like effects in mice, mediated by activation of poorly-understood TRPV3 ion channels in the brain.

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+++ 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:

The need for a specialized self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, capable of keeping up with the armoured divisions, had become increasingly urgent for the German Armed Forces, as from 1943 on the German Air Force was less and less able to protect itself against enemy fighter bombers.

Therefore, a multitude of improvised and specially designed self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were built, many based on the Panzer IV chassis. This development started with the Flakpanzer IV “Möbelwagen”, which was only a Kampfpanzer IV with the turret removed and a 20mm Flakvierling installed instead, together with foldable side walls that offered only poor protection for the gun crew. The lineage then progressed through the Wirbelwind and Ostwind models, which had their weapons and the crew protected in fully rotating turrets, but these were still open at the top. This flaw was to be eliminated in the Kugelblitz, the final development of the Flakpanzer IV.

 

The Kugelblitz used the 30 mm MK 103 cannon in a Zwillingsflak ("twin flak") 103/38 arrangement. The MK 103 was a powerful aircraft weapon that had formerly been fitted in single mounts to such planes as the Henschel Hs 129 or Bf 1110 in a ventral gun pod against tanks, and it was also fitted to the twin-engine Dornier Do 335 heavy fighter and other interceptors against Allied bombers. When used by the army, it received the designation “3 cm Flak 38”. It had a weight of only 141 kg (311 lb) and a length of 235 cm (93 in) with muzzle brake. Barrel length was 134 cm (53 in), resulting in caliber L/44.7 (44.7 caliber). The weapon’s muzzle velocity was around 900 m/s (3,000 ft/s), allowing an armour penetration for APCR 42–52 mm (1.7–2.0 in)/60°/300 m (980 ft) or 75–95 mm (3.0–3.7 in)/ 90°/ 300 m (980 ft), with an effective maximum firing range of around 5.700 m (18.670 ft). The MK 103 was gas-operated, fully automatic and belt-fed, an innovative feature at that time for AA guns.

In the fully enclosed Kugelblitz turret the weapons could be fired singly or simultaneously, and their theoretical rate of fire was 450 rounds a minute, even though 250 rpm in short bursts was more practical. The total ammunition load for both weapons was 1,200 rounds and the discharged cases fell into canvas bags placed under the guns. The MK 103 cannons produced a lot of powder smoke when operated, so that fume extractors were added, which was another novelty.

 

The Kugelblitz turret’s construction was unique, because its spherical body was hanging in a ring mount, suspended by two spigots – it was effectively an independent capsule that only slightly protruded from the tank’s top and kept the profile very low. The turret offered full overhead protection, 360° traverse and space for the crew of three plus weapons and ammunition – even though it was very cramped. Elevation of the weapons (as well as of the crew sitting inside of the turret!) was from -5° to +80°, turning speed was 60°/sec.

The commander/gunner, who had a small observation cupola on top of the turret, was positioned in the middle, behind the main guns. The two gunner assistants were placed on the left and right side in front of him, in a slightly lower position. The assistant situated left of the guns was responsible for the turret’s movements, the one on the right side was responsible for loading the guns, and the spare ammunition was located on the right side. Each of these three crew members had separate hatch doors..

 

However, the Panzer IV-based Kugelblitz SPAAG was ill-fated: A production rate of 30 per month by December 1944 was planned, but never achieved, because tank production had become seriously hampered and production of the Panzer IV was about to be terminated in favor of the new E-series tank family. Therefore, almost all Flakpanzer IV with the Kugelblitz turret were conversions of existing hulls, mostly coming from repair shops.

In parallel, work was under way to adapt the Kugelblitz turret to the Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer hull, too, which was still in production in the former Czechoslovakian Skoda works, and to the new, light E-10 and E-25 tank chassis. Due to this transitional and slightly chaotic situation, production numbers of the Panzer IV-based Kugelblitz remained limited - in early 1945, only around 50 operational vehicles had been built and production already ceased in May.

 

By that time, the Kugelblitz turret had been successfully adapted to the Hetzer chassis, even though this had called for major adaptations of the upper hull due to the relatively wide turret ring, which originally came from the Tiger I. The conversion worked and the unique turret could be successfully shoehorned into the Hetzer basis, making it a very compact and relatively light vehicle – it was 5 tons lighter than the Panzer IV-based “Kugelblitz” SPAAG.

In order to carry the turret, the welded upper hull had to be widened and the glacis plate was reinforced with an extra plate, which also covered the Hetzer’s original opening for its 75 mm gun. The resulting 60 mm (2.36 in) thick front plate was inclined 60 degrees from the vertical, and therefore offered around 120 mm (4.72 in) of effective protection – much better than the Panzer IV’s almost vertical 50 mm (or 80 mm with additional armor on late versions). In this form, the vehicle could withstand direct frontal hits from most medium Allied tanks. The side walls were rather thin, though, only 20 mm, and they became more vertical to make room for the turret mount. The engine cover behind the turret had to be modified, too. Due to the massive changes, the vehicle received a new, separate designation, “Sonderkraftfahrzeug (Sd.Kfz.) 170” and it was officially called “Leichter Flakpanzer 38(t) 3 cm“.

 

However, there were many drawbacks. The interior was cramped: the self-contained Kugelblitz turret itself already lacked internal space, but the driver – the only crew member in the hull – also had little space in front of the turret’s mount and he could only access his working place through an opening in the turret at the commander’s feet when it was in a level forward position. There was no dedicated hatch for the driver, only an emergency escape scuttle in the floor.

Another issue was the field of view from inside for everyone. As already mentioned, the driver did not have a hatch that could be used for a good view when not driving under fire. He also only had a single panoramic sight, so that he could just see what was going on directly in front of him. There were no side view openings, and especially the right side of the vehicle was literally blind. The crew in the turret also could only rely on forward-facing sights, just the commander had a rotating periscope. But due to its position, the areas directly along the vehicle’s flanks and its rear remained wide blind areas that made it very vulnerable to infantry attacks. This flaw was even worsened by the fact that there were no additional light weapons available (or even deployable from the inside) for close range defense – the Panzer IV-based SPAAGs carried a hull-mounted machine gun. And the crew had, due to the open weapon stations a much better field of view or could directly use their own light weapons.

 

With the turret’s additional weight (the Sd.Kfz. 170 was 3 tons heavier than the Hetzer), and despite a slightly uprated petrol engine, the tank was rather underpowered, especially off road. Another negative side effect of the turret was a considerably raised center of gravity. The original Hetzer was a nimble vehicle with good handling, but the Sd.Kfz. 170 was hard to control, tended to build up and roll even on the road and its off-road capabilities were markedly hampered by the concentration of weight so high above the ground, making it prone to tip over to the side when the driver did not take care of terrain slope angles. This wobbly handling, as well as the turret’s shape, gave the vehicle the unofficial nickname “Kugelhetzer”.

 

Nevertheless, all these flaws were accepted, since the Sd.Kfz. 170. was, like its Panzer IV-based predecessors, urgently needed and only regarded as an interim solution until a light E-Series chassis had been adapted to the turret. It was also surmised that the vehicle would not operate independently and rather escort other troops, so that close-range protection was in most cases ensured. Under this premise, about 100 Sd.Kfz. 170s were built until early 1946, when production of the Hetzer and its components were stopped. Operationally, the vehicle was not popular (esp. among drivers), but it was quite successful, not only against aircraft (esp. when used in conjunction with the new mobile radar-based fire direction centers), but also against lightly armored ground targets.

Plans to stretch the hull for more internal space, better field performance and crew comfort as well as replacing the engine with a bigger and more powerful 8 cylinder Tatra engine were never executed, since all resources were allocated to the new E-series tanks.

  

Specifications:

Crew: Four (commander/gunner, 2 assistants incl. radio operator, driver)

Weight: 18 tons (22.000 lb)

Length: 4.61 m (15 ft 1 in)

Width: 2.63 m (8 ft 8 in)

Height: 2.63 m (8 ft 8 in)

Ground clearance: 40 cm (15 ¾ in)

Suspension: Leaf spring

Fuel capacity: 320 litres (85 US gal)

 

Armor:

10 – 60 mm (0.39 – 2.36 in)

Performance:

Maximum road speed: 42 km/h (26 mph)

Sustained road speed: 36 km/h (22.3 mph)

Off-road speed: 26 km/h (16 mph)

Operational range: 177 km (110 mi)

Power/weight: 10 PS/t

 

Engine:

Praga 6-cylinder 7.8 liter petrol engine, delivering 180 PS (178 hp, 130 kW) at 2,800 rpm

 

Transmission:

Praga-Wilson Typ CV with 5 forwards and 1 reverse gears

 

Armament:

2× 30 mm 3 cm Flak 38 (MK 103/3) with a total of 1.200 rounds

  

The kit and its assembly:

The so-called “Kugelhetzer” was a real German project in late WWII, but it was rather a vague idea, it never it made to the hardware stage. Even from its predecessor, the Panzer IV-based “Kugelblitz”, only five tanks were actually built. However, I found the idea interesting, since the combination of existing elements would lead to a very compact SPAAG. And since I had a spare Kugelblitz turret from one of the Modelcollect “Vierfüssler” SF mecha kits at hand, I decided to build a model of this conceptual tank.

 

The chassis is a Bergepanzer 38(t), a.k.a. “Bergehetzer”, from UM Models, an unarmed recovery tank based on the Hetzer hull with an open top. For my conversion plan it offered the benefit of a blank glacis plate and lots of spare parts for future builds. However, upon inspection of the parts-not-intended-to-be-mated I became slightly disillusioned: while the Hetzer’s upper original hull offers enough room for the ball turret itself to be inserted into the roof, it could NEVER take the turret bearing and the armored collar ring around it. They already are hard to mount on a Panzer IV hull, but the Hetzer is an even smaller vehicle, despite its casemate layout. I was about to shelf the project again, but then decided to modify and adapt the upper hull to the turret. In real life the engineers would have taken a similar route.

 

I started to scratch the superstructure from 0.5mm styrene sheet, and work started with the roof that had to be wide enough to carry the turret ring. This was glued into place on top of the hull, and from this benchmark the rest of the “armor plates” was added – starting with the engine bay cover, then adding side walls and finally the more complex corner sections, which actually consist of two triangular plates, but only one of them was actually fitted. The leftover openings were filled with acrylic putty, also in order to fill and stabilize the void between the original hull and the added plates. Later, the necessary space for the ball turret was carved away from the original hull, so that the Kugelblitz turret could be inserted in its new opening. Sounds complicated, but the construction was less complicated than expected, and it looked even better!

 

Once mated with the lower chassis, some details had to be added to the blank surfaces – e. g. racks with spare barrels for the guns and some tools and stowage boxes. These were taken from the Bergehetzer kit and partly modified to match the different hull.

What really became a challenge was the assembly of the tracks upon the model’s completion. Unfortunately, they consist of single elements and even links that have to be glued to the wheels, and since they were not crisply molded (just like the sprocket drive wheels) their installation was a rather tedious affair.

  

Painting and markings:

This is another variation of the “Hinterhalt” concept, using the three basic tones of Dunkelgelb (RAL 7028), Olivgrün (RAL 6003) and Rotbraun (RAL 8012). In this case – as an autumn scheme with fading light and more red and brown leaves - I used a late-war Panther as reference and gave the vehicle a rather dark basic livery consisting of green and the brown, and on top of that I added counter-colored (green on brown and brown on green) mottles, plus contrast mottles in Dunkelgelb. The tones I used were Humbrol 83, 86 and 113 - the latter is not the standard tone for the Hinterhalt scheme (180 would be appropriate), but it comes close to the typical German red Oxidrot (RAL 3009) primer, which was not only used on bare tank hulls during production but was also integrated into camouflage schemes, frequently stretched and lightened through additives. Effectively the livery is very standard, and since this Kugelhetzer model would depict a standard production vehicle and not a conversion, I extended the camouflage to the turret, too, for a consistent look.

The wheels remained in a single color (just the basic red brown and green), since camouflage was prohibited to be extended onto moving parts of the vehicle: a swirling pattern would have been very obvious and eye-catching when the vehicle was on the move.

 

A washing with dark red brown, highly thinned acrylic paint followed. The decals – mostly taken from the small OOB sheet – came next, and I settled upon simplified national markings and just white outlines for the tactical code, due to the rather murky camouflage underneath.

The model’s main components were sealed with matt acrylic varnish from the rattle can before their final assembly, and I did some dry-brushing with light grey to emphasize details and edges. Finally, a coat of pigment dust was applied to the model’s lower areas and used to hide some flaws along the fiddly tracks.

  

A conclusive outcome, and a more complex build than obvious at first sight. The re-built upper hull was easier to realize than expected, the true horror came with the assembly of the tracks which consist of tiny, not really crisply molded elements. Why the return track section has to be constructed of five(!) segments - even though it's a straight line - is beyond my comprehension, too.

However, the outcome looks quite good, even though the use of the original Hetzer hull would have created several problems, if the original Kugelblitz turret had had to be integrated. Esp. the lack of space for the driver (and a suitable access hatch!) make this design idea rather unpractical, so that a stretched hull (AFAIK there’s a model of such a modified vehicle available) would have made sense.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

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 was strictly a jet aircraft, built to demonstrate that a jet fighter with the features necessary to convert to Battroid mode was aerodynamically feasible. After the VF-X's testing was finished, an advanced concept atmospheric-only prototype, the VF-0 Phoenix, was flight-tested from 2005 to 2007 and briefly served as an active-duty fighter from 2007 to the VF-1's rollout in late 2008, while the bugs were being worked out of the full-up VF-1 prototype (VF-X-1).

 

The space-capable VF-1's combat debut was on February 7, 2009, during the Battle of South Ataria Island - the first battle of Space War I - and remained the mainstay fighter of the U.N. Spacy for the entire conflict. Introduced in 2008, the VF-1 would be out of frontline service just five years later, though.

 

The VF-1 proved to be an extremely capable craft, successfully combating a variety of Zentraedi mecha even in most sorties which saw UN Spacy forces significantly outnumbered. The versatility of the Valkyrie design enabled the variable fighter to act as both large-scale infantry and as air/space superiority fighter. The signature skills of U.N. Spacy ace pilot Maximilian Jenius exemplified the effectiveness of the variable systems as he near-constantly transformed the Valkyrie in battle to seize advantages of each mode as combat conditions changed from moment to moment.

 

The basic VF-1 was deployed in four minor variants (designated A, D, J, and S) and its success was increased by continued development of various enhancements including the GBP-1S "Armored" Valkyrie, FAST Pack "Super" Valkyrie and the additional RÖ-X2 heavy cannon pack weapon system for the VF-1S for additional firepower.

The FAST Pack system was designed to enhance the VF-1 Valkyrie variable fighter, and the initial V1.0 came in the form of conformal pallets that could be attached to the fighter’s leg flanks for additional fuel – primarily for Long Range Interdiction tasks in atmospheric environment. Later FAST Packs were designed for space operations.

 

The following FAST Pack 2.0 system featured two 120.000 kg class P&W+EF-2001 booster thrusters (mounted on the dorsal section of the VF-1) and two CTB-04 conformal propellant/coolant tanks (mounted on the leg/engines), since the VF-1's internal tanks could not carry enough propellant to achieve a stable orbit from Earth bases and needed the help of a booster pack to reach Low Earth Orbit. Anyway, the FAST Pack 2.0 wasn't adapted for atmospheric use, due to its impact on a Valkyrie's aerodynamics and its weight; as such, it needed to be discarded before atmospheric entry.

Included in the FAST Pack boosters and conformal tanks were six high-maneuverability vernier thrusters and two low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles in two dorsal-mounted NP-BP-01, as well as ten more high-maneuverability vernier thrusters and two low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles in the two leg/engine-mounted NP-FB-01 systems.

Granting the VF-1 a significantly increased weapons payload as well as greater fuel and thrust, Shinnakasu Heavy Industry's FAST Pack system 2.0 was in every way a major success in space combat. The first VF-1 equipped with FAST Packs was deployed in January 2010 for an interception mission.

Following first operational deployment and its effectiveness, the FAST Pack system was embraced enthusiastically by the U.N. Spacy and found wide use. By February 2010, there were already over 300+ so-called "Super Valkyries" stationed onboard the SDF-1 Macross alone.

 

The FAST Pack went through constant further development, including upgraded versions for late production and updated VF-1s (V3.0 and V4.0). Another addition to the early V2.0 variant of 2010 was the so-called “S-FAST Pack”. The S-FAST pack was originally developed at the Apollo lunar base, for the locally based VF-1 interceptor squadrons that were tasked with the defense of this important production and habitat site on the Moon, but it also found its way to other orbital stations and carriers.

 

Officially designated FAST Pack V2.1, the S-FAST Pack consisted of the standard pair of dorsal rocket boosters plus the pallets with additional maneuvering jets, sensors and weapons. The S-FAST pack added another pair of P&W+EF-2001 boosters under the inner wings, having the duty to give to fighter the power necessary to exit easily from the gravity of moons or little planets without atmosphere, and improve acceleration during combat situations. Range was also further extended, together with additional life support systems for prolonged deep space operations, or the case of emergency.

 

In order to accept the S-FAST pack and exploit its potential, the VF-1’s wings and inner wing attachment points had to be strengthened due to the additional load and propulsion. The use of the S-FAST pack also precluded the fighter from transforming into Battroid or Gerwalk mode – the underwing packs had to be jettisoned beforehand. The other standard FAST Pack 2.0 elements could still be carried, though.

 

The modfied Valkyries capable of accepting the S-FAST Pack received an additional “S” to their type designation – more than 100 VF-1s were converted or built in this deep space configuration until late 2011. Initial deployment of the S-FAST Pack was conducted through SVF-24 “Moon Shadows” in early 2010, a unit that was quickly disbanded, though, but re-formed as SVF-124 “Moon Shooters”, tasked with the defense of the lunar Apollo Base and several special missions.

 

After the end of Space War I, the VF-1 continued to be manufactured both in the Sol system and throughout the UNG space colonies. Although the VF-1 would eventually be replaced as the primary Variable Fighter of the U.N. Spacy by the more capable, but also much bigger, VF-4 Lightning III in 2020, a long service record and continued production after the war proved the lasting worth of the design.

 

The VF-1 was without doubt the most recognizable variable fighter of Space War I and was seen as a vibrant symbol of the U.N. Spacy even into the first year of the New Era 0001 in 2013. At the end of 2015 the final rollout of the VF-1 was celebrated at a special ceremony, commemorating this most famous of variable fighters. The VF-1 Valkryie was built from 2006 to 2013 with a total production of 5,459 VF-1 variable fighters with several variants (VF-1A = 5,093, VF-1D = 85, VF-1J = 49, VF-1S = 30, VF-1G = 12, VE-1 = 122, VT-1 = 68)

 

However, 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:

All-environment variable fighter and tactical combat Battroid,

used by U.N. Spacy, U.N. Navy, U.N. Space Air Force

 

Accommodation:

Pilot only in Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Dimensions:

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

 

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons;

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons;

MTOW: 37.0 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);

18 x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles

 

The S-FAST Pack added 4x P&W+EF-2001 booster thrusters with 120.000 kg each, plus a total of 28x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters

 

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

Fighter Mode: at 10,000 m Mach 2.71; at 30,000+ m Mach 3.87

g limit: in space +7

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

 

Design Features:

3-mode variable transformation; variable geometry wing; vertical take-off and landing; control-configurable vehicle; single-axis thrust vectoring; three "magic hand" manipulators for maintenance use; retractable canopy shield for Battroid mode and atmospheric reentry; option of GBP-1S system, atmospheric-escape booster, or FAST Pack system

 

Transformation:

Standard time from Fighter to Battroid (automated): under 5 sec.

Min. time from Fighter to Battroid (manual): 0.9 sec.

 

Armament:

2x internal Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon, firing 6,000 pulses per minute

1x Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rds/min

 

4x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, including

12x AMM-1 hybrid guided multipurpose missiles (3/point), or

12x MK-82 LDGB conventional bombs (3/point), or

6x RMS-1 large anti-ship reaction missiles (2/outboard point, 1/inboard point), or

4x UUM-7 micro-missile pods (1/point) each carrying 15 x Bifors HMM-01 micro-missiles,

or a combination of above load-outs

 

The optional Shinnakasu Heavy Industry S-FAST Pack 2.1 augmentative space weapon system added:

6x micro-missiles in two NP-AR-01 micro-missile launcher pods (mounted rear-ward under center ventral section in Fighter mode or on lower arm sections in GERWALK/Battroid mode)

4x12 micro missiles in four HMMP-02 micro-missile launchers, one inside each booster pod

 

The kit and its assembly:

This VF-1 is another contribution to the “Old Kit” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, running in late 2016. I am not certain about the moulds’ inception date, but since it is an ARII incarnation of this type of kit and even moulded in the early pastel green styrene, I’d think that it was produced in 1982 or 83.

 

Anyway, I love the Macross VF-1, IMHO a design masterpiece created by Shoji Kawamori and one of my favorite mecha designs ever, because it was created as a late 70ies style jet fighter that could transform into a robot in a secondary role. As a simple, purposeful military vehicle. And not like a flashy robot toy.

 

Effectively, this Super Valkyrie is a highly modified OOB kit with many donation parts, and this kit is a bit special, for several reasons. There are several 1:100 OOB kits with FAST Packs from ARII/Bandai available (and still around today), but these are normally only Battroids or Gerwalks with additional parts for the FAST kit conversion. The kit I used here is different: it is, after maybe 25 years of searching and building these kits, the #70 from the original production run. It is (so far!) the only Fighter mode kit with the additional FAST Pack parts! Must be rare, and I have never seen it in catalogues?

 

Until today, I converted my Super or Strike Valkyries from Gerwalk kits, a task that needs some improvisation esp. around the folded arms between the legs, and there’s no OOB option for an extended landing gear. The latter made this Fighter mode kit very attractive, even though the actual kit is pretty disappointing, and AFAIK this kit variant is only available as a VF-1S.

 

With the Super Valkyrie fighter kit you receive basically a Gerwalk with a standard fighter cockpit (which includes a front wheel well and an extended front wheel leg), plus extra parts. The leg/engine-mounted NP-FB-01 systems are less bulbous than the parts on the Gerwalk or Battroid kit, and the OOB dorsally mounted NP-BP-01 boosters are TINY, maybe 1:120 or even 1:144! WTF?

 

Further confusion: the kit includes a set of lower arm parts with integrated rocket launchers, but these are not necessary at all for the Fighter build?! As a kind of compensation there’s a new and exclusive element that simulates the folded arms under the ‘fuselage’ and which, as an added value, properly holds the hand gun under the fuselage. As a quirky flaw, though, the hand gun itself comes in the extended form for the Battroid/Gerwalk mode. For the fighter in flight mode, it has to be modified, but that’s easily done.

 

Anyway, with the potential option to build a Super Valkyrie with an extended landing gear, this was my route to go with this vintage kit. The Super Valkyrie already looks bulky with the FAST Pack added, but then I recently found the S-FAST Pack option with two more boosters under the wings – total overkill, but unique. And I had a spare pair of booster bulks in the stash (w/o their nozzles, though), as well as a complete pair of additional bigger standard FAST boosters that could replace the ridiculous OOB parts…

 

Building such a Super/Strike Valkyrie means building separate components, with a marriage of parts as one of the final steps. Consequently, cockpit, central fuselage with the wings and the air intakes, the folded stabilizer pack, the folded arms element with the handgun, the two legs and the four boosters plus other ordnance had to be built and painted separately.

 

Here and there, details were changed or added, e. g. a different head (a ‘J’ head for the flight leader’s aircraft with two instead of the rare, OOB ‘S’ variant with four laser cannon), covers for the main landing gear (the latter does not come with wells at all, but I did not scratch them since they are hardly recognizable when the kit is sitting on the ground), the typical blade aerials under the cockpit and the feet had to be modified internally to become truly ‘open’ jet exhausts.

 

The wing-mounted boosters received new nozzles and their front end was re-sculpted with 2C putty into a square shape, according to reference sketches. Not 100% exact, but the rest of the VF-1 isn’t either.

 

This VF-1 was also supposed to carry external ordnance and my first choice were four wing-mounted RMS-1 Anti-Ship Reaction Warheads, scratched from four 1.000 lb NATO bombs. But, once finished, I was not happy with them. So I looked for another option, and in a source book I found several laser-guided bombs and missiles, also for orbital use, and from this inspiration comes the final ordnance: four rocket-propelled kinetic impact projectiles. These are actually 1:72 JASDF LGB’s from a Hasegawa weapon set, sans aerodynamic steering surfaces and with rocket boosters added to the tail. Also not perfect, but their white color and sleek shape is a good counterpart to the FAST elements.

 

Experience from many former builds of this mecha kit family helped a lot, since the #70 kit is very basic and nothing really fits well. Even though there are not many major seams or large elements, PSR work was considerable. This is not a pleasant build, rather a fight with a lot of compromises and semi-accuracies.

Seriously, if you want a decent 1:100 VF-1, I’d rather recommend the much more modern WAVE kits (including more realistic proportions).

  

Painting and markings:

The paint scheme for this Super Valkyrie was settled upon before I considered the S-FAST Pack addition: U.N. Spacy’s SVF-124 is authentic, as well as its unique camouflage paint scheme.

The latter is a special scheme for the lunar environment where the unit was originally formed and based, with all-black undersides, a high, wavy waterline and a light grey upper surface, plus some medium grey trim and a few colorful US Navy style markings and codes.

 

My core reference is a ‘naked’ bread-and-butter VF-1A of SVF-124 in Fighter mode, depicted as a profile in a VF-1 source book from SoftBank Publishing. The colors for the FAST Pack elements are guesstimates and personal interpretations, though, since I could not find any reference for their look in this unit.

As a side note, another, later SVF-124 aircraft in a similar design is included as an option in a limited edition 1:72 VF-22S kit from Hasegawa, which is backed by CG pics in a VF-22 source book from Softbank, too.

Furthermore, SVF-124 finds mention in a Japanese modeler magazine, where the aforementioned VF-22S kit was presented in 2008. So there must be something behind the ‘Moon Shooters’ squadron.

 

According to the Hasegawa VF-22S’s painting instructions, the underside becomes black and the upper surfaces are to be painted with FS36270 (with some darker fields on the VF-22, though, similar to the USAF F-15 counter-shaded air superiority scheme, just a tad darker).

Due to the 1:100 scale tininess of my VF-1, I alternatively went for Revell 75 (RAL 7039), which is lighter and also has a brownish hue, so that the resulting aircraft would not look too cold and murky, and not resemble an USAF aircraft.

 

All FAST Pack elements were painted in a uniform dark grey (Humbrol 32), while some subtle decorative trim on the upper surfaces, e.g. the canopy frame, an anti-glare panel and a stripe behind the cockpit and decoration trim on the wings’ upper surfaces, was added with Revell 77 (RAL 7012). Overall, colors are rather dull, but IMHO very effective in the “landscape” this machine is supposed to operate, and the few colorful markings stand out even more!

 

The cockpit interior was painted in a bluish grey, with reddish brown seat cushions (late 70ies style!), and the landing gear became all white. For some added detail I painted the wings’ leading edges in a mustard tone (Humbrol 225, Mid Stone).

 

The kit received some weathering (black ink wash, drybrushing on panels) and extra treatment of the panel lines – even though the FAST Pack elements hide a lot of surface or obscure view.

 

More color and individuality came with the markings. The standard decals like stencils or the U.N. Spacy insignia come from the kit’s and some other VF-1s’ OOB sheets.

Based on the SVF-124 VF-1 profile and taking the basic design a bit further, I used dull red USAF 45° digits for the 2nd flight leader’s “200” modex and the Apollo Base’s code “MA” on the dorsal boosters. Some discreet red trim was also applied to the FAST Packs – but only a little.

 

Since all of SVF-124’s aircraft are rumored to carry personal markings, including nose art and similar decorations, I tried to give this VF-1JS a personal note: the pin-up badges on the dorsal boosters come from a Peddinghouse decal sheet for Allied WWII tanks, placed on a silver roundel base. Unfortunately (and not visible before I applied them) the pin-up decal was not printed on a white basis, so that the contrast on the silver is not very strong, but I left it that way. Additionally, the tagline “You’re a$$ next, Jerry” (which IS printed in opaque white…?) was added next to the artwork – but it’s so tiny that you have to get really close to decipher it at all…

 

Finally, after some soot stains around the exhausts and some vernier nozzels with graphite, the kit received a coat of matt acrylic varnish.

 

Building this vintage VF-1 kit took a while and a lot of effort, but I like the result: with the S-FAST Pack, the elegant VF-1 turned into a massive space fighter hulk! The normal Super Valkyries already look very compact and purposeful, but this here is truly menacing. Especially when standing on its own feet/landing gear, with its nose-down stance and the small, original wheels, this thing reminds of a Space Shuttle that had just landed.

 

Good that I recently built a simple VF-1 fighter as a warm-up session. ARII’s kit #70 is not a pleasant build, rather a fight with the elements and coupled with a lot of compromises – if you want a Super Valkyrie Fighter in 1:100, the much more modern WAVE kit is IMHO the better option (and actually not much more pricey than this vintage collector’s item). But for the vintage feeling, this exotic model kit was just the right ticket, and it turned, despite many weaknesses and rather corny details, into an impressive fighter. Esp. the lunar camouflage scheme looks odd, but very unique and purposeful.

 

Anyway, with so many inherent flaws of the ARII kit, my former method of converting a pure (and much more common) Gerwalk kit into a space-capable VF-1 fighter is not less challenging and complicated than trying to fix this OOB option into a decent model. :-/

While Skakdi are capable of physically wearing Kanohi Masks, they do not possess the measure of focus nor the mental capacity to utilize their powers...

Except for the very small fraction of the population who were mutated by the personal experiment of one curious Great Being.

 

About 1-3% of the Skakdi population have well above average mental capacities - even beyond that of Toa. While the average Skakdi cannot use Kanohi powers, these mutant Skakdi can use the powers of multiple masks at the same time, without even wearing them.

 

Known as Shamans, or Witch Doctors, these Skakdi are physically larger than their regular counterparts, and their spines are more elaborate. Their mutations also cause the appearance of various abnormal growths on their bodies, though luckily these are always symmetrical.

 

Other physical characteristics are more vibrant skin pigments - the average Skakdi are bi-colored without armor, though both colors are always different shades of the same color - and hunched back.

 

Skakdi Witch Doctors are equally revered and feared by their counterparts, while their existence is seldom considered more than a rumor beyond the shores of Zakaz. The Witch Doctors wield terrifying power, and are able to activate and control the powers of Kanohi masks even at a distance, thus using the powers of opponents' masks against them. They also wield elemental powers, considered by their fellow Skakdi to be "magic", and immense physical strength.

 

It's fortunate, therefore, that Witch Doctors seldom engage in combat. While they are rarely seen outside of Zakaz, all Witch Doctors travel to other islands occasionally to harvest Kanohi - usually still attached to the original owner's head. Beyond this, they do not engage in the warmongering typical of their race.

 

Instead, the Witch Doctors dedicate their time to rituals, incantations, hexes and the consumption of various mushrooms, while practicing the use of Kanohi powers, Their innate abilities allow them to control 3-4 masks, however if exercised (much like a muscle), this can be increased. The most powerful known Witch Doctor managed to simultaneously activate the powers of 35 Kanohi. After this, he claimed to have been "enlightened", and traveled to a nearby Skakdi village where he preached that their world was actually the body of a larger being, who was travelling through the void. The villagers promptly tore the Witch Doctor to bits and ate his remains.

 

Two shamanistic pursuits of the Witch Doctors not related to Kanohi are Voodoo and the training of familiars. The former involved the crafting of - usually Skakdi-like - effigies which can then be linked to the soul of another, thus any force affecting the effigy would effect the individual bound to it. Familiars, in turn, are rahi who are tamed by the Witch Doctor, and kept as loyal pets.

 

This particular Witch Doctor once caught a newly hatched Visorak, tamed it, and enchanted it so that it will never grow in size.

 

Witch Doctors often live in huts or hovels deep in the jungles of their homeland. While the homes of the Shaman often mirror their denizens and are thus unique, one constant in all such homes is a ritual altar, which functions much like a table. Witch Doctors are keen collectors of all kinds of oddities, so seeing various Kanohi, old weapons and even kraata around their altars is not unheard of.

 

All Witch Doctors carry a special staff, which they adorn with the heads of those whose Kanohi they collected. The Shaman are capable of using not only the Kanohi they wear, but also those on their staff. They also all possess ritual daggers, used in the art of Voodoo, as well as other rituals requiring living sacrifice.

The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a carrier-capable attack aircraft developed for the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. The delta winged, single-engined Skyhawk was designed and produced by Douglas Aircraft Company, and later by McDonnell Douglas. It was originally designated the A4D under the U.S. Navy's pre-1962 designation system.

The Skyhawk is a light-weight aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight of 24,500 pounds (11,100 kg) and has a top speed of more than 600 miles per hour (970 km/h). The aircraft's five hardpoints support a variety of missiles, bombs and other munitions and was capable of delivering nuclear weapons using a low altitude bombing system and a "loft" delivery technique. The A-4 was originally powered by the Wright J65 turbojet engine; from the A-4E onwards, the Pratt & Whitney J52 was used.

  

El Douglas A-4 Skyhawk es un avión de ataque a tierra con capacidad para operar desde portaaviones diseñado en los años 1950 para la Armada y el Cuerpo de Marines de los Estados Unidos. El Skyhawk, un avión con ala en delta propulsado por un turborreactor, fue producido por la compañía Douglas Aircraft Company, y posteriormente por McDonnell Douglas. Originalmente era denominado A4D por el sistema de designación de aeronaves de la Armada estadounidense de 1922, y cuando se estableció el sistema unificado en 1962 pasó a llamarse A-4.

Cincuenta años después de su primer vuelo, y habiendo jugado papeles clave en la Guerra de Vietnam, la Guerra del Yom Kippur, y la Guerra de las Malvinas. De los casi 3.000 Skyhawks producidos solo unos pocos están en servicio en algunos países, por ejemplo en el portaaviones NAe São Paulo de la Marina Brasileña,

With advances in bomber technology, the US Army Air Corps in 1937 began to wonder if its current fighters were inadequate to defend the nation from attack. The USAAC, on the advice of Lieutenant Benjamin Kelsey, issued Proposal X-608/609, calling for an interceptor equipped with tricycle landing gear and the Allison V-1710 inline engine, heavy cannon armament, and capable of 360 mph and a ceiling of above 20,000 feet, which it had to reach within six minutes. The design could either be twin-engined (X-608) or single-engined (X-609). The latter resulted in the Bell P-39 Airacobra—the former became the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.

 

The proposal was a tough one, and after several discarded designs, Lockheed designer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson settled on an unusual planform: two engines extending back to twin tails, joined by the wings and tailplane, with the pilot and armament concentrated in a central “gondola” fuselage. The reason for the tail “booms” was that the aircraft needed superchargers, and the only place to put them was behind the engines. The design itself posed a number of problems, namely engine torque: twin-engined propeller aircraft tend to pull heavily in the direction of the torque. Johnson solved this by having the propellers counter-rotate away from each other, canceling the torque between them. Putting all the guns along a central axis in front of the pilot also made shooting more accurate and easier to figure out; various armament options were tried before Lockheed settled on four machine guns and a single 20mm cannon. Flush rivets and stainless steel construction gave the aircraft a smooth finish and better speed. The first XP-38 flew in January 1939. To prove the fighter’s usefulness to a skeptical USAAC, the XP-38 was flown cross-country from Lockheed’s plant at Burbank, California, to New York City. It crashed due to engine icing just short of New York, but it made the trip in just over seven hours at a sustained speed of 399 mph, a new record.

 

Impressed, the USAAC ordered 13 YP-38 pre-production aircraft, but these were delayed by Lockheed already being at maximum production, with the result that the first YP-38 did not reach the now-US Army Air Force until June 1941. It had already been ordered by the Royal Air Force, but now a new problem came up: the P-38 was too hot an aircraft. In dives, it had been found that the P-38 would quickly enter compressibility and keep accelerating until it hit the ground, due to the air over the wings becoming supersonic while the aircraft remained subsonic. Frantic efforts by Lockheed to end the problem failed, and despite the introduction of dive brakes on later aircraft, the P-38 was never cured of this problem. The British only held to their order of 143 aircraft after legal action by Lockheed—making matters worse was that RAF aircraft were delivered without counter-rotating propellers or superchargers, making them difficult to control and at a severe disadvantage above 15,000 feet. Lack of adequate cockpit heating meant that the pilot risked hypothermia during the cold European winters. The RAF had named the aircraft “Lightning” for its performance, but loathed the fighter and were all too happy to return them to Lockheed. The P-38, which had finally entered production as the P-38D Lightning, had acquired a bad reputation that it would never wholly shed.

 

Despite its misgivings, the USAAF continued the Lightning in production, because whatever the aircraft’s other problems, it could not be matched in speed or range. Deployed to Iceland and the Aleutian Islands, P-38s scored the first American kill of the European theater on 14 August 1942; it had already scored its first kills, over the Aleutians, a week before. Deployed to North Africa to cover the Torch landings and operations in Tunisia, the heavy armament, speed, range, and surprising ease of flying (the P-38 used a wheel rather than a stick), the Lightning earned the nicknamed Gabelschwanzteufel (Fork-Tailed Devil) from its German opponents at first. Unfortunately, the Germans soon discovered the P-38’s weakness—it still was a poor performer above 15,000 feet, it had a very slow roll rate, and lethal blind spots. It was liked by its pilots, who pointed out that it was the only long-range escort then available, and the only one that could lose an engine and stay in the air, but its poor reputation persisted. Even after further combat proved its worth and improvements by Lockheed resulted in the P-38J, the 8th Air Force began relegating its P-38s to ground attack duties (which, surprisingly, it was good at) in favor of the P-51. It remained in Europe until war’s end, operating as attack aircraft and F-5 reconnaissance aircraft; a few were further modified with a bombardier position in a clear nose as pathfinders, the so-called “Droopsnoot.” Despite its reputation, European Lightnings produced a number of aces, including Robin Olds; French author and aviation pioneer Antoine de Saint-Exupery was killed during a P-38 reconnaissance mission in 1944.

 

In the Pacific, however, the P-38 excelled. The USAAF lacked any sort of long-range fighter, and the P-38 allowed safer operations over water and distance. This led to it being chosen to shoot down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in 1943, as it was the only fighter that could make the trip from Guadalcanal to Bougainville. General George Kenney, commanding the 15th Air Force, asked for all the P-38s Lockheed could supply. While it was no dogfighter, especially with the nimble Japanese fighters, it could snap turn with an A6M Zero for the first few seconds, it was better in the vertical than Japanese aircraft, and its heavy armament would obliterate any enemy that got in front of it. Whereas P-38 pilots in Europe froze, the lack of air conditioning in the Pacific meant that P-38 pilots there flew in only shorts, tennis shoes, and flight helmet. The P-38’s lack of high altitude performance was not a problem in the Pacific, where most air combat took place at low level. Over 100 men would become aces in the Lightning, including Richard Bong, Thomas McGuire, and Charles McDonald; with 1800 confirmed victories, the P-38 was the most successful USAAF fighter in the Pacific.

 

After the end of World War II, jet fighters spelled the end of the P-38. Though it would persist in Italian Air Force service until 1956, and was used by Nationalist China and some Central American nations (a CIA-flown P-38M was instrumental in a 1954 coup), nearly all had been scrapped by the mid-1950s. Of 10,037 Lightnings produced, today only 24 aircraft survive, with half flyable.

 

This P-38L is 44-53087, which was deployed to the Pacific and briefly saw combat. It was converted to a P-38M nightfighter, but the war ended before it could see any night action. Returned to the United States, it was sold as surplus. In 1951, 44-53087 was sold to a Canadian aerial survey firm, and the original nose was replaced with a bubble nose fitted with cameras. It would pass through no less than 14 owners in three countries before it was acquired by aviation enthusiast Peter Kahn, who restored it with an original nose back to P-38L standard. Kahn in turn sold it to aerial stunt coordinator Wilson "Connie" Edwards, who donated 44-53087 to the EAA AirVenture Museum in 1981.

 

After its long odyssey, today 44-53087 sits at rest at Oshkosh, though in theory it is still flyable. It is displayed as 44-532236, Richard Bong's famous "Marge," named for Bong's fiancee (and later wife), Marge Vattendahl. Most of Bong's 40 kills--which made him America's top ace of World War II and any war--were scored in 44-532236. The fate of the real "Marge" is unknown, but several aircraft have been painted in Bong's colors, including this one. Like all of the EAA's collection, it is in pristine condition. Bong was assigned to the 49th Fighter Group, based at Tacloban in the Philippines for the last year of the war.

+++ 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 Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair II was a carrier-capable subsonic light attack aircraft introduced to replace the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. The A-7 airframe design was based on the successful supersonic Vought F-8 Crusader, although it was somewhat smaller and rounded off. The Corsair II initially entered service with the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. It was later adopted by the United States Air Force, including the Air National Guard, to replace the Douglas A-1 Skyraider and North American F-100 Super Sabre. The aircraft was also exported to several foreign countries, including Greece, Portugal, Thailand and New Zealand.

 

For the latter operator, the Corsair II was part of a major modernization campaign in the early 1970s. For instance, in 1970 14 McDonnell Douglas A-4 Skyhawks were purchased to replace the Vampire FB5's, which had been the primary light attack aircraft for the RNZAF for years, but the type was hopelessly outdated.

Furthermore New Zealand was also looking for a replacement of its similarly ageing Canberra fleet. These 31 aircraft were also phased out of service in mid 1970, and the A-7 chosen as the RNZAFs new fighter bomber because of its proven all-weather strike capability and advances avionics.

 

The RNZAF bought and operated 22 LTV A-7 Corsair II aircraft primarily in the coastal defense/anti-ship and sea patrol roles, air interdiction and air defense roles being secondary duties. The RNZAF Corsair II was very similar to the US Navy’s A-7E, even though the machines would only be operated form land bases. Designated A-7N, the machines featured an AN/APN-190 navigational radar with a Doppler groundspeed and drift detector plus an AN/APQ-128 terrain following radar. For the deployment of smart weapons, the machines were outfitted with a Pave Penny laser target acquisition system under the air intake lip, similar to the USAF’s A-7D, and could carry a wide range of weaponry and sensors, including AN/AAR-45 FLIR pods for an improved all-weather performance. Against enemy ships and large ground targets, visually guided smart bombs (AGM-62 and the more modern GBU-8 HOBOS) were bought, as well as AGM-65 Maverick against smaller, high priority targets.

 

Active service lasted between 1975 and 1999, and the A-7Ns were originally allocated between RNZAF 2 and 75 Squadron at Ohakea, where they were operated together with A-4K and TA-4K. The latter were also emplyed for A-7N pilot conversion training, since the RNZAF did not operate any Corsair II two seaters.

Several times the Squadron deployed to Clark Air Base in the Philippines and to Hawaii with both of the Corsair IIs and Skyhawks to exercise with the United States Air Force. Furthermore, the annual deployments as part of the Five Power Defence Agreement (called Exercise Vanguard) had the Squadron visit Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to practice with those countries. Two RNZAF A-7s of 75 Squadron even made visits to Great Britain.

 

In the early Nineties the Corsair IIs started to suffer from numerous maintenance and logistic problems due to the lack of spare parts and general financial problems. This also prevented a major avionics update and the procurement of AGM-84 Harpoon missiles for the A-7Ns and the RNZAF P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft. The maintenance situation became so dire that several aircraft were cannibalized for spare parts to service other fighters. In 1992 only sixteen A-7Ns remained operational. This resulted in the available fighters no longer being assigned and dedicated to one specific squadron, but shared and assigned to one of the RNZAF combat squadrons (2, 14 and 75 Squadron, respectively), as needed.

 

During its 24 years of duty in the RNZAF, the A-7 fleet suffered 8 severe accidents with aircraft losses (and two pilots being killed). Nevertheless, the introduction of the A-7 was seen as a success due to the evolution that it allowed the Air Force in aircraft maintenance, with focus in modern computer and electronic systems, and in the steady qualification of pilots and technicians.

 

In 1999, the National Government selected an order of 28 F-16A/B Fighting Falcon aircraft to replace the complete fleet of A-4 Skyhawks and A-7 Corsair IIs, but this procurement plan was cancelled in 2001 following election by the incoming Labour Government under Helen Clark. This was followed by the disbanding of several fixed wing aircraft squadrons, with the consequence of removing the RNZAF's air combat capability. The last A-7 flight in RNZAF service took place on 1st of October 2001. Subsequently, most of the RNZAF's fighter pilots left New Zealand to serve in the Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal Air Force.

 

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 46 ft 2 in (14.06 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft 9 in (11.8 m), 23 ft 9 in (7.24 m) wings folded

Height: 16 ft 1 in (4.9 m)

Wing area: 374.9 sq ft (34.83 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 65A007 root and tip

Empty weight: 19,127 lb (8,676 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 41,998 lb (19,050 kg) overload condition.

Fuel capacity: 1,338 US gal (5,060 l; 1,114 imp gal) (10,200 lb (4,600 kg)) internal

 

Powerplant:

1 × Allison TF41-A-2 non-afterburning turbofan engine, 15,000 lbf (66.7 kN) thrust

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 600 kn (690 mph; 1,111 km/h) at Sea level

Range: 1,070 nmi; 1,231 mi (1,981 km) maximum internal fuel

Ferry range: 1,342 nmi; 1,544 mi (2,485 km) with maximum internal and external fuel

Service ceiling: 42,000 ft (13,000 m)

Wing loading: 77.4 lb/sq ft (378 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.50

Take-off run: 1,705 ft (519.7 m) at 42,000 lb (19,000 kg)

 

Armament:

1× M61A1 Vulcan 20 mm (0.787 in) rotary cannon with 1,030 rounds

6× under-wing and 2× fuselage pylon stations (for mounting AIM-9 Sidewinder AAMs only)

with a total ordnance capacity of 15,000 lb (6,803.9 kg)

  

The kit and its assembly:

An idea that had been lingering on my project list for some years, and a recent build of an RNZAF A-7 by fellow modeler KiwiZac at whatifmodelers.com eventually triggered this build, a rather simple alternative livery whif. I had this idea on the agenda for some time, though, already written up a background story (which was accidently deleted early last year and sent the project into hiatus - until now) and had the kit as well as decals collected and stashed away.

 

The basis is the Hobby Boss A-7, which is available in a wide range of variant in 1:72 scale. Not cheap, but IMHO the best Corsair II kit at the moment, because it is full of ample surface details, goes together nicely and features a complete air intake, a good cockpit tub and even some maintenance covers that can be displayed in open position, in case you want to integrate the kit in a diorama. In my case it’s the A-7E kit, because I wanted a late variant and the US Navy’s refueling probe instead of the A-7D’s dorsal adapter for the USAF refueling boom system.

 

For the fictional RNZAF A-7N no fundamental changes were made. I just deliberately used OOB parts like the A-7D’s Pave Penny laser targeting pod under the air intake. As a personal addition I lowered the flaps slightly for a more lively look. Around the hull, some blade antennae were changed or added, and I installed the pair of pitots in front of the windscreen (made from thin wire).

 

The FLIR pod came with the kit, as well as the drop tank under the inner starboards wing pylon and the AIM-9Bs. Only the GBU-8s were externally sourced, from one of the Hasegawa USAF ordnance sets.

 

For the finalized kit on display I mounted the maintenance covers in open position, but for the beauty pics they were provisionally placed in closed position onto the kit’s flanks. The covers had to be modified for this stunt, but since their fit is very good and tight they easily stayed in place, even for the flight scenes!

 

Painting and markings:

This was the more interesting part – I wanted „something special“ for the fictional RNZAF Corsair II. Upon delivery, the USAF SEA scheme would certainly have been the most appropriate camouflage – the A-4K’s were painted this way and the aforementioned inspiring build by KiwiZac was finished this way.

 

Anyway, my plan had been from the start a machine in late service with low-viz markings similar to the A-4Ks, which received an attractive three-tone wrap-around scheme (in FS 34102, 34079 and 36081) or a simple all-around coat of FS 34079.

 

Both of these schemes could have been a sensible choice for this project, but… no! Too obvious, too simple for my taste. I rather wanted something that makes you wonder and yet make the aircraft look authentic and RNZAF-esque.

 

While digging for options and alternatives I stumbled upon the RNZAF’s C-130 Hercules transporters, which, like Canadian machines, carry a wrap-around scheme in two tones of grey (a light blue grey and a darker tone with a reddish hue) and a deep olive green tone that comes close to Dark Slate Grey, together with low-viz markings. A pretty unique scheme! Not as murky as the late A-4Ks and IMHO also well suited for the naval/coastal environment that the machine would patrol.

 

I was not able to positively identify the original tones on the CAF and RNZAF Hercs, so I interpreted various aircraft pictures. I settled upon Humbrol 163 (RAF Dark Green) 125 (FS 36118, Gunship Grey) and Revell 57 (RAL 7000, similar to FS 35237, but lighter and “colder”). For the wraparound scheme I used the C-130s as benchmark.

 

The cockpit became Dark Gull Grey (Humbrol 140) while the landing gear and the air intake duct became – behind 5mm of grey around the intake lip - white. The maintenance hatches’ interior was painted with a mix of Humbrol 81 and 38, for a striking zinc chromate primer look.

 

After a light black ink wash the kit received some panel post-shading for more contrast esp. between the dark colors and a slightly worn and sun-bleached look, since the aircraft would be depicted towards the end of its active service life.

 

Decals were the most challenging task, though: finding suitable RNZAF roundels is not easy, and I was happy when Xtradecal released an appropriate sheet that offers kiwi roundels for all positions (since motifs for port and starboard have to be mirrored). The Kiwi squadron emblem actually belongs to an RNZAF A-4K (from an Old Models sheet). The serial codes were puzzled together from single letter (TL Modellbau), most stencils come from the Hobby Boss OOB sheet.

  

A simple build, yet a very interesting topic and in the end also an IMHO very cool-looking aircraft in its fictional livery. Building the Hobby Boss A-7 was easy, despite some inherent flaws of the kit (e .g. totally blank dashboard and side consoles, and even no decals included!). The paint scheme lent from the RNZAF Hercs suits the SLUF well, though.

BVLOS capable, visual light and thermal cam, 30 minutes flight time, LTE (4G) + 2.4 GHz (backup) remode control + HD video streams, real-time object detection. ArduCopter flight stack. Gimbal stabilization. 236g only!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

After the country's independence from the United Kingdom, after its departure from the European Union in 2017, the young Republic of Scotland Air Corps (locally known as Poblachd na h-Alba Adhair an Airm) started a major procurement program to take over most basic duties the Royal Air Force formerly had taken over in Northern Britain. This procurement was preceded by a White Paper published by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2013, which had stated that an independent Scotland would have an air force equipped with up to 16 air defense aircraft, six tactical transports, utility rotorcraft and maritime patrol aircraft, and be capable of “contributing excellent conventional capabilities” to NATO. According to the document, “Key elements of air forces in place at independence, equipped initially from a negotiated share of current UK assets, will secure core tasks, principally the ability to police Scotland’s airspace, within NATO.” An in-country air command and control capability would be established within five years of a decision in favor of independence, it continues, with staff also to be “embedded within NATO structures”.

 

Outlining its ambition to establish an air force with an eventual 2,000 uniformed personnel and 300 reservists, the SNP stated the organization would initially be equipped with “a minimum of 12 interceptors in the Eurofighter/Typhoon class, based at Lossiemouth, a tactical air transport squadron, including around six Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules, and a helicopter squadron”. The latter would not only have to take over transport duties for the army, there was also a dire need to quickly replace the former Royal Air Force’s Search and Rescue (SAR) capabilities and duties in the North with domestic resources, after this role was handed over to civilian contractor Bristow Helicopters and the RAF’s SAR units had been disbanded.

 

This led to the procurement of six AS365 Dauphin helicopters as an initial measure to keep up basic SAR capabilities, with the prospects of procuring more to become independent from the Bristow Helicopters contract. These aircraft were similar to the Eurocopter SA 366 MH-65 “Dolphin” for the United States Coast Guard but differed in many ways from them and also from any other navalized SA365 variant.

For the RoScAC’s SAR squadron, the SA 365 was taken as a starting point, but the helicopter was heavily modified and locally re-christened “Leumadair” (= Dolphin).

 

The most obvious new feature of the unique Scottish rescue variant was a fixed landing gear with the main wheels on short “stub wings” for a wider stance, stabilizing the helicopter during shipboard landings and in case of an emergency water landing - the helicopter was not able to perform water landings, even though inflatable emergency landing floats were typically fitted. Another obvious difference to other military Dauphin versions was the thimble radome on the nose for an RDR-1600 search and weather radar which is capable of detecting small targets at sea as far as 25 nautical miles away. This layout was chosen to provide the pilots with a better field of view directrly ahead of the helicopter. Additionally, an electro-optical sensor turret with an integrated FLIR sensor was mounted in a fully rotatable turret under the nose, giving the helicopter full all-weather capabilities. Less obvious were a digital glass cockpit and a computerized flight management system, which integrated state-of-the-art communications and navigation equipment. This system provided automatic flight control, and at the pilot's direction, the system would bring the aircraft to a stable hover 50 feet (15 m) above a selected object, an important safety feature in darkness or inclement weather. Selected search patterns could be flown automatically, freeing the pilot and copilot to concentrate on sighting & searching the object.

To improve performance and safety margin, more powerful Turbomeca Arriel 2C2-CG engines were used. Seventy-five percent of the structure—including rotor head, rotor blades and fuselage—consisted of corrosion-resistant composite materials. The rotor blades themselves were new, too, with BERP “paddles”at their tips, a new aerofoil and increased blade twist for increased lifting-capability and maximum speed, to compensate for the fixed landing gear and other external equipment that increased drag. To prevent leading edge erosion the blade used a rubber-based tape rather than the polyurethane used on earlier helicopters.

 

The “Leumadair HR.1”, so its official designation, became operational in mid-2019. Despite being owned by the government, the helicopters received civil registrations (SC-LEA - -LEF) and were dispersed along the Scottish coastline. They normally carried a crew of four: Pilot, Copilot, Flight Mechanic and Rescue Swimmer, even though regular flight patrols were only excuted with a crew of three. The Leumadair HR.1 was used by the RoScAC primarily for search and rescue missions, but also for homeland security patrols, cargo, drug interdiction, ice breaking, and pollution control. While the helicopters operated unarmed, they could be outfitted with manually operated light or medium machine guns in their doors.

However, the small fleet of only six helicopters was far from being enough to cover the Scottish coast and the many islands up north, so that the government prolonged the contract with Bristow Helicopters in late 2019 for two more years, and the procurement of further Leumadair HR.1 helicopters was decided in early 2020. Twelve more helicopters were ordered en suite and were expected to arrive in late 2021.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 pilots and 2 crew

Length: 12,06 m (39 ft 2 1/2 in)

Height: 4 m (13 ft 1 in)

Main rotor diameter: 12,10 m (39 ft 7 1/2 in)

Main rotor area: 38.54 m² (414.8 sq ft)

Empty weight: 3,128 kg (6,896 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 4,300 kg (9,480 lb)

 

Powerplant:

2× Turbomeca Arriel 2C2-CG turboshaft engines, 636 kW (853 hp) each

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 330 km/h (210 mph, 180 kn)

Cruise speed: 240 km/h (150 mph, 130 kn)

Range: 658 km (409 mi, 355 nmi)

Service ceiling: 5,486 m (17,999 ft)

 

Armament:

None installed, but provisions for a 7.62 mm M240 machine gun or a Barrett M107 0.50 in (12.7

mm) caliber precision rifle in each side door

  

The kit and its assembly:

Another chapter in my fictional alternative reality in which Scotland became an independent Republic and separated from the UK in 2017. Beyond basic aircraft for the RoScAC’s aerial defense duties I felt that maritime rescue would be another vital task for the nascent air force – and the situation that Great Britain had outsourced the SAR job to a private company called for a new solution for the independent Scotland. This led to the consideration of a relatively cheap maritime helicopter, and my choice fell on the SA365 ‘Daupin’, which has been adapted to such duties in various variants.

 

As a starting point there’s the Matchbox SA365 kit from 1983, which is a typical offer from the company: a solid kit, with mixed weak spots and nice details (e. g. the cockpit with a decent dashboard and steering columns/pedals for the crew). Revell has re-boxed this kit in 2002 as an USCG HH-65A ‘Dolphin’, but it’s technically only a painting option and the kit lacks any optional parts to actually build this type of helicopter in an authentic fashion - there are some subtle differences, and creating a convincing HH-65 from it would take a LOT of effort. Actually, it's a real scam from Revell to market the Matchbox Dauphin as a HH-65!

 

However, it was my starting basis, and for a modernized/navalized/military version of the SA365 I made some changes. For instance, I gave the helicopter a fixed landing gear, with main wheels stub wings taken from a Pavla resin upgrade/conversion set for a Lynx HAS.2, which also comes with better wheels than the Matchbox kit. The Dauphin’s landing gear wells were filled with 2C putty and in the same process took the stub wings. The front landing gear well was filled with putty, too, and a adapter to hold the front twin wheel strut was embedded. Lots of lead were hidden under the cockpit floor to ensure that this model would not becaome a tail sitter.

A thimble radome was integrated into the nose with some PSR – I opted for this layout because the fixed landing gear would block 360° radar coverage under the fuselage, and there’s not too much ground clearance or space above then cabin for a radome. Putting it on top of the rotor would have been the only other option, but I found this rather awkward. As a side benefit, the new nose changes the helicopter’s silhouette well and adds to a purposeful look.

 

The rotor blades were replaced with resin BERP blades, taken from another Pavla Lynx conversion set (for the Hobby Boss kit). Because their attachment points were very different from the Matchbox Dauphin rotor’s construction, I had to improvise a little. A rather subtle change, but the result looks very plausible and works well. Other external extras are two inflatable floating devices along the lower fuselage from a Mistercraft ASW AB 212 (UH-1) kit, the winch at port side was scratched with a piece from the aforementioned BK 117 and styrene bits. Some blade antennae were added and a sensor turret was scratched and placed in front of the front wheels. Additional air scoops for the gearbox were added, too. Inside, I added two (Matchbox) pilot figures to the cockpit, plus a third seat for a medic/observer, a storage/equipment box and a stretcher from a Revell BK 117 rescue helicopter kit. This kit also donated some small details like the rear-view mirror for the pilot and the wire-cutters - not a typical detail for a helicopter operating over the open sea, but you never know...

 

The only other adition is a technical one: I integrated a vertical styrene pipe behind the cabin as a display holder adapter for the traditional hoto shooting's in-flight scenes.

  

Painting and markings:

It took some time to settle upon a design. I wanted something bright – initially I thought about Scottish colors (white and blue), but that was not garish enough, even with some dayglo additions. The typical all-yellow RAF SAR livery was also ruled out. In the end I decided to apply a more or less uniform livery in a very bright red: Humbrol 238, which is, probably due to trademark issues, marketed as “Arrow Red (= Red Arrows)” and effectively an almost fluorescent pinkish orange-red! Only the black anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen, the radome and the white interior of the fenestron tail rotor were painted, too, the rest was created with white decal stripes and evolved gradually. Things started with a white 2mm cheatline, then came the horizontal stripes on the tail, and taking this "theme" further I added something similar to the flanks as a high contrast base for the national markings. These were improvised, too, with a 6mm blue disc and single 1.5 mm bars to create a Scottish flag. The stancils were taken from the OOB decal sheet. The interior became medium grey, the crew received bright orange jumpsuits and white "bone domes".

 

No black ink washing or post-panel-shading was done, since the Dauphin has almost no surface details to emphasize, and I wanted a new and clean look. Besides, with wll the white trim, there was already a lot going on on the hull, so that I kept things "as they were". Finally, the model was sealed with a coat of semi-gloss acrylic varnish for a light shine, except for the rotor blades and the anti-glare panel, which became matt.

  

Quite a tricky project. While the Matchbox Dauphin is not a complex kit you need patience and have to stick to the assembly order to put the hull together. PSR is needed, esp. around the engine section and for the underside. On the other side, despite being a simple model, you get a nice Dauphin from the kit - but NOT a HH-65, sorry. My fictional conversion is certainly not better, but the bright result with its modifications looks good and quite convincing, though.

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 was strictly a jet aircraft, built to demonstrate that a jet fighter with the features necessary to convert to Battroid mode was aerodynamically feasible. After the VF-X's testing was finished, an advanced concept atmospheric-only prototype, the VF-0 Phoenix, was flight-tested from 2005 to 2007 and briefly served as an active-duty fighter from 2007 to the VF-1's rollout in late 2008, while the bugs were being worked out of the full-up VF-1 prototype (VF-X-1).

 

The space-capable VF-1's combat debut was on February 7, 2009, during the Battle of South Ataria Island - the first battle of Space War I - and remained the mainstay fighter of the U.N. Spacy for the entire conflict. Introduced in 2008, the VF-1 would be out of frontline service just five years later, though.

 

The VF-1 proved to be an extremely capable craft, successfully combating a variety of Zentraedi mecha even in most sorties which saw UN Spacy forces significantly outnumbered. The versatility of the Valkyrie design enabled the variable fighter to act as both large-scale infantry and as air/space superiority fighter. The signature skills of U.N. Spacy ace pilot Maximilian Jenius exemplified the effectiveness of the variable systems as he near-constantly transformed the Valkyrie in battle to seize advantages of each mode as combat conditions changed from moment to moment.

 

The basic VF-1 was deployed in four minor variants (designated A, D, J, and S) and its success was increased by continued development of various enhancements including the GBP-1S "Armored" Valkyrie, FAST Pack "Super" Valkyrie and the additional RÖ-X2 heavy cannon pack weapon system for the VF-1S for additional firepower.

The FAST Pack system was designed to enhance the VF-1 Valkyrie variable fighter, and the initial V1.0 came in the form of conformal pallets that could be attached to the fighter’s leg flanks for additional fuel – primarily for Long Range Interdiction tasks in atmospheric environment. Later FAST Packs were designed for space operations.

 

After the end of Space War I, the VF-1 continued to be manufactured both in the Sol system and throughout the UNG space colonies. Although the VF-1 would be replaced in 2020 as the primary Variable Fighter of the U.N. Spacy by the more capable, but also much bigger, VF-4 Lightning III, a long service record and continued production after the war proved the lasting worth of the design.

The versatile aircraft also underwent constant upgrade programs. For instance, about a third of all VF-1 Valkyries were upgraded with Infrared Search and Track (IRST) systems from 2016 onwards, placed in a streamlined fairing on the upper side of the nose, just in front of the cockpit. This system allowed for long-range search and track modes, freeing the pilot from the need to give away his position with active radar emissions, and it could also be used for target illumination and guiding precision weapons.

Many Valkyries also received improved radar warning systems, with receivers, depending on the systems, mounted on the wing-tips, on the fins and/or on the LERXs. Improved ECR measures were also mounted on some machines, typically in conformal fairings on the flanks of the legs/engine pods.

 

After joining the global U.N. Spacy union, Germany adopted the VF-1 in late 2008, it replaced the Eurofighter Typhoon interceptors as well as Tornado IDS and ECR fighter bombers. An initial delivery of 120 aircraft was completed until 2011, partially delayed by the outbreak of Space War One in 2009. This initial batch included 85 VF-1A single seaters, fourteen VF-1J fighters for commanders and staff leaders, and twenty VF-1D two-seaters for conversion training over Germany (even though initial Valkyrie training took place at Ataria Island). These machines were erratically registered under the tactical codes 26+01 to 26+99. Additionally, there was a single VF-1S (27+00) as a personal mount for the General der Luftwaffe.

 

The German single-seaters were delivered as multi-role fighters that could operate as interceptors/air superiority fighters as well as attack aircraft. Beyond the standard equipment they also carried a passive IRST sensor in front of the cockpit that allowed target acquisition without emitting radar impulses, a LRMTS (Laser Rangefinder and Marked Target Sensor) under the nose, a Weapon Delivery and Navigation System (WDNS) and an extended suite of radar warning sensors and ECM jammers.

After Space War I, attritions were replaced with a second batch of VF-1 single seaters in 2015, called VF-1L (for “Luftwaffe”). These machines had updated avionics and, among modifications, a laser target designator in a small external pod under the cockpit. About forty VF-1 survivors from the first batch were upgraded to this standard, too, and the VF-1Ls were registered under the codes 27+01 – 90.

 

The VF-1 was without doubt the most recognizable variable fighter of Space War I and was seen as a vibrant symbol of the U.N. Spacy even into the first year of the New Era 0001 in 2013. At the end of 2015 the final rollout of the VF-1 was celebrated at a special ceremony, commemorating this most famous of variable fighters. The VF-1 Valkryie was built from 2006 to 2013 with a total production of 5,459 VF-1 variable fighters with several variants (VF-1A = 5,093, VF-1D = 85, VF-1J = 49, VF-1S = 30, VF-1G = 12, VE-1 = 122, VT-1 = 68)

 

However, 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:

All-environment variable fighter and tactical combat Battroid,

used by U.N. Spacy, U.N. Navy, U.N. Space Air Force

 

Accommodation:

Pilot only in Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

 

Dimensions:

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

 

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

 

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons;

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons;

MTOW: 37.0 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)

4x 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);

18x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles

 

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

Fighter Mode: at 10,000 m Mach 2.71; at 30,000+ m Mach 3.87

g limit: in space +7

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

 

Design Features:

3-mode variable transformation; variable geometry wing; vertical take-off and landing; control-configurable vehicle; single-axis thrust vectoring; three "magic hand" manipulators for maintenance use; retractable canopy shield for Battroid mode and atmospheric reentry; option of GBP-1S system, atmospheric-escape booster, or FAST Pack system

 

Transformation:

Standard time from Fighter to Battroid (automated): under 5 sec.

Min. time from Fighter to Battroid (manual): 0.9 sec.

 

Armament:

2x internal Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon, firing 6,000 pulses per minute

1x Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rds/min

4x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, including

12x AMM-1 hybrid guided multipurpose missiles (3/point), or

12x MK-82 LDGB conventional bombs (3/point), or

6x RMS-1 large anti-ship reaction missiles (2/outboard point, 1/inboard point), or

4x UUM-7 micro-missile pods (1/point) each carrying 15 x Bifors HMM-01 micro-missiles,

or a combination of above load-outs

  

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional VF-1 is more or less “only” a camouflage experiment, spawned by a recent discussion about the German Luftwaffe’s so-called “Norm ‘81” paint scheme that was carried by the F-4Fs during the Eighties and the early Nineties. It is one of the most complex standardized paint scheme I am aware of, consisting of no less than six basic shades of grey and applied in two different patterns (early variant with angled/splinter camouflage, later this was changed into more organic shapes).

 

I have built a fictional post-GDR MiG-21 with the Norm ’81 scheme some years ago, but had always been curious how a Macross VF-1 would look with it, or how it could be adapted to the F-14esque airframe?

 

Concerning the model, it’s another vintage ARII VF-1, in this case a VF-1J, built OOB and with the landing gear down and an open canopy. However, I added some small details like the sensors in front of the cockpit, RHAWS sensors and bulges for ECM equipment on the lower legs (all canonical). The ordnance was subtly changed, with just two AMM-1 missiles on each outer pylon plus small ECM pods on the lo hardpoint (procured from an 1:144 Tornado). The inner stations were modified to hold quadruple starters for (fictional) air-to-ground missiles, left over from a Zvezda 1:72 Ka-58 helicopter and probably depicting Soviet/Russian 9M119 “Svir” laser-guided anti-tank missiles, or at least something similar. At the model’s 1:100 scale they are large enough to represent domestic alternatives to AGM-65 Maverick missiles – suitable against Zentraedi pods and other large ground targets. The ventral GU-11 pod was modified to hold a scratched wire display for in-flight pictures. Some blade antennae were added as a standard measure to improve the simple kit’s look. The cockpit was taken OOB, I just added a pilot figure for the scenic shots and the thick canopy was later mounted on a small lift arm in open position.

 

Painting and markings:

This was quite a challenge: adapting the Norm’ 81 scheme to the swing-wing Valkyrie, with its folded legs and the twin tail as well as lacking the Phantom’s spine and bulged air intakes, was not easy, and I went for the most straightforward solution and simplified things on the VF-1’s short spine.

 

The Norm ‘81’s “official” colors are all RAL tones, and I decided to use these for an authentic lokk, namely:

RAL 7009 Grüngrau: Revell 67 (acrylic)

RAL 7012 Basaltgrau: Revell 77 (acrylic)

RAL 7039 Quarzgrau: Xtracolor X259 (enamel)

RAL 7037 Staubgrau: Xtracolor X258 (enamel)

RAL 7030 Steingrau: Revell 75 (enamel)

RAL 7035 Lichtgrau: Humbrol 196 (enamel)

 

This basically plan worked and left me with a very murky aircraft: Norm ’81 turned out to be a kind of all-propose camouflage that works well against both sky and ground, at least in the typical German climate, and especially good at medium to low altitude. RAL 7030, 7037 and 7039 appear like gradually darker shades of the basically same brownish grey hue, framed with darker contrast areas that appear either greenish or bluish.

 

However, the Xtracolor enamels turned out to be total sh!t: they lacked pigments in the glossy and translucent base and therefore ANY opacity, esp. on any edge, at least when you use a brush like me. Not certain if using an airbrush improves this? The result were uneven and rather thick areas of paint, not what I had hoped for. And the Revell 75 just did what I hate about the company's enamels: drying up prematurely with a gooey consistency, leaving visible streaks.

 

After a black ink wash, very light post-shading was added. I should have from the start tried to stick to the acrylics and also mix the Xtracolor tones from Revell acrylics, a stunt that turned during the weathering process (trying to hide the many blemishes) out to be quite feasible. RAL 7037 was mixed from Revell 47 plus 89 in a ~1:1 ratio, and RAL 7039 from Revell 47, 77 and 87 with a touch of 09. Nevertheless, the paint finish turned out sub-optimal, but some shading and weathering saved most of the mess – even I am not satisfied with the outcome, the model looks more weathered than intended (even though most operational German F-4Fs with this paint scheme looked quite shaggy and worn, making the different shades of grey almost undiscernible).

 

After some consideration I gave this German VF-1 full-color (yet small) "Kite" roundels, together with a German tactical code. German flags and a vintage JaboG 32 squadron badge decorate the fin - a plausible move, because there are British Valkyries in source books that carry RAF fin flashes. Stencils and other markings came from VF-1 OOB sheets.

Finally, after some typical highlights with clear paint over a silver base were added, and the small VF-1 was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish.

  

A spontaneous interim project, with interesting results. The adapted Norm ’81 scheme works well on the VF-1, and it even is a contemporary design from the era when the original TV series was conceived and aired. With the authentic tones I’d call it quite ugly – even though I was amazed during the photo session how well the different shades of grey (four from above!) blend into each other and break up the aircraft’s outlines. If there were no red-and-white roundels or the orange pilot in the cockpit (chosen intentionally for some color contrast), the camouflage would be very effective! Not perfect, but another special member in my growing VF-1 model fleet. ^^

 

In the midst of the Korean War, the United States Air Force determined it needed an all-weather tactical bomber capable of the low-level interdiction of enemy ground transports. Designed by English Electric Aviation, the twin jet-engine Canberra light bomber won the competition, becoming the first foreign designed military aircraft to be produced in the United States since the First World War. Behind in Canberra orders to the RAF, English Electric granted Martin Aviation the contract to produce the newly designated B-57 in the United States. Although the Martin Company began with the sleek Canberra jet-bomber, they made significant improvements re-configuring the aircraft with powerful Wright J65 engines, adding wingtip fuel tanks, reducing the crew from three to two and installing bomb-bay doors that rotated into the fuselage to decrease drag.

 

The first production B-57 flew on July 20, 1953, seven days before the Armistice ending the Korean War. By August, the USAF had accepted the B-57 for production. Between 1953 and 1957, 403 B-57s were built in various configurations.

 

The War in Vietnam brought the B-57 into conflict for the first time when two RB-57Es arrived in Southeast Asia in April of 1963 to fly reconnaissance sorties. By August of the next year, B-57B bombers from the Air Force's 8th and 13th Bomb Squadrons were engaged in night interdiction missions from bases in Bien Hoa, Vietnam. 1966 saw the B-57 contingent transferred to Phan Rang Air Base to conduct operations centered on the Ho Chi Minh trail and the Viet Cong strongholds in Binh Duong Province known as the "Iron Triangle." A total of 94 B-57Bs were deployed to Southeast Asia, 51 were lost in combat and seven to other causes. By 1969, only nine survived.

 

March Field Air Museum's B-57B, serial number 52-1519 is one of those rare survivors. Beginning life as a "D" model, it was delivered to the Air Force on March 29, 1955. During its operational life, it saw service with the 8th Tactical Bombing Squadron, Air National Guard Units in Kansas and Kentucky, PACAF units at Clark AB, Philippines, and Phan Rang AB, Vietnam. From 1969 to 1972, 52-1519 was stored at the "boneyard" at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ. In 1973 it was converted to an EB-57B for an Electronic Counter-Measures (ECM) role, and flew with the 158th Defense Systems Evaluation Group of the Vermont Air National Guard from 1974-1981. This aircraft is currently on loan from the USAF.

Posted via email to ☛ HoloChromaCinePhotoRamaScope‽: cdevers.posterous.com/enterprise-0. See the full gallery on Posterous ...

 

• • • • •

 

See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.

 

Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Space Shuttle Enterprise:

 

Manufacturer:

Rockwell International Corporation

 

Country of Origin:

United States of America

 

Dimensions:

Overall: 57 ft. tall x 122 ft. long x 78 ft. wing span, 150,000 lb.

(1737.36 x 3718.57 x 2377.44cm, 68039.6kg)

 

Materials:

Aluminum airframe and body with some fiberglass features; payload bay doors are graphite epoxy composite; thermal tiles are simulated (polyurethane foam) except for test samples of actual tiles and thermal blankets.

 

The first Space Shuttle orbiter, "Enterprise," is a full-scale test vehicle used for flights in the atmosphere and tests on the ground; it is not equipped for spaceflight. Although the airframe and flight control elements are like those of the Shuttles flown in space, this vehicle has no propulsion system and only simulated thermal tiles because these features were not needed for atmospheric and ground tests. "Enterprise" was rolled out at Rockwell International's assembly facility in Palmdale, California, in 1976. In 1977, it entered service for a nine-month-long approach-and-landing test flight program. Thereafter it was used for vibration tests and fit checks at NASA centers, and it also appeared in the 1983 Paris Air Show and the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans. In 1985, NASA transferred "Enterprise" to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

 

Transferred from National Aeronautics and Space Administration

 

• • •

 

Quoting from Wikipedia | Space Shuttle Enterprise:

 

The Space Shuttle Enterprise (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-101) was the first Space Shuttle orbiter. It was built for NASA as part of the Space Shuttle program to perform test flights in the atmosphere. It was constructed without engines or a functional heat shield, and was therefore not capable of spaceflight.

 

Originally, Enterprise had been intended to be refitted for orbital flight, which would have made it the second space shuttle to fly after Columbia. However, during the construction of Columbia, details of the final design changed, particularly with regard to the weight of the fuselage and wings. Refitting Enterprise for spaceflight would have involved dismantling the orbiter and returning the sections to subcontractors across the country. As this was an expensive proposition, it was determined to be less costly to build Challenger around a body frame (STA-099) that had been created as a test article. Similarly, Enterprise was considered for refit to replace Challenger after the latter was destroyed, but Endeavour was built from structural spares instead.

  

Service

 

Construction began on the first orbiter on June 4, 1974. Designated OV-101, it was originally planned to be named Constitution and unveiled on Constitution Day, September 17, 1976. A write-in campaign by Trekkies to President Gerald Ford asked that the orbiter be named after the Starship Enterprise, featured on the television show Star Trek. Although Ford did not mention the campaign, the president—who during World War II had served on the aircraft carrier USS Monterey (CVL-26) that served with USS Enterprise (CV-6)—said that he was "partial to the name" and overrode NASA officials.

 

The design of OV-101 was not the same as that planned for OV-102, the first flight model; the tail was constructed differently, and it did not have the interfaces to mount OMS pods. A large number of subsystems—ranging from main engines to radar equipment—were not installed on this vehicle, but the capacity to add them in the future was retained. Instead of a thermal protection system, its surface was primarily fiberglass.

 

In mid-1976, the orbiter was used for ground vibration tests, allowing engineers to compare data from an actual flight vehicle with theoretical models.

 

On September 17, 1976, Enterprise was rolled out of Rockwell's plant at Palmdale, California. In recognition of its fictional namesake, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and most of the principal cast of the original series of Star Trek were on hand at the dedication ceremony.

 

Approach and landing tests (ALT)

 

Main article: Approach and Landing Tests

 

On January 31, 1977, it was taken by road to Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, to begin operational testing.

 

While at NASA Dryden, Enterprise was used by NASA for a variety of ground and flight tests intended to validate aspects of the shuttle program. The initial nine-month testing period was referred to by the acronym ALT, for "Approach and Landing Test". These tests included a maiden "flight" on February 18, 1977 atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) to measure structural loads and ground handling and braking characteristics of the mated system. Ground tests of all orbiter subsystems were carried out to verify functionality prior to atmospheric flight.

 

The mated Enterprise/SCA combination was then subjected to five test flights with Enterprise unmanned and unactivated. The purpose of these test flights was to measure the flight characteristics of the mated combination. These tests were followed with three test flights with Enterprise manned to test the shuttle flight control systems.

 

Enterprise underwent five free flights where the craft separated from the SCA and was landed under astronaut control. These tests verified the flight characteristics of the orbiter design and were carried out under several aerodynamic and weight configurations. On the fifth and final glider flight, pilot-induced oscillation problems were revealed, which had to be addressed before the first orbital launch occurred.

 

On August 12, 1977, the space shuttle Enterprise flew on its own for the first time.

 

Preparation for STS-1

 

Following the ALT program, Enterprise was ferried among several NASA facilities to configure the craft for vibration testing. In June 1979, it was mated with an external tank and solid rocket boosters (known as a boilerplate configuration) and tested in a launch configuration at Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39A.

 

Retirement

 

With the completion of critical testing, Enterprise was partially disassembled to allow certain components to be reused in other shuttles, then underwent an international tour visiting France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the U.S. states of California, Alabama, and Louisiana (during the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition). It was also used to fit-check the never-used shuttle launch pad at Vandenberg AFB, California. Finally, on November 18, 1985, Enterprise was ferried to Washington, D.C., where it became property of the Smithsonian Institution.

 

Post-Challenger

 

After the Challenger disaster, NASA considered using Enterprise as a replacement. However refitting the shuttle with all of the necessary equipment needed for it to be used in space was considered, but instead it was decided to use spares constructed at the same time as Discovery and Atlantis to build Endeavour.

 

Post-Columbia

 

In 2003, after the breakup of Columbia during re-entry, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board conducted tests at Southwest Research Institute, which used an air gun to shoot foam blocks of similar size, mass and speed to that which struck Columbia at a test structure which mechanically replicated the orbiter wing leading edge. They removed a fiberglass panel from Enterprise's wing to perform analysis of the material and attached it to the test structure, then shot a foam block at it. While the panel was not broken as a result of the test, the impact was enough to permanently deform a seal. As the reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panel on Columbia was 2.5 times weaker, this suggested that the RCC leading edge would have been shattered. Additional tests on the fiberglass were canceled in order not to risk damaging the test apparatus, and a panel from Discovery was tested to determine the effects of the foam on a similarly-aged RCC leading edge. On July 7, 2003, a foam impact test created a hole 41 cm by 42.5 cm (16.1 inches by 16.7 inches) in the protective RCC panel. The tests clearly demonstrated that a foam impact of the type Columbia sustained could seriously breach the protective RCC panels on the wing leading edge.

 

The board determined that the probable cause of the accident was that the foam impact caused a breach of a reinforced carbon-carbon panel along the leading edge of Columbia's left wing, allowing hot gases generated during re-entry to enter the wing and cause structural collapse. This caused Columbia to spin out of control, breaking up with the loss of the entire crew.

 

Museum exhibit

 

Enterprise was stored at the Smithsonian's hangar at Washington Dulles International Airport before it was restored and moved to the newly built Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport, where it has been the centerpiece of the space collection. On April 12, 2011, NASA announced that Space Shuttle Discovery, the most traveled orbiter in the fleet, will be added to the collection once the Shuttle fleet is retired. When that happens, Enterprise will be moved to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City, to a newly constructed hangar adjacent to the museum. In preparation for the anticipated relocation, engineers evaluated the vehicle in early 2010 and determined that it was safe to fly on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft once again.

Incense is aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burned. The term refers to the material itself, rather than to the aroma that it produces. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, and in therapy, meditation, and ceremony. It may also be used as a simple deodorant or insectifuge.

 

Incense is composed of aromatic plant materials, often combined with essential oils. The forms taken by incense differ with the underlying culture, and have changed with advances in technology and increasing number of uses.

 

Incense can generally be separated into two main types: "indirect-burning" and "direct-burning". Indirect-burning incense (or "non-combustible incense") is not capable of burning on its own, and requires a separate heat source. Direct-burning incense (or "combustible incense") is lit directly by a flame and then fanned or blown out, leaving a glowing ember that smoulders and releases a smoky fragrance. Direct-burning incense is either a paste formed around a bamboo stick, or a paste that is extruded into a stick or cone shape.

 

HISTORY

The word incense comes from Latin incendere meaning "to burn".

 

Combustible bouquets were used by the ancient Egyptians, who employed incense in both pragmatic and mystical capacities. Incense was burnt to counteract or obscure malodorous products of human habitation, but was widely perceived to also deter malevolent demons and appease the gods with its pleasant aroma. Resin balls were found in many prehistoric Egyptian tombs in El Mahasna, giving evidence for the prominence of incense and related compounds in Egyptian antiquity. One of the oldest extant incense burners originates from the 5th dynasty. The Temple of Deir-el-Bahari in Egypt contains a series of carvings that depict an expedition for incense.

 

The Babylonians used incense while offering prayers to divining oracles. Incense spread from there to Greece and Rome.

 

Incense burners have been found in the Indus Civilization (3300–1300 BCE). Evidence suggests oils were used mainly for their aroma. India also adopted techniques from East Asia, adapting the formulation to encompass aromatic roots and other indigenous flora. This was the first usage of subterranean plant parts in incense. New herbs like Sarsaparilla seeds, frankincense, and cypress were used by Indians.

 

At around 2000 BCE, Ancient China began the use of incense in the religious sense, namely for worship. Incense was used by Chinese cultures from Neolithic times and became more widespread in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. The earliest documented use of incense comes from the ancient Chinese, who employed incense composed of herbs and plant products (such as cassia, cinnamon, styrax, and sandalwood) as a component of numerous formalized ceremonial rites. Incense usage reached its peak during the Song dynasty with numerous buildings erected specifically for incense ceremonies.

 

Brought to Japan in the 6th century by Korean Buddhist monks, who used the mystical aromas in their purification rites, the delicate scents of Koh (high-quality Japanese incense) became a source of amusement and entertainment with nobles in the Imperial Court during the Heian Era 200 years later. During the 14th-century Ashikaga shogunate, a samurai warrior might perfume his helmet and armor with incense to achieve an aura of invincibility (as well as to make a noble gesture to whoever might take his head in battle). It wasn't until the Muromachi period during the 15th and 16th century that incense appreciation (kōdō) spread to the upper and middle classes of Japanese society.

 

COMPOSITION

A variety of materials have been used in making incense. Historically there has been a preference for using locally available ingredients. For example, sage and cedar were used by the indigenous peoples of North America. Trading in incense materials comprised a major part of commerce along the Silk Road and other trade routes, one notably called the Incense Route.

 

Local knowledge and tools were extremely influential on the style, but methods were also influenced by migrations of foreigners, such as clergy and physicians.

 

COMBUSTIBLE BASE

The combustible base of a direct burning incense mixture not only binds the fragrant material together but also allows the produced incense to burn with a self-sustained ember, which propagates slowly and evenly through an entire piece of incense with such regularity that it can be used to mark time. The base is chosen such that it does not produce a perceptible smell. Commercially, two types of incense base predominate:

 

Fuel and oxidizer mixtures: Charcoal or wood powder provides the fuel for combustion while an oxidizer such as sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate sustains the burning of the incense. Fragrant materials are added to the base prior to shaping, as in the case of powdered incense materials, or after, as in the case of essential oils. The formula for charcoal-based incense is superficially similar to black powder, though it lacks the sulfur.

Natural plant-based binders: Gums such as Gum Arabic or Gum Tragacanth are used to bind the mixture together. Mucilaginous material, which can be derived from many botanical sources, is mixed with fragrant materials and water. The mucilage from the wet binding powder holds the fragrant material together while the cellulose in the powder combusts to form a stable ember when lit. The dry binding powder usually comprises about 10% of the dry weight in the finished incense. These include:

Makko (incense powder) made from the bark of various trees in the genus Persea (such as Persea thunbergii)

Xiangnan pi (made from the bark of trees of genus Phoebe such as Phoebe nanmu or Persea zuihoensis.

Jigit: a resin based binder used in India

Laha or Dar: bark based powders used in Nepal, Tibet, and other East Asian countries.

 

Typical compositions burn at a temperature between 220 °C and 260 °C.

 

TYPES

Incense is available in various forms and degrees of processing. They can generally be separated into "direct-burning" and "indirect-burning" types. Preference for one form or another varies with culture, tradition, and personal taste. The two differ in their composition due to the former's requirement for even, stable, and sustained burning.

 

INDIRECT-BURNING

Indirect-burning incense, also called "non-combustible incense", is an aromatic material or combination of materials, such as resins, that does not contain combustible material and so requires a separate heat source. Finer forms tend to burn more rapidly, while coarsely ground or whole chunks may be consumed very gradually, having less surface area. Heat is traditionally provided by charcoal or glowing embers. In the West, the best known incense materials of this type are the resins frankincense and myrrh, likely due to their numerous mentions in the Bible. Frankincense means "pure incense", though in common usage refers specifically to the resin of the boswellia tree.

 

Whole: The incense material is burned directly in raw form on top of coal embers.

Powdered or granulated: Incense broken into smaller pieces burns quickly and provides brief but intense odor.

Paste: Powdered or granulated incense material is mixed with a sticky incombustible binder, such as dried fruit, honey, or a soft resin and then formed to balls or small pastilles. These may then be allowed to mature in a controlled environment where the fragrances can commingle and unite. Much Arabian incense, also called "Bukhoor" or "Bakhoor", is of this type, and Japan has a history of kneaded incense, called nerikō or awasekō, made using this method. Within the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, raw frankincense is ground into a fine powder and then mixed with various sweet-smelling essential oils.

 

DIRECT-BURNING

Direct-burning incense, also called "combustible incense", is lit directly by a flame. The glowing ember on the incense will continue to smoulder and burn the rest of the incense without further application of external heat or flame. Direct-burning incense is either extruded, pressed into forms, or coated onto a supporting material. This class of incense is made from a moldable substrate of fragrant finely ground (or liquid) incense materials and odourless binder. The composition must be adjusted to provide fragrance in the proper concentration and to ensure even burning. The following types are commonly encountered, though direct-burning incense can take nearly any form, whether for expedience or whimsy.

 

Coil: Extruded and shaped into a coil without a core, coil incense can burn for an extended period, from hours to days, and is commonly produced and used in Chinese cultures.

 

Cone: Incense in this form burns relatively quickly. Incense cones were invented in Japan in the 1800s.

Cored stick: A supporting core of bamboo is coated with a thick layer of incense material that burns away with the core. Higher-quality variations have fragrant sandalwood cores. This type of incense is commonly produced in India and China. When used in Chinese folk religion, these are sometimes known as "joss sticks".

Dhoop or solid stick: With no bamboo core, dhoop incense is easily broken for portion control. This is the most commonly produced form of incense in Japan and Tibet.

Powder: The loose incense powder used for making indirect burning incense is sometimes burned without further processing. Powder incense is typically packed into long trails on top of wood ash using a stencil and burned in special censers or incense clocks.

Paper: Paper infused with incense, folded accordion style, is lit and blown out. Examples include Carta d'Armenia and Papier d'Arménie.

Rope: The incense powder is rolled into paper sheets, which are then rolled into ropes, twisted tightly, then doubled over and twisted again, yielding a two-strand rope. The larger end is the bight, and may be stood vertically, in a shallow dish of sand or pebbles. The smaller (pointed) end is lit. This type of incense is easily transported and stays fresh for extremely long periods. It has been used for centuries in Tibet and Nepal.

 

Moxa tablets, which are disks of powdered mugwort used in Traditional Chinese medicine for moxibustion, are not incenses; the treatment is by heat rather than fragrance.

Incense sticks may be termed joss sticks, especially in parts of East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Among ethnic Chinese and Chinese-influenced communities these are traditionally burned at temples, before the threshold of a home or business, before an image of a religious divinity or local spirit, or in shrines, large and small, found at the main entrance of every village. Here the earth god is propitiated in the hope of bringing wealth and health to the village. They can also be burned in front of a door or open window as an offering to heaven, or the devas. The word "joss" is derived from the Latin deus (god) via the Portuguese deos through the Javanese dejos, through Chinese pidgin English.

 

PRODUCTION

The raw materials are powdered and then mixed together with a binder to form a paste, which, for direct burning incense, is then cut and dried into pellets. Incense of the Athonite Orthodox Christian tradition is made by powdering frankincense or fir resin, mixing it with essential oils. Floral fragrances are the most common, but citrus such as lemon is not uncommon. The incense mixture is then rolled out into a slab approximately 1 cm thick and left until the slab has firmed. It is then cut into small cubes, coated with clay powder to prevent adhesion, and allowed to fully harden and dry. In Greece this rolled incense resin is called 'Moskolibano', and generally comes in either a pink or green colour denoting the fragrance, with pink being rose and green being jasmine.

 

Certain proportions are necessary for direct-burning incense:

 

Oil content: an excess of oils may prevent incense from smoldering effectively. Resinous materials such as myrrh and frankincense are typically balanced with "dry" materials such as wood, bark and leaf powders.

Oxidizer quantity: Too little oxidizer in gum-bound incense may prevent the incense from igniting, while too much will cause the incense to burn too quickly, without producing fragrant smoke.

Binder: Water-soluble binders such as "makko" ensure that the incense mixture does not crumble when dry, dilute the mixture.

Mixture density: Incense mixtures made with natural binders must not be combined with too much water in mixing, or over-compressed while being formed, which would result in either uneven air distribution or undesirable density in the mixture, causing the incense to burn unevenly, too slowly, or too quickly.

Particulate size: The incense mixture has to be well pulverized with similarly sized particulates. Uneven and large particulates result in uneven burning and inconsistent aroma production when burned.

 

"Dipped" or "hand-dipped" direct-burning incense is created by dipping "incense blanks" made of unscented combustible dust into any suitable kind of essential or fragrance oil. These are often sold in the United States by flea-market and sidewalk vendors who have developed their own styles. This form of incense requires the least skill and equipment to manufacture, since the blanks are pre-formed in China or South East Asia.

 

Incense mixtures can be extruded or pressed into shapes. Small quantities of water are combined with the fragrance and incense base mixture and kneaded into a hard dough. The incense dough is then pressed into shaped forms to create cone and smaller coiled incense, or forced through a hydraulic press for solid stick incense. The formed incense is then trimmed and slowly dried. Incense produced in this fashion has a tendency to warp or become misshapen when improperly dried, and as such must be placed in climate-controlled rooms and rotated several times through the drying process.

 

Traditionally, the bamboo core of cored stick incense is prepared by hand from Phyllostachys heterocycla cv. pubescens since this species produces thick wood and easily burns to ashes in the incense stick. In a process known as "splitting the foot of the incense stick", the bamboo is trimmed to length, soaked, peeled, and split in halves until the thin sticks of bamboo have square cross sections of less than 3mm. This process has been largely replaced by machines in modern incense production.

 

In the case of cored incensed sticks, several methods are employed to coat the sticks cores with incense mixture:

 

Paste rolling: A wet, malleable paste of incense mixture is first rolled into a long, thin coil, using a paddle. Then, a thin stick is put next to the coil and the stick and paste are rolled together until the stick is centered in the mixture and the desired thickness is achieved. The stick is then cut to the desired length and dried.

Powder-coating: Powder-coating is used mainly to produce cored incense of either larger coil (up to 1 meter in diameter) or cored stick forms. A bundle of the supporting material (typically thin bamboo or sandalwood slivers) is soaked in water or a thin water/glue mixture for a short time. The thin sticks are evenly separated, then dipped into a tray of incense powder consisting of fragrance materials and occasionally a plant-based binder. The dry incense powder is then tossed and piled over the sticks while they are spread apart. The sticks are then gently rolled and packed to maintain roundness while more incense powder is repeatedly tossed onto the sticks. Three to four layers of powder are coated onto the sticks, forming a 2 mm thick layer of incense material on the stick. The coated incense is then allowed to dry in open air. Additional coatings of incense mixture can be applied after each period of successive drying. Incense sticks produced in this fashion and burned in temples of Chinese folk religion can have a thickness between 2 and 4 millimeters.

Compression: A damp powder is mechanically formed around a cored stick by compression, similar to the way uncored sticks are formed. This form is becoming more common due to the higher labor cost of producing powder-coated or paste-rolled sticks.

 

BURNING INCENSE

Indirect-burning incense burned directly on top of a heat source or on a hot metal plate in a censer or thurible.

 

In Japan a similar censer called a egōro (柄香炉) is used by several Buddhist sects. The egōro is usually made of brass, with a long handle and no chain. Instead of charcoal, makkō powder is poured into a depression made in a bed of ash. The makkō is lit and the incense mixture is burned on top. This method is known as sonae-kō (religious burning).

 

For direct-burning incense, the tip or end of the incense is ignited with a flame or other heat source until the incense begins to turn into ash at the burning end. The flame is then fanned or blown out, leaving the incense to smolder.

 

CULTURAL VARIATIONS

ARABIAN

In most Arab countries, incense is burned in the form of scented chips or blocks called bakhoor (Arabic: بخور‎ [bɑˈxuːɾ, bʊ-]. Incense is used on special occasions like weddings or on Fridays or generally to perfume the house. The bakhoor is usually burned in a mabkhara, a traditional incense burner (censer) similar to the Somali Dabqaad. It is customary in many Arab countries to pass bakhoor among the guests in the majlis ('congregation'). This is done as a gesture of hospitality.

 

CHINESE

For over two thousand years, the Chinese have used incense in religious ceremonies, ancestor veneration, Traditional Chinese medicine, and daily life. Agarwood (chénxiāng) and sandalwood (tánxiāng) are the two most important ingredients in Chinese incense.

 

Along with the introduction of Buddhism in China came calibrated incense sticks and incense clocks. The first known record is by poet Yu Jianwu (487-551): "By burning incense we know the o'clock of the night, With graduated candles we confirm the tally of the watches." The use of these incense timekeeping devices spread from Buddhist monasteries into Chinese secular society.

Incense-stick burning is an everyday practice in traditional Chinese religion. There are many different types of stick used for different purposes or on different festive days. Many of them are long and thin. Sticks are mostly coloured yellow, red, or more rarely, black. Thick sticks are used for special ceremonies, such as funerals. Spiral incense, with exceedingly long burn times, is often hung from temple ceilings. In some states, such as Taiwan,

 

Singapore, or Malaysia, where they celebrate the Ghost Festival, large, pillar-like dragon incense sticks are sometimes used. These generate so much smoke and heat that they are only burned outside.

 

Chinese incense sticks for use in popular religion are generally odorless or only use the slightest trace of jasmine or rose, since it is the smoke, not the scent, which is important in conveying the prayers of the faithful to heaven. They are composed of the dried powdered bark of a non-scented species of cinnamon native to Cambodia, Cinnamomum cambodianum. Inexpensive packs of 300 are often found for sale in Chinese supermarkets. Though they contain no sandalwood, they often include the Chinese character for sandalwood on the label, as a generic term for incense.

 

Highly scented Chinese incense sticks are used by some Buddhists. These are often quite expensive due to the use of large amounts of sandalwood, agarwood, or floral scents used. The sandalwood used in Chinese incenses does not come from India, its native home, but rather from groves planted within Chinese territory. Sites belonging to Tzu Chi, Chung Tai Shan, Dharma Drum Mountain, Xingtian Temple, or City of Ten Thousand Buddhas do not use incense.

 

INDIAN

Incense sticks, also known as agarbathi (or agarbatti) and joss sticks, in which an incense paste is rolled or moulded around a bamboo stick, are the main forms of incense in India. The bamboo method originated in India, and is distinct from the Nepali/Tibetan and Japanese methods of stick making without bamboo cores. Though the method is also used in the west, it is strongly associated with India.

 

The basic ingredients are the bamboo stick, the paste (generally made of charcoal dust and joss/jiggit/gum/tabu powder – an adhesive made from the bark of litsea glutinosa and other trees), and the perfume ingredients - which would be a masala (spice mix) powder of ground ingredients into which the stick would be rolled, or a perfume liquid sometimes consisting of synthetic ingredients into which the stick would be dipped. Perfume is sometimes sprayed on the coated sticks. Stick machines are sometimes used, which coat the stick with paste and perfume, though the bulk of production is done by hand rolling at home. There are about 5,000 incense companies in India that take raw unperfumed sticks hand-rolled by approximately 200,000 women working part-time at home, and then apply their own brand of perfume, and package the sticks for sale. An experienced home-worker can produce 4,000 raw sticks a day. There are about 50 large companies that together account for up to 30% of the market, and around 500 of the companies, including a significant number of the main ones, including Moksh Agarbatti and Cycle Pure, are based in Mysore.

 

JEWISH TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM

KETORET

Ketoret was the incense offered in the Temple in Jerusalem and is stated in the Book of Exodus to be a mixture of stacte, onycha, galbanum and frankincense.

 

TIBETAN

Tibetan incense refers to a common style of incense found in Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. These incenses have a characteristic "earthy" scent to them. Ingredients vary from cinnamon, clove, and juniper, to kusum flower, ashvagandha, and sahi jeera.

 

Many Tibetan incenses are thought to have medicinal properties. Their recipes come from ancient Vedic texts that are based on even older Ayurvedic medical texts. The recipes have remained unchanged for centuries.

 

JAPANESE

In Japan incense appreciation folklore includes art, culture, history, and ceremony. It can be compared to and has some of the same qualities as music, art, or literature. Incense burning may occasionally take place within the tea ceremony, just like calligraphy, ikebana, and scroll arrangement. The art of incense appreciation, or koh-do, is generally practiced as a separate art form from the tea ceremony, and usually within a tea room of traditional Zen design.

 

Agarwood (沈香 Jinkō) and sandalwood (白檀 byakudan) are the two most important ingredients in Japanese incense. Agarwood is known as "jinkō" in Japan, which translates as "incense that sinks in water", due to the weight of the resin in the wood. Sandalwood is one of the most calming incense ingredients and lends itself well to meditation. It is also used in the Japanese tea ceremony. The most valued Sandalwood comes from Mysore in the state of Karnataka in India.

 

Another important ingredient in Japanese incense is kyara (伽羅). Kyara is one kind of agarwood (Japanese incense companies divide agarwood into 6 categories depending on the region obtained and properties of the agarwood). Kyara is currently worth more than its weight in gold.

 

Some terms used in Japanese incense culture include:

 

Incense arts: [香道, kodo]

Agarwood: [ 沈香 ] – from heartwood from Aquilaria trees, unique, the incense wood most used in incense ceremony, other names are: lignum aloes or aloeswood, gaharu, jinko, or oud.

Censer/Incense burner: [香爐] – usually small and used for heating incense not burning, or larger and used for burning

Charcoal: [木炭] – only the odorless kind is used.

Incense woods: [ 香木 ] – a naturally fragrant resinous wood.

 

USAGE

PRACTICAL

Incense fragrances can be of such great strength that they obscure other less desirable odours. This utility led to the use of incense in funerary ceremonies because the incense could smother the scent of decay. An example, as well as of religious use, is the giant Botafumeiro thurible that swings from the ceiling of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. It is used in part to mask the scent of the many tired, unwashed pilgrims huddled together in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

 

A similar utilitarian use of incense can be found in the post-Reformation Church of England. Although the ceremonial use of incense was abandoned until the Oxford Movement, it was common to have incense (typically frankincense) burned before grand occasions, when the church would be crowded. The frankincense was carried about by a member of the vestry before the service in a vessel called a 'perfuming pan'. In iconography of the day, this vessel is shown to be elongated and flat, with a single long handle on one side. The perfuming pan was used instead of the thurible, as the latter would have likely offended the Protestant sensibilities of the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

The regular burning of direct-burning incense has been used for chronological measurement in incense clocks. These devices can range from a simple trail of incense material calibrated to burn in a specific time period, to elaborate and ornate instruments with bells or gongs, designed to involve multiple senses.

 

Incense made from materials such as citronella can repel mosquitoes and other irritating, distracting, or pestilential insects. This use has been deployed in concert with religious uses by Zen Buddhists who claim that the incense that is part of their meditative practice is designed to keep bothersome insects from distracting the practitioner. Currently, more effective pyrethroid-based mosquito repellent incense is widely available in Asia.

 

Papier d'Arménie was originally sold as a disinfectant as well as for the fragrance.

 

Incense is also used often by people who smoke indoors and do not want the smell to linger.

 

AESTHETIC

Many people burn incense to appreciate its smell, without assigning any other specific significance to it, in the same way that the foregoing items can be produced or consumed solely for the contemplation or enjoyment of the aroma. An example is the kōdō (香道), where (frequently costly) raw incense materials such as agarwood are appreciated in a formal setting.

 

RELIGIOUS

Religious use of incense is prevalent in many cultures and may have roots in the practical and aesthetic uses, considering that many of these religions have little else in common. One common motif is incense as a form of sacrificial offering to a deity. Such use was common in Judaic worship and remains in use for example in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, Taoist and Buddhist Chinese jingxiang (敬香 "offer incense), etc.

 

Aphrodisiac Incense has been used as an aphrodisiac in some cultures. Both ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian mythology suggest the usage of incense by goddesses and nymphs. Incense is thought to heighten sexual desires and sexual attraction.

 

Time-keeper Incense clocks are used to time social, medical and religious practices in parts of eastern Asia. They are primarily used in Buddhism as a timer of mediation and prayer. Different types of incense burn at different rates; therefore, different incense are used for different practices. The duration of burning ranges from minutes to months.

 

Healing stone cleanser Incense is claimed to cleanse and restore energy in healing stones. The technique used is called “smudging” and is done by holding a healing stone over the smoke of burning incense for 20 to 30 seconds. Some people believe that this process not only restores energy but eliminates negative energy.

 

HEALTH RISK FROM INCENSE SMOKE

Incense smoke contains various contaminants including gaseous pollutants, such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and adsorbed toxic pollutants (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and toxic metals). The solid particles range between ~10 and 500 nm. In a comparison, Indian sandalwood was found to have the highest emission rate, followed by Japanese aloeswood, then Taiwanese aloeswood, while Chinese smokeless sandalwood had the least.

 

Research carried out in Taiwan in 2001 linked the burning of incense sticks to the slow accumulation of potential carcinogens in a poorly ventilated environment by measuring the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (including benzopyrene) within Buddhist temples. The study found gaseous aliphatic aldehydes, which are carcinogenic and mutagenic, in incense smoke.

 

A survey of risk factors for lung cancer, also conducted in Taiwan, noted an inverse association between incense burning and adenocarcinoma of the lung, though the finding was not deemed significant.

 

In contrast, epidemiologists at the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society, Aichi Cancer Center in Nagoya, and several other centers found: "No association was found between exposure to incense burning and respiratory symptoms like chronic cough, chronic sputum, chronic bronchitis, runny nose, wheezing, asthma, allergic rhinitis, or pneumonia among the three populations studied: i.e. primary school children, their non-smoking mothers, or a group of older non-smoking female controls. Incense burning did not affect lung cancer risk among non-smokers, but it significantly reduced risk among smokers, even after adjusting for lifetime smoking amount." However, the researchers qualified their findings by noting that incense burning in the studied population was associated with certain low-cancer-risk dietary habits, and concluded that "diet can be a significant confounder of epidemiological studies on air pollution and respiratory health."

 

Although several studies have not shown a link between incense and lung cancer, many other types of cancer have been directly linked to burning incense. A study published in 2008 in the medical journal Cancer found that incense use is associated with a statistically significant higher risk of cancers of the upper respiratory tract, with the exception of nasopharyngeal cancer. Those who used incense heavily also were 80% more likely to develop squamous-cell carcinomas. The link between incense use and increased cancer risk held when the researchers weighed other factors, including cigarette smoking, diet and drinking habits. The research team noted that "This association is consistent with a large number of studies identifying carcinogens in incense smoke, and given the widespread and sometimes involuntary exposure to smoke from burning incense, these findings carry significant public health implications."

 

In 2015, the South China University of Technology found toxicity of incense to Chinese hamsters' ovarian cells to be even higher than cigarettes.

 

Incensole acetate, a component of Frankincense, has been shown to have anxiolytic-like and antidepressive-like effects in mice, mediated by activation of poorly-understood TRPV3 ion channels in the brain.

 

WIKIPEDIA

A collision with a vehicle is capable of killing a kangaroo. Kangaroos dazzled by headlights or startled by engine noise have been known to leap in front of cars. Since kangaroos in mid-bound can reach speeds of around 50 km/h (31 mph) and are relatively heavy, the force of impact can be severe. Small vehicles may be destroyed, while larger vehicles may suffer engine damage. The risk of harm to vehicle occupants is greatly increased if the windscreen is the point of impact. As a result, "kangaroo crossing" signs are commonplace in Australia. (wikipedia)

In November of 2009, Swordsmith David DelaGardelle and Metal Artisan Andy Davis of the Mad Dwarf Workshop were contacted by the production team working on bringing Marvel Comic’s legendary comic book Thor to the big screen. They were looking for swordsmith’s capable of crafting a huge, intricately detailed, legendary hero weapon for the formidable and powerful character, Heimdall. Without hesitation, we took on this incredible but difficult task in the short time the production team had given us. Setting out we had no idea just how much we would learn and just how much of a blessing and adventure the experience would be.

 

The props team working on the film came to us with a rough conceptual design that one of their talented artists had painted. David then began to refine the design back forth with the team in Photoshop to make it as functional and realistic as possible. In refining the design, we tried our best within the parameters to throw in some slightly historical touches seen on some ancient Germanic swords, such as the swords fuller and knot work patterns. The sword itself however is obviously at its core meant to be majestic and quite literally “out of this world”.

 

We were blessed with the task to bring to life two hero steel and two stunt aluminum copies of this one sword.

 

While we were only asked to create this one particular sword it was still the most challenging project we had ever undertaken as sword makers, up to this point. So we were happy to pour all of our energy and imagination into this one very prominent hero sword. The rest of the film’s weapons were beautifully crafted by none other than world renowned swordsmith and armourer: Tony Swatton and his skilled group at Sword and Stone in California.

 

After we had finalized the design for Heimdall’s sword with the team we went straight to the forge with a drive and zeal to craft something incredible. We began by crafting the blade from high quality L6 tool steel. Ground, hardened, tempered, and polished it to an antique blued finish. The swords ornate guard and pommel were the most challenging aspect of the entire sword, due to their unique shape and function.

Heimdall’s sword is not simply a mere war sword, instead it is an ancient and key that controls Heimdall’s technologically advanced observatory on the Bifrost bridge of Asgard. It opens and closes portals to other worlds and dimensions in which the hero’s fight in the film. Being both a sword and a key, the guard serves the double purpose of obviously protecting its wielder, and also serving as extending handle bars to turn the key once its placed into its keyhole.

 

The guard and pommel were cast out of hollowed polished bronze for the hero steel swords, and colored lightweight aluminum for the stunt versions. Norse knotwork was carved into the fittings and into the figured Mahogany grips by hand on each copy of the sword. The knotwork is a reflective nod back to the original Norse mythology and cultural-history the comics were based off of, while still keeping a modern vibe of an unknown advanced civilization. The knotwork is also reflective of the patterns seen inside the walls of Heimdall’s observatory and in the architecture and décor of the city of Asgard itself. In total, the sword stood at 5 ½ feet long from tip to pommel, and the hero steel and bronze versions weighed close to 10 pounds each.

 

In the end, Heimdall’s sword turned out to be a sword we would have never dreamed of crafting ourselves. We are beyond thankful for being blessed to have worked on such a creatively stimulating and challenging project that pushed our skills further as young swordsmith’s who are still learning this craft in a traditional context.

 

We're honored to have played a small role in this incredible film, and we hope that our work somehow reflectes back to the traditional and historical elements of swordsmithing amidst the incredible visual scope of this modern epic.

+++ 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 Douglas A-4 Skyhawk was a single seat subsonic carrier-capable attack aircraft developed for the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps in the early 1950s. The delta winged, single turbojet engined Skyhawk was designed and produced by Douglas Aircraft Company, and later by McDonnell Douglas. It was originally designated A4D under the U.S. Navy's pre-1962 designation system.

 

The Skyhawk was a relatively lightweight aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight of 24,500 pounds (11,100 kg) in its late versions and had a top speed of more than 670 miles per hour (1,080 km/h). The aircrafts supported a variety of missiles, bombs and other munitions, and late versions were capable of carrying a bomb load equivalent to that of a World War II-era Boeing B-17 bomber.

 

The type saw an intensive career with the US Navy and the US Marine Corps, and is still in frontline use in several countries, e. g. Brazil and Argentina.

Another potential user was France. The story began with two different design requirements in the early 1950s for land-based, light fighters, one for the French Air Force and the other for NATO air forces. French manufacturer Dassault responded and used the same basic design for both these specifications, designated as the Étendard II and Étendard VI respectively, neither of which received any orders, though. The company also developed a larger and more powerful variant, which was called the Mystère XXIV, simultaneously as a private venture.

 

The French Navy, the Aéronavale, showed interest in the more powerful aircraft, and this interest in a lulti-purpose fighter for carrier operations led to a public competition which was opened to foreign submissions, too. Dassault constructed a prototype navalized version of the Mystère XXIV, now designated Étendard IVM, and the first prototype conducted its first flight on 24 July 1956. As contenders, Douglas offered a modified A4D-2 Skyhawk and from Great Britain the Supermarine Scimitar was proposed, but immediately rejected as being much too large and complex for the Aéronavale's needs.

 

In order to compare the potential contenders, the Étendard IVM was to be pitted against the Skyhawk, and so a total of six so-called A4D-2Fs, modified to French specifications, took part in an extensive field test over the course of the next 15 months against a total of seven Étendard prototypes (the last being a prototype for the Étendard IVP photo reconnaissance variant), which differed by engines and equipment details.

 

The French Skyhawk variant had, compared with the standard A4D-2 of the US Navy, improved navigation and flight control systems. The A4D-2F also featured a strengthened airframe and had air-to-air refueling capabilities. Specific to these machines were a TACAN receiver and a braking parachute under the tail for land operations.

 

Internal armament was, upon the potential customer’s request, changed from the original pair of American 20 mm (0.79 in) Colt Mk 12 cannon with 200 RPG in the wing roots to a pair of 30mm DEFA cannon with 150 RPG. As a marketing measure, the A4D-2F was equipped with guidance avionics for the American AGM-12 Bullpup missile, in hope that France would procure this weapon together with the aircraft as a package and open the door for further weapon exports. Other ordnance included rocket pods, bombs, and drop tanks, carried on five external pylons (two more under the outer wings than the standard A4D-2).

 

Not being convinced of the AGM-12 and political preference of domestic equipment, French officials insisted on additional avionics for indigenous guided weapons like the Nord AA-20 air-to-air or the AS-20 air-to-ground missiles, as well as for the bigger, newly developed AS-30. Since the internal space of the AD4 airframe was limited, these additional components had to be housed in a long, spinal fairing that extended from the fin root forward, almost up to the cockpit. Another consequence of the scarce internal space was the need to provide radio-guidance for the French missiles through an external antenna pod, which was to be carried under the outer starboard pylon, together with two missiles on the inner pylons and an SNEB unguided missile pod (frequently empty) under the port outer pylon as aerodynamic counterbalance.

 

Trials between the contenders started in summer 1957, at first from land bases (primarily Landviseau in Brittany), but later, after its reconstruction with a four degree angled flight deck and a mirror landing sight, also aboard of the revamped French carrier ‘Arromanches’ (R 95, former HMS Colossus). The A4D-2F turned out to be the more effective fighter bomber, especially concerning the almost twice as high weapon load as the Étendard’s. On the other side, the Étendard benefitted from its Aida radar (the A4D-2F only had an AN/APN-141 radar altimeter and a state-of-the-art AN/ASN-19A navigation computer) and from strong supporters from both military and political deciders. Dassault kept lobbying for the indigenous aircraft, too, and, despite many shortcomings and limitations, the Étendard was chosen as the winning design. Even a proposed radar upgrade (just introduced with the A4D-3/A-4C for the US Navy) was during the late evaluation stages in 1958 would not change the French officials’ minds.

 

“Sufficiently satisfied” with its performance, the French Navy would procure for 69 Étendard IVM fighters and 21 Étendard IVP reconnaissance versions. The sextet of test Skyhawks was returned in late 1961 to the United States, where the airframes were at first stored and later underwent modifications at Lockheed Service Co. to become A-4Ps for the Argentine Air Force, delivered in 1966.

 

From 1962, the winning Étendard IVM was being deployed aboard the service's newly built Clemenceau-class aircraft carriers, the Clemenceau and Foch. Later, in 1972, the Skyhawk (in the form of a modified A-4M) made a return to France as an alternative to the stillborn Jaguar M, a navalized variant of the Anglo-French SEPECAT Jaguar, which was intended to become the Étendard's replacement. But this effort was once more derailed by political lobbying by Dassault, who favored their own proposed upgraded version of the aircraft, which would later enter service as the Super Étendard.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: one

Length: 39' 4" (12 m)

Wingspan: 26 ft 6 in (8.38 m)

Height: 15 ft (4.57 m)

Wing area: 259 ft² (24.15 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 0008-1.1-25 root, NACA 0005-0.825-50 tip

Empty weight: 9,146 lb (4,152 kg)

Loaded weight: 18,300 lb (8,318 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 24,500 lb (11,136 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Curtiss-Wright J65-W-16A turbojet with 7,700 lbf (34 kN)

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 575 kn (661 mph, 1,064 km/h)

Range: 1,700 nmi (2,000 mi, 3,220 km)

Combat radius: 625 nmi, 1,158 km

Service ceiling: 42,250 ft (12,880 m)

Rate of climb: 8,440 ft/min (43 m/s)

Wing loading: 70.7 lb/ft² (344.4 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.51

g-limit: +8/-3 g

 

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.18 in) DEFA cannon, 150 RPG, in the wing roots

Total effective payload of up to 5,000 lbs (2,268 kg) on five hardpoints

- 1× Centerline: 3,500 lbs capability

- 2× Inboard wing: 2,200 lbs capability each

- 2× Outboard wing: 1,000 lbs capability each

   

The kit and its assembly:

This is another contribution to the “In the Navy” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com. The idea of a French Navy Skyhawk is not new and has been tackled before (in the form of CG renditions and model hardware alike), and I had been wanting to build one, too, for a long time – and the current GB was a good occasion to tackle a build.

 

The Skyhawk was actually tested by the Aéronavale, but, as described in the background, not until the early 1970s and together with the LTV A-7, when the Jaguar M came to nothing, not in the late 1950ies where this fictional model is rooted.

Anyway, I liked the Fifties idea much and spun a story around the Étendard’s introduction and a fictional competition for the Aéronavale’s next carrier-borne fighter bomber. The idea was further fueled by the relatively new Airfix model of the early A-4B, which would fit well into the project’s time frame. And I already had a respective kit stashed away for this project...

 

The Airfix kit is very nice, fit and detail (including, for instance a complete air intake section with a jet fan dummy, and it features a very good pilot figure, too) are excellent, even though some things like very thick sprue attachment points here and there and the waxy, rather soft styrene are a bit dubious. But it’s a good kit, nevertheless, and cleverly constructed: many seams disappear between natural panel lines, it’s a pleasant build.

 

Since this model was to be a kind of pre-production machine based on a relatively new standard aircraft, not much was changed. Most visible additions are the dorsal spine (a simple piece of sprue, blended onto the back and into the fin fillet) and the ordnance.

But there are minor changes, too: The cannon installation was also modified, from the original wing root position into slightly lower, bulged fairings for the more voluminous DEFA cannon. The fairings were carved from styrene profiles and outfitted with the OOB barrels. IDF Skyhawks/Ahit with 30mm cannons were the design benchmark, blending the fairings into the curved wing roots and hiding the original gun openings was actually the most challenging part of the build.

 

Some pitots and blade antennae were replaced or changed, too. Lead was cramped into the space between the cockpit and the air intake installation for a proper stance. The Airfix kit is in so far nice as this compartment is easily accessible from below, as long as the wings have not been mounted yet.

The cockpit, together with the pilot figure, were taken OOB, just the pilot’s head was modified to look sideways and an ejection trigger handle was added to the seat.

 

The pair of AS-30 once were AS-30Ls from an Italeri Mirage 2000 kit, slightly modified with a simple, conical tip and booster rocket nozzles on the tail. The corresponding underwing radar pod is a drop tank from a vintage Airfix Kaman Seasprite, while the other outer pylon carries a scratched camera pod, IIRC it once was a belly tank from a 1:144 F-16.

  

Painting and markings:

On purpose, relatively simple. The early French Étendard IVM was the benchmark with its blue-gray/white livery. Biggest challenges were actually to find an appropriate tone for the upper gray, which appears, much like the British Extra Dark Sea Gray, between anything from dark blue to medium gray, depending on light and surroundings, esp. with a glossy finish.

I could not find any definitive or convincing paint suggestions, what I found ranges between FS 36270 (Medium Gray, much too light) and FS 36118 (Gunship Gray, much too violet) and Humbrol 77 (Navy Blue, much too green) to a mix of Humbrol 57 and 33 (Sky Blue + Black!). Really weird… And to make matters worse, some Étendards were furthermore painted in a lighter blue-gray for operations over the Mediterranean Sea!

 

Since I wanted a unique tone, I settled upon Revell 79 (RAL 7031, Blaugrau) for the upper surfaces, a dark, petrol blue gray. The undersides were painted in an off-white tone (a grayish Volkswagen color from the Seventies!) with acrylic paint from the rattle can – with the benefit that the whole landing gear could be primed in the same turn, even though it was later painted over with pure white (Humbrol 130), which was also used on/in the air intakes. The cockpit interior was painted in bluish gray (FS 35237), the interior of the air brakes, slats and edges of the landing gear covers became bright red (Humbrol 60). The red markings around the air intakes were created with paint and decals. Another eye-catcher are the bright orange AS-30 test rounds.

 

A thin, black ink wash was applied to the kit in order to emphasize the engraved panel lines. Only light shading was added to the panels through dry-brushing, more for presentation drama than true weathering.

 

Most Aéronavale-specific markings come from an Academy Super Étendard decal sheet, most stencils come from the OOB Skyhawk sheet. As a kind of prototype and part of Douglas’ fictional marketing effort for the machine, I placed the French roundels in six positions and also added French flags ( the Étendard prototypes were similarly decorated, by the way). Finally, everything was sealed under a coat of matt varnish with a slight, sheen finish.

  

A relatively simple whif project, and a nice distraction from the many recent kitbashes and major conversions. The Aéronavale livery suits the Scooter well, and what I personally like a lot about this one is that it “tells the story” behind it – it’s more than a generic Skyhawk in French colors.

 

And, as a final twist of history, nowadays the Skyhawk actually IS in use on board of a French carrier: in the form of the Brazilian Naval Aviation’s AF-1, former Kuwaiti A-4KU airframes, from CV Sao Paulo, former French Navy carrier Foch! :D

 

Incense is aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burned. The term refers to the material itself, rather than to the aroma that it produces. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, and in therapy, meditation, and ceremony. It may also be used as a simple deodorant or insectifuge.

 

Incense is composed of aromatic plant materials, often combined with essential oils. The forms taken by incense differ with the underlying culture, and have changed with advances in technology and increasing number of uses.

 

Incense can generally be separated into two main types: "indirect-burning" and "direct-burning". Indirect-burning incense (or "non-combustible incense") is not capable of burning on its own, and requires a separate heat source. Direct-burning incense (or "combustible incense") is lit directly by a flame and then fanned or blown out, leaving a glowing ember that smoulders and releases a smoky fragrance. Direct-burning incense is either a paste formed around a bamboo stick, or a paste that is extruded into a stick or cone shape.

 

HISTORY

The word incense comes from Latin incendere meaning "to burn".

 

Combustible bouquets were used by the ancient Egyptians, who employed incense in both pragmatic and mystical capacities. Incense was burnt to counteract or obscure malodorous products of human habitation, but was widely perceived to also deter malevolent demons and appease the gods with its pleasant aroma. Resin balls were found in many prehistoric Egyptian tombs in El Mahasna, giving evidence for the prominence of incense and related compounds in Egyptian antiquity. One of the oldest extant incense burners originates from the 5th dynasty. The Temple of Deir-el-Bahari in Egypt contains a series of carvings that depict an expedition for incense.

 

The Babylonians used incense while offering prayers to divining oracles. Incense spread from there to Greece and Rome.

 

Incense burners have been found in the Indus Civilization (3300–1300 BCE). Evidence suggests oils were used mainly for their aroma. India also adopted techniques from East Asia, adapting the formulation to encompass aromatic roots and other indigenous flora. This was the first usage of subterranean plant parts in incense. New herbs like Sarsaparilla seeds, frankincense, and cypress were used by Indians.

 

At around 2000 BCE, Ancient China began the use of incense in the religious sense, namely for worship. Incense was used by Chinese cultures from Neolithic times and became more widespread in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. The earliest documented use of incense comes from the ancient Chinese, who employed incense composed of herbs and plant products (such as cassia, cinnamon, styrax, and sandalwood) as a component of numerous formalized ceremonial rites. Incense usage reached its peak during the Song dynasty with numerous buildings erected specifically for incense ceremonies.

 

Brought to Japan in the 6th century by Korean Buddhist monks, who used the mystical aromas in their purification rites, the delicate scents of Koh (high-quality Japanese incense) became a source of amusement and entertainment with nobles in the Imperial Court during the Heian Era 200 years later. During the 14th-century Ashikaga shogunate, a samurai warrior might perfume his helmet and armor with incense to achieve an aura of invincibility (as well as to make a noble gesture to whoever might take his head in battle). It wasn't until the Muromachi period during the 15th and 16th century that incense appreciation (kōdō) spread to the upper and middle classes of Japanese society.

 

COMPOSITION

A variety of materials have been used in making incense. Historically there has been a preference for using locally available ingredients. For example, sage and cedar were used by the indigenous peoples of North America. Trading in incense materials comprised a major part of commerce along the Silk Road and other trade routes, one notably called the Incense Route.

 

Local knowledge and tools were extremely influential on the style, but methods were also influenced by migrations of foreigners, such as clergy and physicians.

 

COMBUSTIBLE BASE

The combustible base of a direct burning incense mixture not only binds the fragrant material together but also allows the produced incense to burn with a self-sustained ember, which propagates slowly and evenly through an entire piece of incense with such regularity that it can be used to mark time. The base is chosen such that it does not produce a perceptible smell. Commercially, two types of incense base predominate:

 

Fuel and oxidizer mixtures: Charcoal or wood powder provides the fuel for combustion while an oxidizer such as sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate sustains the burning of the incense. Fragrant materials are added to the base prior to shaping, as in the case of powdered incense materials, or after, as in the case of essential oils. The formula for charcoal-based incense is superficially similar to black powder, though it lacks the sulfur.

Natural plant-based binders: Gums such as Gum Arabic or Gum Tragacanth are used to bind the mixture together. Mucilaginous material, which can be derived from many botanical sources, is mixed with fragrant materials and water. The mucilage from the wet binding powder holds the fragrant material together while the cellulose in the powder combusts to form a stable ember when lit. The dry binding powder usually comprises about 10% of the dry weight in the finished incense. These include:

Makko (incense powder) made from the bark of various trees in the genus Persea (such as Persea thunbergii)

Xiangnan pi (made from the bark of trees of genus Phoebe such as Phoebe nanmu or Persea zuihoensis.

Jigit: a resin based binder used in India

Laha or Dar: bark based powders used in Nepal, Tibet, and other East Asian countries.

 

Typical compositions burn at a temperature between 220 °C and 260 °C.

 

TYPES

Incense is available in various forms and degrees of processing. They can generally be separated into "direct-burning" and "indirect-burning" types. Preference for one form or another varies with culture, tradition, and personal taste. The two differ in their composition due to the former's requirement for even, stable, and sustained burning.

 

INDIRECT-BURNING

Indirect-burning incense, also called "non-combustible incense", is an aromatic material or combination of materials, such as resins, that does not contain combustible material and so requires a separate heat source. Finer forms tend to burn more rapidly, while coarsely ground or whole chunks may be consumed very gradually, having less surface area. Heat is traditionally provided by charcoal or glowing embers. In the West, the best known incense materials of this type are the resins frankincense and myrrh, likely due to their numerous mentions in the Bible. Frankincense means "pure incense", though in common usage refers specifically to the resin of the boswellia tree.

 

Whole: The incense material is burned directly in raw form on top of coal embers.

Powdered or granulated: Incense broken into smaller pieces burns quickly and provides brief but intense odor.

Paste: Powdered or granulated incense material is mixed with a sticky incombustible binder, such as dried fruit, honey, or a soft resin and then formed to balls or small pastilles. These may then be allowed to mature in a controlled environment where the fragrances can commingle and unite. Much Arabian incense, also called "Bukhoor" or "Bakhoor", is of this type, and Japan has a history of kneaded incense, called nerikō or awasekō, made using this method. Within the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, raw frankincense is ground into a fine powder and then mixed with various sweet-smelling essential oils.

 

DIRECT-BURNING

Direct-burning incense, also called "combustible incense", is lit directly by a flame. The glowing ember on the incense will continue to smoulder and burn the rest of the incense without further application of external heat or flame. Direct-burning incense is either extruded, pressed into forms, or coated onto a supporting material. This class of incense is made from a moldable substrate of fragrant finely ground (or liquid) incense materials and odourless binder. The composition must be adjusted to provide fragrance in the proper concentration and to ensure even burning. The following types are commonly encountered, though direct-burning incense can take nearly any form, whether for expedience or whimsy.

 

Coil: Extruded and shaped into a coil without a core, coil incense can burn for an extended period, from hours to days, and is commonly produced and used in Chinese cultures.

 

Cone: Incense in this form burns relatively quickly. Incense cones were invented in Japan in the 1800s.

Cored stick: A supporting core of bamboo is coated with a thick layer of incense material that burns away with the core. Higher-quality variations have fragrant sandalwood cores. This type of incense is commonly produced in India and China. When used in Chinese folk religion, these are sometimes known as "joss sticks".

Dhoop or solid stick: With no bamboo core, dhoop incense is easily broken for portion control. This is the most commonly produced form of incense in Japan and Tibet.

Powder: The loose incense powder used for making indirect burning incense is sometimes burned without further processing. Powder incense is typically packed into long trails on top of wood ash using a stencil and burned in special censers or incense clocks.

Paper: Paper infused with incense, folded accordion style, is lit and blown out. Examples include Carta d'Armenia and Papier d'Arménie.

Rope: The incense powder is rolled into paper sheets, which are then rolled into ropes, twisted tightly, then doubled over and twisted again, yielding a two-strand rope. The larger end is the bight, and may be stood vertically, in a shallow dish of sand or pebbles. The smaller (pointed) end is lit. This type of incense is easily transported and stays fresh for extremely long periods. It has been used for centuries in Tibet and Nepal.

 

Moxa tablets, which are disks of powdered mugwort used in Traditional Chinese medicine for moxibustion, are not incenses; the treatment is by heat rather than fragrance.

Incense sticks may be termed joss sticks, especially in parts of East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Among ethnic Chinese and Chinese-influenced communities these are traditionally burned at temples, before the threshold of a home or business, before an image of a religious divinity or local spirit, or in shrines, large and small, found at the main entrance of every village. Here the earth god is propitiated in the hope of bringing wealth and health to the village. They can also be burned in front of a door or open window as an offering to heaven, or the devas. The word "joss" is derived from the Latin deus (god) via the Portuguese deos through the Javanese dejos, through Chinese pidgin English.

 

PRODUCTION

The raw materials are powdered and then mixed together with a binder to form a paste, which, for direct burning incense, is then cut and dried into pellets. Incense of the Athonite Orthodox Christian tradition is made by powdering frankincense or fir resin, mixing it with essential oils. Floral fragrances are the most common, but citrus such as lemon is not uncommon. The incense mixture is then rolled out into a slab approximately 1 cm thick and left until the slab has firmed. It is then cut into small cubes, coated with clay powder to prevent adhesion, and allowed to fully harden and dry. In Greece this rolled incense resin is called 'Moskolibano', and generally comes in either a pink or green colour denoting the fragrance, with pink being rose and green being jasmine.

 

Certain proportions are necessary for direct-burning incense:

 

Oil content: an excess of oils may prevent incense from smoldering effectively. Resinous materials such as myrrh and frankincense are typically balanced with "dry" materials such as wood, bark and leaf powders.

Oxidizer quantity: Too little oxidizer in gum-bound incense may prevent the incense from igniting, while too much will cause the incense to burn too quickly, without producing fragrant smoke.

Binder: Water-soluble binders such as "makko" ensure that the incense mixture does not crumble when dry, dilute the mixture.

Mixture density: Incense mixtures made with natural binders must not be combined with too much water in mixing, or over-compressed while being formed, which would result in either uneven air distribution or undesirable density in the mixture, causing the incense to burn unevenly, too slowly, or too quickly.

Particulate size: The incense mixture has to be well pulverized with similarly sized particulates. Uneven and large particulates result in uneven burning and inconsistent aroma production when burned.

 

"Dipped" or "hand-dipped" direct-burning incense is created by dipping "incense blanks" made of unscented combustible dust into any suitable kind of essential or fragrance oil. These are often sold in the United States by flea-market and sidewalk vendors who have developed their own styles. This form of incense requires the least skill and equipment to manufacture, since the blanks are pre-formed in China or South East Asia.

 

Incense mixtures can be extruded or pressed into shapes. Small quantities of water are combined with the fragrance and incense base mixture and kneaded into a hard dough. The incense dough is then pressed into shaped forms to create cone and smaller coiled incense, or forced through a hydraulic press for solid stick incense. The formed incense is then trimmed and slowly dried. Incense produced in this fashion has a tendency to warp or become misshapen when improperly dried, and as such must be placed in climate-controlled rooms and rotated several times through the drying process.

 

Traditionally, the bamboo core of cored stick incense is prepared by hand from Phyllostachys heterocycla cv. pubescens since this species produces thick wood and easily burns to ashes in the incense stick. In a process known as "splitting the foot of the incense stick", the bamboo is trimmed to length, soaked, peeled, and split in halves until the thin sticks of bamboo have square cross sections of less than 3mm. This process has been largely replaced by machines in modern incense production.

 

In the case of cored incensed sticks, several methods are employed to coat the sticks cores with incense mixture:

 

Paste rolling: A wet, malleable paste of incense mixture is first rolled into a long, thin coil, using a paddle. Then, a thin stick is put next to the coil and the stick and paste are rolled together until the stick is centered in the mixture and the desired thickness is achieved. The stick is then cut to the desired length and dried.

Powder-coating: Powder-coating is used mainly to produce cored incense of either larger coil (up to 1 meter in diameter) or cored stick forms. A bundle of the supporting material (typically thin bamboo or sandalwood slivers) is soaked in water or a thin water/glue mixture for a short time. The thin sticks are evenly separated, then dipped into a tray of incense powder consisting of fragrance materials and occasionally a plant-based binder. The dry incense powder is then tossed and piled over the sticks while they are spread apart. The sticks are then gently rolled and packed to maintain roundness while more incense powder is repeatedly tossed onto the sticks. Three to four layers of powder are coated onto the sticks, forming a 2 mm thick layer of incense material on the stick. The coated incense is then allowed to dry in open air. Additional coatings of incense mixture can be applied after each period of successive drying. Incense sticks produced in this fashion and burned in temples of Chinese folk religion can have a thickness between 2 and 4 millimeters.

Compression: A damp powder is mechanically formed around a cored stick by compression, similar to the way uncored sticks are formed. This form is becoming more common due to the higher labor cost of producing powder-coated or paste-rolled sticks.

 

BURNING INCENSE

Indirect-burning incense burned directly on top of a heat source or on a hot metal plate in a censer or thurible.

 

In Japan a similar censer called a egōro (柄香炉) is used by several Buddhist sects. The egōro is usually made of brass, with a long handle and no chain. Instead of charcoal, makkō powder is poured into a depression made in a bed of ash. The makkō is lit and the incense mixture is burned on top. This method is known as sonae-kō (religious burning).

 

For direct-burning incense, the tip or end of the incense is ignited with a flame or other heat source until the incense begins to turn into ash at the burning end. The flame is then fanned or blown out, leaving the incense to smolder.

 

CULTURAL VARIATIONS

ARABIAN

In most Arab countries, incense is burned in the form of scented chips or blocks called bakhoor (Arabic: بخور‎ [bɑˈxuːɾ, bʊ-]. Incense is used on special occasions like weddings or on Fridays or generally to perfume the house. The bakhoor is usually burned in a mabkhara, a traditional incense burner (censer) similar to the Somali Dabqaad. It is customary in many Arab countries to pass bakhoor among the guests in the majlis ('congregation'). This is done as a gesture of hospitality.

 

CHINESE

For over two thousand years, the Chinese have used incense in religious ceremonies, ancestor veneration, Traditional Chinese medicine, and daily life. Agarwood (chénxiāng) and sandalwood (tánxiāng) are the two most important ingredients in Chinese incense.

 

Along with the introduction of Buddhism in China came calibrated incense sticks and incense clocks. The first known record is by poet Yu Jianwu (487-551): "By burning incense we know the o'clock of the night, With graduated candles we confirm the tally of the watches." The use of these incense timekeeping devices spread from Buddhist monasteries into Chinese secular society.

Incense-stick burning is an everyday practice in traditional Chinese religion. There are many different types of stick used for different purposes or on different festive days. Many of them are long and thin. Sticks are mostly coloured yellow, red, or more rarely, black. Thick sticks are used for special ceremonies, such as funerals. Spiral incense, with exceedingly long burn times, is often hung from temple ceilings. In some states, such as Taiwan,

 

Singapore, or Malaysia, where they celebrate the Ghost Festival, large, pillar-like dragon incense sticks are sometimes used. These generate so much smoke and heat that they are only burned outside.

 

Chinese incense sticks for use in popular religion are generally odorless or only use the slightest trace of jasmine or rose, since it is the smoke, not the scent, which is important in conveying the prayers of the faithful to heaven. They are composed of the dried powdered bark of a non-scented species of cinnamon native to Cambodia, Cinnamomum cambodianum. Inexpensive packs of 300 are often found for sale in Chinese supermarkets. Though they contain no sandalwood, they often include the Chinese character for sandalwood on the label, as a generic term for incense.

 

Highly scented Chinese incense sticks are used by some Buddhists. These are often quite expensive due to the use of large amounts of sandalwood, agarwood, or floral scents used. The sandalwood used in Chinese incenses does not come from India, its native home, but rather from groves planted within Chinese territory. Sites belonging to Tzu Chi, Chung Tai Shan, Dharma Drum Mountain, Xingtian Temple, or City of Ten Thousand Buddhas do not use incense.

 

INDIAN

Incense sticks, also known as agarbathi (or agarbatti) and joss sticks, in which an incense paste is rolled or moulded around a bamboo stick, are the main forms of incense in India. The bamboo method originated in India, and is distinct from the Nepali/Tibetan and Japanese methods of stick making without bamboo cores. Though the method is also used in the west, it is strongly associated with India.

 

The basic ingredients are the bamboo stick, the paste (generally made of charcoal dust and joss/jiggit/gum/tabu powder – an adhesive made from the bark of litsea glutinosa and other trees), and the perfume ingredients - which would be a masala (spice mix) powder of ground ingredients into which the stick would be rolled, or a perfume liquid sometimes consisting of synthetic ingredients into which the stick would be dipped. Perfume is sometimes sprayed on the coated sticks. Stick machines are sometimes used, which coat the stick with paste and perfume, though the bulk of production is done by hand rolling at home. There are about 5,000 incense companies in India that take raw unperfumed sticks hand-rolled by approximately 200,000 women working part-time at home, and then apply their own brand of perfume, and package the sticks for sale. An experienced home-worker can produce 4,000 raw sticks a day. There are about 50 large companies that together account for up to 30% of the market, and around 500 of the companies, including a significant number of the main ones, including Moksh Agarbatti and Cycle Pure, are based in Mysore.

 

JEWISH TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM

KETORET

Ketoret was the incense offered in the Temple in Jerusalem and is stated in the Book of Exodus to be a mixture of stacte, onycha, galbanum and frankincense.

 

TIBETAN

Tibetan incense refers to a common style of incense found in Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. These incenses have a characteristic "earthy" scent to them. Ingredients vary from cinnamon, clove, and juniper, to kusum flower, ashvagandha, and sahi jeera.

 

Many Tibetan incenses are thought to have medicinal properties. Their recipes come from ancient Vedic texts that are based on even older Ayurvedic medical texts. The recipes have remained unchanged for centuries.

 

JAPANESE

In Japan incense appreciation folklore includes art, culture, history, and ceremony. It can be compared to and has some of the same qualities as music, art, or literature. Incense burning may occasionally take place within the tea ceremony, just like calligraphy, ikebana, and scroll arrangement. The art of incense appreciation, or koh-do, is generally practiced as a separate art form from the tea ceremony, and usually within a tea room of traditional Zen design.

 

Agarwood (沈香 Jinkō) and sandalwood (白檀 byakudan) are the two most important ingredients in Japanese incense. Agarwood is known as "jinkō" in Japan, which translates as "incense that sinks in water", due to the weight of the resin in the wood. Sandalwood is one of the most calming incense ingredients and lends itself well to meditation. It is also used in the Japanese tea ceremony. The most valued Sandalwood comes from Mysore in the state of Karnataka in India.

 

Another important ingredient in Japanese incense is kyara (伽羅). Kyara is one kind of agarwood (Japanese incense companies divide agarwood into 6 categories depending on the region obtained and properties of the agarwood). Kyara is currently worth more than its weight in gold.

 

Some terms used in Japanese incense culture include:

 

Incense arts: [香道, kodo]

Agarwood: [ 沈香 ] – from heartwood from Aquilaria trees, unique, the incense wood most used in incense ceremony, other names are: lignum aloes or aloeswood, gaharu, jinko, or oud.

Censer/Incense burner: [香爐] – usually small and used for heating incense not burning, or larger and used for burning

Charcoal: [木炭] – only the odorless kind is used.

Incense woods: [ 香木 ] – a naturally fragrant resinous wood.

 

USAGE

PRACTICAL

Incense fragrances can be of such great strength that they obscure other less desirable odours. This utility led to the use of incense in funerary ceremonies because the incense could smother the scent of decay. An example, as well as of religious use, is the giant Botafumeiro thurible that swings from the ceiling of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. It is used in part to mask the scent of the many tired, unwashed pilgrims huddled together in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

 

A similar utilitarian use of incense can be found in the post-Reformation Church of England. Although the ceremonial use of incense was abandoned until the Oxford Movement, it was common to have incense (typically frankincense) burned before grand occasions, when the church would be crowded. The frankincense was carried about by a member of the vestry before the service in a vessel called a 'perfuming pan'. In iconography of the day, this vessel is shown to be elongated and flat, with a single long handle on one side. The perfuming pan was used instead of the thurible, as the latter would have likely offended the Protestant sensibilities of the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

The regular burning of direct-burning incense has been used for chronological measurement in incense clocks. These devices can range from a simple trail of incense material calibrated to burn in a specific time period, to elaborate and ornate instruments with bells or gongs, designed to involve multiple senses.

 

Incense made from materials such as citronella can repel mosquitoes and other irritating, distracting, or pestilential insects. This use has been deployed in concert with religious uses by Zen Buddhists who claim that the incense that is part of their meditative practice is designed to keep bothersome insects from distracting the practitioner. Currently, more effective pyrethroid-based mosquito repellent incense is widely available in Asia.

 

Papier d'Arménie was originally sold as a disinfectant as well as for the fragrance.

 

Incense is also used often by people who smoke indoors and do not want the smell to linger.

 

AESTHETIC

Many people burn incense to appreciate its smell, without assigning any other specific significance to it, in the same way that the foregoing items can be produced or consumed solely for the contemplation or enjoyment of the aroma. An example is the kōdō (香道), where (frequently costly) raw incense materials such as agarwood are appreciated in a formal setting.

 

RELIGIOUS

Religious use of incense is prevalent in many cultures and may have roots in the practical and aesthetic uses, considering that many of these religions have little else in common. One common motif is incense as a form of sacrificial offering to a deity. Such use was common in Judaic worship and remains in use for example in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, Taoist and Buddhist Chinese jingxiang (敬香 "offer incense), etc.

 

Aphrodisiac Incense has been used as an aphrodisiac in some cultures. Both ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian mythology suggest the usage of incense by goddesses and nymphs. Incense is thought to heighten sexual desires and sexual attraction.

 

Time-keeper Incense clocks are used to time social, medical and religious practices in parts of eastern Asia. They are primarily used in Buddhism as a timer of mediation and prayer. Different types of incense burn at different rates; therefore, different incense are used for different practices. The duration of burning ranges from minutes to months.

 

Healing stone cleanser Incense is claimed to cleanse and restore energy in healing stones. The technique used is called “smudging” and is done by holding a healing stone over the smoke of burning incense for 20 to 30 seconds. Some people believe that this process not only restores energy but eliminates negative energy.

 

HEALTH RISK FROM INCENSE SMOKE

Incense smoke contains various contaminants including gaseous pollutants, such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and adsorbed toxic pollutants (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and toxic metals). The solid particles range between ~10 and 500 nm. In a comparison, Indian sandalwood was found to have the highest emission rate, followed by Japanese aloeswood, then Taiwanese aloeswood, while Chinese smokeless sandalwood had the least.

 

Research carried out in Taiwan in 2001 linked the burning of incense sticks to the slow accumulation of potential carcinogens in a poorly ventilated environment by measuring the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (including benzopyrene) within Buddhist temples. The study found gaseous aliphatic aldehydes, which are carcinogenic and mutagenic, in incense smoke.

 

A survey of risk factors for lung cancer, also conducted in Taiwan, noted an inverse association between incense burning and adenocarcinoma of the lung, though the finding was not deemed significant.

 

In contrast, epidemiologists at the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society, Aichi Cancer Center in Nagoya, and several other centers found: "No association was found between exposure to incense burning and respiratory symptoms like chronic cough, chronic sputum, chronic bronchitis, runny nose, wheezing, asthma, allergic rhinitis, or pneumonia among the three populations studied: i.e. primary school children, their non-smoking mothers, or a group of older non-smoking female controls. Incense burning did not affect lung cancer risk among non-smokers, but it significantly reduced risk among smokers, even after adjusting for lifetime smoking amount." However, the researchers qualified their findings by noting that incense burning in the studied population was associated with certain low-cancer-risk dietary habits, and concluded that "diet can be a significant confounder of epidemiological studies on air pollution and respiratory health."

 

Although several studies have not shown a link between incense and lung cancer, many other types of cancer have been directly linked to burning incense. A study published in 2008 in the medical journal Cancer found that incense use is associated with a statistically significant higher risk of cancers of the upper respiratory tract, with the exception of nasopharyngeal cancer. Those who used incense heavily also were 80% more likely to develop squamous-cell carcinomas. The link between incense use and increased cancer risk held when the researchers weighed other factors, including cigarette smoking, diet and drinking habits. The research team noted that "This association is consistent with a large number of studies identifying carcinogens in incense smoke, and given the widespread and sometimes involuntary exposure to smoke from burning incense, these findings carry significant public health implications."

 

In 2015, the South China University of Technology found toxicity of incense to Chinese hamsters' ovarian cells to be even higher than cigarettes.

 

Incensole acetate, a component of Frankincense, has been shown to have anxiolytic-like and antidepressive-like effects in mice, mediated by activation of poorly-understood TRPV3 ion channels in the brain.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Domino's Pizza Inc. are perfectly capable of making rather good pizzas, though I much prefer to make my own. However, look no further than above for a perfect illustration of how so many major companies lack any social responsibility. For decades, people, schools and health agencies have tried, tried and tried again to promote healthier eating habits to both consumers and the food industry. For example, common dietary advice to control Type 2 Diabetes (which is becoming ever more of an issue in the modern world and affecting younger and younger people) is to eat a lot more fresh fruit and vegetables, at least two portions of oily fish a week, and eat a lot less saturated fat, salt and sugars.

 

So what do Domino's promote as soon as the summer school holidays start? Lotta-Chocca Pizza. Frankly it beggars belief and Domino's should hang their corporate heads in total shame.

 

And whilst we are on the subject, why on earth fuse pizza with chocolate in the first place? Old school Italians will be turning in their graves. If you want to eat something similar, presumably as a dessert rather than a main course, go for a nice Belgian Chocolate Tart which at least might have real chocolate in it rather than that foul-looking slurry served up by Domino's.

 

wait, there is more......if some plonker seriously wants to spend their life tracking where the f*ck their pizza is, they frankly need to get out more.

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. The space-capable VF-1's combat debut was on February 7, 2009, during the Battle of South Ataria Island - the first battle of Space War I - and remained the mainstay fighter of the U.N. Spacy for the entire conflict. Introduced in 2008, the VF-1 would be out of frontline service just five years later, though.

 

The VF-1 proved to be an extremely capable craft, successfully combating a variety of Zentraedi mecha even in most sorties which saw UN Spacy forces significantly outnumbered. The versatility of the Valkyrie design enabled the variable fighter to act as both large-scale infantry and as air/space superiority fighter. The basic VF-1 was built and deployed in four minor variants (designated A, J, and S single-seater and the D two-seater/trainer) and its success was increased by continued development of various enhancements including the GBP-1S "Armored" Valkyrie exoskeleton with enhanced protection and integrated missile launchers, the so-called FAST (“Fuel And Sensor Tray”) packs that created the fully space-capable "Super" Valkyries and the additional RÖ-X2 heavy cannon pack weapon system for the VF-1S “Super Valkyrie”.

 

After the end of Space War I, the VF-1 continued to be manufactured both in the Sol system and throughout the UNG space colonies. At the end of 2015 the final rollout of the VF-1 was celebrated at a special ceremony, commemorating this most famous of variable fighters. The VF-1 Valkryie was built from 2006 to 2013 with a total production of 5,459 VF-1 variable fighters with several original variants (VF-1A = 5,093, VF-1D = 85, VF-1J = 49, VF-1S = 30, VF-1G = 12, VE-1 = 122, VT-1 = 68), even though these machines were frequently updated and modified during their career, leading to a wide range of sub-variants and different standards.

 

Although the VF-1 would be replaced in 2020 as the primary Variable Fighter of the U.N. Spacy, a long service record and continued production after the war proved the lasting worth of the design. One of these post-war designs became the VF-1EX, a replica variant of the VF-1J with up-to-date avionics and instrumentation. It was only built in small numbers in the late 2040s and was a dedicated variant for advanced training with dissimilar mock aerial and ground fighting.

 

The only operator of this type was Xaos (sometimes spelled as Chaos), a private and independent military and civilian contractor. Xaos was originally a fold navigation business that began venturing into fold wave communication and information, expanding rapidly during the 2050s and entering new business fields like flight tests and providing aggressor aircraft for military training. They were almost entirely independent from the New United Nations Spacy (NUNS) and was led by the mysterious Lady M. During the Vár Syndrome outbreak, Echo Squadron and Delta Flight and the tactical sound unit Thrones and Walküre were formed to counteract its effects in the Brísingr Globular Cluster.

 

The VF-1EX was restricted to its primary objective and never saw real combat. The replica unit retained the overall basic performance of the original VF-1 Valkyrie, the specifications being more than sufficient for training and mock combat. The only difference was the addition of the contemporary military EG-01M/MP EX-Gear system for the pilot as an emergency standard, an exoskeleton unit with personal inner-wear, two variable geometry wings, two hybrid jet/rocket engines, mechanical hardware for the head, torso, arms and legs. This feature gave the VF-1EX its new designation.

Furthermore, the VF-1EX was also outfitted with other electronic contingency functions like AI-assisted flight and remote override controls. Some of these features could be disabled according to necessity or pilot preferences. The gun pod unit was retained but was usually only loaded with paintball rounds for mock combat. For the same purpose, one of the original Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon in the "head unit" was replaced by a long-range laser target designator. AMM-1 missiles with dummy warheads or other training ordnance could be added to the wing hardpoints, but the VF-1EX was never seen being equipped this way - it remained an agile dogfighter.

  

General characteristics:

All-environment variable fighter and tactical combat Battroid. 3-mode variable transformation; variable geometry wing; vertical take-off and landing; control-configurable vehicle; single-axis thrust vectoring; three "magic hand" manipulators for maintenance use; retractable canopy shield for Battroid mode and atmospheric reentry; EG-01M/MP EX-Gear system; option of GBP-1S system, atmospheric-escape booster, or FAST Pack system.

 

Accommodation:

Single pilot in Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

 

Dimensions:

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

 

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons

Standard take-off mass: 18.5 metric tons

MTOW: 37.0 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);

4x 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);

18x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles

 

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

Fighter Mode: at 10,000 m Mach 2.71; at 30,000+ m Mach 3.87

g limit: in space +7

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

 

Transformation:

Standard time from Fighter to Battroid (automated): under 5 sec.

Min. time from Fighter to Battroid (manual): 0.9 sec.

 

Armament:

1x Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon in the "head" unit, firing 6,000 pulses per minute

1x Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rpm

4x underwing hardpoints for a wide variety of ordnance

  

The kit and its assembly:

The VF-1EX Valkyrie is a Variable Fighter introduced in the Macross Δ television series, and it's, as described above, a replica training variant that resembles outwardly the VF-1J. There's even a Hasegawa 1:72 kit from 2016 of this obscure variant.

However, what I tried to recreate is a virtual (and purely fictional/non-canonical) VF-1EX, re-skinned by someone called David L. on the basis of a virtual VF-1S 3D model with a 2 m wing span (sounds like ~1:8 scale) for the Phoenix R/C simulator software. Check this for reference: www.supermotoxl.com/projects-articles/ready-to-drive-fly-...). How bizarre can things be/become? And how sick is a hardware model of it, though...?

 

I found the complex livery very attractive and had the plan to build a 1:100 model for some years now. But it took this long to gather enough mojo to tackle this project, due to the tricolor paint scheme's complex nature...

The "canvas" for this stunt is a vintage Arii 1:100 VF-1 kit, built OOB except for some standard mods. The kit was actually a VF-1A, but I had a spare VF-1J head unit in store as a suitable replacement. Externally, some dorsal blade aerials and vanes on the nose were added, the attachment points under the wings for the pylons were PSRed away. A pilot figure was added to the cockpit because this model would be displayed in flight. As a consequence, the ventral gun pod received an adapter at its tail and I added one of my home-brew wire displays, created on the basis of the kit's OOB plastic base.

  

Painting and markings:

As mentioned above, this VF-1 is based on a re-skinned virtual R/C model, and its creator apparently took inspiration from a canonical VF fighter, namely a VF-31C "Siegfried", and specifically the "Mirage Farina Jenius Custom" version from the Macross Δ series that plays around 2051. Screenshots from the demo flight video under the link above provided various perspectives as painting reference, but the actual implementation on the tiny model caused serious headaches.

The VF-1's shapes are rather round and curvy, the model's jagged surface and small size prohibited masking. The kit is IMHO also best built and painted in single sub-assemblies, but upon closer inspection the screenshots revealed some marking inconsistencies (apparently edited from various videos?), and certain areas were left uncertain, e .g. the inside of the legs or the whole belly area. Therefore, this model is just a personal interpretation of the design, and as such I also deviated in the markings.

 

The paints became Humbrol 20 (Crimson) and 58 (Magenta), plus Revell 301 (Semi-gloss White), and they were applied with brushes. To replicate the edgy and rather fragmented pattern I initially laid down the two reds in a rather rough and thin fashion and painted the white dorsal and ventral areas. Once thoroughly dry, the white edges were quasi-masked with white decal material, either with stripes of various widths or tailored from sheet material, e. g. for the "wedges" on the wings and fins and the dorsal "swallow tail". This went more smoothly than expected, with a very convincing and clean result that i'd never had achieved with brushes alone, even with masking attempts, which would probably have led to chaos and too much paint on the model.

 

Other details like the grey leading edges or the air intakes were created with grey and black decal material, too.

No weathering was done, since the aircraft would be clean and in pristine condition, but I used a soft pencil to emphasize the engraved panel lines, esp. on white background. The gun pod became grey and the exhausts, painted in Revell 91 (Iron), were treated with graphite for a darker shade and a more metallic look.

 

Stencils came from the kit's OOB sheet, but only a few, since there was already a lot "going on" on the VF-1's hull. The flash-shaped Xaos insignia and the NUNS markings on legs and wings were printed at home - as well as the small black vernier thrusters all around the hull, for a uniform look. The USN style Modex and the small letter code on the fins came from an Colorado Decals F-5 sheet, for an aggressor aircraft.

 

Finally, the kit was sealed overall with semi-gloss acrlyic varnish (which turned out glossier than expected...) and position lights etc. added with translucent paint on top of a silver base.

  

Well, while the VF-1 was built OOB with no major mods and just some cosmetical upgrades, the paint scheme and its finish were more demanding - and I am happy that the "decal masking" trick worked so fine. The paint scheme surely is attractive, even though it IMHO does not really takes the VF-1's lines into account. Nevertheless, I am certain that there are not many models that are actually based on a virtual 1:8 scale 3D model of an iconic SF fighter, so that this VF-1EX might be unique.

 

Drone aerial view of the NATO Smart Energy Training and Assessment Camp (SETAC), at Ziemsko Airfield at the Drawsko Pomorskie training area in Poland. The SETAC concept is deployed as part of the multinational Exercise Capable Logistician 2019, a regular exercise for NATO and Partner nations to test interoperability and assess NATO standards.

 

Photo: ITALIAN AIRFORCE

 

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

 

The Indian HAL HG-30 Bāja (‘Hawk’) had been designed and manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. in the early 60ies, when it became clear that the Indian Air Force was left without a capable and rather simple aircraft for these roles - the “jet age” had been in full development, but fast and large aircraft like the Su-7 or Hawker Hunter were just not suited for low-altitude missions against day and night visible ground targets in a broad area.

 

Indian military planners assumed that potential aggressor will first disable airfields, so the Bāja was designed to take-off from short unprepared runways, and it was readily available to be loaded with weapons and supplied through a flexible system of auxiliary airfields that required no special preparations, especially in mountainous regions.

 

The resulting HG-30 Bāja was a light, single-engine, low-wing single-seat aircraft with a metal airframe, capable of performing close air support, counter insurgency (COIN), and reconnaissance missions. The type featured a license-built Rolls Royce Dart turboprop engine and a reinforced, retractable tricycle landing gear for operations on rugged terrain. The unpressurized cockpit was placed as far forward and high as possible, offering the pilot an excellent view. The ejection seat was armored and the cockpit lined with nylon flak curtains.

The first HG-30 prototype flew in February 1962, and a total of 89 examples of the Bāja were built between 1963 and 1965, including two pre-production aircraft. These introduced some improvements like fixed wingtip tanks, a bulged canopy which improved the rear view or self-sealing and foam-filled fuselage tanks.

 

Armament consisted of four fixed 20mm cannons in the wings, plus unguided missiles, unguided bombs or napalm tanks under the wings and the fuselage on a total of 11 hardpoints. The inner pair under the wings as well as the centerline pylon were able to carry 1.000 lbs each and were ‘wet’ for optional drop tanks. The next pair could carry 500 lbs each, and the outer six attachment points were reserved for missile rails or single bombs of up to 200 lbs caliber. A total external ordnance load of up to 4.500 lbs could be carried, even though this was rarely practiced since it severely hampered handling.

 

The Bāja was exclusively used by the Indian Air Force, serving with 3rd (‘Cobras’) and 5th (‘Tuskers’) Squadrons in the Eastern and Western regions, alongside Toofani and Ajeet fighter bombers. Even though there was some foreign interest (e .g. from Israel and Yugoslavia,) no export sales came to fruition.

A tandem-seated trainer version was envisaged, but never left the drawing board, since Hindustan had already developed the HJT-16 Kiran jet trainer for the IAF which was more suitable, esp. with its side-by-side cockpit. Even a maritime version with foldable outer wings, arresting hook and structural reinforcements was considered for the Indian Navy.

 

The HG-30 did not make it in time into service for the five-week Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, but later saw serious action in the course of the Bangladesh Liberation War and the ensuing next clash between India and Pakistan in December 1971, when all aircraft (originally delivered in a natural metal finish) quickly received improvised camouflage schemes.

 

The 1971 campaign settled down to series of daylight anti-airfield, anti-radar and close-support attacks by fighters, with night attacks against airfields and strategic targets, into which the HG-30s were heavily involved. Sporadic raids by the IAF continued against Pakistan's forward air bases in the West until the end of the war, and large scale interdiction and close-support operations were maintained.

The HG-30 excelled at close air support. Its straight wings allowed it to engage targets 150 MPH slower than swept-wing jet fighters. This slower speed improved shooting and bombing accuracy, enabling pilots to achieve an average accuracy of less than 40 feet, and the turboprop engine offered a much better fuel consumption than the jet engines of that era.

While it was not a fast aircraft and its pilots were a bit looked down upon by their jet pilot colleagues, the HG-30 was well liked by its crews because of its agility, stability at low speed, ease of service under field conditions and the crucial ability to absorb a lot of punishment with its rigid and simple structure.

 

After the 1971 conflict the Bāja served with the IAF without any further warfare duty until 1993, when, after the loss of about two dozen aircraft due to enemy fire and (only three) accidents, the type was completely retired and its COIN duties taken over by Mi-25 and Mi-35 helicopters, which had been gradually introduced into IAF service since 1984.

  

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 10.23 m (33 ft 6¼ in)

Wingspan: 12.38 m (40 ft 7¼ in) incl. wing tip tanks

Height: 3.95 m (12 ft 11¼ in)

Empty weight: 7,689 lb (3,488 kg)

Max. take-off weight: Loaded weight: 11,652 lb (5,285 kg)

 

Powerplant:

1× Rolls Royce Dart RDa.7 turboprop engine, with 1.815 ehp (1.354 kW)/1.630 shp (1.220 kW) at 15,000 rpm

 

Performance

Maximum speed: 469 mph (755 km/h) at sea level and in clean configuration

Stall speed: 88 km/h (48 knots 55 mph)

Service ceiling: 34,000 ft (10,363 m)

Rate of climb: 5,020 ft/min (25.5 m/s)

Range: 1,385 miles (2,228 km) at max. take-off weight

 

Armament:

4× 20mm cannons (2 per wing) with 250 RPG

A total of 11 underwing and fuselage hardpoints with a capacity of 4.500 lbs (2.034 kg); provisions to carry combinations of general purpose or cluster bombs, machine gun pods, unguided missiles, air-to-ground rocket pods, fuel drop tanks, and napalm tanks.

  

The kit and its assembly

This fictional COIN aircraft came to be when I stumbled across the vintage Heller Breguet Alizé kit in 1:100 scale. I did some math and came to the conclusion that the kit would make a pretty plausible single-seat propeller aircraft in 1:72...

 

Finding a story and a potential user was more of a challenge. I finally settled on India – not only because the country had and has a potent aircraft industry, a COIN aircraft (apart from obsolete WWII types) would have matched well into the IAF in the early 70ies. Brazil was another manufacturer candidate – but then I had the vision of Indian Su-7 and their unique camouflage scheme, and this was what the kit was to evolve to! Muahahah!

 

What started as a simple adaptation idea turned into a true Frankenstein job, because only little was left from the Heller Alizé – the kit is SO crappy…

 

What was thrown into the mix:

• Fuselage, rudder and front wheel doors from the Heller Alizé

• Horizontal stabilizers from an Airfix P-51 Mustang

• Wings are the outer parts from an Airfix Fw 189, clipped and with new landing gear wells

• Landing gear comes from a Hobby Boss F-86, the main wheels from the scrap box

• Cockpit tub comes from a Heller Alpha Jet, seat and pilot from the scrap box

• The canopy comes from a Hobby Boss F4U Corsair

• Ordnance hardpoints were cut from styrene strips

• Propeller consists of a spinner from a Matchbox Mitsubishi Zero and blades from two AH-1 tail rotors

• Ordnance was puzzled together from the scrap box; the six retarder bombs appeared appropriate, the four missile pods were built from Matchbox parts. The wingtip tanks are streamlines 1.000 lbs bombs.

 

The only major sculpting work was done around the nose, in order to make the bigger propeller fiat and to simulate an appropriate air intake for the engine. Overall this thing looks pretty goofy, rather jet-like, with the slightly swept wings. On the other side, the Bāja does not look bad at all, and it has that “Small man’s A-10” aura to it.

 

Putting the parts together only posed two trouble zones: the canopy and the wings. The Corsair canopy would more or less fit, getting it in place and shaping the spine intersection was more demanding than expected. Still not perfect, but this was a “quick and dirty” project with a poor basis, anyway, so I don’t bother much.

Another tricky thing were the wings and getting them on the fuselage. That the Fw 189 wings ended up here has a reason: the original kit provided two pairs of upper wing halves, the lower halves were lacking! Here these obsolete parts finally found a good use, even though the resulting wing is pretty thick and called for some serious putty work on the belly side… Anyway, this was still easier than trying to modify the Alizé wings into something useful, and a thick wing ain’t bad for low altitude and bigger external loads.

  

Painting and markings

As mentioned before, the garish paint scheme is inspired by IAF Su-7 fighter bombers during/after the India-Pakistani confrontation of 1971. It’s almost surreal, reason enough to use it. Since a 1:72 Su-7 takes up so much shelf space I was happy to find this smaller aircraft as a suitable placebo.

 

I used Su-7 pictures as benchmarks, and settled for the following enamels as basic tones for the upper grey, brown and green:

• Humbrol 176 (Neutral Grey, out of production), for a dull and bluish medium grey

• Testors 1583 (Rubber), a very dark, reddish brown

• Humbrol 114 (Russian Green, out of production)

 

For the lower sides I used Testors 2123 (Russian Underside Blue). The kit received a black ink wash and some dry painting for weathering/more depth. Judging real life aircraft pics of IAF Su-7 and MiG-21, the original underside tone is hardly different from the upper blue grey and it seems on some aircraft as if the upper tone had been wrapped around. The aircraft do not appear very uniform at all, anyway.

 

Together with the bright IAF roundels the result looks a bit as if that thing had been designed by 6 year old, but the livery has its charm - the thing looks VERY unique! The roundels come from a generic TL Modellbau aftermarket sheet, the tactical codes are single white letters from the same manufacturer. Other stencils, warning signs and the squadron emblem come from the scrap box – Indian aircraft tend to look rather bleak and purposeful, except when wearing war game markings...

  

In the end, a small and quick project. The model was assembled in just two days, basic painting done on the third day and decals plus some weathering and detail work on the forth – including pics. A new record, even though this one was not built for perfectionism, rather as a recycling kit with lots of stock material at hand. But overall the Bāja looks exotic and somehow quite convincing?

+++ 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 Waffenträger (Weapon Carrier) VTS3 “Diana” was a prototype for a wheeled tank destroyer. It was developed by Thyssen-Henschel (later Rheinmetall) in Kassel, Germany, in the late Seventies, in response to a German Army requirement for a highly mobile tank destroyer with the firepower of the Leopard 1 main battle tank then in service and about to be replaced with the more capable Leopard 2 MBT, but less complex and costly. The main mission of the Diana was light to medium territorial defense, protection of infantry units and other, lighter, elements of the cavalry as well as tactical reconnaissance. Instead of heavy armor it would rather use its good power-to-weight ratio, excellent range and cross-country ability (despite the wheeled design) for defense and a computerized fire control system to accomplish this mission.

 

In order to save development cost and time, the vehicle was heavily based on the Spähpanzer Luchs (Lynx), a new German 8x8 amphibious reconnaissance armored fighting vehicle that had just entered Bundeswehr service in 1975. The all-wheel drive Luchs made was well armored against light weapons, had a full NBC protection system and was characterized by its extremely low-noise running. The eight large low-pressure tires had run-flat properties, and, at speeds up to about 50 km/h, all four axles could be steered, giving the relatively large vehicle a surprising agility and very good off-road performance. As a special feature, the vehicle was equipped with a rear-facing driver with his own driving position (normally the radio operator), so that the vehicle could be driven at full speed into both directions – a heritage from German WWII designs, and a tactical advantage when the vehicle had to quickly retreat from tactical position after having been detected. The original Luchs weighed less than 20 tons, was fully amphibious and could surmount water obstacles quickly and independently using propellers at the rear and the fold back trim vane at the front. Its armament was relatively light, though, a 20 mm Rheinmetall MK 20 Rh 202 gun in the turret that was effective against both ground and air targets.

 

The Waffenträger “Diana” used the Luchs’ hull and dynamic components as basis, and Thyssen-Henschel solved the challenge to mount a large and heavy 105 mm L7 gun with its mount on the light chassis through a minimalistic, unmanned mount and an autoloader. Avoiding a traditional manned and heavy, armored turret, a lot of weight and internal volume that had to be protected could be saved, and crew safety was indirectly improved, too. This concept had concurrently been tested in the form of the VTS1 (“Versuchsträger Scheitellafette #1) experimental tank in 1976 for the Kampfpanzer 3 development, which eventually led to the Leopard 2 MBT (which retained a traditional turret, though).

 

For the “Diana” test vehicle, Thyssen-Henschel developed a new low-profile turret with a very small frontal area. Two crew members, the commander (on the right side) and the gunner (to the left), were seated in/under the gun mount, completely inside of the vehicle’s hull. The turret was a very innovative construction for its time, fully stabilized and mounted the proven 105mm L7 rifled cannon with a smoke discharger. Its autoloader contained 8 rounds in a carousel magazine. 16 more rounds could be carried in the hull, but they had to be manually re-loaded into the magazine, which was only externally accessible. A light, co-axial 7,62mm machine gun against soft targets was available, too, as well as eight defensive smoke grenade mortars.

 

The automated L7 had a rate of fire of ten rounds per minute and could fire four types of ammunition: a kinetic energy penetrator to destroy armored vehicles; a high explosive anti-tank round to destroy thin-skinned vehicles and provide anti-personnel fragmentation; a high explosive plastic round to destroy bunkers, machine gun and sniper positions, and create openings in walls for infantry to access; and a canister shot for use against dismounted infantry in the open or for smoke charges. The rounds to be fired could be pre-selected, so that the gun was able to automatically fire a certain ammunition sequence, but manual round selection was possible at any time, too.

 

In order to take the new turret, the Luchs hull had to be modified. Early calculations had revealed that a simple replacement of the Luchs’ turret with the new L7 mount would have unfavorably shifted the vehicle’s center of gravity up- and forward, making it very nose-heavy and hard to handle in rough terrain or at high speed, and the long barrel would have markedly overhung the front end, impairing handling further. It was also clear that the additional weight and the rise of the CoG made amphibious operations impossible - a fate that met the upgraded Luchs recce tanks in the Eighties, too, after several accidents with overturned vehicles during wading and drowned crews. With this insight the decision was made to omit the vehicle’s amphibious capability, save weight and complexity, and to modify the vehicle’s layout considerably to optimize the weight distribution.

 

Taking advantage of the fact that the Luchs already had two complete driver stations at both ends, a pair of late-production hulls were set aside in 1977 and their internal layout reversed. The engine bay was now in the vehicle’s front, the secured ammunition storage was placed next to it, behind the separate driver compartment, and the combat section with the turret mechanism was located behind it. Since the VTS3s were only prototypes, only minimal adaptations were made. This meant that the driver was now located on the right side of the vehicle, while and the now-rear-facing secondary driver/radio operator station ended up on the left side – much like a RHD vehicle – but this was easily accepted in the light of cost and time savings. As a result, the gun and its long, heavy barrel were now located above the vehicle’s hull, so that the overall weight distribution was almost neutral and overall dimensions remained compact.

 

Both test vehicles were completed in early 1978 and field trials immediately started. While the overall mobility was on par with the Luchs and the Diana’s high speed and low noise profile was highly appreciated, the armament was and remained a source of constant concern. Shooting in motion from the Diana turned out to be very problematic, and even firing from a standstill was troublesome. The gun mount and the vehicle’s complex suspension were able to "hold" the recoil of the full-fledged 105-mm tank gun, which had always been famous for its rather large muzzle energy. But when fired, even in the longitudinal plane, the vehicle body fell heavily towards the stern, so that the target was frequently lost and aiming had to be resumed – effectively negating the benefit from the autoloader’s high rate of fire and exposing the vehicle to potential target retaliation. Firing to the side was even worse. Several attempts were made to mend this flaw, but neither the addition of a muzzle brake, stronger shock absorbers and even hydro-pneumatic suspension elements did not solve the problem. In addition, the high muzzle flames and the resulting significant shockwave required the infantry to stay away from the vehicle intended to support them. The Bundeswehr also criticized the too small ammunition load, as well as the fact that the autoloader magazine could not be re-filled under armor protection, so that the vehicle had to retreat to safe areas to re-arm and/or to adapt to a new mission profile. This inherent flaw not only put the crew under the hazards of enemy fire, it also negated the vehicle’s NBC protection – a serious issue and likely Cold War scenario. Another weak point was the Diana’s weight: even though the net gain of weight compared with the Luchs was less than 3 tons after the conversion, this became another serious problem that led to the Diana’s demise: during trials the Bundeswehr considered the possibility to airlift the Diana, but its weight (even that of the Luchs, BTW) was too much for the Luftwaffe’s biggest own transport aircraft, the C-160 Transall. Even aircraft from other NATO members, e.g. the common C-130 Hercules, could hardly carry the vehicle. In theory, equipment had to be removed, including the cannon and parts of its mount.

 

Since the tactical value of the vehicle was doubtful and other light anti-tank weapons in the form of the HOT anti-tank missile had reached operational status, so that very light vehicles and even small infantry groups could now effectively fight against full-fledged enemy battle tanks from a safe distance, the Diana’s development was stopped in 1988. Both VTS3 prototypes were mothballed, stored at the Bundeswehr Munster Training Area camp and are still waiting to be revamped as historic exhibits alongside other prototypes like the Kampfpanzer 70 in the German Tank Museum located there, too.

  

Specifications:

Crew: 4 (commander, driver, gunner, radio operator/second driver)

Weight: 22.6 t

Length: 7.74 m (25 ft 4 ¼ in)

Width: 2.98 m ( 9 ft 9 in)

Height: XXX

Ground clearance: 440 mm (1 ft 4 in)

Suspension: hydraulic all-wheel drive and steering

 

Armor:

Unknown, but sufficient to withstand 14.5 mm AP rounds

 

Performance:

Speed: 90 km/h (56 mph) on roads

Operational range: 720 km (445 mi)

Power/weight: 13,3 hp/ton with petrol, 17,3 hp/ton with diesel

 

Engine:

1× Daimler Benz OM 403A turbocharged 10-cylinder 4-stroke multi-fuel engine,

delivering 300 hp with petrol, 390 hp with diesel

 

Armament:

1× 105 mm L7 rifled gun with autoloader (8 rounds ready, plus 16 in reserve)

1× co-axial 7.92 mm M3 machine gun with 2.000 rounds

Two groups of four Wegmann 76 mm smoke mortars

  

The kit and its assembly:

I have been a big Luchs fan since I witnessed one in action during a public Bundeswehr demo day when I was around 10 years old: a huge, boxy and futuristic vehicle with strange proportions, gigantic wheels, water propellers, a mind-boggling mobility and all of this utterly silent. Today you’d assume that this vehicle had an electric engine – spooky! So I always had a soft spot for it, and now it was time and a neat occasion to build a what-if model around it.

 

This fictional wheeled tank prototype model was spawned by a leftover Revell 1:72 Luchs kit, which I had bought some time ago primarily for the turret, used in a fictional post-WWII SdKfz. 234 “Puma” conversion. With just the chassis left I wondered what other use or equipment it might take, and, after several weeks with the idea in the back of my mind, I stumbled at Silesian Models over an M1128 resin conversion set for the Trumpeter M1126 “Stryker” 8x8 APC model. From this set as potential donor for a conversion the prototype idea with an unmanned turret was born.

 

Originally I just planned to mount the new turret onto the OOB hull, but when playing with the parts I found the look with an overhanging gun barrel and the bigger turret placed well forward on the hull goofy and unbalanced. I was about to shelf the idea again, until I recognized that the Luchs’ hull is almost symmetrical – the upper hull half could be easily reversed on the chassis tub (at least on the kit…), and this would allow much better proportions. From this conceptual change the build went straightforward, reversing the upper hull only took some minor PSR. The resin turret was taken mostly OOB, it only needed a scratched adapter to fit into the respective hull opening. I just added a co-axial machine gun fairing, antenna bases (from the Luchs kit, since they could, due to the long gun barrel, not be attached to the hull anymore) and smoke grenade mortars (also taken from the Luchs).

 

An unnerving challenge became the Luchs kit’s suspension and drive train – it took two days to assemble the vehicle’s underside alone! While this area is very accurate and delicate, the fact that almost EVERY lever and stabilizer is a separate piece on four(!) axles made the assembly a very slow process. Just for reference: the kit comes with three and a half sprues. A full one for the wheels (each consists of three parts, and more than another one for suspension and drivetrain!

Furthermore, the many hull surface details like tools or handles – these are more than a dozen bits and pieces – are separate, very fragile and small (tiny!), too. Cutting all these wee parts out and cleaning them was a tedious affair, too, plus painting them separately.

Otherwise the model went together well, but it’s certainly not good for quick builders and those with big fingers and/or poor sight.

  

Painting and markings:

The paint scheme was a conservative choice; it is a faithful adaptation of the Bundeswehr’s NATO standard camouflage for the European theatre of operations that was introduced in the Eighties. It was adopted by many armies to confuse potential aggressors from the East, so that observers could not easily identify a vehicle and its nationality. It consists of a green base with red-brown and black blotches, in Germany it was executed with RAL tones, namely 6031 (Bronze Green), 8027 (Leather Brown) and 9021 (Tar Black). The pattern was standardized for each vehicle type and I stuck to the official Luchs pattern, trying to adapt it to the new/bigger turret. I used Revell acrylic paints, since the authentic RAL tones are readily available in this product range (namely the tones 06, 65 and 84). The big tires were painted with Revell 09 (Anthracite).

 

Next the model was treated with a highly thinned washing with black and red-brown acrylic paint, before decals were applied, taken from the OOB sheet and without unit markings, since the Diana would represent a test vehicle. After sealing them with a thin coat of clear varnish the model was furthermore treated with lightly dry-brushed Revell 45 and 75 to emphasize edges and surface details, and the separately painted hull equipment was mounted. The following step was a cloudy treatment with watercolors (from a typical school paintbox, it’s great stuff for weathering!), simulating dust residue all over the hull. After a final protective coat with matt acrylic varnish I finally added some mineral artist pigments to the lower hull areas and created mud crusts on the wheels through light wet varnish traces into which pigments were “dusted”.

  

Basically a simple project, but the complex Luchs kit with its zillion of wee bits and pieces took time and cost some nerves. However, the result looks pretty good, and the Stryker turret blends well into the overall package. Not certain how realistic the swap of the Luchs’ internal layout would have been, but I think that the turret moved to the rear makes more sense than the original forward position? After all, the model is supposed to be a prototype, so there’s certainly room for creative freedom. And in classic Bundeswehr colors, the whole thing even looks pretty convincing.

 

Celebrity Row, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base boneyard, Tucson, Arizona

 

DSC_0423 Anx2 1200h Q90

Most exciting moment, zigzag high and low ride was from Khagrachari to Sajek Valley in my life. If a person capable to completing the journey from the roof of the Chader Gari, person will seen the real hill view, what is amazing, though its too dangerous and tough to seat their from beginning to end.

 

Another exciting thing what I got in mid night, it clear sky and full stars and I was sitting in the middle of the road where no people. When spent sometime with the stars and I saw moon just rising over from the big hill Woow! that's actually really cool and worth looking for me. What I enjoyed lonely atmost 2 hours. May be for geting this I will go again. When in the morning I opened my eyes in fully sleepy mood and saw over my balcony, I astonished.....my sleepy mood had gone.....it was just full of cloud where no hill view was visible...amazing it was, really enjoyed.

 

Some guidance should provide from authorities because they takes entry fee, they should provide atleast a leaflet about what to do and what not to do, where to go and where not to go and the cleanness about the place.

 

All over, it's a beautiful place to visit but we should be more careful to not do anything what is destroy our nature.

« •🌿• » ѕανє συя gяєєη « •🌿• » ѕανє συя Nature « •🌿• » .

 

Beauty, Amazing whatever I said it is not enough and unexplainable feelings to express to anyone what is what. So if you want to see something, feel something, enjoy something then go and visit the valley. See it yourself. It has four seasons four different tast. Just one I looked there.

 

Ah! one last thing...the Nicest, fantastic and cool guy Mr. Sabbir Ansary Riyadh. Thousands of thanks to him for giving me chance to see tremendous beautiful valley. He is a tremendous helper from evey bit of side, thats why I like him a lot. He have flavour, if you want to catch his flavour for tast of yours.....then go.....

Touronto Travelers Group

Office : 292, Shatabdi Center,

Fakirapool, Motijheel,

Dhaka-1000,

Bangladesh।

Mobile: +8801511082947

Email : tourontobd@gmail.com

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

The English Electric Skyspark was a British fighter aircraft that served as an interceptor during the 1960s, the 1970s and into the late 1980s. It remains the only UK-designed-and-built fighter capable of Mach 2. The Skyspark was designed, developed, and manufactured by English Electric, which was later merged into the newly-formed British Aircraft Corporation. Later the type was marketed as the BAC Skyspark.

 

The specification for the aircraft followed the cancellation of the Air Ministry's 1942 E.24/43 supersonic research aircraft specification which had resulted in the Miles M.52 program. W.E.W. "Teddy" Petter, formerly chief designer at Westland Aircraft, was a keen early proponent of Britain's need to develop a supersonic fighter aircraft. In 1947, Petter approached the Ministry of Supply (MoS) with his proposal, and in response Specification ER.103 was issued for a single research aircraft, which was to be capable of flight at Mach 1.5 (1,593 km/h) and 50,000 ft (15,000 m).

 

Petter initiated a design proposal with F W "Freddie" Page leading the design and Ray Creasey responsible for the aerodynamics. As it was designed for Mach 1.5, it had a 40° swept wing to keep the leading edge clear of the Mach cone. To mount enough power into the airframe, two engines were installed, in an unusual, stacked layout and with a high tailplane This proposal was submitted in November 1948, and in January 1949 the project was designated P.1 by English Electric. On 29 March 1949 MoS granted approval to start the detailed design, develop wind tunnel models and build a full-size mock-up.

 

The design that had developed during 1948 evolved further during 1949 to further improve performance. To achieve Mach 2 the wing sweep was increased to 60° with the ailerons moved to the wingtips. In late 1949, low-speed wind tunnel tests showed that a vortex was generated by the wing which caused a large downwash on the initial high tailplane; this issue was solved by lowering the tail below the wing. Following the resignation of Petter, Page took over as design team leader for the P.1. In 1949, the Ministry of Supply had issued Specification F23/49, which expanded upon the scope of ER103 to include fighter-level manoeuvring. On 1 April 1950, English Electric received a contract for two flying airframes, as well as one static airframe, designated P.1.

 

The Royal Aircraft Establishment disagreed with Petter's choice of sweep angle (60 degrees) and the stacked engine layout, as well as the low tailplane position, was considered to be dangerous, too. To assess the effects of wing sweep and tailplane position on the stability and control of Petter's design Short Brothers were issued a contract, by the Ministry of Supply, to produce the Short SB.5 in mid-1950. This was a low-speed research aircraft that could test sweep angles from 50 to 69 degrees and tailplane positions high or low. Testing with the wings and tail set to the P.1 configuration started in January 1954 and confirmed this combination as the correct one. The proposed 60-degree wing sweep was retained, but the stacked engines had to give way to a more conventional configuration with two engines placed side-by-side in the tail, but still breathing through a mutual nose air intake.

 

From 1953 onward, the first three prototype aircraft were hand-built at Samlesbury. These aircraft had been assigned the aircraft serials WG760, WG763, and WG765 (the structural test airframe). The prototypes were powered by un-reheated Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire turbojets, as the selected Rolls-Royce Avon engines had fallen behind schedule due to their own development problems. Since there was not much space in the fuselage for fuel, the thin wings became the primary fuel tanks and since they also provided space for the stowed main undercarriage the fuel capacity was relatively small, giving the prototypes an extremely limited endurance. The narrow tires housed in the thin wings rapidly wore out if there was any crosswind component during take-off or landing. Outwardly, the prototypes looked very much like the production series, but they were distinguished by the rounded-triangular air intake with no center-body at the nose, short fin, and lack of operational equipment.

 

On 9 June 1952, it was decided that there would be a second phase of prototypes built to develop the aircraft toward achieving Mach 2.0 (2,450 km/h); these were designated P.1B while the initial three prototypes were retroactively reclassified as P.1A. P.1B was a significant improvement on P.1A. While it was similar in aerodynamics, structure and control systems, it incorporated extensive alterations to the forward fuselage, reheated Rolls Royce Avon R24R engines, a conical center body inlet cone, variable nozzle reheat and provision for weapons systems integrated with the ADC and AI.23 radar. Three P.1B prototypes were built, assigned serials XA847, XA853 and XA856.

 

In May 1954, WG760 and its support equipment were moved to RAF Boscombe Down for pre-flight ground taxi trials; on the morning of 4 August 1954, WG760 flew for the first time from Boscombe Down. One week later, WG760 officially achieved supersonic flight for the first time, having exceeded the speed of sound during its third flight. While WG760 had proven the P.1 design to be viable, it was plagued by directional stability problems and a dismal performance: Transonic drag was much higher than expected, and the aircraft was limited to Mach 0.98 (i.e. subsonic), with a ceiling of just 48,000 ft (14,630 m), far below the requirements.

 

To solve the problem and save the P.1, Petter embarked on a major redesign, incorporating the recently discovered area rule, while at the same time simplifying production and maintenance. The redesign entailed a new, narrower canopy, a revised air intake, a pair of stabilizing fins under the rear fuselage, and a shallow ventral fairing at the wings’ trailing edge that not only reduced the drag coefficient along the wing/fuselage intersection, it also provided space for additional fuel.

On 4 April 1957 the modified P.1B (XA847) made the first flight, immediately exceeding Mach 1. During the early flight trials of the P.1B, speeds in excess of 1,000 mph were achieved daily.

In late October 1958, the plane was officially presented. The event was celebrated in traditional style in a hangar at Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Farnborough, with the prototype XA847 having the name ‘Skyspark’ freshly painted on the nose in front of the RAF Roundel, which almost covered it. A bottle of champagne was put beside the nose on a special rig which allowed the bottle to safely be smashed against the side of the aircraft.

On 25 November 1958 the P.1B XA847 reached Mach 2 for the first time. This made it the second Western European aircraft to reach Mach 2, the first one being the French Dassault Mirage III just over a month earlier on 24 October 1958

 

The first operational Skyspark, designated Skyspark F.1, was designed as a pure interceptor to defend the V Force airfields in conjunction with the "last ditch" Bristol Bloodhound missiles located either at the bomber airfield, e.g. at RAF Marham, or at dedicated missile sites near to the airfield, e.g. at RAF Woodhall Spa near the Vulcan station RAF Coningsby. The bomber airfields, along with the dispersal airfields, would be the highest priority targets in the UK for enemy nuclear weapons. To best perform this intercept mission, emphasis was placed on rate-of-climb, acceleration, and speed, rather than range – originally a radius of operation of only 150 miles (240 km) from the V bomber airfields was specified – and endurance. Armament consisted of a pair of 30 mm ADEN cannon in front of the cockpit, and two pylons for IR-guided de Havilland Firestreak air-to-air missiles were added to the lower fuselage flanks. These hardpoints could, alternatively, carry pods with unguided 55 mm air-to-air rockets. The Ferranti AI.23 onboard radar provided missile guidance and ranging, as well as search and track functions.

 

The next two Skyspark variants, the Skyspark F.1A and F.2, incorporated relatively minor design changes, but for the next variant, the Skyspark F.3, they were more extensive: The F.3 had higher thrust Rolls-Royce Avon 301R engines, a larger squared-off fin that improved directional stability at high speed further and a strengthened inlet cone allowing a service clearance to Mach 2.0 (2,450 km/h; the F.1, F.1A and F.2 were all limited to Mach 1.7 (2,083 km/h). An upgraded A.I.23B radar and new, radar-guided Red Top missiles offered a forward hemisphere attack capability, even though additional electronics meant that the ADEN guns had to be deleted – but they were not popular in their position in front of the windscreen, because the muzzle flash blinded the pilot upon firing. The new engines and fin made the F.3 the highest performance Skyspark yet, but this came at a steep price: higher fuel consumption, resulting in even shorter range. From this basis, a conversion trainer with a side-by-side cockpit, the T.4, was created.

 

The next interceptor variant was already in development, but there was a need for an interim solution to partially address the F.3's shortcomings, the F.3A. The F.3A introduced two major improvements: a larger, non-jettisonable, 610-imperial-gallon (2,800 L) ventral fuel tank, resulting in a much deeper and longer belly fairing, and a new, kinked, conically cambered wing leading edge. The conically cambered wing improved manoeuvrability, especially at higher altitudes, and it offered space for a slightly larger leading edge fuel tank, raising the total usable internal fuel by 716 imperial gallons (3,260 L). The enlarged ventral tank not only nearly doubled available fuel, it also provided space at its front end for a re-instated pair of 30 mm ADEN cannon with 120 RPG. Alternatively, a retractable pack with unguided 55 mm air-to-air rockets could be installed, or a set of cameras for reconnaissance missions. The F.3A also introduced an improved A.I.23B radar and the new IR-guided Red Top missile, which was much faster and had greater range and manoeuvrability than the Firestreak. Its improved infrared seeker enabled a wider range of engagement angles and offered a forward hemisphere attack capability that would allow the Skyspark to attack even faster bombers (like the new, supersonic Tupolev T-22 Blinder) through a collision-course approach.

Wings and the new belly tank were also immediately incorporated in a second trainer variant, the T.5.

 

The ultimate variant, the Skyspark F.6, was nearly identical to the F.3A, with the exception that it could carry two additional 260-imperial-gallon (1,200 L) ferry tanks on pylons over the wings. These tanks were jettisonable in an emergency and gave the F.6 a substantially improved deployment capability, even though their supersonic drag was so high that the extra fuel would only marginally raise the aircraft’s range when flying beyond the sound barrier for extended periods.

 

Finally, there was the Skyspark F.2A; it was an early production F.2 upgraded with the new cambered wing, the squared fin, and the 610 imperial gallons (2,800 L) ventral tank. However, the F.2A retained the old AI.23 radar, the IR-guided Firestreak missile and the earlier Avon 211R engines. Although the F.2A lacked the thrust of the later Skysparks, it had the longest tactical range of all variants, and was used for low-altitude interception over West Germany.

 

The first Skysparks to enter service with the RAF, three pre-production P.1Bs, arrived at RAF Coltishall in Norfolk on 23 December 1959, joining the Air Fighting Development Squadron (AFDS) of the Central Fighter Establishment, where they were used to clear the Skyspark for entry into service. The production Skyspark F.1 entered service with the AFDS in May 1960, allowing the unit to take part in the air defence exercise "Yeoman" later that month. The Skyspark F.1 entered frontline squadron service with 74 Squadron at Coltishall from 11 July 1960. This made the Skyspark the second Western European-built combat aircraft with true supersonic capability to enter service and the second fully supersonic aircraft to be deployed in Western Europe (the first one in both categories being the Swedish Saab 35 Draken on 8 March 1960 four months earlier).

 

The aircraft's radar and missiles proved to be effective, and pilots reported that the Skyspark was easy to fly. However, in the first few months of operation the aircraft's serviceability was extremely poor. This was due to the complexity of the aircraft systems and shortages of spares and ground support equipment. Even when the Skyspark was not grounded by technical faults, the RAF initially struggled to get more than 20 flying hours per aircraft per month compared with the 40 flying hours that English Electric believed could be achieved with proper support. In spite of these concerns, within six months of the Skyspark entering service, 74 Squadron was able to achieve 100 flying hours per aircraft.

 

Deliveries of the slightly improved Skyspark F.1A, with revised avionics and provision for an air-to-air refueling probe, allowed two more squadrons, 56 and 111 Squadron, both based at RAF Wattisham, to convert to the Skyspark in 1960–1961. The Skyspark F.1 was only ordered in limited numbers and served only for a short time; nonetheless, it was viewed as a significant step forward in Britain's air defence capabilities. Following their replacement from frontline duties by the introduction of successively improved Skyspark variants, the remaining F.1 aircraft were employed by the Skyspark Conversion Squadron.

The improved F.2 entered service with 19 Squadron at the end of 1962 and 92 Squadron in early 1963. Conversion of these two squadrons was aided by the of the two-seat T.4 and T.5 trainers (based on the F.3 and F.3A/F.6 fighters), which entered service with the Skyspark Conversion Squadron (later renamed 226 Operational Conversion Unit) in June 1962. While the OCU was the major user of the two-seater, small numbers were also allocated to the front-line fighter squadrons. More F.2s were produced than there were available squadron slots, so later production aircraft were stored for years before being used operationally; some of these Skyspark F.2s were converted to F.2As.

 

The F.3, with more powerful engines and the new Red Top missile was expected to be the definitive Skyspark, and at one time it was planned to equip ten squadrons, with the remaining two squadrons retaining the F.2. However, the F.3 also had only a short operational life and was withdrawn from service early due to defence cutbacks and the introduction of the even more capable and longer-range F.6, some of which were converted F.3s.

 

The introduction of the F.3 and F.6 allowed the RAF to progressively reequip squadrons operating aircraft such as the subsonic Gloster Javelin and retire these types during the mid-1960s. During the 1960s, as strategic awareness increased and a multitude of alternative fighter designs were developed by Warsaw Pact and NATO members, the Skyspark's range and firepower shortcomings became increasingly apparent. The transfer of McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs from Royal Navy service enabled these much longer-ranged aircraft to be added to the RAF's interceptor force, alongside those withdrawn from Germany as they were replaced by SEPECAT Jaguars in the ground attack role.

The Skyspark's direct replacement was the Tornado F.3, an interceptor variant of the Panavia Tornado. The Tornado featured several advantages over the Skyspark, including far larger weapons load and considerably more advanced avionics. Skysparks were slowly phased out of service between 1974 and 1988, even though they lasted longer than expected because the definitive Tornado F.3 went through serious teething troubles and its service introduction was delayed several times. In their final years, the Skysparks’ airframes required considerable maintenance to keep them airworthy due to the sheer number of accumulated flight hours.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 51 ft 2 in (15,62 m) fuselage only

57 ft 3½ in (17,50 m) including pitot

Wingspan: 34 ft 10 in (10.62 m)

Height: 17 ft 6¾ in (5.36 m)

Wing area: 474.5 sq ft (44.08 m²)

Empty weight: 31,068 lb (14,092 kg) with armament and no fuel

Gross weight: 41,076 lb (18,632 kg) with two Red Tops, ammunition, and internal fuel

Max. takeoff weight: 45,750 lb (20,752 kg)

 

Powerplant:

2× Rolls-Royce Avon 301R afterburning turbojet engines,

12,690 lbf (56.4 kN) thrust each dry, 16,360 lbf (72.8 kN) with afterburner

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: Mach 2.27 (1,500 mph+ at 40,000 ft)

Range: 738 nmi (849 mi, 1,367 km)

Combat range: 135 nmi (155 mi, 250 km) supersonic intercept radius

Range: 800 nmi (920 mi, 1,500 km) with internal fuel

1,100 nmi (1,300 mi; 2,000 km) with external overwing tanks

Service ceiling: 60,000 ft (18,000 m)

Zoom ceiling: 70,000 ft (21,000 m)

Rate of climb: 20,000 ft/min (100 m/s) sustained to 30,000 ft (9,100 m)

Zoom climb: 50,000 ft/min

Time to altitude: 2.8 min to 36,000 ft (11,000 m)

Wing loading: 76 lb/sq ft (370 kg/m²) with two AIM-9 and 1/2 fuel

Thrust/weight: 0.78 (1.03 empty)

 

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.181 in) ADEN cannon with 120 RPG in the lower fuselage

2× forward fuselage hardpoints for a single Firestreak or Red Top AAM each

2× overwing pylon stations for 2.000 lb (907 kg each)

for 260 imp gal (310 US gal; 1,200 l) ferry tanks

  

The kit and its assembly:

This build was a submission to the “Hunter, Lightning, Canberra” group build at whatifmodellers.com, and one of my personal ultimate challenges – a project that you think about very often, but the you put the thought back into its box when you realize that turning this idea into hardware will be a VERY tedious, complex and work-intensive task. But the thematic group build was the perfect occasion to eventually tackle the idea of a model of a “side-by-side engine BAC Lightning”, a.k.a. “Flatning”, as a rather conservative alternative to the real aircraft’s unique and unusual design with stacked engines in the fuselage, which brought a multitude of other design consequences that led to a really unique aircraft.

 

And it sound so simple: take a Lightning, just change the tail section. But it’s not that simple, because the whole fuselage shape would be different, resulting in less depth, the wings have to be attached somewhere and somehow, the landing gear might have to be adjusted/shortened, and how the fuselage diameter shape changes along the hull, so that you get a more or less smooth shape, was also totally uncertain!

 

Initially I considered a MiG Ye-152 as a body donor, but that was rejected due to the sheer price of the only available kit (ModelSvit). A Chinese Shenyang J-8I would also have been ideal – but there’s not 1:72 kit of this aircraft around, just of its successor with side intakes, a 1:72 J-8II from trumpeter.

I eventually decided to keep costs low, and I settled for the shaggy PM Model Su-15 (marketed as Su-21) “Flagon” as main body donor: it’s cheap, the engines have a good size for Avons and the pen nib fairing has a certain retro touch that goes well with the Lightning’s Fifties design.

The rest of this "Flatning" came from a Hasegawa 1:72 BAC Lightning F.6 (Revell re-boxing).

 

Massive modifications were necessary and lots of PSR. In an initial step the Flagon lost its lower wing halves, which are an integral part of the lower fuselage half. The cockpit section was cut away where the intake ducts begin. The Lightning had its belly tank removed (set aside for a potential later re-installation), and dry-fitting and crude measures suggested that only the cockpit section from the Lightning, its spine and the separate fin would make it onto the new fuselage.

 

Integrating the parts was tough, though! The problem that caused the biggest headaches: how to create a "smooth" fuselage from the Lightning's rounded front end with a single nose intake that originally develops into a narrow, vertical hull, combined with the boxy and rather wide Flagon fuselage with large Phantom-esque intakes? My solution: taking out deep wedges from all (rather massive) hull parts along the intake ducts, bend the leftover side walls inwards and glue them into place, so that the width becomes equal with the Lightning's cockpit section. VERY crude and massive body work!

 

However, the Lightning's cockpit section for the following hull with stacked engines is much deeper than the Flagon's side-by-side layout. My initial idea was to place the cockpit section higher, but I would have had to transplant a part of the Lightning's upper fuselage (with the spine on top, too!) onto the "flat" Flagon’s back. But this would have looked VERY weird, and I'd have had to bridge the round ventral shape of the Lightning into the boxy Flagon underside, too. This was no viable option, so that the cockpit section had to be further modified; I cut away the whole ventral cockpit section, at the height of the lower intake lip. Similar to my former Austrian Hasegawa Lightning, I also cut away the vertical bulkhead directly behind the intake opening - even though I did not improve the cockpit with a better tub with side consoles. At the back end, the Flagon's jet exhausts were opened and received afterburner dummies inside as a cosmetic upgrade.

 

Massive PSR work followed all around the hull. The now-open area under the cockpit was filled with lead beads to keep the front wheel down, and I implanted a landing gear well (IIRC, it's from an Xtrakit Swift). With the fuselage literally taking shape, the wings were glued together and the locator holes for the overwing tanks filled, because they would not be mounted.

 

To mount the wings to the new hull, crude measurements suggested that wedges had to be cut away from the Lightning's wing roots to match the weird fuselage shape. They were then glued to the shoulders, right behind the cockpit due to the reduced fuselage depth. At this stage, the Lightning’s stabilizer attachment points were transplanted, so that they end up in a similar low position on the rounded Su-15 tail. Again, lots of PSR…

 

At this stage I contemplated the next essential step: belly tank or not? The “Flatning” would have worked without it, but its profile would look rather un-Lightning-ish and rather “flat”. On the other side, a conformal tank would probably look quite strange on the new wide and flat ventral fuselage...? Only experiments could yield an answer, so I glued together the leftover belly bulge parts from the Hasegawa kit and played around with it. I considered a new, wider belly tank, but I guess that this would have looked too ugly. I eventually settled upon the narrow F.6 tank and also used the section behind it with the arrestor hook. I just reduced its depth by ~2 mm, with a slight slope towards the rear because I felt (righteously) that the higher wing position would lower the model’s stance. More massive PSR followed….

 

Due to the expected poor ground clearance, the Lightning’s stabilizing ventral fins were mounted directly under the fuselage edges rather than on the belly tank. Missile pylons for Red Tops were mounted to the lower front fuselage, similar to the real arrangement, and cable fairings, scratched from styrene profiles, were added to the lower flanks, stretching the hull optically and giving more structure to the hull.

 

To my surprise, I did not have to shorten the landing gear’s main legs! The wings ended up a little higher on the fuselage than on the original Lightning, and the front wheel sits a bit further back and deeper inside of its donor well, too, so that the fuselage comes probably 2 mm closer to the ground than an OOB Lightning model. Just like on the real aircraft, ground clearance is marginal, but when the main wheels were finally in place, the model turned out to have a low but proper stance, a little F8U-ish.

  

Painting and markings:

I was uncertain about the livery for a long time – I just had already settled upon an RAF aircraft. But the model would not receive a late low-viz scheme (the Levin, my mono-engine Lightning build already had one), and no NMF, either. I was torn between an RAF Germany all-green over NMF undersides livery, but eventually went for a pretty standard RAF livery in Dark Sea Grey/Dark Green over NMF undersides, with toned-down post-war roundels.

A factor that spoke in favor of this route was a complete set of markings for an RAF 11 Squadron Lightning F.6 in such a guise on an Xtradecal set, which also featured dayglo orange makings on fin, wings and stabilizers – quite unusual, and a nice contrast detail on the otherwise very conservative livery. All stencils were taken from the OOB Revell sheet for the Lightning. Just the tactical code “F” on the tail was procured elsewhere, it comes from a Matchbox BAC Lightning’s sheet.

 

After basic painting the model received the usual black ink washing, some post-panel-shading and also a light treatment with graphite to create soot strains around the jet exhausts and the gun ports, and to emphasize the raised panel lines on the Hasegawa parts.

 

Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish and final bits and pieces like the landing gear and the Red Tops (taken OOB) were mounted.

  

A major effort, and I have seriously depleted my putty stocks for this build! However, the result looks less spectacular than it actually is: changing a Lightning from its literally original stacked engine layout into a more conservative side-by-side arrangement turned out to be possible, even though the outcome is not really pretty. But it works and is feasible!

Personal Desktop experimental graphics for oios9 gdesklets

 

OiOS Desktop

Imagine a UNIX based Enterprise Operating System, a scalable universally collaborative stable business platform capable of running on Sparc or x86 Systems. Delivering support for Cloud enterprise features, ZFS file systems, Virtualisation, Advanced Security, and Compatibility. Enabling you to build new possibilities, enter new markets and harness human relationships in Open Source across the world. Whether you are a Systems Administrator, Recreational User or Information Technology Professional, OiOS supports the new economics of highly creative, diversified ways of doing business, and building networks.

 

OiOS Server

Imagine a UNIX based Enterprise Operating System, a scalable universally collaborative stable business platform capable of running on Sparc or x86 Systems. Delivering support for Cloud enterprise features, ZFS file systems, Virtualisation, Advanced Security, and Compatibility. Enabling you to build new possibilities, enter new markets and harness human relationships in Open Source across the world. Whether you are a Systems Administrator, Business, or Information Technology Professional, OiOS supports the new economics of highly creative, diversified ways of doing business, and building networks.

 

OiOS 151a9 Increased migration by world exchanges financial exchanges to Unix and Linux opens development to stock trading platform giving more opportunities to run software on more stable Unix platforms

 

Free open source enterprise systems available on live DVD or USB stick

 

Overview

 

Mcclaren F1 wallpapers by Darren Heath and Ma4lin icons from gnomelook.org

 

Autosport.co.uk data feeds

 

Professionals Join in @

 

- Openindiana.org

 

- #openindiana on irc.freenode.net

 

- www.facebook.com/openindiana?ref=ts&fref=ts

+++ 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 Waffenträger (Weapon Carrier) VTS3 “Diana” was a prototype for a wheeled tank destroyer. It was developed by Thyssen-Henschel (later Rheinmetall) in Kassel, Germany, in the late Seventies, in response to a German Army requirement for a highly mobile tank destroyer with the firepower of the Leopard 1 main battle tank then in service and about to be replaced with the more capable Leopard 2 MBT, but less complex and costly. The main mission of the Diana was light to medium territorial defense, protection of infantry units and other, lighter, elements of the cavalry as well as tactical reconnaissance. Instead of heavy armor it would rather use its good power-to-weight ratio, excellent range and cross-country ability (despite the wheeled design) for defense and a computerized fire control system to accomplish this mission.

 

In order to save development cost and time, the vehicle was heavily based on the Spähpanzer Luchs (Lynx), a new German 8x8 amphibious reconnaissance armored fighting vehicle that had just entered Bundeswehr service in 1975. The all-wheel drive Luchs made was well armored against light weapons, had a full NBC protection system and was characterized by its extremely low-noise running. The eight large low-pressure tires had run-flat properties, and, at speeds up to about 50 km/h, all four axles could be steered, giving the relatively large vehicle a surprising agility and very good off-road performance. As a special feature, the vehicle was equipped with a rear-facing driver with his own driving position (normally the radio operator), so that the vehicle could be driven at full speed into both directions – a heritage from German WWII designs, and a tactical advantage when the vehicle had to quickly retreat from tactical position after having been detected. The original Luchs weighed less than 20 tons, was fully amphibious and could surmount water obstacles quickly and independently using propellers at the rear and the fold back trim vane at the front. Its armament was relatively light, though, a 20 mm Rheinmetall MK 20 Rh 202 gun in the turret that was effective against both ground and air targets.

 

The Waffenträger “Diana” used the Luchs’ hull and dynamic components as basis, and Thyssen-Henschel solved the challenge to mount a large and heavy 105 mm L7 gun with its mount on the light chassis through a minimalistic, unmanned mount and an autoloader. Avoiding a traditional manned and heavy, armored turret, a lot of weight and internal volume that had to be protected could be saved, and crew safety was indirectly improved, too. This concept had concurrently been tested in the form of the VTS1 (“Versuchsträger Scheitellafette #1) experimental tank in 1976 for the Kampfpanzer 3 development, which eventually led to the Leopard 2 MBT (which retained a traditional turret, though).

 

For the “Diana” test vehicle, Thyssen-Henschel developed a new low-profile turret with a very small frontal area. Two crew members, the commander (on the right side) and the gunner (to the left), were seated in/under the gun mount, completely inside of the vehicle’s hull. The turret was a very innovative construction for its time, fully stabilized and mounted the proven 105mm L7 rifled cannon with a smoke discharger. Its autoloader contained 8 rounds in a carousel magazine. 16 more rounds could be carried in the hull, but they had to be manually re-loaded into the magazine, which was only externally accessible. A light, co-axial 7,62mm machine gun against soft targets was available, too, as well as eight defensive smoke grenade mortars.

 

The automated L7 had a rate of fire of ten rounds per minute and could fire four types of ammunition: a kinetic energy penetrator to destroy armored vehicles; a high explosive anti-tank round to destroy thin-skinned vehicles and provide anti-personnel fragmentation; a high explosive plastic round to destroy bunkers, machine gun and sniper positions, and create openings in walls for infantry to access; and a canister shot for use against dismounted infantry in the open or for smoke charges. The rounds to be fired could be pre-selected, so that the gun was able to automatically fire a certain ammunition sequence, but manual round selection was possible at any time, too.

 

In order to take the new turret, the Luchs hull had to be modified. Early calculations had revealed that a simple replacement of the Luchs’ turret with the new L7 mount would have unfavorably shifted the vehicle’s center of gravity up- and forward, making it very nose-heavy and hard to handle in rough terrain or at high speed, and the long barrel would have markedly overhung the front end, impairing handling further. It was also clear that the additional weight and the rise of the CoG made amphibious operations impossible - a fate that met the upgraded Luchs recce tanks in the Eighties, too, after several accidents with overturned vehicles during wading and drowned crews. With this insight the decision was made to omit the vehicle’s amphibious capability, save weight and complexity, and to modify the vehicle’s layout considerably to optimize the weight distribution.

 

Taking advantage of the fact that the Luchs already had two complete driver stations at both ends, a pair of late-production hulls were set aside in 1977 and their internal layout reversed. The engine bay was now in the vehicle’s front, the secured ammunition storage was placed next to it, behind the separate driver compartment, and the combat section with the turret mechanism was located behind it. Since the VTS3s were only prototypes, only minimal adaptations were made. This meant that the driver was now located on the right side of the vehicle, while and the now-rear-facing secondary driver/radio operator station ended up on the left side – much like a RHD vehicle – but this was easily accepted in the light of cost and time savings. As a result, the gun and its long, heavy barrel were now located above the vehicle’s hull, so that the overall weight distribution was almost neutral and overall dimensions remained compact.

 

Both test vehicles were completed in early 1978 and field trials immediately started. While the overall mobility was on par with the Luchs and the Diana’s high speed and low noise profile was highly appreciated, the armament was and remained a source of constant concern. Shooting in motion from the Diana turned out to be very problematic, and even firing from a standstill was troublesome. The gun mount and the vehicle’s complex suspension were able to "hold" the recoil of the full-fledged 105-mm tank gun, which had always been famous for its rather large muzzle energy. But when fired, even in the longitudinal plane, the vehicle body fell heavily towards the stern, so that the target was frequently lost and aiming had to be resumed – effectively negating the benefit from the autoloader’s high rate of fire and exposing the vehicle to potential target retaliation. Firing to the side was even worse. Several attempts were made to mend this flaw, but neither the addition of a muzzle brake, stronger shock absorbers and even hydro-pneumatic suspension elements did not solve the problem. In addition, the high muzzle flames and the resulting significant shockwave required the infantry to stay away from the vehicle intended to support them. The Bundeswehr also criticized the too small ammunition load, as well as the fact that the autoloader magazine could not be re-filled under armor protection, so that the vehicle had to retreat to safe areas to re-arm and/or to adapt to a new mission profile. This inherent flaw not only put the crew under the hazards of enemy fire, it also negated the vehicle’s NBC protection – a serious issue and likely Cold War scenario. Another weak point was the Diana’s weight: even though the net gain of weight compared with the Luchs was less than 3 tons after the conversion, this became another serious problem that led to the Diana’s demise: during trials the Bundeswehr considered the possibility to airlift the Diana, but its weight (even that of the Luchs, BTW) was too much for the Luftwaffe’s biggest own transport aircraft, the C-160 Transall. Even aircraft from other NATO members, e.g. the common C-130 Hercules, could hardly carry the vehicle. In theory, equipment had to be removed, including the cannon and parts of its mount.

 

Since the tactical value of the vehicle was doubtful and other light anti-tank weapons in the form of the HOT anti-tank missile had reached operational status, so that very light vehicles and even small infantry groups could now effectively fight against full-fledged enemy battle tanks from a safe distance, the Diana’s development was stopped in 1988. Both VTS3 prototypes were mothballed, stored at the Bundeswehr Munster Training Area camp and are still waiting to be revamped as historic exhibits alongside other prototypes like the Kampfpanzer 70 in the German Tank Museum located there, too.

  

Specifications:

Crew: 4 (commander, driver, gunner, radio operator/second driver)

Weight: 22.6 t

Length: 7.74 m (25 ft 4 ¼ in)

Width: 2.98 m ( 9 ft 9 in)

Height: XXX

Ground clearance: 440 mm (1 ft 4 in)

Suspension: hydraulic all-wheel drive and steering

 

Armor:

Unknown, but sufficient to withstand 14.5 mm AP rounds

 

Performance:

Speed: 90 km/h (56 mph) on roads

Operational range: 720 km (445 mi)

Power/weight: 13,3 hp/ton with petrol, 17,3 hp/ton with diesel

 

Engine:

1× Daimler Benz OM 403A turbocharged 10-cylinder 4-stroke multi-fuel engine,

delivering 300 hp with petrol, 390 hp with diesel

 

Armament:

1× 105 mm L7 rifled gun with autoloader (8 rounds ready, plus 16 in reserve)

1× co-axial 7.92 mm M3 machine gun with 2.000 rounds

Two groups of four Wegmann 76 mm smoke mortars

  

The kit and its assembly:

I have been a big Luchs fan since I witnessed one in action during a public Bundeswehr demo day when I was around 10 years old: a huge, boxy and futuristic vehicle with strange proportions, gigantic wheels, water propellers, a mind-boggling mobility and all of this utterly silent. Today you’d assume that this vehicle had an electric engine – spooky! So I always had a soft spot for it, and now it was time and a neat occasion to build a what-if model around it.

 

This fictional wheeled tank prototype model was spawned by a leftover Revell 1:72 Luchs kit, which I had bought some time ago primarily for the turret, used in a fictional post-WWII SdKfz. 234 “Puma” conversion. With just the chassis left I wondered what other use or equipment it might take, and, after several weeks with the idea in the back of my mind, I stumbled at Silesian Models over an M1128 resin conversion set for the Trumpeter M1126 “Stryker” 8x8 APC model. From this set as potential donor for a conversion the prototype idea with an unmanned turret was born.

 

Originally I just planned to mount the new turret onto the OOB hull, but when playing with the parts I found the look with an overhanging gun barrel and the bigger turret placed well forward on the hull goofy and unbalanced. I was about to shelf the idea again, until I recognized that the Luchs’ hull is almost symmetrical – the upper hull half could be easily reversed on the chassis tub (at least on the kit…), and this would allow much better proportions. From this conceptual change the build went straightforward, reversing the upper hull only took some minor PSR. The resin turret was taken mostly OOB, it only needed a scratched adapter to fit into the respective hull opening. I just added a co-axial machine gun fairing, antenna bases (from the Luchs kit, since they could, due to the long gun barrel, not be attached to the hull anymore) and smoke grenade mortars (also taken from the Luchs).

 

An unnerving challenge became the Luchs kit’s suspension and drive train – it took two days to assemble the vehicle’s underside alone! While this area is very accurate and delicate, the fact that almost EVERY lever and stabilizer is a separate piece on four(!) axles made the assembly a very slow process. Just for reference: the kit comes with three and a half sprues. A full one for the wheels (each consists of three parts, and more than another one for suspension and drivetrain!

Furthermore, the many hull surface details like tools or handles – these are more than a dozen bits and pieces – are separate, very fragile and small (tiny!), too. Cutting all these wee parts out and cleaning them was a tedious affair, too, plus painting them separately.

Otherwise the model went together well, but it’s certainly not good for quick builders and those with big fingers and/or poor sight.

  

Painting and markings:

The paint scheme was a conservative choice; it is a faithful adaptation of the Bundeswehr’s NATO standard camouflage for the European theatre of operations that was introduced in the Eighties. It was adopted by many armies to confuse potential aggressors from the East, so that observers could not easily identify a vehicle and its nationality. It consists of a green base with red-brown and black blotches, in Germany it was executed with RAL tones, namely 6031 (Bronze Green), 8027 (Leather Brown) and 9021 (Tar Black). The pattern was standardized for each vehicle type and I stuck to the official Luchs pattern, trying to adapt it to the new/bigger turret. I used Revell acrylic paints, since the authentic RAL tones are readily available in this product range (namely the tones 06, 65 and 84). The big tires were painted with Revell 09 (Anthracite).

 

Next the model was treated with a highly thinned washing with black and red-brown acrylic paint, before decals were applied, taken from the OOB sheet and without unit markings, since the Diana would represent a test vehicle. After sealing them with a thin coat of clear varnish the model was furthermore treated with lightly dry-brushed Revell 45 and 75 to emphasize edges and surface details, and the separately painted hull equipment was mounted. The following step was a cloudy treatment with watercolors (from a typical school paintbox, it’s great stuff for weathering!), simulating dust residue all over the hull. After a final protective coat with matt acrylic varnish I finally added some mineral artist pigments to the lower hull areas and created mud crusts on the wheels through light wet varnish traces into which pigments were “dusted”.

  

Basically a simple project, but the complex Luchs kit with its zillion of wee bits and pieces took time and cost some nerves. However, the result looks pretty good, and the Stryker turret blends well into the overall package. Not certain how realistic the swap of the Luchs’ internal layout would have been, but I think that the turret moved to the rear makes more sense than the original forward position? After all, the model is supposed to be a prototype, so there’s certainly room for creative freedom. And in classic Bundeswehr colors, the whole thing even looks pretty convincing.

 

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. The space-capable VF-1's combat debut was on February 7, 2009, during the Battle of South Ataria Island - the first battle of Space War I - and remained the mainstay fighter of the U.N. Spacy for the entire conflict. Introduced in 2008, the VF-1 would be out of frontline service just five years later, though.

 

The VF-1 proved to be an extremely capable craft, successfully combating a variety of Zentraedi mecha even in most sorties which saw UN Spacy forces significantly outnumbered. The versatility of the Valkyrie design enabled the variable fighter to act as both large-scale infantry and as air/space superiority fighter. The basic VF-1 was built and deployed in four minor variants (designated A, J, and S single-seater and the D two-seater/trainer) and its success was increased by continued development of various enhancements including the GBP-1S "Armored" Valkyrie exoskeleton with enhanced protection and integrated missile launchers, the so-called FAST (“Fuel And Sensor Tray”) packs that created the fully space-capable "Super" Valkyries and the additional RÖ-X2 heavy cannon pack weapon system for the VF-1S “Super Valkyrie”.

 

After the end of Space War I, the VF-1 continued to be manufactured both in the Sol system and throughout the UNG space colonies. At the end of 2015 the final rollout of the VF-1 was celebrated at a special ceremony, commemorating this most famous of variable fighters. The VF-1 Valkryie was built from 2006 to 2013 with a total production of 5,459 VF-1 variable fighters with several original variants (VF-1A = 5,093, VF-1D = 85, VF-1J = 49, VF-1S = 30, VF-1G = 12, VE-1 = 122, VT-1 = 68), even though these machines were frequently updated and modified during their career, leading to a wide range of sub-variants and different standards.

 

Although the VF-1 would be replaced in 2020 as the primary Variable Fighter of the U.N. Spacy, a long service record and continued production after the war proved the lasting worth of the design. One of these post-war designs became the VF-1EX, a replica variant of the VF-1J with up-to-date avionics and instrumentation. It was only built in small numbers in the late 2040s and was a dedicated variant for advanced training with dissimilar mock aerial and ground fighting.

 

The only operator of this type was Xaos (sometimes spelled as Chaos), a private and independent military and civilian contractor. Xaos was originally a fold navigation business that began venturing into fold wave communication and information, expanding rapidly during the 2050s and entering new business fields like flight tests and providing aggressor aircraft for military training. They were almost entirely independent from the New United Nations Spacy (NUNS) and was led by the mysterious Lady M. During the Vár Syndrome outbreak, Echo Squadron and Delta Flight and the tactical sound unit Thrones and Walküre were formed to counteract its effects in the Brísingr Globular Cluster.

 

The VF-1EX was restricted to its primary objective and never saw real combat. The replica unit retained the overall basic performance of the original VF-1 Valkyrie, the specifications being more than sufficient for training and mock combat. The only difference was the addition of the contemporary military EG-01M/MP EX-Gear system for the pilot as an emergency standard, an exoskeleton unit with personal inner-wear, two variable geometry wings, two hybrid jet/rocket engines, mechanical hardware for the head, torso, arms and legs. This feature gave the VF-1EX its new designation.

Furthermore, the VF-1EX was also outfitted with other electronic contingency functions like AI-assisted flight and remote override controls. Some of these features could be disabled according to necessity or pilot preferences. The gun pod unit was retained but was usually only loaded with paintball rounds for mock combat. For the same purpose, one of the original Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon in the "head unit" was replaced by a long-range laser target designator. AMM-1 missiles with dummy warheads or other training ordnance could be added to the wing hardpoints, but the VF-1EX was never seen being equipped this way - it remained an agile dogfighter.

  

General characteristics:

All-environment variable fighter and tactical combat Battroid. 3-mode variable transformation; variable geometry wing; vertical take-off and landing; control-configurable vehicle; single-axis thrust vectoring; three "magic hand" manipulators for maintenance use; retractable canopy shield for Battroid mode and atmospheric reentry; EG-01M/MP EX-Gear system; option of GBP-1S system, atmospheric-escape booster, or FAST Pack system.

 

Accommodation:

Single pilot in Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

 

Dimensions:

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

 

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons

Standard take-off mass: 18.5 metric tons

MTOW: 37.0 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);

4x 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);

18x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles

 

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

Fighter Mode: at 10,000 m Mach 2.71; at 30,000+ m Mach 3.87

g limit: in space +7

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

 

Transformation:

Standard time from Fighter to Battroid (automated): under 5 sec.

Min. time from Fighter to Battroid (manual): 0.9 sec.

 

Armament:

1x Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon in the "head" unit, firing 6,000 pulses per minute

1x Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rpm

4x underwing hardpoints for a wide variety of ordnance

  

The kit and its assembly:

The VF-1EX Valkyrie is a Variable Fighter introduced in the Macross Δ television series, and it's, as described above, a replica training variant that resembles outwardly the VF-1J. There's even a Hasegawa 1:72 kit from 2016 of this obscure variant.

However, what I tried to recreate is a virtual (and purely fictional/non-canonical) VF-1EX, re-skinned by someone called David L. on the basis of a virtual VF-1S 3D model with a 2 m wing span (sounds like ~1:8 scale) for the Phoenix R/C simulator software. Check this for reference: www.supermotoxl.com/projects-articles/ready-to-drive-fly-...). How bizarre can things be/become? And how sick is a hardware model of it, though...?

 

I found the complex livery very attractive and had the plan to build a 1:100 model for some years now. But it took this long to gather enough mojo to tackle this project, due to the tricolor paint scheme's complex nature...

The "canvas" for this stunt is a vintage Arii 1:100 VF-1 kit, built OOB except for some standard mods. The kit was actually a VF-1A, but I had a spare VF-1J head unit in store as a suitable replacement. Externally, some dorsal blade aerials and vanes on the nose were added, the attachment points under the wings for the pylons were PSRed away. A pilot figure was added to the cockpit because this model would be displayed in flight. As a consequence, the ventral gun pod received an adapter at its tail and I added one of my home-brew wire displays, created on the basis of the kit's OOB plastic base.

  

Painting and markings:

As mentioned above, this VF-1 is based on a re-skinned virtual R/C model, and its creator apparently took inspiration from a canonical VF fighter, namely a VF-31C "Siegfried", and specifically the "Mirage Farina Jenius Custom" version from the Macross Δ series that plays around 2051. Screenshots from the demo flight video under the link above provided various perspectives as painting reference, but the actual implementation on the tiny model caused serious headaches.

The VF-1's shapes are rather round and curvy, the model's jagged surface and small size prohibited masking. The kit is IMHO also best built and painted in single sub-assemblies, but upon closer inspection the screenshots revealed some marking inconsistencies (apparently edited from various videos?), and certain areas were left uncertain, e .g. the inside of the legs or the whole belly area. Therefore, this model is just a personal interpretation of the design, and as such I also deviated in the markings.

 

The paints became Humbrol 20 (Crimson) and 58 (Magenta), plus Revell 301 (Semi-gloss White), and they were applied with brushes. To replicate the edgy and rather fragmented pattern I initially laid down the two reds in a rather rough and thin fashion and painted the white dorsal and ventral areas. Once thoroughly dry, the white edges were quasi-masked with white decal material, either with stripes of various widths or tailored from sheet material, e. g. for the "wedges" on the wings and fins and the dorsal "swallow tail". This went more smoothly than expected, with a very convincing and clean result that i'd never had achieved with brushes alone, even with masking attempts, which would probably have led to chaos and too much paint on the model.

 

Other details like the grey leading edges or the air intakes were created with grey and black decal material, too.

No weathering was done, since the aircraft would be clean and in pristine condition, but I used a soft pencil to emphasize the engraved panel lines, esp. on white background. The gun pod became grey and the exhausts, painted in Revell 91 (Iron), were treated with graphite for a darker shade and a more metallic look.

 

Stencils came from the kit's OOB sheet, but only a few, since there was already a lot "going on" on the VF-1's hull. The flash-shaped Xaos insignia and the NUNS markings on legs and wings were printed at home - as well as the small black vernier thrusters all around the hull, for a uniform look. The USN style Modex and the small letter code on the fins came from an Colorado Decals F-5 sheet, for an aggressor aircraft.

 

Finally, the kit was sealed overall with semi-gloss acrlyic varnish (which turned out glossier than expected...) and position lights etc. added with translucent paint on top of a silver base.

  

Well, while the VF-1 was built OOB with no major mods and just some cosmetical upgrades, the paint scheme and its finish were more demanding - and I am happy that the "decal masking" trick worked so fine. The paint scheme surely is attractive, even though it IMHO does not really takes the VF-1's lines into account. Nevertheless, I am certain that there are not many models that are actually based on a virtual 1:8 scale 3D model of an iconic SF fighter, so that this VF-1EX might be unique.