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Little bit of back story: name means 'executioner' because of the faceless helmet's similarity to an executioners hood. And because of his tendency to use his naginata-style blade to decapitate his enemies. Doesn't make him any less useless in a game though.
Can't agree more that LSAs look best with their tails low and nose raised high, ready to leap off the ground as soon as we push the throttle in ^.^
((DLM RP90 Zenith LSA by DLM Aerospace. Taildragger conversion by me))
+++ 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 Zlin Z-37 Čmelák (Czech: "Bumblebee"), also known as LET Z-37, is an agricultural aircraft which was manufactured in Czechoslovakia and mainly used as a crop duster. Design work on the first purpose-designed agricultural aircraft started in Czechoslovakia in 1961, with a cooperation of two manufacturers: Let Kunovice and Moravan (Zlin brand). The first prototype, designated as XZ-37, first flew on 29 March 1963. It was a cantilever low-wing monoplane of tubular metal construction, the wings and stabilizers covered with duralumin and the fuselage and control surfaces made of fabric. It had a fixed undercarriage with a fully castoring tailwheel, locked to the rudders for ground handling. The pilot's cockpit was in front, immediately behind a Soviet-built Ivchenko reciprocating radial engine with 315 hp. A hopper for chemicals was situated behind the cockpit. This arrangement offered the pilot a good view but was potentially dangerous in case of an emergency landing. A mechanic could be seated behind the hopper, facing backwards. There were also spray booms mounted under the wings, and underwing hardpoints could carry additional fuel tanks for ferry flights. Beyond the basic agricultural aircraft there was also a dedicated freight version with open space instead of hopper and spray equipment and a -3 variant with three passenger seats facing rearwards and extensive cabin glazing.
The aircraft was produced from 1965 under the designation Z-37. From 1971, the Z-37A was produced, with a strengthened construction and a roll cage for the pilot. It was produced until 1975, but production was resumed again for a short period in 1983-1984. A total of 677 were produced, including 27 Z-37A-2 two-seaters for crew training. In 1981 an upgraded variant, powered by a 691 shp Walter M-601B turboprop engine, flew for the first time, and the resulting Z-37T was produced from 1985 until 1994, with a total of 51 aircraft built.
The main user of the Z-37 was Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), primarily operated by “Slov-Air” (also styled Slov Air or Slovair), a domestic airline which provided services for agriculture, civil engineering, helicopter emergency medical service and industry. The roots of the airline can be traced back to 1924, when the Bata Shoe Company began building an in-house airline for its corporate travel, operating small aircraft or gyrocopters like the Cierva C.30. Following the establishment of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1948, Bata Shoes was nationalized, and the airline was re-organized as “Svitlet”.
In 1950, ČSA was established as the state airline of Czechoslovakia and Svitlet was transformed into a ČSA department, now operating under the label “Agrolet”. In 1955, Agrolet once more became an independent entity as a utility airline, principally for agricultural flights. It primarily operated out of Prague Ruzyně Airport, but frequently deployed to local and even improvised airfields, using aircraft types like the Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, Polikarpov Po-2 Kukuruznik, Antonov An-2, L-60 Brigadýr, and eventually the purpose-built Z-37 Čmelák, too.
Other Z-37 operators were East Germany (GDR) and other Eastern Bloc countries. Many were exported to the Sudan and India and flown there almost non-stop with the hopper used as extra fuel tank. Variants are as far afield as England and the USA. Current use is limited however because of fuel costs, and the Z-37 is today used mainly in Slovakia. Many are used for glider towing, too, having the ability to easily tow two gliders and often transport four gliders in tow for cross country.
General characteristics:
Crew: one (pilot), plus a passenger/ mechanic (optional)
Length: 8.55 m (28 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 12.22 m (40 ft 1 in)
Height: 2.9 m (9 ft 6 in)
Wing area: 23.8 m² (256 sq ft)
Airfoil: root: NACA 33015; tip: NACA 44012A
Empty weight: 1,043 kg (2,299 lb)
Gross weight: 1,850 kg (4,079 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 1,850 kg (4,079 lb)
Fuel capacity: 125 l (33 US gal; 27 imp gal) in standard left hand center-section tank,
with optional 125 l (33 US gal; 27 imp gal) in right hand center-section
Payload: 650 l (170 US gal; 140 imp gal) or 600 kg (1,300 lb) of chemicals
Provision for two externally carried fuel transport tanks of 125 l (33 US gal; 27 imp gal) each,
for refueling on site.
Powerplant:
1× Avia M462RF 9-cylinder air-cooled supercharged radial piston engine, 235 kW (315 hp)
driving a 2-bladed Avia V 520 constant speed propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 210 km/h (130 mph, 110 kn)
Cruise speed: 170 km/h (110 mph, 92 kn) at 1,500 m (4,900 ft)
Operating speed: 120 km/h (75 mph; 65 kn)
Stall speed: 90 km/h (56 mph, 49 kn) flaps up
81 km/h (50 mph; 44 kn) flaps down
Never exceed speed: 270 km/h (170 mph, 150 kn)
Rate of climb: 3.7 m/s (730 ft/min)
Wing loading: 77.7 kg/m2 (15.9 lb/sq ft)
Power/mass: 0.077 hp/lb (0.127 kW/kg)
Minimum ground turning radius: 5.68 m (18.6 ft)
Take-off run: 150 m (490 ft)
Landing run: 122 m (400 ft)
The kit and its assembly:
A tribute build, turning a profile drawing of a fictional aircraft into model hardware. This Z-37A is based on artwork created and published by Václav Madĕra at whatifmodellers.com, locally known as “PantherG”.
I liked the concept from the start, as it interpreted the aircraft’s namesake (Čmelák means bumblebee) in a colorful and IMHO very attractive and even plausible paint scheme for an agricultural aircraft. Since a Z-37A kit has become available through Eduard, I took the inspiration and decided to take the piece of art into hardware.
Eduard’s Z-37A is a very nice little model kit. It is rich with detail, a delicate ribbed wing structure, even though it is in some areas IMHO über-engineered, even though I see the difficulties to represent certain details on a plastic model. The landing gear with its (separate) mudguards is such a case, as well as the canopy that consists of three clear parts and a separate roof.
Overall fit is very good, only a little PSR was necessary on the hull. The landing gear is really fiddly, as well as the cockpit interior, and the fit of the clear parts turned out to be rather poor, even though I assume that, in the CAD for the molds, the parts fitted perfectly. But reality is just a little different…
The model was built OOB, I just added a pilot figure to the cockpit (an Airfix figure which received a new head without a military pilot helmet and with earphones) and modified the propeller and the engine block (without the Ivchenko engine’s characteristic front louvre, an optional kit feature) with a metal axis and a matching short adapter to hold it, so that it can spin freely.
Painting and markings:
PantherG’s profile gave clear instructions for the bumblebee scheme, just the colors were not defined – even though simple and clear, too. I tried to get close to the drawing and used enamels for painting, primarily Humbrol stuff, with 2 (Emerald Green) above and 48 (Mediterranean Blue) under the wings, 69 (Yellow Gloss) for the fuselage stripes, 33 (Matt Black) for the fuselage and a mix of Revell 301 (Semi-Matt White) and 147 (FS 36495) for the painted wings and the tail surfaces, because I wanted to avoid a pure, bright white and leave some contrast room for later post-shading and dry-brushing.
The yellow stripes on cowling and fuselage were painted first and later masked with black decal stripes, avoiding any mess with tape. The bumblebee wings above and below the wings were painted first with the white/grey mix, then “framed” with green and blue, and finally the black edges and veins were added with a black lacquer pen with a 2mm felt tip, using rulers as well as free hand for minute sections. Turned out better than expected.
Lacking information, the cockpit was painted in bright Soviet/Russian turquoise and the pilot received a casual outfit with jeans, a white shirt, and a dark vest.
The kit received a light black ink washing to emphasize the fine surface details, esp. on the wings and the tail, and careful dry-brushing was applied to make the hull more plastic, esp. on the black fuselage areas.
The decals were puzzled together to match the benchmark profile drawing. The registration “OK-BOM” was created with single black 3mm letters from TL Modellbau, the Czech flag came from the OOB sheet. Finally, the model was sealed with a 3:1 mix of matt and a semi-gloss acrylic varnish (Italeri) for a subtle shine that suits a civil aircraft better than a pure military matt finish.
A pleasant build, even though the Eduard kit comes with some technical challenges. Adapting the profile drawing to hardware went more smoothly than expected, and the improvised painting on the wings worked better than expected – a colorful result, quite different from the mostly all-yellow real-world Z-37s, and even though it’s a fictional design, PantherG’s drawing/scheme looks pretty plausible. Thanks a lot for the inspiration, děkuji pěkně! :D
Tau commandos in ghillie suits. The suits are made from very fine medical gauze dipped in 50/50 water and PVA glue then draped around the models. The models are then painted dark angels green, given a quick layer of PVA glue and rolled in flock.
"Little by little, therefore, you correct those who offend,
you admonish and remind them of how they have sinned,
so that they may abstain from evil and trust in you, Lord."
– Wisdom 12:2, which is part of today's 1st reading at Mass.
My sermon for today, the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, can be read here.
This is a plaque showing the Third Luminous Mystery of the Rosary: Christ preaching and calling to conversion. It is from the grounds of the Motherhouse of the Nashville Dominican Sisters.
This set of images shows post-conversion work performed to take my 2005, Texas-based Pontiac GTO back to its Aussie Holden roots. Looks much better. A few small details here and there also go a long way sometimes.
Holden Monaro front conversion kit acquired from JHP Vehicle Enhancements in Melbourne, Australia.
Holden Monaro front conversion kit painted and installed along with rear badged by Colour House of Texas, Bertram, Texas.
Additional mods found here and there and added by yours truly.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
After the success of the Soviet Union’s first carrier ship, the Moskva Class (Projekt 1123, also called „Кондор“/„Kondor“) cruisers in the mid 1960s, the country became more ambitious. This resulted in Project 1153 Orel (Russian: Орёл, Eagle), a planned 1970s-era Soviet program to give the Soviet Navy a true blue water aviation capability. Project Orel would have resulted in a program very similar to the aircraft carriers available to the U.S. Navy. The ship would have been about 75-80,000 tons displacement, with a nuclear power plant and carried about 70 aircraft launched via steam catapults – the first Soviet aircraft carrier that would be able to deploy fixed-wing aircraft.
Beyond this core capability, the Orel carrier was designed with a large offensive capability with the ship mounts including 24 vertical launch tubes for anti-ship cruise missiles. In the USSR it was actually classified as the "large cruiser with aircraft armament".
Anyway, the carrier needed appropriate aircraft, and in order to develop a the aircraft major design bureaus were asked to submit ideas and proposals in 1959. OKB Yakovlev and MiG responded. While Yakovlev concentrated on the Yak-36 VTOL design that could also be deployed aboard of smaller ships without catapult and arrester equipment, Mikoyan-Gurevich looked at navalized variants of existing or projected aircraft.
While land-based fighters went through a remarkable performance improvement during the 60ies, OKB MiG considered a robust aircraft with proven systems and – foremost – two engines to be the best start for the Soviet Union’s first naval fighter. “Learning by doing”, the gathered experience would then be used in a dedicated new design that would be ready in the mid 70ies when Project 1153 was ready for service, too.
Internally designated “I-SK” or “SK-01” (Samolyot Korabelniy = carrier-borne aircraft), the naval fighter was based on the MiG-19 (NATO: Farmer), which had been in production in the USSR since 1954.
Faster and more modern types like the MiG-21 were rejected for a naval conversion because of their poor take-off performance, uncertain aerodynamics in the naval environment and lack of ruggedness. The MiG-19 also offered the benefit of relatively compact dimensions, as well as a structure that would carry the desired two engines.
Several innovations had to be addresses:
- A new wing for improved low speed handling
- Improvement of the landing gear and internal structures for carrier operations
- Development of a wing folding mechanism
- Integration of arrester hook and catapult launch devices into the structure
- Protection of structure, engine and equipment from the aggressive naval environment
- Improvement of the pilot’s field of view for carrier landings
- Improved avionics, esp. for navigation
Work on the SK-01 started in 1960, and by 1962 a heavily redesigned MiG-19 was ready as a mock-up for inspection and further approval. The “new” aircraft shared the outlines with the land-based MiG-19, but the nose section was completely new and shared a certain similarity to the experimental “Aircraft SN”, a MiG-17 derivative with side air intakes and a solid nose that carried a. Unlike the latter, the cockpit had been moved forward, which offered, together with an enlarged canopy and a short nose, an excellent field of view for the pilot.
On the SK-01 the air intakes with short splitter plates were re-located to the fuselage flanks underneath the cockpit. In order to avoid gun smoke ingestion problems (and the lack of space in the nose for any equipment except for a small SRD-3 Grad gun ranging radar, coupled with an ASP-5N computing gun-sight), the SK-01’s internal armament, a pair of NR-30 cannon, was placed in the wing roots.
The wing itself was another major modification, it featured a reduced sweep of only 33° at ¼ chord angle (compared to the MiG-19’s original 55°). Four wing hardpoints, outside of the landing gear wells, could carry a modest ordnance payload, including rocket and gun pods, unguided missiles, iron bombs and up to four Vympel K-13 AAMs.
Outside of these pylons, the wings featured a folding mechanism that allowed the wing span to be reduced from 10 m to 6.5 m for stowage. The fin remained unchanged, but the stabilizers had a reduced sweep, too.
The single ventral fin of the MiG-19 gave way to a fairing for a massive, semi-retractable arrester hook, flanked by a pair of smaller fins. The landing gear was beefed up, too, with a stronger suspension. Catapult launch from deck was to be realized through expandable cables that were attached onto massive hooks under the fuselage.
The SK-01 received a “thumbs up” in March 1962 and three prototypes, powered by special Sorokin R3M-28 engines, derivatives of the MiG-19's RB-9 that were adapted to the naval environment, were created and tested until 1965, when the type – now designated MiG-SK – went through State Acceptance Trials, including simulated landing tests on an “unsinkalble carrier” dummy, a modified part of the runway at Air Base at the Western coast of the Caspian Sea. Not only flight tests were conducted at Kaspiysk, but also different layouts for landing cables were tested and optimized as well. Furthermore, on a special platform at the coast, an experimental steam catapult went through trials, even though no aircraft starts were made from it – but weights hauled out into the sea.
Anyway, the flight tests and the landing performance on the simulated carrier deck were successful, and while the MiG-SK (the machine differed from the MiG-19 so much that it was not recognized as an official MiG-19 variant) was not an outstanding combat aircraft, rather a technology carrier with field use capabilities.
The MiG-SK’s performance was good enough to earn OKB MiG an initial production run of 20 aircraft, primarily intended for training and development units, since the whole infrastructure and procedures for naval aviation from a carrier had to be developed from scratch. These machines were built at slow pace until 1968 and trials were carried out in the vicinity of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
The MiG-SK successfully remained hidden from the public, since the Soviet Navy did not want to give away its plans for a CTOL carrier. Spy flights of balloons and aircraft recognized the MiG-SK, but the type was mistaken as MiG-17 fighters. Consequently, no NATO codename was ever allocated.
Alas, the future of the Soviet, carrier-borne fixed wing aircraft was not bright: Laid down in in 1970, the Kiev-class aircraft carriers (also known as Project 1143 or as the Krechyet (Gyrfalcon) class) were the first class of fixed-wing aircraft carriers to be built in the Soviet Union, and they entered service, together with the Yak-38 (Forger) VTOL fighter, in 1973. This weapon system already offered a combat performance similar to the MiG-SK, and the VTOL concept rendered the need for catapult launch and deck landing capability obsolete.
OKB MiG still tried to lobby for a CTOL aircraft (in the meantime, the swing-wing MiG-23 was on the drawing board, as well as a projected, navalized multi-purpose derivative, the MiG-23K), but to no avail.
Furthermore, carrier Project 1153 was cancelled in October 1978 as being too expensive, and a program for a smaller ship called Project 11435, more V/STOL-aircraft-oriented, was developed instead; in its initial stage, a version of 65,000 tons and 52 aircraft was proposed, but eventually an even smaller ship was built in the form of the Kuznetsov-class aircraft carriers in 1985, outfitted with a 12-degree ski-jump bow flight deck instead of using complex aircraft catapults. This CTOL carrier was finally equipped with navalized Su-33, MiG-29 and Su-25 aircraft – and the MiG-SK paved the early way to these shipboard fighters, especially the MiG-29K.
General characteristics:
Crew: One
Length: 13.28 m (43 ft 6 in)
Wingspan: 10.39 m (34 ft)
Height: 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in)
Wing area: 22.6 m² (242.5 ft²)
Empty weight: 5.172 kg (11,392 lb)
Max. take-off weight: 7,560 kg (16,632 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Sorokin R3M-28 turbojets afterburning turbojets, rated at 33.8 kN (7,605 lbf) each
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,145 km/h (618 knots, 711 mph) at 3,000 m (10,000 ft)
Range: 2,060 km (1,111 nmi, 1,280 mi) with drop 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)
The kit and its assembly:
This kitbash creation was spawned by thoughts concerning the Soviet Naval Aviation and its lack of CTOL aircraft carriers until the 1980ies and kicked-off by a CG rendition of a navalized MiG-17 from fellow member SPINNERS at whatifmodelers.com, posted a couple of months ago. I liked this idea, and at first I wanted to convert a MiG-17 with a solid nose as a dedicated carrier aircraft. But the more I thought about it and did historic research, the less probable this concept appeared to me: the MiG-17 was simply too old to match Soviet plans for a carrier ship, at least with the real world as reference.
A plausible alternative was the MiG-19, esp. with its twin-engine layout, even though the highly swept wings and the associated high start and landing speeds would be rather inappropriate for a shipborne fighter. Anyway, a MiG-21 was even less suitable, and I eventually took the Farmer as conversion basis, since it would also fit into the historic time frame between the late 60ies and the mid-70ies.
In this case, the basis is a Plastyk MiG-19 kit, one of the many Eastern European re-incarnations of the vintage KP kit. This cheap re-issue became a positive surprise, because any former raised panel and rivet details have disappeared and were replaced with sound, recessed engravings. The kit is still a bit clumsy, the walls are very thick (esp. the canopy – maybe 2mm!), but IMHO it’s a considerable improvement with acceptable fit, even though there are some sink holes and some nasty surprises (in my case, for instance, the stabilizer fins would not match with the rear fuselage at all, and you basically need putty everywhere).
Not much from the Plastyk kit was taken over, though: only the fuselage’s rear two-thirds were used, some landing gear parts as well as fin and the horizontal stabilizers. The latter were heavily modified and reduced in sweep in order to match new wings from a Hobby Boss MiG-15 (the parts were cut into three pieces each and then set back together again).
Furthermore, the complete front section from a Novo Supermarine Attacker was transplanted, because its short nose and the high cockpit are perfect parts for a carrier aircraft. The Attacker’s front end, including the air intakes, fits almost perfectly onto the round MiG-19 forward fuselage, only little body work was necessary. A complete cockpit tub and a new seat were implanted, as well as a front landing gear well and walls inside of the (otherwise empty) air intakes. The jet exhausts were drilled open, too, and afterburner dummies added. Simple jobs.
On the other side, the wings were trickier than expected. The MiG-19 kit comes with voluminous and massive wing root fairings, probably aerodynamic bodies for some area-ruling. I decided to keep them, but this caused some unexpected troubles…
The MiG-15 wings’ position, considerably further back due to the reduced sweep angle, was deduced from the relative MiG-19’s landing gear position. A lot of sculpting and body work followed, and after the wings were finally in place I recognized that the aforementioned, thick wing root fairings had reduced the wing sweep – basically not a bad thing, but with the inconvenient side effect that the original wing MiG-15 fences were not parallel to the fuselage anymore, looking rather awkward! What to do? Grrrr…. I could not leave it that way, so I scraped them away and replaced with them with four scratched substitutes (from styrene profiles), moving the outer pair towards the wing folding mechanism.
Under the wings, four new pylons were added (two from an IAI Kfir, two from a Su-22) and the ordnance gathered from the scrap box – bombs and rocket pods formerly belonged to a Kangnam/Revell Yak-38.
The landing gear was raised by ~2mm for a higher stance on the ground. The original, thick central fin was reduced in length, so that it could become a plausible attachment point for an arrester hook (also from the spares box), and a pair of splayed stabilizer fins was added as a compensation. Finally, some of the OOB air scoops were placed all round the hull and some pitots, antennae and a gun camera fairing added.
Painting and markings:
This whif was to look naval at first sight, so I referred to the early Yak-38 VTOL aircraft and their rather minimalistic paint scheme in an overall dull blue. The green underside, seen on many service aircraft, was AFAIK a (later) protective coating – an obsolete detail for a CTOL aircraft.
Hence, all upper surfaces and the fuselage were painted in a uniform “Field Blue” (Tamiya XF-50). It’s a bit dark, but I have used this unique, petrol blue tone many moons ago on a real world Kangnam Forger where it looks pretty good, and in this case the surface was furthermore shaded with Humbrol 96 and 126 after a black in wash.
For some contrast I painted the undersides of the wings and stabilizers as well as a fuselage section between the wings in a pale grey (Humbrol 167), seen on one of the Yak-38 prototypes. Not very obvious, but at least the aircraft did not end up in a boring, uniform color.
The interior was painted in blue-gray (PRU Blue, shaded with Humbrol 87) while the landing gear wells became Aluminum (Humbrol 56). The wheel discs became bright green, just in order to keep in style and as a colorful contrast, and some di-electric panels and covers became very light grey or bright green. For some color contrast, the anti-flutter weight tips on the stabilizers as well as the pylons’ front ends were painted bright red.
The markings/decals reflect the early Soviet Navy style, with simple Red Stars, large yellow tactical codes and some high contrast warning stencils, taken from the remains of a Yak-38 sheet (American Revell re-release of the Kangnam kit).
Finally, after some soot stains with graphite around the gun muzzles and the air bleed doors, the kit was sealed with a coat of semi-matt acrylic varnish and some matt accents (anti-glare panel, radomes).
A simple idea that turned out to be more complex than expected, due to the wing fence troubles. But I am happy that the Attacker nose could be so easily transplanted, it changes the MiG-19’s look considerably, as well as the wings with (much) less sweep angle.
The aircraft looks familiar, but you only recognize at second glance that it is more than just a MiG-19 with a solid nose. The thing looks pretty retro, reminds me a bit of the Supermarine Scimitar (dunno?), and IMHO it appears more Chinese than Soviet (maybe because the layout reminds a lot of the Q-5 fighter bomber)? It could even, with appropriate markings, be a Luft ’46 design?
+++ 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 history of the Swiss Air Force began in 1914 with the establishment of an ad hoc force consisting of a handful of men in outdated and largely civilian aircraft. It was only in the 1930s the military and civilian leadership decided to establish an effective air force. On 13 December 1929, in what was in retrospect referred to as the "bill to create an air force", the Federal Council asked the Swiss Federal Assembly to approve the spending of 20 million francs for the purchase of 65 French Dewoitine D.27 fighters and the manufacture of 40 Dutch (Fokker C.V-E) reconnaissance planes under license.
Although the opposition Social Democratic Party collected 42,000 signatures in a petition opposing the bill, Parliament passed it handily and declined to allow a referendum on the issue, optional at that time for spending bills. This was the start of a massive armament program that would consume more than a billion francs over the next ten years, but after Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the Social Democrats added their support to the efforts.
The program not only included the procurement of foreign aircraft the domestic industry also started to develop its own products. One of the leading manufacturers of its time in Switzerland was the Eidgenössische Konstruktionswerkstätte (English: "Federal Constructions Works"), short K+W or EKW, and later also known as F+W. It was a Swiss state-owned enterprise, established in 1867 in Thun. The company produced artillery, vehicles, and other typical military equipment, and in 1914 EKW had already started the production of the Häfeli DH-1 reconnaissance biplane. Long-standing connections to the ETH Zurich ensured the necessary know-how. EKW started the program with three military aircraft, the indigenous C-34 single-seat fighter and the fast C-36 long-range light bomber/reconnaissance monoplane, plus the C-35 two-seat reconnaissance and ground-attack biplane, which was actually a license-built Fokker C.X with a water-cooled Hispano-Suiza HS-77 V12 engine, a license-built version of the 12Ycs that also powered the C-36.
The C-34 was the direct response to a requirement issued by the Swiss Air Force for a new fighter, and was the winner of a competition against the German Arado 80, which had been offered for export and eventual license production. The German monoplane was a modern construction, but the type was uninspiring in terms of performance and suffered from a number of failures (so that the German Luftwaffe rejected it, too). Although Arado’s low-wing monoplane Arado heralded the design standard for future fighter aircraft, the Swiss Air Force preferred EKW’s conservative but more maneuverable C-34 biplane, which also offered better starting and landing characteristics and a superior rate of climb – important features in Switzerland’s mountainous theatre of operations.
The C-34’s structure was conventional and of all-metal construction. To overcome the biplane layout’s inherent speed disadvantage, EKW’s design team used flush-head rivets and as little as possible stabilizing rigging to reduce drag. The fuselage was fully planked with aluminum, as well as the fixed parts of the tail surfaces, wings and rudders were still fabric-covered. It had unequal-span biplane wings, braced by struts, with upper-wing ailerons but no flaps yet.
The prototype, which flew for the first time in March 1935, was powered by an imported German liquid-cooled BMW VI 6.0 V-12 engine with 660 hp, which drove a metal three-blade propeller with fixed pitch. The C-34’s production version, which was already introduced in September of the same year, was outfitted with a more powerful, now license-produced BMW VI 7.3 with 633 kW (850 hp), which required a bigger radiator and higher-octane fuel to achieve this performance, though. Armament consisted of two 7.5 mm (.295 in) Darne machine guns, imported from France and synchronized to fire through the propeller. Provisions were made to carry up to four 20 lb (9.1 kg) bombs under-wing, but these were hardly ever used in service.
An initial production run comprised 30 aircraft to equip a complete fighter unit. The first C-34s were delivered in a typical three-ton splinter camouflage in ochre, khaki green and red brown, over grey undersides. The machines were allocated to the so-called “Überwachungschwader” (Surveillance Squadron) at Dübendorf near Zürich, and the new biplane proved to be an instant success. The C-34 was commonly well liked by its crews, being very maneuverable and benefitting from a relatively strong fuselage structure, a favorable control arrangement, a tight turning circle. An excellent handling made the type furthermore ideal for executing aerobatic displays. After a brief and successful period of testing, orders for 80 additional C-34s were placed in 1936.
During the rising tensions in Europe Switzerland remained neutral and isolated, and the Swiss Air Force machines received prominent identification stripes in red and white on fuselage and wings. The air corps furthermore confined its activities to training and exercises, reconnaissance, and patrol.
The Swiss Air Force as an autonomous military service was created in October 1936, and the units were re-arranged to reflect this new structure. In 1938 Gottlieb Duttweiler's launched a popular initiative calling for the purchase of a thousand aircraft and the training of three thousand pilots. After 92,000 citizens signed in support, nearly twice the number necessary for a national popular vote, the federal government offered a referendum proposal in 1939 that was nearly as extensive, which was accepted by a 69 percent majority. This led to a massive procurement of additional and more up-to-date aircraft, namely the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Morane-Saulnier 406 fighters from Germany and France, respectively, and the Moranes were license-built as D-3800 in Switzerland. By that time, the Swiss Air Force changed its aircraft designation system, and the C-34 was officially renamed C-3400.
Despite these new and more modern aircraft the C-3400s remained in service, and to supplement the fleet a further eight aircraft were built between 1941 and 1942 from spares. These machines received a simplified camouflage with dark green upper surfaces over a light blue-grey underside, similar to the imported Bf 109s from Germany, and some older C-3400s were re-painted accordingly, even though many machines retained their pre-war splinter scheme for the rest of their service life. During the same period, almost all aircraft received prominent neutrality markings in the form of bright red and white stripes on wings and fuselage.
From 1941 on, most C-3400s were gradually upgraded during overhauls. Several new features were introduced, which included a fully closed canopy that greatly improved pilot comfort esp. in wintertime, a variable pitch/constant speed propeller, a better radio set, a new gun sight and spatted main wheels. The Darne machine guns were replaced with belt-fed MAC 1934 machine guns of the same caliber from domestic production, because they were more reliable and had, with the license production of the Morane Saulnier M.S. 406, become a standard weapon in the Swiss arsenal. These modified aircraft were re-designated C-3401, even though the aircraft under this designation did not uniformly feature all improvements.
When enough monoplane fighters had widely become available for the Swiss Air Force in 1943, the C-3400/-3401 biplanes were quickly removed from front-line service. They served on in second-line surveillance and aerial patrol units, or they were transferred to training units, where most of the type (a total of 119 were built) survived the hostilities. The last C-3400/-3401 was finally withdrawn from service in 1954, and only a single specimen survived in the collection of the Aviation Museum (Flieger Flab Museum) in Dübendorf, Switzerland.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 7.2 m (23 ft 7 in)
Wingspan: 10.02 m (32 ft 10 in)
Height: 3 m (9 ft 10 in)
Wing area: 23 m2 (250 sq ft)
Airfoil: NACA M-12
Empty weight: 1,360 kg (2,998 lb)
Gross weight: 1,740 kg (3,836 lb)
Powerplant:
1× BMW VI 7.3 V-12 liquid-cooled piston engine, 634 kW (850 hp),
driving a three-bladed variable pitch metal propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 400 km/h (250 mph, 220 kn) at 3,000 m (9,843 ft)
Service ceiling: 11,500 m (37,700 ft)
Rate of climb: 16.67 m/s (3,281 ft/min)
Time to altitude: 5,000 m (16,404 ft) in 5 minutes 30 seconds
Wing loading: 75.7 kg/m2 (15.5 lb/sq ft)
Power/mass: 0.36 kW/kg (0.22 hp/lb)
Armament:
2× fixed, forward-firing 7.5 mm (.295 in) MAC 1934 machine guns with 600 RPG
4× underwing hardpoints for 20 lb (9.1 kg) bombs (rarely used)
The kit and its assembly:
This whiffy biplane was/is just a kit travesty – the fictional EKW C-34 is a Kawasaki Ki-10 (the ICM kit) with mild mods and Swiss pre-WWII markings. I had an eye on the quite elegant Japanese fighter for a while, and due to its engine with German roots (its Kawasaki Ha9-IIa was a license-built water-cooled BMW VI V12 engine) I thought about a European operator – and eventually I decided to make it a Swiss aircraft.
The ICM kit was built almost OOB, the only changes I made were the spatted wheels (IIRC left over from an ICM Polikarpov I-15 biplane), which needed some tweaks on the OOB struts, and the different, closed canopy (from a Hobby Boss A6M Zero), because I wanted a relatively modern look, comparable with the contemporary Avia B-534 biplane. Mounting it was tricky, because of the “step” under the windscreen, so that I had to add a console under it, and some PSR was necessary to blend the canopy, which was cut into three parts for open display, into the rounded back of the Ki-10. A scratched antenna mast was added, too, to fill the respective opening in the rear part of the dorsal glazing. Thanks to the many braces of the A6M canopy, the implant looks quite organic.
The ICM Ki-10 went together quite well, it’s a rather simple kit with only a single sprue and few parts. The biggest challenge was the upper wing, though, which is only carried by the struts. The locator pins are only marginal, and finding a proper position took some time and superglue.
I furthermore modified the propeller with a long metal axis and a tube adapter inside if the fuselage, so that it could spin freely.
Painting and markings:
The reason why the Ki-10 became a Swiss aircraft was the paint scheme – a quite attractive tricolor splinter pattern (apparently inspired by the similar German camouflage in RLM 61,62 and 63?) was the Swiss Air Force’s standard at the breakout of WWII, and I adopted it for the C-3401, too.
The pattern is vaguely based on a real C-35 biplane (presented at the Dübendorf Aviation Museum), which I deem to look authentic, and I tried to emulate its colors as good as possible. I settled on Desert Yellow (Humbrol 94, the tone is officially called “Ochre” but appears to be quite yellowish), French Khaki Green (ModelMaster 2106) and Chestnut Brown (ModelMaster 2107, another French WWII aircraft tone), with light grey (Humbrol 64) undersides. Painting the splinter scheme with a brush on a biplane like this was tricky, though. The cockpit interior was painted with a grey-green tone similar to RLM 02 (Humbrol 45), the wing struts became black.
As usual, the model received a light black ink washing, plus some post-panel shading and dry-brushing to emphasize details and to weather it, but only lightly, because the aircraft would not have been involved in fights.
The roundels on the upper wings came from a generic TL-Modellbau national markings sheet, while the red bands for the national insignia under the lower wings and on the rudder were painted. The white cross on the fin comes from a Swiss BAe Hawk trainer (Italeri), while the slightly bigger white cross under the lower wings was scratched from white decal stripes. The tactical code comes from a Croatian MiG-21UM trainer (KP kit), the unit badge is fictional and came from a Spanish Heinkel He 70.
The model was sealed overall with matt acrylic varnish, and as a final step the rigging was applied, made from heated black sprue material, using the real Ki-10 as benchmark for the connections/positions.
A pretty result, and the simple travesty of the elegant Ki-10 into a late interwar biplane from Continental Europe works surprisingly well. The spats and the closed canopy might not have been necessary, but they modernize and change the aircraft, so that its use during WWII – even though not in any offensive role – becomes even more believable. The splinter scheme suits the aircraft well, too, even though its application was a bit tricky, as well as the Swiss roundels.
New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) R188 no. 7320 (Kawasaki, 2010-2016) is the lead motor on a Queens-bound 7 train seen stopped at 34th St-Hudson Yards Station on the Flushing Line. This car was converted from an R142A, adding equipment compatible with the communications-based train control (CBTC) and automatic train operation (ATO) systems installed on the Flushing Line.
+++ 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 Q-6 program was initiated in the mid-1970s when, during the Battle of the Paracel Islands in 1974, the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force (PLANAF) proved incapable of ground support missions. Due to the lack of modern avionics and ground infrastructure to support a modern air war, Chinese aircraft suffered navigation and other logistics problems that severely limited their performance. The first Chinese aircraft did not actually reach the islands until several hours after the battle was over.
In addition to the need to upgrade its logistics capability and infrastructure, China also decided that nothing-in-its-then-aircraft-inventory could fill the requirement for support missions in the South China Sea. Fighters such as the J-5, J-6, J-7, and J-8 lacked a ground attack capability and were hampered by short range. The only Chinese ground attack aircraft atr that time, the Nanchang Q-5 (a MiG-19 derivate with a solid nose, an internal weapon bay and lateral air intakes), was also short ranged and had a relatively low payload. China's bombers such as the Harbin H-5 and Xian H-6 were slow and lacked a sufficient self-defense capability. A new aircraft was therefore seen as desperately needed to fulfill a new naval strike mission in support of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
Immediately after the battle, both the PLAAF and PLAN submitted their requirements for a new fighter bomber/ground attack aircraft to the 3rd Ministry of PRC. After extensive research, the 3rd Ministry decided that, based on the Chinese aeronautical industrial capability at the time, it was impossible to develop two separate airplanes at the same time. Instead, a decision was made to develop a single airplane when the prime requirements of the PLAAF and PLAN were similar, even though with different versions tailored to meet the different secondary needs of PLAAF and PLAN.
In June 1976 representatives from various aircraft factories were summoned to Beijing to discuss the project, and were instructed to come up with designs in the shortest possible time. Shenyang Aircraft Factory (later reorganized into Shenyang Aircraft Corporation) was the first to come up with a design, the JH-8 (FB-8), which was essentially a ground attack version of the large, twin-engined J-8II (F-8II) interceptor. Next came the Q-6, a new design from the Nanchang Aircraft Factory. The Xi'an Aircraft Factory (later reorganized into Xi'an Aircraft Industrial Corporation) was the last one to present a design, the Xian JH-7, also a new design.
Initially, the 3rd Ministry favored the JH-8, however because the design of the operational J-8II was still not completed the risk was considered to be too high, so it was eliminated. The projected development of JH-7 was too far out, and so the Q-6 was selected because it was believed to be the one that would be able for service the soonest.
The Q-6's distictive feature was its swing wing arrangement, and the project was China's first venture into this direction. Before the Q-6 program started, however, China had already obtained MiG-23BN and MiG-23MS aircraft from Egypt. A few downed F-111 were also provided to China by North Vietnam. Based on the research effort performed on these aircraft, it was suggested that the variable-sweep wing should be adopted for China's new ground attack aircraft.
The general designer of Nanchang Q-5, and the future academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (elected in 1995), Mr. Lu Xiaopeng, was named as the general designer of Q-6. Lu personally visited PLAAF and PLANAF numerous times to obtain their input, which was the base of the Tactical Technological Requirements of the Q-6 he was in charge of, and by February 1979, the general design of the attack aircraft was finalized, based on the initial requirement of the 3rd Ministry.
The original plan was to base the design of Q-6 on the MiG-23BN, the ground attack version of MiG-23. However, both PLAAF and PLAN required a true dogfight capability for self-defense. Due to the need of dogfight capability, a radar was needed, and the ground attack version of the Soviet fighter had no radar. As a result, the plan was changed to base the design on the MiG-23MS instead. But this was not a true solution: Studies revealed that in order to successfully perform the required missions for PLAAF and PLANAF, ground attack radar, as well as terrain-following radar, were needed, too. And for the intended dogfight capability, the RP-22 Sapfir-21 radar (NATO reporting name Jay Bird) of the MiG-23MS lacked the BVR capability.
Facing this technological lack the decision was made to use avionics reverse-engineered from the F-111 to makeup the MiG-23 shortcomings. But as with other technological features adopted for the Q-6, they were proven to be way too ambitious for the Chinese industrial, scientific and technological capability at the time, which resulted in prolonged development.
Problems did not stop, the airframe itself proved to be troublesome, too. Originally the design was based on the MiG-23MS, and was initially thought to be better than the MiG-23BN, because it provided more room in the nosecone to house the radar.
However, the Chinese microelectronic industry could not provide the solid state electronics needed to miniaturize the intended radar, and as a result, the size of the fuselage had theoretically to be increased from the size of the MiG-23 to that of the Su-24 to fit an appropriate radar dish with the technolgy available at that time. Research furthermore revealed that the side-intakes of the MiG-23 design were not sufficient enough to meet the required dogfight capability, so the side-intakes arrangement was changed into a single chin-intake instead, and the Q-6 is claimed to be the first Chinese aircraft to have a chin-mounted intake.
The engine itself was also a problem, since China did not possess a powerful jet fighter engine that would match the intended performance profile of the Q-6. At first there were plans to use 122.4 kN thrust of a WS-6 engine (which was used in the H-6/Tu-16 bomber!), but these were not suited for a fighter and simply too large. To match the targets of an aircraft weight of 14.500 kg, the biggest load of bombs of 4.500 kilograms and a combat radius of 900 km, the Q-6 was finally outfitted with the Wopen WS-9 afterburning turbofan - a license-built Rolls Royce RB.168 Spey Mk. 202 with 91.3 kN of thrust.
Chinese considered the greatest achievement of the Q-6 in its fly-by-wire (FBW) control of the variable-sweep wings, both were the first of its kind in China. The original goal of reverse-engineering the FBW of the F-111 proved to be way too ambitious and had to be abandoned, so a much simpler version was adopted. The triplex analog FBW of the Q-6 was effectively just slightly more advanced than the most rudimentary FBW in that the mechanical servo valves were replaced with electrical servo valves, operated by electronic controllers. But contrary to the most rudimentary FBW, where hydraulic actuators still existed, the hydraulic actuators are replaced by electrical actuators on the Q-6. Anyway, this system proved to be the major obstacle in the hardware development of the Q-6 and it took nine years to complete (1980–1988), under the personal leadership of Mr. Lu Xiaopeng.
In 1988, three prototypes were built: one for static test, one for avionics tests on the ground, and one for the variable sweep wing research. The serial aircraft for PLAAF and PLANAF would have been separate variants, called Q-6A and Q-6B, which are believed to be offered for export now (see below).
Although hailed as a technological breakthrough for the Chinese aviation and providing superior performance to fixed-wing designs (esp. the outdated Q-5), the Chinese system was more than 12% heavier than the simple mechanical-hydraulic controlled variable-sweep wing of the benchmark MiG-23, and the Q-6 avionics were still far from being up-to-date.
Once identified as an indigenous aircraft (the Q-6 was at first deemed to be a variant or straight copy of the MiG-23/27, and therefore premilinarily coded 'Flogger L'), NATO alloted the Code 'Fruitcase' to it, with suffixes for the various export variants (see below).
It was not before 1990 that the aircraft was completed and (theoretically) ready for service – but at that time, technology and military strategy had already changed, and China had been developing the more capable (but much bigger) twin-engined Xian JH-7 fighter bomber for PLAAF and PLANAF. But it would still take some years until the JH-7A would enter service with the PLANAF: in early 2004, and with the PLAAF by the end of the year.
For China, the most important factor which prevented the Q-6 introduction into PLAAF and PLANAF service, was the 'discovery' of stealth features on the battlefield: variable-sweep wing would enlarge the aircraft's radar cross section multiple times and thus making it impossible to survive on the modern battlefield, because it would be much more likely to be detected and shot down.
Anyway, internal politics did not stop China from offering the now completed airframe on the export market as A-6 'Kong Yun' ("Cloud"), as a more capable successor to the Nanchang A-5 (the export version of the MiG-19-based Q-5). From 1992 onwards, several former A-5 users bought the aircraft as A-6 multi-role fighters. It is assumed that these correspond to the Q-6's development lines for PLAAAF an PLANAF.
Current users are the Bangladeshi Air Force (8× A-6B), Myanmar Air Force (20× A-6C), Sri Lanka (11× A-6B) Korean People's Air Force (probably less than 50x A-6A) and the Sudanese Air Force (A total of about 20, 3–11 of them servicable, probably all A-6A).
A-6A ('Fruitcase A'):
The first version and despite being marketed as a "multi-role combat aircraft" a very simple variant with a small radome, probably containing a Type 226 pulse-Doppler radar (a Chinese copy of the GEC-Marconi Skyranger).
A-6B ('Fruitcase B'):
Similar in apperance to the A-6A with a bigger radome. This variant is equipped with a Chinese KLJ-6E pulse-Doppler radar (A Chinese copy of the Italian Pointer-2500 radar, the same as featured on the Chinese Q-5M Fantan attack aircraft), which gives all weather attack capability. These aircraft are also fitted with a HUD, a GPS receiver/inertial navigation system, a 360° radar warning system, a tactical radio navigation system and chaff/flare dispensers on the rear fuselage.
The Sri Lanka aircraft have been seen carrying an external FLIR pod on one of the underfuselage pylons, while the Bangladeshi Air Force aircraft exclusively feature a small fairing under the nose which is believed to contain a LR/MTS, allowing the deployment of PGM.
A-6C ('Fruitcase C'):
Dedicated ground attack variant with a solid, more slender nose and full PGM capability. The nose features a fairing with windows for an ALR-1 laser rangefinder/marked target seeker (LR/MTS) in a small ball turret, and possibly LLLTV/FLIR. This optical system offers day/night attack capability. Like the A-6B, these aircraft feature HUD, GPS, tactical radio and optional flare dispensers.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 56 ft 1 in (17.10 m)
Wingspan: 47 ft 2 in (14.4m) at 16°, 28 ft 6 in (8,7m) at 72°
Height: 15 ft 9.5 in (4.82 m)
Empty weight: 16.520 lb (7.500 kg)
Loaded weight: 28.370 lb (12.880 kg)
Max. take-off weight: 32.820 lb (14.900 kg)
Powerplant:
1× Xian WS-9 Qin Ling afterburning turbofan (a license-built Rolls Royce RB.168 Spey Mk. 202), rated at 54,6 kN (5.562kp) dry and at 91,3KN (9.305kp) at full afterburner
Performance
Maximum speed: Mach 1.2 at low altitude and in clean configuration, subsonic with external ordnance; 1.055mph (1.700 km/h) at height and in clean configuration
Combat radius: 485 nmi (560 mi, 900 km)
Service ceiling: 49.180 ft (15.000 m)
Armament:
2× Type 23-III twin-barreled 23mm cannons in the wing roots with 200 RPG
7× Hardpoints (three under the fuselage, one under each fixed wing root and the mobile outer wings) for a maximum external ordnance of 10.000 lbs (4.540kg), including guided and unguided bombs, missiles, napalm tanks or 800l drop tanks; the two hardpoints under the outer wings are fixed and can only be used when the wings are kept in the most forward position (they are normally only used for drop tanks in ferry configuration).
The kit and its assembly:
This is a whif, but the Nanchang Q-6 was actually developed until 1989 – even though it never entered any service. It was over-ambitious and a dead end, overtaken by technological advances and the fact that Chinese development used to take decades rather than years.
Anyway, the Q-6 actually looked as if someone had glued the nose and air intake of a F-16 onto a MiG-23/27 fuselage - weird, but cool, so why not try this at home?
Like many kitbashing things, what sounds simple turned out to be a bit tricky in detail, even though the surgery was finally easier than expected. The model basis is pretty simple: I took an Academy MiG-27, sawed off the fuselage in the wing roots area (about 1cm, the cockpit section is an extra fuselage section), and did the same with an Italeri F-16 nose section, right behind the cockpit, where the front wheel well ends. The top insert for the single seater was left a bit longer, so that it would overlap with the MiG-23/27 spine.
When you fit these parts together, height is almost perfect, even the wing root/LERX angles match, but there are gaps left on the flanks where the original MiG-27 air intakes would be. These have to be covered, what creates lines reminiscent of the respective area on a MRCA Tornado. Furthermore, the spine behind the cockpit has to be sculpted, too.
Furthermore, the wing root levels of the MiG-23/27 and the F-16 did not match - they have a difference in height of about 4mm on the model, and this was the biggest challenge.
In order to compensate for this problem on my model, any LERX sign was removed from the F-16 nose. Inside of the F-16 section, a column was added that supports the rear upper half of the front fuselage, since the flanks had to go almost completely.
On the outside, the necessary intersections/extensions sculpted new with 2C putty, extending the MiG-23/27 lines forward. The final surface finish was done with NC putty. This major surgery was less complicated than expected - lots of work, though, but feasible.
The new front section with its blended fuselage/LERX area around the cockpit reminds surprisingly much of the MiG-29? As a side note: when you look at CG simulations of this aircraft, this area is a frequent field of trial and error. You find unconclusive, if not impossible designs.
Other changes include a less modern canopy from a MiG-21 (I think it comes from an Academy MiG-21F kit), which was more tricky to fit onto the original F-16 canopy than the LERX stuff. The F-16 canopy looked just too modern for my taste. An old Airfix pilot figure was added, too.
Another new feature is a new jet pipe, a J-79 nozzle from an Italeri Kfir that fits perfectly into the rear fuselage, and the fin. The latter was taken as a leftover part from my recent CF-151A project and comes from a 1:144 scale Tu-22M bomber (Dragon). It's higher, but less deep, and I thought that a slightly different shape and more area would be suitable for an attack aircraft. For the same reason the single, foldable stabilizer fin under the rear fuselage was replaced by two fixed strakes (from the F-16). Small details, but they change the look and make the aircraft appear more simple.
The landing gear was taken from the MiG-27, the front wheel strut had to be slightly shortened due to the reduced wheelbase on the Q-6.
The ordnance was puzzled together – according to current BAF weapons in use. I went for unguided missiles (taken from the Academy MiG-27 donation kit) and some 100kg iron bombs, leftover from a Trumpeter Il-28 bomber kit. These were arranged under the wing roots on improvised tandem MERs.
I did not even try to engrave new panel lines on the new front section - actually, almost the whole upper surface is featureless since it was made with putty. But bot 2C and NC putty are pretty touchy to drilling or engraving (as the rather fruitless attempt to drill open cavities for the two guns proved...), so I decided to just use paint effects.
Painting and markings:
I had been wanting to build a Bangladeshi Air Force aircraft for quite a long time, and the Q-6 was finally a great opportunity. As a ground attack aircraft, the livery was to reflect that role, and among modern BAF aircraft I found C-130 transporters carrying a wrap-around ‘Lizard’/’European One’ scheme, in the traditional tones of FS34102, FS34097 and FS 36081 (Humbrol 117, 149 and 32). Maybe the BAF C-130s are ex USAF aircraft? It seems to be common BAF practice to keep former users' liveries and even bort numbers! Anyway, I find the Lizard cammo on a swing wing aircraft like this rather disturbing, but overall the whole thing looks pretty cool, probably also because of the exotic roundels.
Another option would have been a two-tone green camouflage (seen on BAF An-32 transports) or a three-tone pattern of pale sand, dark brown and dark green with light blue undersides, seen on BAF A-5 fighters. The garish, blue livery of BAF MiG-29s, as well as the blue and grey patterns on BAF F-7 fighters, were ruled out, since they’d rather suggest an air superiority role.
The camouflage pattern is based on USAF A-10 aircraft, and the aircraft’s upper sides were thoroughly weathered with a black ink wash and dry-brushing in lighter shades of the basic tones. After all, my kit is to represent a Q-6 after more than 15 years of service, so that the grey would become much lighter, the dark green get a greyish-blue hue and the light green tone adapt an almost olive drab look. As a result, the aircraft does not look too dark and murky, and the missile ordnance does not stand out too much.
The roundels were improvised – Bangladeshi aircraft kits/decals are rare. AFAIK, only one 1:72 Fujimi MiG-21 offers a BAF markings option, otherwise I could not find anything else, even among aftermarket offerings. Scratching is more fun, though, so “my” markings are actually Pakistani roundels (from a TL Modellbau aftermarket sheet) with red decal discs covering the original white central disc.
The flag on the fin was cut from generic green decal sheet, the red disc was punched out from red decal sheet, just like the roundel additions. Straightforward – and highly effective! Other markings were puzzled together from the scrap box, since the Q-6 never got beyond prototype stage, anything was possible concerning stencils etc.
The bort numbers are guesstimates - typically, BAF (and also PAF) carry a full registration on the tail fin and only a three-digit code on the nose. Squadron emblems are only small and carried either on the nose or the fin, so the model is rather simple in appearance.
The cockpit interior was painted in "Russian Interior Blue-Green" (Testors 2135, a stuff also in use in China, as far as I can tell), the landing gear and its wells were kept in Aluminum (Humbrol 56). The air intake was painted in light grey from the inside, the radome became black.
+++ 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:
Cunliffe-Owen Aircraft was a British aircraft manufacturer of the World War II era. They were primarily a repair and overhaul shop, but also a construction shop for other companies' designs, notably the Supermarine Seafire. But the company also undertook contract work for the Air Ministry, Lord Rootes, Shorts and Armstrong Siddeley worth £1.5 million, and undertook design and development work.
The Marlin torpedo bomber was designed by Cunliffe-Owen Aircraft to Admiralty Specification O.5/43 as a replacement for the carrier-based Fairey Barracuda in the torpedo/dive bomber role for the new Malta Class ships. Cunliffe-Owen’s engineers had been convinced that a state-of-the-art torpedo bomber would have to be a fast and agile aircraft, so the airframe’s dimensions remained as compact as possible – and in fact the resulting aircraft was not bigger than the Barracuda, even though it was more massive in order to make room for an internal bomb bay. Much attention was given to aerodynamic and weight refinements, so that the aircraft – despite its considerable size – would still perform well with a single engine.
The primary choice fell on the Bristol Centaurus and the aircraft was expected to achieve 370 mph (600 km/h) top speed. Other engines with a similar output, e .g. the R-2800 and R-3350 from the USA as well as the British, air-cooled Exe 45 24 cylinder inline engine, were considered, too. However, the American export engines had been reserved for domestic use and the Exe was, at the time of the aircraft’s design, still far from being a reliable engine in the 3.000 hp class.
The Cunliffe-Owen Marlin was a conservative two-seat, mid monoplane aircraft design. As the Marlin was intended for carrier service, it came complete with hinged wing sections to allow for folding, as well as an arrester hook and a sturdy landing gear. The wings had a pronounced inverted gull wing design, so that the wings’ main spars could be positioned between the bomb bay and the cockpit floor and the landing gear struts could be kept as short as possible.
Even though the new Malta Class ships would allow bigger aircraft to be stored and deployed, the Cunliffe-Owen design team was cautious and tried to keep the aircraft as compact as possible – also with hindsight to the aircraft’s overall performance. In order to achieve this goal and set the Marlin apart from its Fairey and Supermarine contenders, the designers decided at a very early stage to limit the biggest size driver: the internal bomb bay. On the Marlin, it was not to be long enough to carry an 18” torpedo internally. The effects were dramatic: the Spearfish, for instance, had a wingspan of more than 60 ft (18m) and had a MTOW of more than 10 tons, while the Marlin had only a wing span of less than 50 ft and weighed only 25% less.
Instead of carrying the torpedo internally, a ventral arrangement, offset to port, allowed for the external carrying of a single 18” torpedo under the fuselage or of up to two 1.000 lb bombs in tandem. Alternatively, a single 1.000 lb bomb could be carried internally on a swing arm that would clear the bomb in a dive from the propeller arc. When dropped in free fall, up to four 500 lb. bombs or four 450 lb (205 kg) depth charges could be carried internally. Other options included a photo camera pallet for reconnaissance duties and/or auxiliary fuel tanks.
Hardpoints under the outer wings allowed the carriage of more iron bombs, mines or depth charges of up to 500 lb caliber, 90 gal drop tanks, or up to sixteen unguided 3” missiles for attack purposes. The Marlin’s total ordnance load was 3,000 lb (1,361 kg).
Additionally, two forward-firing, fixed 20mm cannons were mounted in the leading wing edges while a defensive, remote-controlled Frazer-Nash FN95 dorsal barbette with two 0.5” (12.7 mm) machine guns was mounted behind the rear cockpit position for defense, being operated by the navigator.
In August 1943, Cunliffe-Owen received an order for two Marlin T.1 prototypes. The first prototype, serial number RA359, was constructed at Cunliffe-Owen's Southampton Airport factory and first flew on 5 July 1945. The second prototype did not fly until late 1946 and was earmarked for the integration of a surface-search radar.
Test pilot and naval aviator Captain Eric Brown evaluated the first prototype at the Royal Navy Carrier Trials Unit at RNAS Ford, Sussex, and found "the controls in cruising flight were relatively heavy, but the aircraft responded well to stick input, and it is fast – despite its ponderous looks.” The Marlin also lacked any sort of stall warning, which would have been a problem in operational use as the stall and approach speeds were fairly close. For the landing, the aircraft proved quite docile, though.
The later prototype had, as an interim measure, ailerons boosted by hydraulic power and artificial feel to the stick from a spring. But during tests Brown found that "the second prototype was much less the pleasant aircraft to fly as the stick continually hunted either side of neutral and there was no build-up of stick force with increase in speed." Several improvements had to be made to the airframe, but no major flaws were discovered. In addition, the flaps were to be enlarged and lateral control was to be provided by spoilers with small "feeler" ailerons.
In the meantime, the strategic developments in the Pacific theatre of operations had changed. In 1945 the original order of four Malta Class ships from 1943 for the Royal Navy had been cancelled, even before they were laid down, and with this cancellation the Fleet Air Arm no longer had a requirement for new torpedo bombers. The whole program was cancelled, including the Marlin’s main competitor, the Fairey Spearfish, which was only built as a prototype.
However, the Marlin’s good performance so far and its relatively compact dimensions and high performance saved it from complete cancellation. The type was now regarded rather as an attack aircraft that would complement the Hawker Sea Fury fighter, another late WWII design. Some refinements like a new exhaust system and a fully retractable tail wheel were integrated into the serial production and the updated type’s designation was changed into SR.2 in order to reflect its changed role. The torpedo bomber capability was kept, even though only as a secondary role.
Originally, production orders for 150 aircraft were placed to be built at Southhampton, starting in late 1944. The first ten aircraft were still finished to the T.1 specification and used a Bristol Centaurus IX 18-cylinder radial engine, 2,520 hp (1,880 kW) radial engine. Then production switched to the TR.2, but instead of fulfilling the complete order, just a scant 114 TR.2 production aircraft, all outfitted with a 2,825 hp (2,107 kW) Centaurus 57 engine, followed. Some were outfitted with an ASV Mk.XV surface-search radar, mounted in a pod under the outer starboard wing, but all of them came too late to see any action in the Pacific.
After the Second World War, the Marlin remained in front line service with the Fleet Air Arm until the mid-1950s, but soon after World War II, anti-aircraft defenses were sufficiently improved to render aerial torpedo attacks suicidal. Lightweight aerial torpedoes were disposed or adapted to small attack boat usage, and the only significant employment of aerial torpedoes was in anti-submarine warfare.
Nevertheless, British Marlins got actively involved in several battles. For instance, the type carried out anti-shipping patrols and ground strikes off various aircraft carriers in the Korean War, and the Royal Navy successfully disabled the Hwacheon Dam in May 1951 with aerial torpedoes launched from Marlin fighter bombers - this raid constituted the last time globally that an aerial torpedo was used against a surface target, and was the only time torpedoes were used in the Korean War. The Marlin also served in the ground-attack role during the Malayan Emergency between 1951 and 1953.
The Marlin’s FAA front line career ended in late 1954 with the introduction of the Fairey Gannet. By that time, Cunliffe-Owen had already been, due to huge losses in the Post-War civil aviation market, dissolved since 1947.
General characteristics:
Crew: two
Length: 39 ft 7 1/2 in (12.10 m)
Wingspan: 47 ft 3 in (14.40 m)
Height: 13 ft 4.5 in (4.07 m)
Wing area: 35.40 m² (381.041 ft²)
Empty weight: 10,547 lb (4,794 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 16,616 lb (7,553 kg)
Fuel capacity: 409 imperial gallons (1,860 l; 491 US gal)
Powerplant:
1× Bristol Centaurus 57 18-cylinder radial engine, 2,825 hp (2,107 kW)
driving a 5-bladed Rotol VH 65, 14 ft (4.3 m) diameter propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 540 km/h (293 kn, 335 mph)
Maximum range: 900 mi (783 nmi, 1,450 km)
Combat radius: 349 mi (303 nmi; 562 km)
Service ceiling: 31,600 ft (9,630 m)
Rate of climb: 2,600 ft/min (13 m/s)
Time to altitude: 7.75 minutes to 10,000 feet (3,048 m)
Wing loading: 158.9 kg/m² (32.5 lb/ft²)
Power/mass: 240 W/kg (0.147 hp/lb)
Armament:
2× 20 mm (0.79 in) Hispano autocannon in the outer wings
2× 0.50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns in a dorsal, remote-controlled
Frazer-Nash FN95 barbette
1× 1,850 lb (840 kg) 18” Mk. VXII torpedo or 2 × 2,000 lb (910 kg) bombs under the fuselage,
or up to 2.000 lb of bombs in an internal bomb bay
Alternatively, up to 16× RP-3 rocket projectiles, bombs or 2× 90 gal (408 l) drop tanks
on underwing hardpoints; total ordnance load of up to 3,000 lb (1,361 kg)
The kit and its assembly:
This converted Aichi B7A2 was inspired by a whiffy Royal Navy skin for this type for a flight simulator, found at warthunder.com and created/posted by a user called byacki. The aircraft was otherwise unchanged, but the result looked so convincing that I earmarked the idea for a hardware build.
This time has come now: the 2018 “RAF Centenary” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com was a neat occasion to tackle the project, since I already had stashed away a Fujimi kit for this build.
In fact, Cunliffe-Owen submitted a competitive proposal for the Spearfish’s requirement, but details concerning the respective aircraft remain obscure, so that the B7A2 fills this gap well. The Fujimi kit itself is VERY nice, well detailed and goes together like a charm. In order to stay true to the original inspiration I did not change much, but the Fairey Spearfish of the late WWII era had some influence.
First of all, the engine was changed into a Bristol Centaurus – a very simple rhinoplasty, since the B7A2’s front fuselage diameter turned out to be ideal for this swap! The original nose was cut off just in front of the exhaust stubs, and a Centaurus from a PM Model Sea Fury was mounted in its place – even though it had to be “squashed” a little in order to fit properly (achieved through the use of a screw clamp and 2C putty inside to stabilize the new shape). Inside of the new cowling, a styrene tube was added for the new five blade propeller, also form a Sea Fury, which received a metal axis.
Another addition is the gun barbette, a common feature among Admiralty Specification O.5/43 designs (the Fairey Spearfish carried one, too). I was lucky to find a leftover chin turret from an Airfix B-17G in the pile, which fitted well in shape and size. The casing ejector openings were faired over and then the turret was mounted upside down in a round opening at the end of the cockpit section. Cockpit floor and canopy were modified accordingly and the result does not look bad at all! Inside of the cockpit the OOB bucket seats were replaced by bigger alternatives – the Fujimi parts look like 1:100 scale!
The OOB torpedo was retained and I added some unguided 3” rockets under the aircraft’s wings, left over from my recent Sea Hawk trainer build. Another addition is a radar pod under the port side wing (a modified cardboard drop tank from a WWII P-51D), and the main wheels were changed – from a Matchbox Me 262, because they feature more details than the OOB parts. The tail wheel was modified, too: instead of the B7A2’s fixed wheel, I implanted the front wheel from a PZL Iskra and added covers, for a retractable arrangement.
Painting and markings:
Well, a conservative choice, and since I wanted to stay true to the original CG design, I stuck to classic RN colors in the form of Extra Dark Sea Grey (Humbrol 123) for the upper surfaces and Sky (Tamiya XF-76 IJN Green Grey, which is a very similar, yet slightly darker tone) for the undersides, with a high waterline. A personal twist came through Korean War era “invasion stripes”, which were carried for easy identification esp. by propeller-driven aircraft in order to avoid friendly AA fire from the ground. The stripes were created after basic painting with white and black generic decal sheet material (TL Modellbau): large white bands (32 mm wide) as foundation, with single black bands (each 6.4 mm wide) added on top. Application around the radar pod and on the slightly tapered fuselage was a bit tricky, but IMHO still easier than trying to mask and paint the stripes.
Other markings were puzzled together from a PrintScale Fairey Firefly sheet, from different Korean War era aircraft.
As per usual, the kit received a light black ink wash in order to emphasize the engraved surface details, and then the panels were highlighted through dry-brushing. Lightly chipped paint was simulated with dry-brushed silver and light grey, and gun and exhaust soot were created with grinded graphite.
Finally, everything was sealed under a mix of Italeri’s matt and semi-gloss acrylic varnishes, for a sheen finish.
I am astonished how natural the Japanese B7A2 from late WWII looks in Royal Navy colors – even without my minor modifications the aircraft would look very convincing, even as a post-war design. It’s really an elegant machine, despite its bulk and size!
The Centaurus with its five blade propeller, the missiles under the wings and the gun barbette just add some more muscle and post-war credibility. I could also imagine this elegant aircraft in WWII Luftwaffe markings, maybe with an engine swap (BMW 801 or Jumo 213 power egg), too?
From a my flat photo taken in Chengyang, Guangxi, China
CROSSVIEW
To view 3D pics cross your eyes focusing between at the pictures until both images overlap one another in the middle.
Per vedere le foto in 3D incrociare (strabuzzare) gli occhi fino a che le due immagini si sovrappongono formandone una sola centrale.
2nd batch of pictures from my Venator conversion.
In all its glory and floating in an orbit above Corvan: the I.C.S. Ventura, a free/independent leisure cruiser, based on a retired Republican Venator class battleship.
This thing is so huge, I am not used to take pictures of objects of THIS size. I even had to improvise a big(ger) background for photo shooting, putting three A3 printouts together into one broad banner...
Anyway, the ship is finished, lights are on, and there are so many great perspectives to catch, I suppose that there will be many beauty pics of this model coming the next days!
If you want to see this ship "live", together with its sisters from phoxim.de's Venator Group Build project, check out 2012's Space Days in Darmstadt, Germany.
Thanks for your interest, stay tuned!
A fantasy mecha project, inspired by Patlabor & Gundam. The plan was to build a ‘realistic’ hexapod tank, even though with an SF touch.
The vehicle is not 100% supposed to match anime style – but the concept is pretty popular in Japanese animation, SF or special interest genres like Ma.K., so I think calling the “Ackwisch” (Hebrew for “Spider”) mecha is fine.
While the mobility of walking vehicles is arguably higher than that of wheeled or tracked vehicles, their inherent complexity has limited their use mainly to experimental vehicles. Examples of real manned walking vehicles include General Electric's Walking truck, the University of Duisburg-Essen's ALDURO and Timberjack, a subsidiary of John Deere, built a practical hexapod Walking Forest Machine (a harvester for rough/delicate terrain).
One can argue about the sense of a legged tank, though. It's slow, it has a high CG an silhouette, it's mechanically complex, it needs a lot of space in order to manoeuver, and you cannot deny the laws of physics: ground pressure is a SERIOUS issue, for any armored vehicle. A simple wet lawn can stop a tracked medium battle tank with a relatively large footprint – how’s a walking tank with only a fraction of area to distribute weight supposed to fare? A modern battle tank like the Merkava easily weights 60 tons and more. You might add for a legged specimen at least 10 more for the legs and their mechanics… so, is a walking tank “realistic”? Certainly not, but it’s cool…. And, since this is SF, it should at least look cool and somewhat menacing... ;)
This project had been waiting on the bench for a while and even saw a major creative interruption, and even then the whole building process took several weeks. Main ingredients are an 1:72 ESCI Merkava II tank kit, PVC doll joints from Kotobukiya for the legs (so they remain moveable, within limits),six resin legs from two ‘Junk Rock Tank’ recast kits in 1:35 scale (from a total of eight – you never know!), and two aftermarket gun barrels made from metal, since the tank received a double gun as a special feature. The commander’s cupola was donated from a 1:87 scale Roco Minitanks M60, otherwise a lot of details had been scratched or improvised – please check the WiP album for reference and single steps.
Construction was pretty straightforward, though, as well as painting, since I kept the tank in a uniform drab color (very similar if not identical to real life IDF tanks, RAL 7008 “Khakigrau”). Weathering was done with a thorough black ink wash and dry painting with various shades of brown, beige and grey, plus some of the artist pigments that were used on the base, too (see below).
The base was created with Styrofoam and plaster on an MDF board, the rock is actually aquarium decoration from a pet store, made from resin. The crater was sculpted into the basic surface.
The surface was decorated with fine sand, water-based paint and artist pigments, the vegetation consists of fine model railroad turf and grass fiber, brush fibers for large weed bushels, some dried real vegetation and a bit of dry moss.
As some space was left on the left side of the base, I eventually added a small vehicle there – my choice fell on a die-cast HMMWV from Dragon. Very fine car model, even though its place and position could have looked a bit more natural if I had integrated earlier into the planning process. But with both vehicles in place, the whole arrangement gains a bit of a meaning, as an observation scene. I still would not call it a diorama, though – it’s just a presentation base that might also be used in future model photographs.
Shooting the tank on its base was tricky, because of the relatively small dimensions of the base – on some of the pics I had to add virtual foreground in order to fill blank space, but otherwise only little “photoshopping” had to be done.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
The A-14 program originally started in 2005 as a private venture, initiated by Northrop-Grumman together with the Elbit Group as a joint venture through Elbit’s Texas-based aircraft division M7 Aerosystems, an approved supplier to major aerospace clients. The aircraft was intended to replace the USAF’s A-10 attack aircraft as well as early F-16s in the strike role from 2010 onwards. The time slot for the project turned out to be advantageous, because at that time the USAF was contemplating to replace the simple and sturdy A-10 with the much more complex F-35, eventually even with its VTOL variant, and the highly specialized F-117 was retired, too.
The A-14 revived conceptual elements of Grumman’s stillborn A-12 stealth program for the US Navy, which had also been part of the USAF’s plans to replace the supersonic F-111 tactical bomber, but on a less ambitious and expensive level concerning technology, aiming for a more effective compromise between complexity, survivability and costs. The basic idea was an updated LTV A-7D (the A-10’s predecessor from the Vietnam War era), which had far more sophisticated sensor and navigation equipment than the rather simple but sturdy A-10, but with pragmatic stealth features and a high level of survivability in a modern frontline theatre or operations.
M7 Aerosystems started on a blank sheet, even though Northrop-Grumman’s A-12 influence was clearly visible, and to a certain degree the aircraft shared the basic layout with the F-117A. The A-14 was tailored from the start to the ground attack role, and therefore a subsonic design. Measures to reduce radar cross-section included airframe shaping such as alignment of edges, fixed-geometry serpentine inlets that prevented line-of-sight of the engine faces from any exterior view, use of radar-absorbent material (RAM), and attention to detail such as hinges and maintenance covers that could provide a radar return. The A-14 was furthermore designed to have decreased radio emissions, infrared signature and acoustic signature as well as reduced visibility to the naked eye.
The resulting airframe was surprisingly large for an attack aircraft – in fact, it rather reminded of a tactical bomber in the F-111/Su-24 class than an alternative to the A-10. The A-14 consisted of a rhomboid-shaped BWB (blended-wing-and-body) with extended wing tips and only a moderate (35°) wing sweep, cambered leading edges, a jagged trailing edge and a protruding cockpit section which extended forward of the main body.
The majority of the A-14’s structure and surface were made out of a carbon-graphite composite material that is stronger than steel, lighter than aluminum, and absorbs a significant amount of radar energy. The central fuselage bulge ended in a short tail stinger with a pair of swept, canted fins as a butterfly tail, which also shrouded the engine’s hot efflux. The fins could have been omitted, thanks to the aerodynamically unstable aircraft’s fly-by-wire steering system, and they effectively increased the A-14’s radar signature as well as its visual profile, but the gain in safety in case of FBW failure or physical damage was regarded as a worthwhile trade-off. Due to its distinctive shape and profile, the A-14 quickly received the unofficial nickname “Squatina”, after the angel shark family.
The spacious and armored cockpit offered room for the crew of two (pilot and WSO or observer for FAC duties), seated side-by-side under a generous glazing, with a very good field of view forward and to the sides. The fuselage structure was constructed around a powerful cannon, the five-barrel GAU-12/U 25 mm ‘Equalizer’ gun, which was, compared with the A-10’s large GAU-8/A, overall much lighter and more compact, but with only little less firepower. It fired a new NATO series of 25 mm ammunition at up to 4.200 RPM. The gun itself was located under the cockpit tub, slightly set off to port side, and the front wheel well was offset to starboard to compensate, similar in arrangement to the A-10 or Su-25. The gun’s ammunition drum and a closed feeding belt system were located behind the cockpit in the aircraft’s center of gravity. An in-flight refueling receptor (for the USAF’s boom system) was located in the aircraft’s spine behind the cockpit, normally hidden under a flush cover.
Due to the gun installation in the fuselage, however, no single large weapon bay to minimize radar cross section and drag through external ordnance was incorporated, since this feature would have increased airframe size and overall weight. Instead, the A-14 received four, fully enclosed compartments between the wide main landing gear wells and legs. The bays could hold single iron bombs of up to 2.000 lb caliber each, up to four 500 lb bombs or CBUs, single laser-guided GBU-14 glide bombs, AGM-154 JSOW or GBU-31/38 JDAM glide bombs, AGM-65 Maverick guided missiles or B61 Mod 11 tactical nuclear weapons, as well as the B61 Mod 12 standoff variant, under development at that time). Retractable launch racks for defensive AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles were available, too, and additional external pylons could be added, e.g. for oversize ordnance like AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) or AGM-158 Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), or drop tanks for ferry flights. The total in- and external ordnance load was 15,000 lb (6,800 kg).
The A-14 was designed with superior maneuverability at low speeds and altitude in mind and therefore featured a large wing area, with high wing aspect ratio on the outer wing sections, and large ailerons areas. The ailerons were placed at the far ends of the wings for greater rolling moment and were split, making them decelerons, so that they could also be used as air brakes in flight and upon landing.
This wing configuration promoted short takeoffs and landings, permitting operations from primitive forward airfields near front lines. The sturdy landing gear with low-pressure tires supported these tactics, and a retractable arrester hook, hidden by a flush cover under the tail sting, made it possible to use mobile arrested-recovery systems.
The leading edge of the wing had a honeycomb structure panel construction, providing strength with minimal weight; similar panels covered the flap shrouds, elevators, rudders and sections of the fins. The skin panels were integral with the stringers and were fabricated using computer-controlled machining, reducing production time and cost, and this construction made the panels more resistant to damage. The skin was not load-bearing, so damaged skin sections could be easily replaced in the field, with makeshift materials if necessary.
Power came from a pair of F412-GE-114 non-afterburning turbofans, engines that were originally developed for the A-12, but de-navalized and lightened for the A-14. These new engines had an output of 12,000 lbf (53 kN) each and were buried in blended fairings above the wing roots, with jagged intakes and hidden ducts. Flat exhausts on the wings’ upper surface minimized both radar and IR signatures.
Thanks to the generous internal fuel capacity in the wings and the fuselage, the A-14 was able to loiter and operate under 1,000 ft (300 m) ceilings for extended periods. It typically flew at a relatively low speed of 300 knots (350 mph; 560 km/h), which made it a better platform for the ground-attack role than fast fighter-bombers, which often have difficulty targeting small, slow-moving targets or executing more than just a single attack run on a selected target.
A mock-up was presented and tested in the wind tunnel and for radar cross-section in late 2008. The A-14’s exact radar cross-section (RCS) remained classified, but in 2009 M7 Aerosystems released information indicating it had an RCS (from certain angles) of −40 dBsm, equivalent to the radar reflection of a "steel marble". With this positive outcome and the effective design, M7 Aerosystems eventually received federal funding for the production of prototypes for an official DT&E (Demonstration Testing and Evaluation) program.
Three prototypes/pre-production aircraft were built in the course of 2010 and 2011, and the first YA-14 made its maiden flight on 10 May 2011. The DT&E started immediately, and the machines (a total of three flying prototypes were completed, plus two additional airframes for static tests) were gradually outfitted with mission avionics and other equipment. This included GPS positioning, an inertial navigation system, passive sensors to detect radar usage, a small, gyroscopically stabilized turret, mounted under the nose of the aircraft, containing a FLIR boresighted with a laser spot-tracker/designator, and an experimental 3-D laser scanning LIDAR in the nose as a radiation-less alternative to a navigation and tracking radar.
Soon after the DT&E program gained momentum in 2012, the situation changed for M7 Aerosystems when the US Air Force considered the F-35B STOVL variant as its favored replacement CAS aircraft, but concluded that the aircraft could not generate a sufficient number of sorties. However, the F-35 was established as the A-14’s primary rival and remained on the USAF’s agenda. For instance, at that time the USAF proposed disbanding five A-10 squadrons in its budget request to cut its fleet of 348 A-10s by 102 to lessen cuts to multi-mission aircraft in service that could replace the specialized attack aircraft.
In August 2013, Congress and the Air Force examined various proposals for an A-10 replacement, including the A-14, F-35 and the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle, and, despite the A-14’s better qualities in the ground attack role, the F-35 came out as the overall winner, since it was the USAF’s favorite. Despite its complexity, the F-35 was – intended as a multi-role tri-service aircraft and also with the perspective of bigger international sales than the more specialized A-14 – regarded as the more versatile and, in the long run, more cost-efficient procurement option. This sealed the A-14’s fate and the F-35A entered service with U.S. Air Force F-35A in August 2016 (after the F-35B was introduced to the U.S. Marine Corps in July 2015). At that time, the U.S. planned to buy 2,456 F-35s through 2044, which would represent the bulk of the crewed tactical airpower of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps for several decades.
Since the A-14’s technology was considered to be too critical to be marketed to export customers (Israel showed early interest in the aircraft, as well as South Korea), the program was cancelled in 2016.
General characteristics:
Crew: 2 (pilot, WSO)
Length: 54 ft 11 1/2 in (16.78 m)
Wingspan: 62 ft 11 1/2 in (19.22 m)
Height: 11 ft 3 3/4 in (3.45 m)
Wing area: 374.9 ft² (117.5 m²)
Empty weight: 24,959 lb (11,321 kg)
Loaded weight: 30,384 lb (13,782 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 50,000 lb (22,700 kg)
Internal fuel capacity: 11,000 lb (4,990 kg)
Powerplant:
2× General Electric Whitney F412-GE-114 non-afterburning turbofans
with 12,000 lbf (53 kN) thrust each
Performance:
Maximum speed: 630 mph (1,010 km/h, 550 kn) at 40,000 ft altitude /
Mach 0.95 at sea level
Cruise speed: 560 mph (900 km/h, 487 kn) at 40,000 ft altitude
Range: 1,089 nmi (1,253 mi, 2,017 km)
Ferry range: 1,800 nmi (2,100 mi, 3,300 km)
Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,200 m)
Rate of climb: 50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)
Wing loading: 133 lb/ft² (193 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 0.48 (full internal fuel, no stores)
Take-off run: 1,200 m (3,930 ft) at 42,000 lb (19,000 kg) over a 15 m (30 ft) obstacle
Armament:
1× General Dynamics GAU-12/U Equalizer 25 mm (0.984 in) 5-barreled rotary cannon
with 1,200 rounds (max. capacity 1,350 rounds)
4x internal weapon bays plus 4x external optional hardpoints with a total capacity of
15,000 lb (6,800 kg) and provisions to carry/deploy a wide range of ordnance
The kit and its assembly:
A major kitbashing project which I had on my idea list for a long time and its main ingredients/body donors already stashed away – but, as with many rather intimidating builds, it takes some external motivation to finally tackle the idea and bring it into hardware form. This came in August 2020 with the “Prototypes” group build at whatifmodellers.com, even though is still took some time to find the courage and mojo to start.
The original inspiration was the idea of a stealthy successor for the A-10, or a kind of more modern A-7 as an alternative to the omnipresent (and rather boring, IMHO) F-35. An early “ingredient” became the fuselage of a Zvezda Ka-58 stealth helicopter kit – I liked the edgy shape, the crocodile-like silhouette and the spacious side-by-side cockpit. Adding wings, however, was more challenging, and I remembered a 1:200 B-2A which I had turned into a light Swedish 1:72 attack stealth aircraft. Why not use another B-2 for the wings and the engines, but this time a bigger 1:144 model that would better match the quite bulbous Ka-58 fuselage? This donor became an Italeri kit.
Work started with the fuselage: the Ka-58’s engine and gearbox hump had to go first and a generous, new dorsal section had to be scratched with 1mm styrene sheet and some PSR. The cockpit and its glazing could be retained and were taken OOB. Under the nose, the Ka-58’s gun turret was omitted and a scratched front landing gear well was implanted instead.
The wings consist of the B-2 model; the lower “fuselage half” had its front end cut away, then the upper fuselage half of the Ka-58 was used as benchmark to cut the B-2’s upper wing/body part in two outer wing panels. Once these elements had been glued together, the Ka-58’s lower nose and tail section were tailored to match the B-2 parts. The B-2 engine bays were taken OOB and mounted next, so that the A-14’s basic hull was complete and the first major PSR session could start. Blending the parts into each other turned out to be a tedious process, since some 2-3 mm wide gaps had to be filled.
Once the basic BWP pack had been finished, I added the fins. These were taken from an 1:72 F-117 kit (IIRC from Italeri), which I had bought in a lot many moons ago. The fins were just adapted at their base to match the tail sting slope, and they were mounted in a 45° angle. This looks very F-117ish but was IMHO the most plausible solution.
Now that the overall length of the aircraft was defined, I could work on the final major assembly part: the wing tips. The 1:144 B-2 came with separate wing tip sections, but they proved to be much too long for the Squatina. After some trials I reduced their length by more than half, so that the B-2’s jagged wing trailing edge was kept. The result looks quite natural, even though blending the cut wing tips to the BWB turned out to be a PSR nightmare because their thickness reduces gently towards the tip – since I took out a good part of the inner section, the resulting step had to be sanded away and hidden with more PSR.
Detail work started next, including the cockpit glazing, the bomb bay (the B-2 kit comes with one of its bays open, and I kept this detail and modified the interior) and the landing gear, the latter was taken from the F-117 donor bank and fitted surprisingly well.
Some sensors were added, too, including a flat glass panel on the nose tip and a triangular IRST fairing under the nose, next to the landing gear well.
Painting and markings:
For a stealth aircraft and a prototype I wanted something subdued or murky, but not an all-black or -grey livery. I eventually settled for the rather dark paint scheme that the USAF applied to its late B-52Gs and the B-1Bs, which consists of two tones from above, FS 36081 (Dark Grey, a.k.a. Dark Gunship Grey) and 34086 (Green Drab), and underneath (FS 36081 and 36118 (Gunship Grey). The irregular pattern was adapted (in a rather liberal fashion) from the USAF’s early B-1Bs, using Humbrol 32, 108 and 125 as basic colors. The 108 turned out to be too bright, so I toned it down with an additional coat of thinned Humbrol 66. While this considerably reduced the contrast between the green and the grey, the combination looks much better and B-1B-esque.
The wings’ leading edges were painted for more contrast with a greyish black (Tar Black, Revell 09), while the landing gear, the interior of the air intakes and the open bomb bay became glossy white. The cockpit was painted in medium grey (Humbrol 140) and the clear parts received a thinned inner coating with a mix of transparent yellow and brown, simulating an anti-radar coating – even though the effect turned out to be minimal, now it looks as of the plastic parts had just yellowed from age…
After the initial livery had been finished the model received a black ink washing and some post-panel shading with slightly brightened variations of the basic tones (using Humbrol 79, 144 and 224). Decals were added next, an individual mix from various sources. The “Stars-and-Bars” come from a PrintScale A-7 sheet, most stencils come from an F-16 sheet.
After some more detail painting and a treatment with graphite on the metal areas (exhausts, gun port), the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).
Batman’s next Batwing? Maybe, there’s certainly something fictional about this creation. But the “Squatina” turned out much more conclusive (and even pretty!) than I expected, even though it became a bigger aircraft than intended. And I am positively surprised how good the bodywork became – after all, lots of putty had to be used to fill all the gaps between parts that no one ever expected to be grafted together.
+++ 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:
The First Chechen War (also known as the First Chechen Сampaign, First Russian-Chechen war, or, from Russian point of view, as “Armed conflict in the Chechen Republic and on bordering territories of the Russian Federation”), was a rebellion by the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria against the Russian Federation, fought from December 1994 to August 1996. After the initial campaign of 1994–1995, culminating in the devastating Battle of Grozny, Russian federal forces attempted to seize control of the mountainous area of Chechnya but were set back by Chechen guerrilla warfare and raids on the flatlands despite Russia's overwhelming advantages in firepower, manpower, weaponry, artillery, combat vehicles, airstrikes and air support. The resulting widespread demoralization of federal forces and the almost universal opposition of the Russian public to the conflict led Boris Yeltsin's government to declare a ceasefire with the Chechens in 1996 and sign a peace treaty a year later.
The conflict started in 1991, when Chechnya declared, in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, independence and was named the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. According to some sources, from 1991 to 1994, tens of thousands of people of non-Chechen ethnicity (mostly Russians, Ukrainians and Armenians) left the republic amidst reports of violence and discrimination against the non-Chechen population. Other sources do not identify displacement as a significant factor in the events of the period, instead focusing on the deteriorating domestic situation within Chechnya, the aggressive politics of the Chechen President, Dzhokhar Dudayev, and the domestic political ambitions of Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
On 11 December 1994, Russian forces launched a three-pronged ground attack towards Grozny. The main attack was temporarily halted by the deputy commander of the Russian Ground Forces, General Eduard Vorobyov, who then resigned in protest, stating that it was "a crime" to "send the army against its own people." Many in the Russian military and government opposed the war as well. Yeltsin's adviser on nationality affairs, Emil Pain, and Russia's Deputy Minister of Defense General Boris Gromov (esteemed commander of the Afghan War), also resigned in protest of the invasion ("It will be a bloodbath, another Afghanistan", Gromov said on television), as did General Boris Poliakov. More than 800 professional soldiers and officers refused to take part in the operation; of these, 83 were convicted by military courts and the rest were discharged. Later General Lev Rokhlin also refused to be decorated as a Hero of the Russian Federation for his part in the war.
The Chechen Air Force (as well as the republic's civilian aircraft fleet) at the time of the 1st Chechen War consisted of a small, mixed fleet of annexed former Soviet air force types that had been based on Chechen ground. The backbone of the “Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Air Force”, how it was officially called, were a handful L-39 Albatros, L-29 Delfin and MiG-21UM jet trainers, augmented by single specimen of full-fledged combat aircraft like the MiG-21 and Su-25. Even a single vintage MiG-17, until then used as an instructional airframe, was revived and became part of the Chechen Air Force!
However, many of these were not fit for sustained operations due to lack of service, spares, weapons and qualified pilots.
The few aircraft that could be brought into the air within the very first hours of the conflict only made minor impression on the Russian forces, rather acting as distractions than being effective combat units. A few air strikes were flown, but no air-to-air combat occurred. Beyond the poor condition, most of the Chechen military aircraft fleet was destroyed or damaged beyond repair in the air strikes that occurred on the first days of the conflict, which included massive attacks against Khankala air base and its infrastructure. Single machines that had been on missions at that time escaped and were able to land on other airfields, but they became unusable within a few days due to the lack of maintenance, fuel and ordnance.
Boris Yeltsin's cabinet's expectations of a quick surgical strike, quickly followed by Chechen capitulation and regime change, were misguided: Russia found itself in a quagmire almost instantly. The morale of the Russian troops, poorly prepared and not understanding why and even where they were being sent, was low from the beginning. Some Russian units resisted the order to advance, and in some cases, the troops sabotaged their own equipment. In Ingushetia, civilian protesters stopped the western column and set 30 military vehicles on fire, while about 70 conscripts deserted their units. Advance of the northern column was halted by the unexpected Chechen resistance at Dolinskoye and the Russian forces suffered their first serious losses. Deeper in Chechnya, a group of 50 Russian paratroopers surrendered to the local Chechen militia after being deployed by helicopters behind enemy lines and then abandoned.
Yeltsin ordered the Russian Army to show restraint, but it was neither prepared nor trained for this. Civilian losses quickly mounted, alienating the Chechen population and raising the hostility that they showed towards the Russian forces, even among those who initially supported the Russians' attempts to unseat Dudayev. Other problems occurred as Yeltsin sent in freshly trained conscripts from neighboring regions rather than regular soldiers. Highly mobile units of Chechen fighters inflicted severe losses on the ill-prepared and demoralized Russian troops. Although the Russian military command ordered to only attack designated targets, due to the lack of training and experience of Russian forces, they attacked random positions instead, turning into carpet bombing and indiscriminate barrages of rocket artillery, and causing enormous casualties among the Chechen and Russian civilian population.
On 29 December, in a rare instance of a Russian outright victory, the Russian airborne forces seized the military airfield next to Grozny and repelled a Chechen armored counterattack in the Battle of Khankala; the next objective was the city itself. With the Russians closing in on the capital, the Chechens began to hastily set up defensive fighting positions and grouped their forces in the city. Russian Army forces were commanded into Grozny in 1994 but, after two years of intense fighting, the Russian troops eventually withdrew from Chechnya under the Khasavyurt Accord. Chechnya preserved its de facto independence until the second war broke out in 1999.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 15.76 m (51 ft 7½ in) incl. pitot
Wingspan: 7.15 m (23 ft 6 in)
Height: 4.13 m (13 ft 6½ in)
Wing area: 23.0 m² (247.3 ft²)
Empty weight: 5,843 kg (12,870 lb)
Gross weight: 8,200 kg (18,060 lb)
Max. TOW: 9,400 kg (20,700 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Tumansky R-13-300 turbojet, rated at 40,30 kN (9,040 lbf) dry thrust
and 60,70 kN (13,650 lbf) with afterburner
Performance:
Maximum speed: 2,230 km/h (1,385 mph/1,205 kts) at 11.000 m
1,300 km/h (807 mph/702 kts) at sea level
Cruising speed: 1,200 km/h (745 mph/650 kts)
Landing speed: 350 km/h (217 mph/190 kts)
Range: (internal fuel) 1,210 km (751 miles)
Combat radius with two AAMs and three drop tanks: 465 ml (750 km)
Service ceiling: 19,000 m (62,200 ft)
Rate of climb: 180 m/s (35,375 ft/min)
Thrust-to-weight ratio: 1.03 maximum
Armament:
1x internal 23 mm GSh-23 cannon with 200 rounds
5x hardpoints for a wide range of ordnance of up to 2.870 lb (1.300 kg)
The kit and its assembly:
This rather simple what-if model had been on my idea list for some time, but the “Captured!” Group Build at whatifmodellers.com in late 2020 was a good occasion and motivation to take the idea to the hardware stage. This what-if model was originally inspired by a PrintScale aftermarket decal sheet for the Aero L-39 Albatros trainer. It contained markings for a lot of exotic operators, including Laos and Ghana, as well as markings for an aircraft of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Air Force from the early stages of the 1st Chechen War, actually a captured aircraft of the Russian Air Force. While the paint scheme was simple - a standard trainer livery, just with overpainted roundels and tactical markings - I found the historic context interesting. I did some legwork and tried to puzzle together the background of these markings, as well as the origins of the Chechen air force, in order to transfer it onto a different aircraft type.
In fact, much of the background given above is authentic (As far as I can tell, during such conflicts, there is always more than a single truth…), the Chechen makeshift air force was pretty small, consisting primarily of trainers, some helicopters and obsolete types (apparently, the single resurrected MiG-17 from storage was “real”!). AFAIK, no MiG-21 single seater was operated in Chechen colors, even though (at least) one MiG-21UM trainer carried Ichkerian roundels. However, all aircraft were destroyed on the ground within the first hours of the conflict, so that the air force did not play any role in the ongoing battles.
The basis of this build is the relatively new KP kit for the MiG-21MF/MA/R, which is apparently a low-budget re-boxing of the RV Aircraft kit without PE parts. Having some surplus MiG-21 kits at hand from a KP “Joy Pack” (with three complete MF/MA/R version kits, w/o decals), I decided to use one of them for a fictional Chechen Fishbed, an MF. This is/was actually an export version of the Fishbed (the MiG-21 SM, to be specific), but this variant was operated by the Soviet/Russian Air Force, too, alongside the more capable MiG-21bis, even though not in large scale. A Su-25 would have been another worthwhile choice, but I found the L-39 markings to be too small for this type, so the slender Fishbed was chosen, being a very common and therefore plausible type.
I had a trio “joy pack” sans decals stashed away some time ago and now is the occasion to build the first of these kits, and I built an MF from it, mostly OOB. So far, I am very impressed by the kit's details. The cockpit has a full tub, with side walls and consoles up to the canopy, rich detail everywhere (there is probably ANY rivet represented on the surface, finely recessed) and there are things like a free-standing shock cone, options for all air brakes to be built in opened position and even an opening for the air outlet in front of the windscreen. However, fit is not stellar, and any surface detail is a separate part. For instance, the small wing fences have to be glued into place - not that problem if they would fit... The fences are rectangular parts, and the wing surfaces are curved - that does not work. There are no locator pins for the wings, they have to be glued directly onto the fuselage flanks – a rather anachronistic approach. And the worst bummer is that the main landing gear wells are somehow located too far ahead - I am not certain how this blatant flaw on such a good model could find its way into the mold? Nevertheless, I am impressed by the many details and options of this kit, but feelings are ambiguous.
The kit was built OOB. I just gave it two pairs of bombs (a pair of FAB-250 bombs and two OFAB-100 fragmentation bombs) as ordnance from the scrap box (from a Kangnam Yak-38 and a KP Su-25). The Fishbeds from the Joy Pack come with drop tanks, some Atoll and Aphid AAMs and a pair of heavy unguided S-24 missiles, but I found none of these really suitable for a Chechen aircraft.
Painting and markings:
I used the L-39 from the PrintScale decal sheet as conceptual benchmark: a former Russian aircraft, captured and pressed into Chechen service on short notice. As such, the Fishbed received a typical Soviet/Russian disruptive four-tone, tactical “steppe” camouflage. A real-world MiG-21 was the benchmark for the pattern, I just replaced the colors. They became pale sand, medium brown, grass green and dark green, with blue undersides (Humbrol 121, 237, 150 and 75, respectively with 115 underneath).
The cockpit interior was painted in characteristic bright turquoise and medium grey, the landing gear became matt aluminum, with bright green wheel discs. The wells were painted with a mix of Humbrol 56 and 81, for a yellowish metallic grey. Humbrol 105 was used for the Fishbed’s typical di-electric fairings on nose, tail and ventral fin.
The kit received a light black ink wash and some post panel shading for a used/worn look, since the MiG-21 would in 1994 have already been a secondary line aircraft with many flying hours on the clock. The areas, where Red Stars and the tactical code had formerly been placed, were overpainted with fresh dark green (Humbrol 195) and light blue under the outer wings (Humbrol 89). The new operator’s markings were added on top of that: early Chechen roundels with a red star as background (which was later changed into green, probably in order to make the aircraft easier and clearer to distinguish, even though I have doubts about contrast on a camouflage background?) from the aforementioned PrintScale L-39 sheet. The large tactical code numbers come from a MiG-17 (Microscale sheet).
The slogan “Ӏожалла я маршо“ (Joƶalla ya marşo, “Death or Freedom”, after the Anthem of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’s title which was written in 1992 and lasted until 2004) was painted manually with acrylic white and a fine brush. The handwritten style pragmatically suits the aircraft and its situation well. Cheesy and patriotic, but IMHO appropriate and just the detail that sets this Fishbed apart from a simple roundel rebadge.
Some areas were furthermore lightly wet-sanded, for an intentional makeshift and worn look. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri) and I did some dry-brushing with aluminum on the leading edges and around the cockpit.
A relatively simple whif project, but I like the exotic touch of the Chechen markings – this fictional Fishbed looks pretty believable. I also like the “colorful” livery, despite being a camouflage scheme. However, I am not 100% sold on the relatively new KP/RV Aircraft kit. It looked so good in the box, and it is full of many minute details. But building it revealed some weaknesses and even lethal flaws, like the mispositioned/crippled main landing gear wells in the wings. There’s something fundamentally wrong. WTF?
Veterinary ambulance in Devon. Good use of an Old ambulance.
I love the front 'blue' repeater lights!
I spent a lot of time doing this conversion just because I didn't know quite what needed to go where. I'm in the middle of the first roll right now, and things are going smoothly so far.
The camera takes 6cm x 10.5cm negatives, so I get 6 per roll right now. I may make a mask later so I can get that to a more manageable 6x9 format if I don't like the results.
Notice all the felt. I removed quite a few components and I'm worried it's gonna leak light like crazy. hopefully I've sealed it up.
The ZIL-157 is a general purpose 2 1⁄2-ton 6x6 truck, produced in post-World War II Soviet Union ZiL. It was the standard Soviet truck.
Der ZIL-157 (russisch ЗИЛ-157), gelegentlich auch als SIL-157 transkribiert, ist ein dreiachsiger mittelschwerer Lastkraftwagen, der 1958 bis 1994 in der Sowjetunion beziehungsweise Russland zuerst vom Sawod imeni Lichatschowa gebaut wurde.
Requires RED / CYAN 3D Glasses
Most favourite conversion so far, the poster for Akira
I made a heatmap in Photoshop, then used Stereo Photo Maker v.5 to import the depth map and create two stereo composites. Light adjustments where then made.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVSf22VT1t4
My personalized 3D / Anaglyph Kit:
Infrared Landscape shot with Canon EOS 7D using a 590 nm converted infrared lens with Conversion by LifePixel
This is the result of a camera toss that was converted to black and white. No other manipulations...
Link to a comparison of different treatments of the same camera toss.
Binoculars are taken from the tau hammerhead kit, the converted carbine is a pulse rifle with a shortened barrel (part of the cut out barrel forms the magazine) and an upside down pulse grenade launcher for a sight.