+++ 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 "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.

In service the vehicle was, due to its crouched silhouette, unofficially called "Dachs" (Badger), a name that was quickly adopted in official circles, too. The first vehicles reached Western front line units along the Rhine in March 1945. They proved to be very successful and popular with its crews, because the tank was agile, easy to handle and less cramped than most of its predecessors. Total production reached 250 vehicles until the end of hostilities, and many of the E-25/88s design features were later incorporated into the post WWII “Jagdpanzer Kanone” for the German Bundeswehr.

Specifications:

Crew: Five (commander, gunner, loader, radio operator, driver)

Weight: 31 tonnes (34.5 short tons)

Length: 6.98 metres (22 ft 10 in) (hull only)

9.93 metres (32 ft 6 1/2 in) incl. gun

Width: 3.20 metres (10 ft 6 in)

Height 2.48 metres (8 ft 1 1/2 in)

Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)

Suspension: Torsion bar

Fuel capacity: 450 litres (120 US gal)

Armor:

10–80 mm (0.4 – 3.15 in)

Performance:

Speed

- Maximum, road: 52 km/h (32 mph)

- Sustained, road: 42 km/h (26 mph)

- Cross country: 16 to 25 km/h (9.5 to 15.5 mph)

Operational range: 210 km (130 mi)

Power/weight: 17,74 PS/tonne (16 hp/ton)

Engine:

V-12 Maybach Maybach HL 101 gasoline engine with 550 PS (539 hp, 341 kW)

Transmission:

ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears

Armament:

1× 8.8 cm KwK 43/4 L/71 with 50 rounds

2× 7.92 mm MG 34 machine guns with a total of 5.200 rounds

(one in the casemate front and a remote-controlled gun on the commander's cupola)

The kit and its assembly:

It does not look spectacular, but this compact tank hunter is a major kitbashing, inspired by - but not necessarily an exact model of - the real but unrealized German E-25 Jagdpanzer project.

Things started with a leftover chassis from a Trumpeter "Sturer Emil" SPG with an early interleaf suspension design and a relatively long hull. I wanted to save it and incorporate it into a Heer '46 design, and soon the idea of a Jagdpanzer IV successor was born. Selling it as an E-25 design and incorporating a bigger gun was a logical step.

The build was very pragmatic. The lower hull with the wheel attachments was taken OOB, but it was shortened by 5mm. This was achieved by simply taking away a plug behind the last road wheel and in front of the sprocket wheel, which was moved from the front to the rear end.

While this sounds simple, the attachment points’ different diameters and the need for a sturdy construction (due to the kit’s vinyl tracks) posed quite a challenge. In the wake of this modification, the track’s support wheels were deleted, too, for the E-25’s simplified “slack track” layout. The tracks were shortened accordingly, and mounted/fixed with super glue (as one of the final steps after painting).

The upper hull comes basically from an Armorfast Jagdpanther, after several trials with a Jagdpanzer IV, a Brummbär and even a potentially scratched casemate. The Jagdpanther hull was reduced in height, though, and also slightly shortened, so that the new tank would be more compact than a Jagdpanther and also differ in the silhouette.

In order to change the look even more, the “Saukopf” gun mantlet from a Jagdpanzer IV/70 was implanted (even though with an 8,8cm barrel), as well as the vehicle’s protective shields for the motor deck. Overall hull width was adapted to the Sturer Emil tracks through mudguards.

The machine gun turret was scratched, and some other details changed or added, including some periscopes, a Panzer IV commander cupola and some equipment pieces on the mudguards.

Painting and markings:

This time, I wanted a disruptive scheme for this tank hunter, and adopted a rather simple livery for the E-25/88: a uniform RAL 6003 Olivgrün for the upper hull (appied with a rattle can, plus a hush with RAL 6011 on the upper surfaces), with a dense, irregular pattern of sand/yellow blotches - lighter than the authentic RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb, though (I have used Humbrol 103, Cream).

Wheels and the lower hull flanks (behind the running gear) were painted in RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb (RAL 8000, which comes pretty close, IMHO).

Similar schemes were, for instance, applied to some Ferdinand tank Hunters, operated in Italy and the Eastern Front, but also on Jagdpanthers at the Western front (e. g. in Belgium). The result reminds a bit of a Giraffe, or of the unique British "net" scheme applied to tanks on Malta.

On top of the basic paintwork, a dark brown washing was added and the edges further emphasized through dry-brushing with light grey and pale sand tones, plus some acrylic silver.

Once the wheels and tracks were fitted into place and the few decals applied, a coat of matt acrylic varnish was added. Finally, dust and dry mud were simulated with mixed pigments, applied with a soft brush onto wet stains of varnish.

This E-25 tank hunter model looks pretty conclusive, and at first glance it looks very German, because it incorporates many typical design features. But the more you look the more “unique” it looks, e. g. through the low Schachtellaufwerk, the lowered Jagdpanther upper hull and its combination with the Saukopf gun mantlet from the Jagdpanzer IV. It looks very purposeful, and the paint scheme appears to be very effective, too, blurring the outlines and details well.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

In the late 1970s the Mikoyan OKB began development of a hypersonic high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. Designated "Izdeliye 301" (also known as 3.01), the machine had an unusual design, combining a tailless layout with variable geometry wings. The two engines fueled by kerosene were located side by side above the rear fuselage, with the single vertical fin raising above them, not unlike the Tu-22 “Blinder” bomber of that time, but also reminiscent of the US-American SR-71 Mach 3 reconnaissance aircraft.

Until today, only the two prototypes have been known to exist, and it is assumed – had the type entered service – that the long-range fighter had received the official designation "MiG-41".

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 (Pilot, weapon system officer)

Length (incl. pitot): 93 ft 10 in (28.66 m)

Wingspan:

- minimum 10° sweep: 69 ft 4 in (21.16 m)

- maximum 68° sweep: 48 ft 9 in (14,88 m)

Height: 23 ft 1 1/2 in (7,06 m )

Wing area: 1008.9 ft² (90.8 m²)

Weight: 88.151 lbs (39.986 kg)

Performance:

Maximum speed:

- Mach 3.2 (2.050 mph (3.300 km/h) at height

- 995 mph (1.600 km/h) supercruise speed at 36,000 ft (11,000 m)

- 915 mph (1.470 km/h) at sea level

Range: 3.705 miles (5.955 km) with internal fuel

Service ceiling: 75.000 ft (22.500 m)

Rate of climb: 31.000 ft/min (155 m/s)

Engine:

2x Soloviev D-30F6 afterburning turbofans with a dry thrust of 93 kN (20,900 lbf) each

and with 152 kN (34,172 lbf) with full afterburner.

Armament:

Internal weapons bay, main armament comprises a flexible missile load; basic ordnance of 4x K-100 ultra long range AAMs plus 2x R-73 short-range AAMs: other types like the R-27, R-33, R-60 and R-77 have been carried and tested, too, as well as podded guns on internal and external mounts. Alternatively, the weapon bay can hold various sensor pallets.

Four hardpoints under the wing roots, the outer pair “wet” for drop tanks of up to 3.000 l capacity, ECM pods or a buddy-buddy refueling drogue system. Maximum payload mass is 9000 kg.

The kit and its assembly

The second entry for the 2017 “Soviet” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com – a true Frankenstein creation, based on the scarce information about the real (but never realized) MiG 301 and 701 projects, the Suchoj T-60S, as well as some vague design sketches you can find online and in literature.

This one had been on my project list for years and I already had donor kits stashed away – but the sheer size (where will I leave it once done…?) and potential complexity kept me from tackling it.

The whole thing was an ambitious project and just the unique layout with a massive engine nacelle on top of the slender fuselage instead of an all-in-one design makes these aircraft an interesting topic to build. The GB was a good motivator.

“My” fictional interpretation of the MiG concepts is mainly based on a Dragon B-1B in 1:144 scale (fuselage, wings), a PM Model Su-15 two seater (donating the nose section and the cockpit, as well as wing parts for the fin) and a Kangnam MiG-31 (for the engine pod and some small parts). Another major ingredient is a pair of horizontal stabilizers from a 1:72 Hasegawa A-5 Vigilante.

Fitting the cockpit section took some major surgery and even more putty to blend the parts smoothly together. Another major surgical area was the tail; the "engine box" came to be rather straightforward, using the complete rear fuselage section from the MiG-31 and adding the intakes form the same kit, but mounted horizontally with a vertical splitter.

Blending the thing to the cut-away tail section of the B-1 was quite a task, though, since I not only wanted to add the element to the fuselage, but rather make it look a bit 'organic'. More than putty was necessary, I also had to made some cuts and transplantations. And after six PSR rounds I stopped counting…

The landing gear was built from scratch – the front wheel comes mostly from the MiG-31 kit. The central bogie and its massive leg come from a VEB Plasticart 1:100 Tu-20/95 bomber, plus some additional struts. The outriggers are leftover landing gear struts from a Hobby Boss Fw 190, mated with wheels which I believe come from a 1:200 VEB Plasticart kit, an An-24. Not certain, though. The fairings are slender MiG-21 drop tanks blended into the wing training edge. For the whole landing gear, the covers were improvised with styrene sheet, parts from a plastic straw(!) or leftover bits from the B-1B.

The main landing gear well was well as the weapons’ bay themselves were cut into the B-1B underside and an interior scratched from sheet and various leftover materials – I tried to maximize their space while still leaving enough room for the B-1B kit’s internal VG mechanism.

The large missiles (two were visible fitted and the rotary launcher just visibly hinted at) are, in fact, AGM-78 ‘Standard’ ARMs in a fantasy guise. They look pretty Soviet, though, like big brothers of the already not small R-33 missiles from the MiG-31.

While not in the focus of attention, the cockpit interior is completely new, too – OOB, the Su-15 cockpit only has a floor and rather stubby seats, under a massive single piece canopy. On top of the front wheel well (from a Hasegawa F-4) I added a new floor and added side consoles, scratched from styrene sheet. F-4 dashboards improve the decoration, and I added a pair of Soviet election seats from the scrap box – IIRC left over from two KP MiG-19 kits.

The canopy was taken OOB, I just cut it into five parts for open display. The material’s thickness does not look too bad on this aircraft – after all, it would need a rather sturdy construction when flying at Mach 3+ and withstanding the respective pressures and temperatures.

Painting

As a pure whif, I was free to use a weirdo design - but I rejected this idea quickly. I did not want a garish splinter scheme or a bright “Greenbottle Fly” Su-27 finish.

With the strange layout of the aircraft, the prototype idea was soon settled – and Soviet prototypes tend to look very utilitarian and lusterless, might even be left in grey. Consequently, I adapted a kind of bare look for this one, inspired by the rather shaggy Soviet Tu-22 “Blinder” bombers which carried a mix of bare metal and white and grey panels. With additional black leading edges on the aerodynamic surfaces, this would create a special/provisional but still purposeful look.

For the painting, I used a mix of several metallizer tones from ModelMaster and Humbrol (including Steel, Magnesium, Titanium, as well as matt and polished aluminum, and some Gun Metal and Exhaust around the engine nozzles, partly mixed with a bit of blue) and opaque tones (Humbrol 147 and 127). The “scheme” evolved panel-wise and step by step. The black leading edges were an interim addition, coming as things evolved, and they were painted first with black acrylic paint as a rough foundation and later trimmed with generic black decal stripes (from TL Modellbau). A very convenient and clean solution!

The radomes on nose and tail and other di-electric panels became dark grey (Humbrol 125). The cockpit tub was painted with Soviet Cockpit Teal (from ModelMaster), while the cockpit opening and canopy frames were kept in a more modest medium grey (Revell 57). On the outside of the cabin windows, a fat, deep yellow sealant frame (Humbrol 93, actually “Sand”) was added.

The weapon bay was painted in a yellow-ish primer tone (seen on pics of Tu-160 bombers) while the landing gear wells received a mix of gold and sand; the struts were painted in a mixed color, too, made of Humbrol 56 (Aluminum) and 34 (Flat White). The green wheel discs (Humbrol 131), a typical Soviet detail, stand out well from the rather subdued but not boring aircraft, and they make a nice contrast to the red Stars and the blue tactical code – the only major markings, besides a pair of MiG OKB logos under the cockpit.

Decals were puzzled together from various sheets, and I also added a lot of stencils for a more technical look. In order to enhance the prototype look further I added some photo calibration markings on the nose and the tail, made from scratch.

A massive kitbashing project that I had pushed away for years - but I am happy that I finally tackled it, and the result looks spectacular. The "Firefox" similarity was not intended, but this beast really looks like a movie prop - and who knwos if the Firefox was not inspired by the same projects (the MiG 301 and 701) as my kitbash model?

The background info is a bit lengthy, but there's some good background info concerning the aforementioned projects, and this aircraft - as a weapon system - would have played a very special and complex role, so a lot of explanations are worthwhile - also in order to emphasize that I di not simply try to glue some model parts together, but rather try to spin real world ideas further.

Mighty bird!

+++ 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:

RWD was a Polish aircraft construction bureau active between 1928 and 1939. It started as a team of three young designers, Stanisław Rogalski, Stanisław Wigura and Jerzy Drzewiecki, whose names formed the RWD acronym.

Upon the German invasion the RWD-24 prototypes were, together with most other active Polish combat aircraft, dispersed to secondary airfields and allocated to the so-called Pursuit Brigade, deployed in the Warsaw area, where both served until they became unserviceable after a week, due to their exotic nature. Their fate remains unclear, though, since both machines disappeared. But most likely they were both destroyed within two weeks, like 70% of the Polish Air Force’s aircraft.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 8.17 m (26 ft 10 in)

Wingspan: 10.72 m (35 ft 2 in)

Height: 3.05 m (10 ft)

Wing area: 21 m² (240 sq ft)

Empty weight: 1,328 kg (2,928 lb)

Gross weight: 1,890 kg (4,167 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 2,000 kg (4,409 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Hispano-Suiza 12Ybrp V-12 liquid-cooled piston engine,

delivering 565 kW (785 hp) for take-off at 2,520 rpm at sea level

and driving a two-position variable pitch three blade metal propeller

Performance:

Maximum speed: 443 km/h (275 mph; 239 kn) at 2,000 m (6,600 ft)

Landing speed: 102 km/h (63 mph; 55 kn)

Range: 1,100 km (680 mi, 590 nmi) at 66% power

Combat range: 720 km (450 mi, 390 nmi)

Endurance: 2 hours 20 minutes 30 seconds (average combat mission)

Service ceiling: 9,400 m (30,800 ft)

Time to altitude: 4,500 m (14,764 ft) in 6 minutes 16 seconds

Take-off run: 100 m (328 ft)

Landing run: 275 m (902 ft)

Armament:

1x 20 mm (0.787 in) Hispano-Suiza HS.404 cannon with 60 rounds, firing through the propeller hub

4x* 7.92 mm (0.312 in) KM Wz 33 machine guns with 450 RPG (*projected for production aircraft,

the prototypes only carried two of these weapons)

The kit and its assembly:

This was a rather spontaneous submission for the “Prototypes” group build at whatifmodelers.com in July 2020, originally spawned by the idea of retrograding a Morane Saulnier MS.406 into a biplane with a fixed landing gear, a kind of French Gloster Gladiator. However, this changed when I found a surplus Mistercraft PZL P.7 kit in the stash, which had been part of a combo deal some time ago. Why not use it for a kitbashing and create a late interwar period Polish fighter prototype from the MS.406…?

The MS.406 fuselage comes from the simple Hobby Boss kit, even though some serious bodywork had to be done in order to make the low wing attachment points and the respective large wing root fairings disappear – on the simple Hobby Boss kit, wings and lower fuselage are one integral part, so that some major cutting and PSR were necessary to create a new, “clean” lower fuselage. For the new wings a piece of the cowling in front of the windscreen had to be cut out, the result looks very natural, though, the P.7 wing literally fell into place. The P.7 wings were taken, together with their respective support struts, wholesale from the Mistercraft kit, I just added flaps and lowered them, and I added fairings under the wings for the machine guns – OOB the kit comes with shallow holes that look a bit strange?

The empennage was taken over from the MS.406, but the stabilizers were replaced with the P.7’s, because they were bigger and their shape matches the fin so well. The fixed landing gear is a donor from an ICM Heinkel He 51 floatplane (surplus parts), it was just shortened by about 2mm in order to avoid an exaggerated nose-up stance due to the high propeller position.

The cockpit was taken OOB, just a pilot figure was added to hide the Hobby Boss kit’s rather basic interior.

Painting and markings:

Prototype liveries tend to be dry affairs, and therefore my RWD-24 received a standard pre-WWII livery for Polish aircraft in a uniform brownish-green khaki (”Light Polish Khaki”) over light blue wing undersides. For the very unique khaki tone I used Modelmaster 1711 (FS 34087, a rather yellowish interpretation of this tone), while the wings’ undersides were painted with Humbrol 65 (Aircraft Blue). The khaki tone was - on Polish high wing aircraft of the time - typically carried on the whole fuselage, including the undersides, so I adopted the tone for the complete landing gear and the wing struts, too. For a little more variety, I gave the engine a cowling in a bare metal finish (Humbrol Polished Aluminum Metallizer) and the airframe parts that are covered with fabric were apinted with Humbrol 155 - FS 34087, too, but a morre greenish and darker interpretation of this tone.

The kit received a black ink washing and some post-shading through dry-brushing of single panels with lighter tones. The cockpit interior was painted in a medium grey, the propeller blades became Revell 99 (Aluminum) with red tips, a black spinner and partly blackened back sides (in order to avoid light reflections that could blind the pilot).

Most markings come from a Polish aircraft aftermarket sheet. The red lightning cheatline on the fuselage and on the wings were borrowed from Indonesian MiG-21Fs (from two Begemot sheets). The contrast to the khaki is not strong, but I thought that some decoration would suit a prototype fighter well. The tactical codes consist of single white and black letters (both TL Modellbau stuff).

After some exhaust and gun soot stains the model was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish, just the metallic cowling and the spinner received a light shine.

While the outcome looks rather unsuspicious, this kitbashing was a lot of work – esp. the landing gear and the cosmetic surgery to remove the MS.406’s lower wings was more demanding than I had thought at first. But the fictional RWD-24 looks very conclusive, a wild mix between outdated and modern features, so typical for many interwar designs. And the Polish colors and markings suit the model well, too.

Phicen kitbash using the blonde Kimi headsculpt .

Phicen kitbash using the blonde Kimi headsculpt .

+++ 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 ASTA (Aerospace Technologies of Australia, formerly Government Aircraft Factories) Baza development was started in 1995 when the Royal Australian Air Force was searching for a two-seat training aircraft that would allow the transition from initial training on piston-engined aircraft to jets, and could also be used for weapon training and CAS/reconnaissance duties.

The 'Baza' (christened by a small sized bird of prey found in the forests of South Asia and Southeast Asia) has even seen serious military duty and already fired in anger: since August 2007, a detachment of No. 114 Mobile Control and Reporting Unit RAAF has been on active service at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan, and a constant detachment of six A-31's from RAAF 76 Suqadron has been assigned to armed reconnaissance and protection of approximately 75 personnel deployed with the AN/TPS-77 radar, assigned the responsibility to co-ordinate coalition air operations.

General characteristics:

Crew: 2

Length (incl. Pitot): 14.69 m (48 ft 1 ½ in)

Wingspan: 14.97 m (49 ft)

Height: 3, 75 m (12 ft 3 in)

Wing area: 30.30 m2 (326.1 sq ft)

Aspect ratio: 6.9:1

Airfoil: NACA 642A215 at root, NACA641 at tip

Empty weight: 4,020 kg (8,863 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 6,800 kg (14,991 lb)

Internal fuel capacity: 1,280 L (280 imp gal; 340 US gal)

Powerplant:

2 × Garrett TPE 331-11U-601G turboprop engines, 820 kW (1.100 hp) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 515 km/h (311 mph; 270 kn) at 4.570 m (15.000 ft)

Cruising speed: 430 km/h (267 mph; 232 kn) at 2.500 m (8.200 ft)

Stall speed: 143 km/h (89 mph; 77 kn) (flaps and undercarriage down)

Never exceed speed: 750 km/h (466 mph; 405 kn)

Range:1.611 km (1.000 mi; 868 nmi), clean and internal fuel only

Ferry range: 3,710 km (2,305 mi; 2,003 nmi) max internal and external fuel

Service ceiling: 10,000 m (32,808 ft)

g limits: +6/-3 g

Rate of climb: 6.5 m/s (1.276 ft/min)

Armament:

2× 30 mm ADEN cannons in the lower nose

Up to 6,800 lb (3,085 kg) of weapons on nine external hardpoints

The kit and its assembly:

Like many of my whifs, this was spawned by a project at whatifmodelers.com from fellow user silverwindblade that ran under the handle "COIN aircraft from a Hawk" - and in fact, the BAe Hawk's fuselage with its staggered cockpit and good field of view appears as a good basis for a conversion.

I liked the idea VERY much, and while silverwindblade's work would rather develop into a futuristic canard layout aircraft, I decided to keep the COIN aircraft rather conservative - the FMA 58 'Pucara' from Argentina would be a proper benchmark.

The basis here is the Italeri BAe Hawk Mk. 127 kit which comes with the longer nose and modified wings for the RAAF version, as well as with false decals.

Anyway, I'd only use the fuselage, anything else is implanted, partly from unlikely donation kits! Wings incl. engine nacelles and stablizers come from the vintage box scale (1:166?) Revell Convair R3Y-2 Tradewind flying boat(!), the fin from an Academy OV-10 Bronco.

The landing gear was puzzled together, among other from parts of a 1:200 Concorde, the propellers were scratched.

Biggest mod to the fuselage is the dissection of the air intakes (and their blending with the fuselage) as well as a new tail section where the Adour jet engine's exhaust had been.

Painting and markings:

This model was agood excuse to finally apply an SIOP color scheme, which was originally carried by USAF's strategic bombers like B-52 or FB-111. But what actually inspired me were Australian C-130s - it took some time to figure out that their scheme were the USAF's SIOP colors (FS 34201, 34159 and 34079). But that made the Baza's potential user's choice (and fictional origin) easy.

As a COIN role aircraft I settled on a wraparound scheme. I found a pattern scheme on an USN Aggerssor A-4 Skyhawk that had been painted in SIOP colors, too, and adapted it for the model. Basic colors were Humbrol 31, 84 and 116, good approximations - the result looks odd, but suits the Baza well.

Later, panels were emphasized through dry painting with lighter shades and a light black ink wash was applied.

The landing gear became classic white, the cockpit interior medium gray - nothing fancy.

The markings were improvised - the Italeri Hawk Mk. 127 features RAAF 'roos, but these are printed in black - wrong for the OOB kit, but very welcome on my aircraft. The rest was salvaged from the scrap box, the tactical code A-31-06 created with single letters from TL Modellbau.

+++ 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:

RWD was a Polish aircraft construction bureau active between 1928 and 1939. It started as a team of three young designers, Stanisław Rogalski, Stanisław Wigura and Jerzy Drzewiecki, whose names formed the RWD acronym.

Upon the German invasion the RWD-24 prototypes were, together with most other active Polish combat aircraft, dispersed to secondary airfields and allocated to the so-called Pursuit Brigade, deployed in the Warsaw area, where both served until they became unserviceable after a week, due to their exotic nature. Their fate remains unclear, though, since both machines disappeared. But most likely they were both destroyed within two weeks, like 70% of the Polish Air Force’s aircraft.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 8.17 m (26 ft 10 in)

Wingspan: 10.72 m (35 ft 2 in)

Height: 3.05 m (10 ft)

Wing area: 21 m² (240 sq ft)

Empty weight: 1,328 kg (2,928 lb)

Gross weight: 1,890 kg (4,167 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 2,000 kg (4,409 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Hispano-Suiza 12Ybrp V-12 liquid-cooled piston engine,

delivering 565 kW (785 hp) for take-off at 2,520 rpm at sea level

and driving a two-position variable pitch three blade metal propeller

Performance:

Maximum speed: 443 km/h (275 mph; 239 kn) at 2,000 m (6,600 ft)

Landing speed: 102 km/h (63 mph; 55 kn)

Range: 1,100 km (680 mi, 590 nmi) at 66% power

Combat range: 720 km (450 mi, 390 nmi)

Endurance: 2 hours 20 minutes 30 seconds (average combat mission)

Service ceiling: 9,400 m (30,800 ft)

Time to altitude: 4,500 m (14,764 ft) in 6 minutes 16 seconds

Take-off run: 100 m (328 ft)

Landing run: 275 m (902 ft)

Armament:

1x 20 mm (0.787 in) Hispano-Suiza HS.404 cannon with 60 rounds, firing through the propeller hub

4x* 7.92 mm (0.312 in) KM Wz 33 machine guns with 450 RPG (*projected for production aircraft,

the prototypes only carried two of these weapons)

The kit and its assembly:

This was a rather spontaneous submission for the “Prototypes” group build at whatifmodelers.com in July 2020, originally spawned by the idea of retrograding a Morane Saulnier MS.406 into a biplane with a fixed landing gear, a kind of French Gloster Gladiator. However, this changed when I found a surplus Mistercraft PZL P.7 kit in the stash, which had been part of a combo deal some time ago. Why not use it for a kitbashing and create a late interwar period Polish fighter prototype from the MS.406…?

The MS.406 fuselage comes from the simple Hobby Boss kit, even though some serious bodywork had to be done in order to make the low wing attachment points and the respective large wing root fairings disappear – on the simple Hobby Boss kit, wings and lower fuselage are one integral part, so that some major cutting and PSR were necessary to create a new, “clean” lower fuselage. For the new wings a piece of the cowling in front of the windscreen had to be cut out, the result looks very natural, though, the P.7 wing literally fell into place. The P.7 wings were taken, together with their respective support struts, wholesale from the Mistercraft kit, I just added flaps and lowered them, and I added fairings under the wings for the machine guns – OOB the kit comes with shallow holes that look a bit strange?

The empennage was taken over from the MS.406, but the stabilizers were replaced with the P.7’s, because they were bigger and their shape matches the fin so well. The fixed landing gear is a donor from an ICM Heinkel He 51 floatplane (surplus parts), it was just shortened by about 2mm in order to avoid an exaggerated nose-up stance due to the high propeller position.

The cockpit was taken OOB, just a pilot figure was added to hide the Hobby Boss kit’s rather basic interior.

Painting and markings:

Prototype liveries tend to be dry affairs, and therefore my RWD-24 received a standard pre-WWII livery for Polish aircraft in a uniform brownish-green khaki (”Light Polish Khaki”) over light blue wing undersides. For the very unique khaki tone I used Modelmaster 1711 (FS 34087, a rather yellowish interpretation of this tone), while the wings’ undersides were painted with Humbrol 65 (Aircraft Blue). The khaki tone was - on Polish high wing aircraft of the time - typically carried on the whole fuselage, including the undersides, so I adopted the tone for the complete landing gear and the wing struts, too. For a little more variety, I gave the engine a cowling in a bare metal finish (Humbrol Polished Aluminum Metallizer) and the airframe parts that are covered with fabric were apinted with Humbrol 155 - FS 34087, too, but a morre greenish and darker interpretation of this tone.

The kit received a black ink washing and some post-shading through dry-brushing of single panels with lighter tones. The cockpit interior was painted in a medium grey, the propeller blades became Revell 99 (Aluminum) with red tips, a black spinner and partly blackened back sides (in order to avoid light reflections that could blind the pilot).

Most markings come from a Polish aircraft aftermarket sheet. The red lightning cheatline on the fuselage and on the wings were borrowed from Indonesian MiG-21Fs (from two Begemot sheets). The contrast to the khaki is not strong, but I thought that some decoration would suit a prototype fighter well. The tactical codes consist of single white and black letters (both TL Modellbau stuff).

After some exhaust and gun soot stains the model was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish, just the metallic cowling and the spinner received a light shine.

While the outcome looks rather unsuspicious, this kitbashing was a lot of work – esp. the landing gear and the cosmetic surgery to remove the MS.406’s lower wings was more demanding than I had thought at first. But the fictional RWD-24 looks very conclusive, a wild mix between outdated and modern features, so typical for many interwar designs. And the Polish colors and markings suit the model well, too.

+++ 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:

RWD was a Polish aircraft construction bureau active between 1928 and 1939. It started as a team of three young designers, Stanisław Rogalski, Stanisław Wigura and Jerzy Drzewiecki, whose names formed the RWD acronym.

Upon the German invasion the RWD-24 prototypes were, together with most other active Polish combat aircraft, dispersed to secondary airfields and allocated to the so-called Pursuit Brigade, deployed in the Warsaw area, where both served until they became unserviceable after a week, due to their exotic nature. Their fate remains unclear, though, since both machines disappeared. But most likely they were both destroyed within two weeks, like 70% of the Polish Air Force’s aircraft.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 8.17 m (26 ft 10 in)

Wingspan: 10.72 m (35 ft 2 in)

Height: 3.05 m (10 ft)

Wing area: 21 m² (240 sq ft)

Empty weight: 1,328 kg (2,928 lb)

Gross weight: 1,890 kg (4,167 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 2,000 kg (4,409 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Hispano-Suiza 12Ybrp V-12 liquid-cooled piston engine,

delivering 565 kW (785 hp) for take-off at 2,520 rpm at sea level

and driving a two-position variable pitch three blade metal propeller

Performance:

Maximum speed: 443 km/h (275 mph; 239 kn) at 2,000 m (6,600 ft)

Landing speed: 102 km/h (63 mph; 55 kn)

Range: 1,100 km (680 mi, 590 nmi) at 66% power

Combat range: 720 km (450 mi, 390 nmi)

Endurance: 2 hours 20 minutes 30 seconds (average combat mission)

Service ceiling: 9,400 m (30,800 ft)

Time to altitude: 4,500 m (14,764 ft) in 6 minutes 16 seconds

Take-off run: 100 m (328 ft)

Landing run: 275 m (902 ft)

Armament:

1x 20 mm (0.787 in) Hispano-Suiza HS.404 cannon with 60 rounds, firing through the propeller hub

4x* 7.92 mm (0.312 in) KM Wz 33 machine guns with 450 RPG (*projected for production aircraft,

the prototypes only carried two of these weapons)

The kit and its assembly:

This was a rather spontaneous submission for the “Prototypes” group build at whatifmodelers.com in July 2020, originally spawned by the idea of retrograding a Morane Saulnier MS.406 into a biplane with a fixed landing gear, a kind of French Gloster Gladiator. However, this changed when I found a surplus Mistercraft PZL P.7 kit in the stash, which had been part of a combo deal some time ago. Why not use it for a kitbashing and create a late interwar period Polish fighter prototype from the MS.406…?

The MS.406 fuselage comes from the simple Hobby Boss kit, even though some serious bodywork had to be done in order to make the low wing attachment points and the respective large wing root fairings disappear – on the simple Hobby Boss kit, wings and lower fuselage are one integral part, so that some major cutting and PSR were necessary to create a new, “clean” lower fuselage. For the new wings a piece of the cowling in front of the windscreen had to be cut out, the result looks very natural, though, the P.7 wing literally fell into place. The P.7 wings were taken, together with their respective support struts, wholesale from the Mistercraft kit, I just added flaps and lowered them, and I added fairings under the wings for the machine guns – OOB the kit comes with shallow holes that look a bit strange?

The empennage was taken over from the MS.406, but the stabilizers were replaced with the P.7’s, because they were bigger and their shape matches the fin so well. The fixed landing gear is a donor from an ICM Heinkel He 51 floatplane (surplus parts), it was just shortened by about 2mm in order to avoid an exaggerated nose-up stance due to the high propeller position.

The cockpit was taken OOB, just a pilot figure was added to hide the Hobby Boss kit’s rather basic interior.

Painting and markings:

Prototype liveries tend to be dry affairs, and therefore my RWD-24 received a standard pre-WWII livery for Polish aircraft in a uniform brownish-green khaki (”Light Polish Khaki”) over light blue wing undersides. For the very unique khaki tone I used Modelmaster 1711 (FS 34087, a rather yellowish interpretation of this tone), while the wings’ undersides were painted with Humbrol 65 (Aircraft Blue). The khaki tone was - on Polish high wing aircraft of the time - typically carried on the whole fuselage, including the undersides, so I adopted the tone for the complete landing gear and the wing struts, too. For a little more variety, I gave the engine a cowling in a bare metal finish (Humbrol Polished Aluminum Metallizer) and the airframe parts that are covered with fabric were apinted with Humbrol 155 - FS 34087, too, but a morre greenish and darker interpretation of this tone.

The kit received a black ink washing and some post-shading through dry-brushing of single panels with lighter tones. The cockpit interior was painted in a medium grey, the propeller blades became Revell 99 (Aluminum) with red tips, a black spinner and partly blackened back sides (in order to avoid light reflections that could blind the pilot).

Most markings come from a Polish aircraft aftermarket sheet. The red lightning cheatline on the fuselage and on the wings were borrowed from Indonesian MiG-21Fs (from two Begemot sheets). The contrast to the khaki is not strong, but I thought that some decoration would suit a prototype fighter well. The tactical codes consist of single white and black letters (both TL Modellbau stuff).

After some exhaust and gun soot stains the model was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish, just the metallic cowling and the spinner received a light shine.

While the outcome looks rather unsuspicious, this kitbashing was a lot of work – esp. the landing gear and the cosmetic surgery to remove the MS.406’s lower wings was more demanding than I had thought at first. But the fictional RWD-24 looks very conclusive, a wild mix between outdated and modern features, so typical for many interwar designs. And the Polish colors and markings suit the model well, too.

Painting and markings:

I was uncertain about the livery for a long time – I just had already settled upon an RAF aircraft. But the model would not receive a late low-viz scheme (the Levin, my mono-engine Lightning build already had one), and no NMF, either. I was torn between an RAF Germany all-green over NMF undersides livery, but eventually went for a pretty standard RAF livery in Dark Sea Grey/Dark Green over NMF undersides, with toned-down post-war roundels.

A factor that spoke in favor of this route was a complete set of markings for an RAF 11 Squadron Lightning F.6 in such a guise on an Xtradecal set, which also featured dayglo orange makings on fin, wings and stabilizers – quite unusual, and a nice contrast detail on the otherwise very conservative livery. All stencils were taken from the OOB Revell sheet for the Lightning. Just the tactical code “F” on the tail was procured elsewhere, it comes from a Matchbox BAC Lightning’s sheet.

After basic painting the model received the usual black ink washing, some post-panel-shading and also a light treatment with graphite to create soot strains around the jet exhausts and the gun ports, and to emphasize the raised panel lines on the Hasegawa parts.

Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish and final bits and pieces like the landing gear and the Red Tops (taken OOB) were mounted.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General F-24A characteristics:

Crew: 1 pilot

Length: 47 ft 4 in (14.4 m)

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

Height: 13 ft 10 in (4.20 m)

Wing area: 36.55 m² (392 ft²)

Empty weight: 13.150 lb (5.090 kg)

Loaded weight: 15.480 lb (6.830 kg)

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

Powerplant

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

Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 2+

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

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

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

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

Wing loading: 70.0 lb/ft² (342 kg/m²)

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

Armament

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

just trying something different

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General F-24A characteristics:

Crew: 1 pilot

Length: 47 ft 4 in (14.4 m)

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

Height: 13 ft 10 in (4.20 m)

Wing area: 36.55 m² (392 ft²)

Empty weight: 13.150 lb (5.090 kg)

Loaded weight: 15.480 lb (6.830 kg)

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

Powerplant

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

Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 2+

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

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

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

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

Wing loading: 70.0 lb/ft² (342 kg/m²)

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

Armament

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Decided to switch out the original shields and give her a lance for a weapon.I might start painting it today?

New pics form an old model.

This is one of (in the meantime...) four major kit conversions - or better: kit-bashings - I did on the basis of 1:100 Bandai Gerwalk Valkyries and leftover pieces from other 1:100 scale Valkyries in Battroid mode, plus material from the junkyard.

These "Super Valkyries" carry rocket boosters for non-atmospherical use, so-called FAST packages ("Fuel And Sensor Trays"). Parts for these extra items were included in some Arii/Bandai VF-1 Gerwalk and Battroid kits. However, there is/was only a single vintage 1:100 Imai kit of an OOB VF-1S Super Valkyrie in Fighter Mode, but it is really crappy and calls for lots of improvements. Therefore I decided to build my own model from scratch.

At the time of making, I just had vague visuals as reference, so some details on this model (it's ~25 years old, even the internet was just nerd stuff at that time and offered only limited content!) are not 100% accurate ;)

The legs were completely re-built through kitbashing: they are modified pieces from a Gerwalk Valkyri,e combined with lower legs from a transformable 1:100 scale kit. The folded arms between the legs are completely improvised, too, made from two lower arm halves and tailored to fit the gap between the bulky new legs.

The big RMS-1 missiles under the wings were made from scratch. These are modified 1.000 lbs. bombs in 1:72 scale from old Matchbox kits, their rear fin arrangement is a simple piece of flexible plastic straw that fits perfectly.

The color scheme was inspired by a VF-1 side profile drawing in the source book "This is animation, Special: MACROSS PLUS", an overall deep blue machine, with a white radar nose and dark grey FAST packs. The look resembles US Navy fighters from the 50ies - and as simple as it is, it looks gorgeous on a VF-1!

I just did not use the authentic blue (FS 15042), which was a bit too murky at the kit's small scale and too greenish for my personal taste. So I rather settled for Humbrol's 15 "Midnight Blue".

The FAST pieces were painted in Humbrol 184 ("Stock Freight Grey"), a very dark tone.

Markings came from the scrap box, the dragon emblem of the fictional SVF-406 fighter squadron (stationed on ARMD-03 in Earth orbit) are insignia of US Marines' VMA-324 attack fighter squadron, which flew A-4 Skyhawks.

+++ 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:

During the 1950s, Hindustan Aircraft Limited (HAL) had developed and produced several types of trainer aircraft, such as the HAL HT-2. However, elements within the firm were eager to expand into the then-new realm of supersonic fighter aircraft. Around the same time, the Indian government was in the process of formulating a new Air Staff Requirement for a Mach 2-capable combat aircraft to equip the Indian Air Force (IAF). However, as HAL lacked the necessary experience in both developing and manufacturing frontline combat fighters, it was clear that external guidance would be invaluable; this assistance was embodied by Kurt Tank.

A radar upgrade, together with the introduction of better air-to-ai missiles with a higher range and look down/shoot down capability was considered but never carried out. Furthermore, the idea of a true HF-26 2nd generation variant, powered by a pair of Tumansky R-11F-300 afterburner jet engines (from the license-built MiG-21FLs), was dropped, too – even though this powerplant eventually promised to fulfill the Teer’s design promise of Mach 2 top speed. A total of only 82 HF-26s (including thirteen two-seat trainers with a lengthened fuselage and reduced fuel capacity, plus eight prototypes) were built. The last aircraft were retired from IAF service in 1988 and replaced with Mirage 2000 fighters procured from France that were armed with the Matra Super 530 AAM.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 14.97 m (49 ft ½ in)

Wingspan: 9.43 m (30 ft 11 in)

Height: 4.03 m (13 ft 2½ in)

Wing area: 30.6 m² (285 sq ft)

Empty weight: 7,000 kg (15,432 lb)

Gross weight: 10,954 kg (24,149 lb) with full internal fuel

Max takeoff weight: 15,700 kg (34,613 lb) with external stores

Powerplant:

2× Tumansky RD-9 afterburning turbojet engines; 29 kN (6,600 lbf) dry thrust each

and 36.78 kN (8,270 lbf) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,700 km/h (1,056 mph; 917 kn; Mach 1.6) at 11,000 m (36,000 ft)

1,350 km/h (840 mph, 730 kn; Mach 1.1) at sea level

Combat range: 725 km (450 mi, 391 nmi) with internal fuel only

Ferry range: 1,700 km (1,100 mi, 920 nmi) with four drop tanks

Service ceiling: 18,100 m (59,400 ft)

g limits: +6.5

Time to altitude: 9,145 m (30,003 ft) in 1 minute 30 seconds

Wing loading: 555 kg/m² (114 lb/sq ft)

Armament

6× hardpoints (four underwing and two under the fuselage) for a total of 2.500 kg (5.500 lb);

Typical interceptor payload:

- two IR-guided R-3 or R-60 air-to-air-missiles or

two PTB-490 drop tanks on the outer underwing stations

- two semi-active radar-guided ‚Saanp’ air-to-air missiles or two more R-3 or R-60 AAMs

on inner underwing stations

- two 500 l drop tanks or two gun pods with a 23 mm GSh-23L autocannon and 200 RPG

each under the fuselage

The kit and its assembly:

This whiffy delta-wing fighter was inspired when I recently sliced up a PM Model Su-15 kit for my side-by-side-engine BAC Lightning build. At an early stage of the conversion, I held the Su-15 fuselage with its molded delta wings in my hand and wondered if a shortened tail section (as well as a shorter overall fuselage to keep proportions balanced) could make a delta-wing jet fighter from the Flagon base? Only a hardware experiment could yield an answer, and since the Su-15’s overall outlines look a bit retro I settled at an early stage on India as potential designer and operator, as “the thing the HF-24 Marut never was”.

True to the initial idea, work started on the tail, and I chopped off the fuselage behind the wings’ trailing edge. Some PSR was necessary to blend the separate exhaust section into the fuselage, which had to be reduced in depth through wedges that I cut out under the wings trailing edge, plus some good amount of glue and sheer force the bend the section a bit upwards. The PM Model's jet exhausts were drilled open, and I added afterburner dummies inside - anything would look better than the bleak vertical walls inside after only 2-3 mm! The original fin was omitted, because it was a bit too large for the new, smaller aircraft and its shape reminded a lot of the Suchoj heavy fighter family. It was replaced with a Mirage III/V fin, left over from a (crappy!) Pioneer 2 IAI Nesher kit.

Once the rear section was complete, I had to adjust the front end - and here the kitbashing started. First, I chopped off the cockpit section in front of the molded air intake - the Su-15’s long radome and the cockpit on top of the fuselage did not work anymore. As a remedy I remembered another Su-15 conversion I did a (long) while ago: I created a model of a planned ground attack derivative, the T-58Sh, and, as a part of the extensive body work, I transplanted the slanted nose from an academy MiG-27 between the air intakes – a stunt that was relatively easy and which appreciably lowered the cockpit position. For the HF-26M I did something similar, I just transplanted a cockpit from a Hasegawa/Academy MiG-23 with its ogival radome that size-wise better matched with the rest of the leftover Su-15 airframe.

The MiG-23 cockpit matched perfectly with the Su-15's front end, just the spinal area behind the cockpit had to be raised/re-sculpted to blend the parts smoothly together. For a different look from the Su-15 ancestry I also transplanted the front sections of the MiG-23 air intakes with their shorter ramps. Some mods had to be made to the Su-15 intake stubs, but the MiG-23 intakes were an almost perfect fit in size and shape and easy to integrate into the modified front hill. The result looks very natural!

However, when the fuselage was complete, I found that the nose appeared to be a bit too long, leaving the whole new hull with the wings somewhat off balance. As a remedy I decided at a rather late stage to shorten the nose and took out a 6 mm section in front of the cockpit - a stunt I had not planned, but sometimes you can judge things only after certain work stages. Some serious PSR was necessary to re-adjust the conical nose shape, which now looked more Mirage III-ish than planned!

The cockpit was taken mostly OOB, I just replaced the ejection seat and gave it a trigger handle made from thin wire. With the basic airframe complete it was time for details. The PM Model Su-15s massive and rather crude main landing gear was replaced with something more delicate from the scrap box, even though I retained the main wheels. The front landing gear was taken wholesale from the MiG-23, but had to be shortened for a proper stance.

A display holder adapter was integrated into the belly for the flight scenes, hidden well between the ventral ordnance.

The hardpoints, including missile launch rails, came from the MiG-23; the pylons had to be adjusted to match the Su-15's wing profile shape, the Anab missiles lost their tail sections to create the fictional Indian 'Saanp' AAMs. The R-3s on the outer stations were left over from a MP MiG-21. The ventral pylons belong to Academy MiG-23/27s, one came from the donor kit, the other was found in the spares box. The PTB-490 drop tanks also came from a KP MiG-21 (or one of its many reincarnations, not certain).

Painting and markings:

The paint scheme for this fictional aircraft was largely inspired by a picture of a whiffy and very attractive Saab 37 Viggen (an 1:72 Airfix kit) in IAF colors, apparently a model from a contest. BTW, India actually considered buying the Viggen for its Air Force!

IAF aircraft were and are known for their exotic and sometimes gawdy paint schemes, and with IAF MiG-21 “C 992” there’s even a very popular (yet obscure) aircraft that sported literal tiger stripes. The IAF Viggen model was surely inspired by this real aircraft, and I adopted something similar for my HF-26M.

IAF 1 Squadron was therefore settled, and for the paint scheme I opted for a "stripish" scheme, but not as "tigeresque" as "C 992". I found a suitable benchmark in a recent Libyian MiG-21, which carried a very disruptive two-tone grey scheme. I adapted this pattern to the HA-26M airframe and replaced its colors, similar to the IAF Viggen model, which became a greenish sand tone (a mix of Humbrol 121 with some 159; I later found out that I could have used Humbrol 83 from the beginning, though...) and a very dark olive drab (Humbrol 66, which looks like a dull dark brown in contrast with the sand tone), with bluish grey (Humbrol 247) undersides. With the large delta wings, this turned out to look very good and even effective!

For that special "Indian touch" I gave the aircraft a high-contrast fin in a design that I had seen on a real camouflaged IAF MiG-21bis: an overall dark green base with a broad, red vertical stripe which was also the shield for the fin flash and the aircraft's tactical code (on the original bare metal). The fin was first painted in green (Humbrol 2), the red stripe was created with orange-red decal sheet material. Similar material was also used to create the bare metal field for the tactical code, the yellow bars on the splitter plates and for the thin white canopy sealing.

After basic painting was done the model received an overall black ink washing, post-panel shading and extensive dry-brushing with aluminum and iron for a rather worn look.

The missiles became classic white, while the drop tanks, as a contrast to the camouflaged belly, were left in bare metal.

Decals/markings came primarily from a Begemot MiG-25 kit, the tactical codes on the fin and under the wings originally belong to an RAF post-WWII Spitfire, just the first serial letter was omitted. Stencils are few and they came from various sources. A compromise is the unit badge on the fin: I needed a tiger motif, and the only suitable option I found was the tiger head emblem on a white disc from RAF No. 74 Squadron, from the Matchbox BAC Lightning F.6&F.2A kit. It fits stylistically well, though. ;-)

Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (except for the black radome, which became a bit glossy) and finally assembled.

A spontaneous build, and the last one that I completed in 2022. However, despite a vague design plan the model evolved as it grew. Bashing the primitive PM Model Su-15 with the Academy MiG-23 parts was easier than expected, though, and the resulting fictional aircraft looks sturdy but quite believable - even though it appears to me like the unexpected child of a Mirage III/F-4 Phantom II intercourse, or like a juvenile CF-105 Arrow, just with mid-wings? Nevertheless, the disruptive paint scheme suits the delta wing fighter well, and the green/red fin is a striking contrast - it's a colorful model, but not garish.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background

The Focke Wulf Ta 338 originated as a response of request by the RLM in mid 1943 for an aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), optimized for the interceptor and point defense role and without a hazardous liquid rocket engine as means of propulsion. In the course of the year, several German manufacturers responded with a multitude of highly innovative if not unusual design, including Heinkel with the ducted fan project "Lerche", Rheinmetall-Borsig with a jet-powered tailsitter, and Focke Wulf. This company’s engineering teams submitted two designs: the revolutionary "Triebflügel" concept and the more conservative, yet still futuristic "P.03.10338" tail sitter proposal, conceived by Focke Wulf’s leading engineer Kurt Tank and Walter Kappus from BMW, responsible for the engine development.

In mid 1945, in the advent of defeat, further tests of the Ta 338 were stopped. I./EK338 was disbanded in March 1945 and all machines retreated from the Eastern front, while II./EK338 kept defending the Ruhrgebiet industrial complex until the Allied invasion in April 1945. Being circled by Allied forces, it was not possible to evacuate or destroy all remaining Ta 338s, so that at least two more or less intact airframes were captured by the U.S. Army and later brought to the United States for further studies.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length/height on the ground: 10.40 m (34 ft 2 in)

Wingspan: 10.50 m (34 ft 5 in)

Fin span: 4:07 m (13 ft 4 in)

Wing area: 18.30 m² (196.99 ft²)

Empty weight: 11,599 lb (5,261 kg)

Loaded weight: 16,221 lb (7,358 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 16,221 lb (7,358 kg)

Powerplant:

1× BMW 803 A-2 28-cylinder, liquid-cooled four-row radial engine,

rated at 4.100 hp (2.950 kW) and at 4.500 hp (3.308 kW) with emergency boost.

4x Schmidding SG 34 solid fuel booster rockets, 4.9 kN (1,100 lbf) thrust each, or

2x 9.8 kN (2,203 lbf) solid fuel booster rockets

Performance:

Maximum speed: 860 km/h (534 mph)

Cruise speed: 650 km/h (403 mph)

Range: 750 km (465 ml)

Service ceiling: 43,300 ft (13,100 m)

Rate of climb: 10,820 ft/min (3,300 m/min)

Wing loading: 65.9 lb/ft² (322 kg/m²)

Armament:

No internal armament, any weapons were to be mounted on three hardpoints (one under the fuselage for up to 1.000 kg (2.200 lb) and two under the outer wings, 500 kg (1.100 lb) each. Total ordnance was limited to 1.000 kg (2.200 lb).

Various armament and equipment sets (Rüstsätze) were tested:

R1 with 4× 20 mm (.79 in) MG 151/20 cannons

R2 with 2x 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 213C cannons

R3 with 48x 73 mm (2.874 in) Henschel Hs 297 Föhn rocket shells

R4 with 66x 55 mm (2.165 in) R4M rocket shells

R5 with a single 1.000 kg (2.200 lb) bomb under the fuselage

R6 with an underfuselage pod with one Rb 20/20 and one Rb 75/30 topographic camera

The kit and its assembly:

This purely fictional kitbashing is a hardware tribute to a highly inspiring line drawing of a Fw 190 VTOL tailsitter – actually an idea for an operational RC model! I found the idea, that reminded a lot of the Lockheed XFV-1 ‘Salmon’ prototype, just with Fw 190 components and some adaptations, very sexy, and so I decided on short notice to follow the urge and build a 1:72 version of the so far unnamed concept.

What looks simple (“Heh, it’s just a Fw 190 with a different tail, isn’t it?”) turned out to become a major kitbashing. The basis was a simple Hobby Boss Fw 190 D-9, chose because of the longer tail section, and the engine would be changed, anyway. Lots of work followed, though.

The wings were sliced off and moved upwards on the flanks. The original tail was cut off, and the cruciform fins are two pairs of MiG-21F stabilizers (from an Academy and Hasegawa kit), outfitted with reversed Mk. 84 bombs as aerodynamic fairings that carry four small wheels (from an 1:144 T-22M bomber) on scratched struts (made from wire).

The cockpit was taken OOB, only a pilot figure was cramped into the seat in order to conceal the poor interior detail. The engine is a bash from a Ju 188’s BMW 801 cowling and the original Fw 190 D-9’s annular radiator as well as a part of its Jumo 213 cowling. BMW 801 exhaust stubs were inserted, too, and the propeller comes from a 1:100 VEB Plasticart Tu-20/95 bomber.

Since the BMW 803 had liquid cooling, radiators had to go somewhere. The annular radiator would certainly not have been enough, so I used the space in the wings that became available through the deleted Fw 190 landing gear (the wells were closed) for additional radiators in the wings’ leading edges. Again, these were scratched with styrene profiles, putty and some very fine styrene mesh.

As ordnance I settled for a pair of gun pods – in this case these are slipper tanks from a Hobby Boss MiG-15, blended into the wings and outfitted with hollow steel needles as barrels.

Painting and markings:

Several design options were possible: all NMF with some colorful markings or an overall RLM76 finish with added camouflage. But I definitively went for a semi-finished look, inspired by late WWII Fw 190 fighters.

For instance, the wings’ undersides were partly left in bare metal, but the rudders painted in RLM76 while the leading edges became RLM75. This color was also taken on the wings’ upper sides, with RLM82 thinly painted over. The fuselage is standard RLM76, with RLM82 and 83 on the upper side and speckles on the flanks. The engine cowling became NMF, but with a flashy ‘Hartmann Tulpe’ decoration.

Further highlights are the red fuselage band (from JG300 in early 1945) and the propeller spinner, which received a red tip and segments in black and white on both moving propeller parts. Large red “X”s were used as individual aircraft code – an unusual Luftwaffe practice but taken over from some Me 262s.

After a light black ink wash some panel shading and light weathering (e.g. exhaust soot, leaked oil, leading edges) was done, and the kit sealed under matt acrylic varnish.

Building this “thing” on the basis of a line drawing was real fun, even though challenging and more work than expected. I tried to stay close to the drawing, the biggest difference is the tail – the MiG-21 stabilizers were the best option (and what I had at hand as donation parts), maybe four fins from a Hawker Harrier or an LTV A-7 had been “better”, but now the aircraft looks even faster. ;)

Besides, the Ta 338 is so utterly Luft ’46 – I am curious how many people might take this for real or as a Hydra prop from a contemporary Captain America movie…

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some Background:

The Lockheed F-94 Starfire was a first-generation jet aircraft of the United States Air Force. It was developed from the twin-seat Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star in the late 1940s as an all-weather, day/night interceptor.

The aircraft reached operational service in May 1950 with Air Defense Command, replacing the propeller-driven North American F-82 Twin Mustang in the all-weather interceptor role. The F-94 was the first operational USAF fighter equipped with an afterburner and was the first jet-powered all-weather fighter to enter combat during the Korean War in January 1953.

The F-94's career didn't last long, though, the aircraft soon became outdated. The last F-94E was already retired from USAF front-line service in November 1962, only three years after the last F-94C Starfires were phased out of ANG service. Eventually, the fighters were replaced by the F-101, F-102 and the F-106.

General characteristics:

Crew: 2

Length: 44 ft 11 in (13.71 m)

Wingspan: 39 ft 10 in (12.16 m)

Height: 14 ft 6 in (4.43 m)

Wing area: 313.4 sq ft (29.11 m²)

Empty weight: 12,708 lb (5,764 kg)

Loaded weight: 18,300 lb (8,300 kg)

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

Powerplant:

1× Pratt & Whitney J48-P-9 turbojet, rated at 6,650 lbf (29.5 kN) dry thrust

and 10,640 lbf (47.3 kN) at full afterburner.

Performance:

Maximum speed: 693 mph (1,115 km/h) at height and in level flight

Range: 805 mi (700 nmi, 1,300 km) in combat configuration with four AAMs and two drop tanks

Ferry range: 1,275 mi (1,100 nmi, 2,050 km)

Service ceiling: 51,400 ft (15,670 m)

Rate of climb: 12,150 ft/min (61.7 m/s)

Wing loading: 78.6 lb/ft² (384 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.48

Armament:

Six underwing pylons for a mix of AIM-4 Falcon AAMs (IR- and SARH-guided),

pods with unguided 19× 2.75” (70 mm) Mk 4/Mk 40 Folding-Fin Aerial Rockets,

a pair of 165 gal. drop tanks or a pair of unguided nuclear MB-1 Genie air-to-air missiles

The kit and its assembly:

Another entry for the Cold War GB at whatifmodelers.com. This build was originally inspired by profiles of a P-80/F-86 hybrid, and respective kitbashings from other modelers. An elegant, though fictional, aircraft! Nevertheless, I wanted to build one, too, and take the original idea a step further. So I chose the F-94 as an ingredient for the kit mix – a rather overlooked aircraft, and getting hands on a donation kit took some time, since there are not many options.

I wanted to use the F-94C as starting point, which is already considerably different from the F-80/T-33. Adding swept wings (from a Hobby Boss F-86F, with larger “6-3” wings) changed this look even more. So much that I decided to modify the fin, which did not look appropriate anymore.

The fin and the spine’s rear end was replaced with the fin of a Kangnam/Revell Yak-38. In order to unify shapes and make the donation less obvious, the Yak-38 fin’s characteristic, pointed tip was clipped and replaced by a more conventional design, scratched from a piece of 1.5mm styrene sheet. In the wake of this modification, the round elevator tips were clipped, too.

Using the F-94’s landing gear wells as benchmarks, the F-86 wings (which had to be cut off of the Hobby Boss kit’s integral, lower fuselage part) were sanded into shape and simply glued into a proper position.

This worked so well that a completely new and plausible main landing gear installation was created. As a consequence, I used the F-86’s landing gear struts - they are much better detailed than the Emhar F-94C’s parts. The front wheel strut (it’s a single piece) was transplanted too, even though the suspension was switched 180°.

The Emhar F-94C’s cockpit is pretty good (esp. the seats) and were taken OOB. I just covered some gaps in the cockpit walls and under the windscreen with paper tissue, soaked with white glue.

The nose was replaced by a bigger radome, taken from an Armstrong Whitworth Meteor NF.14 (Matchbox kit). Its diameter and shape fit almost perfectly onto the F-94C’s front end, and the result reminds a lot of the EF-94C photo reconnaissance test aircraft! Under the nose, a shallow fairing for the IR sensor was added, and all four air brakes were mounted in open position.

The underwing pylons come from the scrap box (one pair from an Airfix A-1 Skyraider, another from an ESCI Kamow Ka-34 ‘Hokum’ which also provide the launch rails for the ordnance). The drop tanks come probably from an Italeri F-16 (not certain) while the four AIM-4s come from a Hasegawa USAF air-to-air weapons set.

Painting and markings:

This was supposed to become a classic USAF aircraft of the late Fifties, since the F-94 had never been exported. I was actually tempted to add Red Stars, though, because the overall shape has a certain Soviet look to it - esp. the nose, which reminds a lot of the contemporary Yak-25 interceptor?

But the original USAF idea won, with an all-metal finish. In order to brighten things up I chose a squadron that served with the Northeast or Alaskan Air Command, which added orange-red high-viz markings to wings and fuselage.

The NMF sections were primed with a base coat of Revell’s acrylic Aluminum. On top of that, single panels and details were painted with Alu Plate and Steel Metallizer from Modelmaster.

The International Orange markings were created with Humbrol 132, slightly shaded with orange (Humbrol 18).

Part of the nose section and the spine were painted in ADC Grey (FS 16473, Modelmaster), just for some diversity. Cockpit interior and landing gear wells received a coat of US Cockpit Green (Humbrol 226), while the interior of the air brakes was painted in Zinc Primer (Humbrol 81), according to pictures of operational F-94s.

The landing gear struts and the inside of their covers became Aluminum (Humbrol 56). The anti glare panel in front of the cockpit was done with dark olive drab (Humbrol 66), the radome flat black and weathered with wet-in-wet streaks of sand brown.

Operational F-94s show serious weathering on their di-electric noses, so this detail was taken over to the kit. Other weathering with paint, beyond a basic black ink wash and some shading on the orange areas, was not done.

The drop tanks were painted with Steel Metallizer, for a different metallic shade from the fuselage, and the AIM-4’s received a typical outfit in white and bright red with different seeker heads.

Primary decals come from a Heller F-94B kit, which have the benefit of a silver background – even though this does not match 100% with the paint. Squadron markings come from an Xtradecal F-102 sheet, tailored to the kit. Most stencils come from the Emhar OOB sheet, plus some more from the aforementioned F-102 sheet.

After some soot stains around the exhaust were added with graphite, the kit was sealed under a coat of semi-glossy acrylic varnish. The anti glare panel and the radome were kept matt, though.

A pretty result. Mixing parts from a Shooting Star and a Sabre (a Shooting Sabre, perhaps?) results in a very elegant aircraft. And while the F-94 lost much of its original, elegant appeal, the combo still works with this later interceptor variant of the F-80. Very plausible, IMHO.

Phicen kitbash using the blonde Kimi headsculpt .

+++ 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 Hawker Cyclone was an evolutionary successor to the successful Hawker Typhoon and Tempest fighters and fighter-bombers of the Second World War. The Cyclone's design process was initiated in September 1942 by Sydney Camm, one of Hawker's foremost aircraft designers, to meet the Royal Air Force’s requirement for a lightweight Tempest Mk.II and V replacement.

The project, tentatively designated Tempest Mk. VIII, was formalised in January 1943 when the Air Ministry issued Specification F.2/42 around the "Tempest Light Fighter".This was followed up by Specification F.2/43, issued in May 1943, which required a high rate of climb of not less than 4,500 ft/min (23 m/s) from ground level to 20,000 feet (6,096 m), good fighting manoeu rability and a maximum speed of at least 450 mph (724 km/h) at 22,000 feet (6,705 m). The armament was to be four 20mm Hispano V cannon with a total capacity of 600 rounds, plus the capability of carrying two bombs each up to 1,000 pounds (454 kg). In April 1943, Hawker had also received Specification N.7/43 from the Admiralty, who sought a navalized version of the developing aircraft, what eventually led to the Hawker Sea Fury, which was a completely new aircraft, which only shared the general outlines of the Tempest.

After the end of hostilities in late 1948 and the ensuing independence, the Cyclone squadrons settled into their peace time stations. However, constant engine troubles (particularly the radiator) continued to claim aircraft and lives and the skill required to land the Cyclone because of its high approach speed continued to cause several write offs. The arrival of the jet-engined Vampire were the first signs of the Cyclone’s demise. As the IAF began a rapid expansion to an all jet force, several Tempest and Cyclone squadrons began converting to Vampires, 7 Squadron being the first in Dec 49. By this time it had already been decided that the piston-engine fighters would be relegated to the fighter lead-in role to train pilots for the new jet fighters. A conversion training flight was set up at Ambala in Sep 49 with Spitfire T Mk IXs, XVIIIs and Tempests to provide 16 hrs/six weeks of supervised Tempest training. This unit eventually moved to Hakimpet two years later and operated till the end of 1952. Some Cyclone FR Mk. IIs remained in front line service until 1954, though.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 35 ft 5 3/4 in (10.83 m)

Wingspan: 42 ft 5 1/2 in (12.96 m)

Height (tail down): 15 ft 6 3/4 in (4.75 m)

Wing area: 302 ft² (28 m²)

Empty weight: 9,250 lb (4,195 kg)

Loaded weight: 11,400 lb (5,176 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 13,640 lb (6,190 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Napier Sabre V liquid-cooled H-24 sleeve-valve engine with 2,340 hp (1,683 kW)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 460 mph (740 km/h) 18,400 ft (5,608 m),

Range: 740 mi (1,190 km)

1,530 mi (2,462 km) with two 90 gal (409 l) drop tanks

Service ceiling: 36,500 ft (11,125 m)

Rate of climb: 4,700 ft/min (23.9 m/s)

Wing loading: 37.75 lb/ft² (184.86 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.21 hp/lb (0.31 kW/kg)

Armament:

4× 20 mm (.79 in) Mark V Hispano cannons, 200 RPG

2× underwing hardpoints for 500 lb (227 kg) or 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs

or 2 × 45 gal (205 l) or 2 × 90 gal (409 l) drop tanks

plus 6× 3” (76.2 mm) RP-3 rockets

The kit and its assembly:

Another episode in the series “Things to make and do with Supermarine Attacker wings”. And what started as a simple switch of wings eventually turned into a major kitbashing, since the model evolved from a modded Tempest into something more complex and conclusive.

The initial spark was the idea of a Hawker alternative to Supermarine’s Spiteful and Seafang developments – especially with their slender laminar flow wings. Wouldn’t a Hawker alternative make sense?

Said and done, I dug out a NOVO Attacker kit and a Matchbox Tempest, and started measuring – and the wing transplantation appeared feasible! I made the cut on the Tempest wing just outside of the oil cooler, and the Attacker wings were then attached to these stubs – after some gaps for the landing gear wells had been cut into the massive lower wing halves. The stunt went more smoothly than expected, the only cosmetic flaw is that the guns went pretty far outboard, but that’s negligible.

But the different wings were not enough. I had recently seen in a book a picture of a Tempest (NV 768) with an experimental annular radiator for the Sabre engine (looking like a streamlined Tempest II), and wondered if this arrangement would have been the aerodynamically more efficient solution than the bulbous chin radiator of the Tempest V and VI? I decided to integrate this feature into my build, too, even though not as a copy of the real-world arrangement. The whole nose section, even though based on the OOB Mk. V nose, was scratched and re-sculpted with lots of putty. The radiator intake comes from a FROG He 219, with the front end opened and a fan from a Matchbox Fw 190 placed inside, as well as a styrene tube for the new propeller. The latter was scratched, too, from a Matchbox He 70 spinner and single blades from an Italeri F4U, plus a metal axis. The exhaust stubs were taken OOB, but their attachment slits had to be re-engraved into the new and almost massive nose section.

Once the wings and the nose became more concrete, I found that the Tempest’s original rounded tail surfaces would not match with the new, square wings. Therefore I replaced the stabilizers with donations from a Heller F-84G and modified the fin with a new, square tip (from an Intech Fw 190D) and got rid of the fin fillet – both just small modifications, but they change the Tempest’s profile thoroughly.

In order to underline the aircraft’s new, sleek lines, I left away any ordnance – but instead I added some camera fairings: one under the rear fuselage or a pair of vertical/oblique cameras, and another camera window portside for a horizontal camera. The openings were drilled, and, after painting, the kit the camera windows were created with Humbrol Clearfix.

Painting and markings:

Somehow I thought that this aircraft had to carry Indian markings – and I had a set of standard Chakra Wheels from the late Forties period in my stash. The camouflage is, typical for early IAF machines of British origin, RAF standard, with Dark Green and Ocean Grey from above and Medium Sea Grey from below. I just used the more brownish pst-war RAF Dark Green tone (Humbrol 163), coupled with the rather light Ocean Grey from Modelmaster (2057). The underside became Humbrol 165. All interior surfaces were painted with RAF Interior Green, nothing fancy. The only colorful addition is the saffron-colored spinner, in an attempt to match the fin flash’s tone.

As a standard measure, the kit received a black ink wash and some panel post-shading with lighter tones – only subtly, since the machine was not to look too weathered and beaten, just used from its Kashmir involvements.

The national markings come from a Printscale Airspeed Oxford sheet, the tactical code with alternating white and black letters, depending on the underground (the sky fuselage band comes from a Matchbox Brewster Buffalo), was puzzled together from single letters from TL Modellbau – both seen on different contemporary RIAF aircraft.

As another, small individual detail I gave the machine a tactical code letter on the fuselage, and the small tiger emblems under the cockpit were home-printed from the official IAF No. 1 Squadron badge.

Despite the massive modifications this one is a relatively subtle result, all the changes become only visible at a second glance. A sleek aircraft, and from certain angley the Cyclone looks like an A-1 Skyraider on a diet?

+++ 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 Gloster Glaive was basically a modernized and re-engined variant of the successful, British-built Gloster Gladiator (or Gloster SS.37), the RAF’s final biplane fighter to enter service. The Gladiator was not only widely used by the RAF at the dawn of WWII and in almost every theatre of operations, but also by many other nations. Operators included Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania or Nationalist China, and while the RAF already opted for more modern monoplanes, Gloster saw the opportunity to sell an updated Gladiator to countries which were not as progressive.

Originally designated Gladiator Mk. IV, the machine received many aerodynamic refinements and the motor was changed from a draggy radial to a liquid-cooled inline engine. The latter was the new Rolls Royce Peregrine, a development of the Kestrel. It was, in its original form, a 21-litre (1,300 cu in) liquid-cooled V-12 aero engine ), delivering 885-horsepower (660 kW). The engine was housed under a streamlined cowling, driving a three blade metal propeller, and was coupled with a ventral radiator bath, reminiscent of the Hawker Fury biplane’s arrangement.

By April 1941, however, lack of spares and attrition had forced the Hellenic Air Force to merge the surviving seven Glaives with five leftover PZL.24s into one understrength squadron supported by five Gloster Gladiators Mk I & II and the two surviving MB.151s. These fought hopelessly against the Luftwaffe onslaught, and most aircraft were eventually lost on the ground. None of the Hellenic Gloster Glaives survived the conflict.

General characteristics:

Crew: two

Length: 8.92m (29 ft 3 in)

Wingspan: 34 ft 0 in (10.36 m)

Height: 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m)

Wing area: 317 ft² (29.4 m²)

Empty weight: 1,295 kg (2,855 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 1,700 kg (3,748 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Rolls Royce Peregrine II liquid-cooled V12 inline engine, rated at 940 hp (700 kw)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 405 km/h (252 mph; 219 kn) at 4,400 m (14,436 ft)

Cruise speed: 345 km/h (214 mph; 186 kn)

Stall speed: 60 mph (52 knots, 96 km/h)

Range: 373 mi (600 km; 324 nmi)

Endurance: 2 hours

Service ceiling: 10,600 m (34,800 ft)

Rate of climb: 2,982 ft/min (15.15 m/s)

Time to altitude: 10.000 ft (3.050 m) in 3 minutes 20 seconds

Armament:

4× 0.303 calibre (7.7 mm) M1919 Browning machine guns in the fuselage

Provisions for 6× 10 kg (22 lb) or 4x 20 kg (44 lb) bombs under the lower wings

The kit and its assembly:

The fictional Gloster Glaive started quite simple with the idea of replacing the Gladiator’s radial with an inline engine. But this soon did not appear enough for an update – the Peregrine hardly delivered much more power than the former Mercury, so I considered some structural updates, too. Most of them comprised the replacement of former fabric-covered structures, and this led conceptually to a kitbash with only some Gladiator fuselage and tail parts left.

The basis is (once more) the very nice Matchbox Gloster Gladiator, but it was heavily modified. As an initial step, fuselage, fin and stabilizers (all OOB parts) lost their rib-and-fabric structure, simply sanded away. A minor detail, but it changes the overall look of the aircraft a lot, making it appear much more modern.

The fuselage was left without the OOB radial, and instead a leftover Merlin front end from an Airfix Hurricane (ca. 1cm long, left over from one of my first whif builds ever, a Hurricane with a radial engine!) was added. The lines match pretty well: the side profile looks sleek, if not elegant, but the Gladiator fuselage turned out to be wider than expected. Some major body work/PSR was necessary to integrate the new nose, but the result looks very good.

The liquid-cooled engine necessitated a radiator somewhere on the airframe…! Since I wanted the nose to remain slim and streamlined I eventually placed the radiator bath under the fuselage, much like the arrangement of the Hawker Fury biplane. The radiator itself comes from a late Spitfire (FROG kit).

The exhaust was taken from the Hurricane kit, too, and matching slits dug into the putty nose to take them. The three blade propeller is a mash-up, too: the spinner belongs, IIRC, to an early Spitfire (left over from an AZ Models kit) while the blades came from a damaged Matchbox Brewster Buffalo.

The Gladiator’s fuselage flank machine guns were kept and their “bullet channels” extrapolated along the new cowling, running under the new exhaust pipes. Another pair of machine guns were placed on top of the engine – for these, openings were carved into the upper hull and small fairings (similar to the Browning guns in the flanks) added. This arrangement appeared plausible to me, since the Gladiator’s oil cooler was not necessary anymore and the new lower wings (see below) were not big enough anymore to take the Gladiator’s underwing guns. Four MGs in the fuselage appears massive – but there were other types with such an arrangement, e.g. the Avia B-534 with four guns in the flanks and an inline engine.

The wings are complete replacements: the upper wing comes from a Heller Curtiss SBC4, while the lower wings as well as the spats (on shortened OOB Gladiator struts) come from an ICM Polikarpov I-153. All struts were scratched. Once the lower wings were in place and the relative position of the upper wing clear, the outer struts were carved from 1mm styrene sheet, using the I-153 design as benchmark. These were glued to the lower wing first, and, once totally dry after 24h, the upper wing was simply glued onto the top and the wing position adjusted. This was left to dry another 24h, and as a final step the four struts above the cowling (using the OOB struts, but as single parts and trimmed for proper fit) were placed. This way, a stable connection is guaranteed – and the result is surprisingly sturdy.

Rigging was done with heated sprue material – my personal favorite for this delicate task, and executed before painting the kit started so that the glue could cure and bond well.

Painting and markings:

The reason why this aircraft ended in Greek service is a color photograph of a crashed Hellenic Bloch M.B. 152 (coded ‘D 177’, to be specific). I guess that the picture was post-colored, though, because the aircraft of French origin sports rather weird colors: the picture shows a two-tone scheme in a deep, rather reddish chestnut brown and a light green that almost looks like teal. Unique, to say the least... Underside colors couldn’t be identified with certainty in the picture, but appeared like a pale but not too light blue grey.

Anyway, I assume that these colors are pure fiction and exaggerated Photoshop work, since the few M.B. 152s delivered to Greece carried AFAIK standard French camouflage (in French Khaki, Chestnut Brown and Blue-Grey on the upper surfaces, and a very light blue-grey from below). I’d assume that the contrast between the grey and green tones was not very obvious in the original photograph, so that the artist, not familiar with WWII paint schemes, replaced both colors with the strange teal tone and massively overmodulated the brown.

As weird as it looked, I liked this design and used it as an inspirational benchmark for my Hellenic Glaive build. After all, it’s a fictional aircraft… Upper basic colors are Humbrol 31 (RAF Slate Grey) and 160 (German Camouflage Red Brown), while the undersides became French Dark Blue Grey (ModelMaster Authentics 2105). The result looks rather odd…

Representing a combat-worn aircraft, I applied a thorough black ink wash and did heavier panel shading and dry-brushing on the leading edges, along with some visible touches of aluminum.

The Hellenic roundels come from a TL Modellbau aftermarket sheet. The tactical code was puzzled together from single letters, and the Greek “D” was created from single decal strips. For better contrast I used white decals – most Hellenic aircraft of the time had black codes, but the contrast is much better, and I found evidence that some machines actually carried white codes. The small fin flash is another free interpretation. Not every Hellenic aircraft carried these markings, and instead of painting the whole rudder in Greek colors I just applied a small fin flash. This was created with white and blue decal strips, closely matching the roundels’ colors.

Finally, after some soot stains around the guns and the exhausts, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

Modified beyond recognition, perhaps…? The fictional Gloster Glaive looks IMHO good and very modern, just like one of those final biplane designs that were about to be outrun by monoplanes at the brink of WWII.

Just a vintage Action Man custom/ kitbash/ photoshop expirement. Turned out kinda cool :) Wanted to make one since I watched a few old series of Sharpe for ol' time sake on the net.

Flight scene over southern Germany, closing in on Manching in the setting summer sun... ^^

+++ 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 Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet is a light attack jet and advanced trainer aircraft co-manufactured by Dornier of Germany and Dassault-Breguet of France. In the early 1960s, European air forces began to consider their requirements for the coming decades. One of the results was the emergence of a new generation of jet trainers. The British and French began a collaboration on development of what was supposed to be a supersonic jet aircraft in two versions: trainer and light attack aircraft. The result of this collaboration, the SEPECAT Jaguar, proved to be an excellent aircraft, but its definition had changed in the interim, and the type emerged as a full-sized, nuclear-capable strike fighter, which two-seat variants were used for operational conversion to the type, not for the general training.

Hence, further development was stopped in September 1989, also under the influence of political changes and the breakdown of the Eastern Block. Even though 98+52 was kept at Manching as a test aircraft for various tasks, the plane was eventually lost in a crash due to hydraulic failure on 3rd of March 1993 – the pilot escaped safely, but 98+52 totally written off.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 12.60 m (41 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 10.73 m (35 ft 2 1/2 in)

Height: 4.24 m (13 ft 11 in)

Wing area: 213.7 ft² (19.85 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 23015 (modified) at root, NACA 4412 (modified) at tip

Empty weight: 3.680 kg (8.105 lbs)

Loaded weight: 5.900 kg (13.000 lbs)

Max. takeoff weight: 8.200 kg (18.060 lbs)

Powerplant: 2 × SNECMA Turbomeca Larzac 04-C20 turbofans, 14,12 kN (3.176 lbs) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 860 km/h (465 knots, 536 mph)

Stall speed: 167 km/h (90 knots, 104 mph) (flaps and undercarriage down)

Combat radius: 610 km (329 nmi, 379 mi) lo-lo-lo profile, w. underwing weapons incl. two drop tanks

Ferry range: 2,940 km (1,586 nmi, 1,827 mi)

Service ceiling: 14,630 m (48,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 57 m/s (11,220 ft/min)

Armament

1× 35 mm (1.38 in) Oerlikon KDA cannon w/150 rds under the lower forward fuselage, offset to starport side.

Seven hardpoints (one under fuselage, three under each wing) for a total external load of up to 3.085 kg (6.800 lbs), including AGM-65 Maverick, Matra rocket pods with 18× SNEB 68 mm rockets each, a variety of bombs (such as the Hunting BL755 cluster bombs) or Drop tanks for extended range, and AIM-9 Sidewinder or ASRAAM for self-defence

The kit and its assembly

Yes, another whif, and a modern type, too. The idea came when I found a pair of vintage wings from a vintage Matchbox BAC Strikemaster in good shape and thought "Well, where could these fit...?" Being a fan of the Su-25 I considered building something similar from scratch und using these 30 year old parts.

The Alpha Jet has a basically similar layout, and the wings would match in size. Then, the "new" plane should become a dedicated single-seater, not simply a two-seater with a covered rear cockpit. Browsing through the kit stack I found a A-4F from Revell, and its nose section turned out to be an almost perfect fit for the Alpha Jet fuselage (the vintage Heller kit).

Fitting these parts together required some major surgery and putty work, but the result looks quite convincing. Other additions are a Matchbox pilot figure and some cockpit details, a nose cone from a Fiat G.91 R/3 as an integral laser rangefinder housing, the Strikemaster wings, a modified landing gear (main wheels from the Skyhawk, front wheel from an IAI Kfir) and the armament in the form of the gun, seven hardpoints and the mixed ordnance from the German Luftwaffe arsenal - everything collected from the junkyard.

Painting

While German Luftwaffe machines can look rather boring, various camouflage trials have been conducted during the 80ies and 90ies for the F-4F, Alpha Jet and Tornado fleet. Esp. Phantom IIs saw extensive experiments for air superiority and ground attack paint schemes - and these schemes carried inofficial names like "Milchkuh" (Dairy Cow), "Polizeimühle" (Police Jalopy) or "Disco Bomber".

The whiffy Alpha Jet was a nice opportunity to incorporate one of these experimental schemes, and I settled for something which was applied to F-4F '37+07' and inofficially dubbed "Wolkenmaus" (Cloud Mouse). The Alpha Jet is a good subject, since its stepped side structure with engine nacelles and its spine tunnel is similar to the Phantom II, so that the cammo concept could be easily copied.

Anyway, the authentic "Wolkenmaus" colours are supposed to be (and what I used on the kit)...

On the upper sides:

● RAL 6014 Gelboliv (~FS 34087; Olive Drab, Testors 1711)

● RAL 7012 Basaltgrau (~FS 36152; Humbrol 27)

● RAL 9005 Tiefschwarz, even though I rather believe it to be RAL 7021 Schwarzgrau (darker than FS 36081; Humbrol 182)

Flanks::

● Mix of 2/3 RAL 7035 Lichtgrau + 1/3 RAL 7000 Fehgrau (~FS36473; Aircraft Grey, Testors 1731)

Undersides:

● Mix of 5/6 RAL 7035 Lichtgrau + 1/6 RAL 7000 Fehgrau (~RLM 63; Lichtgrau, Testors 2077)

The tones are just approximations, since I did not want to get original tones just for one project. Hey, it's just a model kit!

The landing gear and its wells were painted in aluminum, the respective covers' inside with Humbrol 81 (Olive Yellow) in a primer finish for some contrast. Cockpit interior as well as the air intakes were kept in in Light Gull Grey (FS 36640, Humbrol 129). The complex paint scheme was applied, as per usual, by brush and hand. The kit received a light black ink wash and some dry painting with lighter tones - the model was not supposed to look dirty, only a bit used.

Decals were scrapped together. JaboG 43 emblems and warning signs were taken from the original Heller decal sheet. The national insignia were taken from a Revell PAH-2 kit, the registration '98+52' was puzzled together with single digits from an aftermarket decal sheet from TL Modellbau. AFAIK, '98+52' has not been used yet by the Luftwaffe, which designates its test aircraft in the 98+XX and 99+XX range. A "true" and active Alpha Jet would have received a 40+XX or 41+XX.

Finally, everything was sealed under a water-based/acryllic matte coat - the Testors colours proved to be very touchy to the Humbrol varnish I normally use.

In the end, I achieved what I wanted, even though not truly perfect. But the kit looks like an 'analogue' Su-25, and actually the whiffy Alpha Jet C reminds much of the pre-Su-25 concepts: the SPB and subsequent LSSh/T-8 attack aircraft?

This build had many first. First time, airbrushing, kitbashing (kinda), and 3D printing/modelling (for gunpla), first use of decal solutions too.

I built the MG Dynames exactly a year ago planning to do this, but before starting the main customising, I had a Gunpla break (to focus on studies). I'm glad I did though, as that gave me more time to watch videos and observe how people do things.

Airbrushing was a pain. Found it hard to get a good consistency of paint and it kept coming out weird at times. I bought a cheap brush/compressor off Ebay and used Revel acrylic white for the base and Citadel Sybarite Green and Lahmian Medium for the green. Handpainted a few small details too. Probably will airbush again in the future with better results.

3D modelled some adaptors using Blender, for the thrusters to attach to the GN Drive and for the holster to back skirt attachment. Actually used some fake/3D printed Lego for the joint. First use of plastic cement too.

The Sword I found off Thingyverse and just scaled it up. Was this one: www.thingiverse.com/thing:2828010 if interested.

The decals are some Sazabi Ver.Ka + a few MG Dynames ones I bought of Aliexpress. The microsol.set is a godsend, I used just water on a few kits before hand and the decals are kinda flakey even with a topcoat.

In universe I see this as a close combat variation of the Dynames. The shields now act as bits/funnels. And in the knee are shotgun rounds so he can knee opponents and fire (similar to Kimaris Vidars Drill knees). The Grenades in the front skirt now have some smoke flares too for enemy distraction. Sword is GN powered and takes the best of the Exias real blade and a beam blade. It can be powered without connection, but it better if so. The pistols still the same and the head mounted site is more of a general different wavelength camera. I see this as my current Build Fighter/Diver suit.

A Phicen kit bash using the Female Shooter headsculpt by Very Cool toys .

Kitbash and manipulated photographic portrait of Major Motoko Kusanagi, inspired by the recent 'Ghost in the Shell' movie trailer released by Paramount.

Some background:

The Leyland “Type D” was one of several armoured vehicle types designed in 1940 on the orders of Lord Beaverbrook and Admiral Sir Edward Evans, as a part of the hasty measures taken by the British Government following the Dunkirk evacuation and the threat of invasion.

The “Type D” was a heavy scout car, intended to replace the Lanchester 6x4 and Rolls-Royce 4x2 armoured cars, which dated back to the WWI era and the early interwar period. While they were reliable vehicles and still in active service, their off-road capabilities, armament and armour left a lot to be desired – esp. in the face of the modern German army and its effective equipment.

However, the Type D was not popular, quickly replaced by smaller and more agile vehicles like the Humber scout car, and by 1944 outdated and retired. Leyland built a total of 220 Type Ds of both versions until early 1943, whilst an additional 86 Mk. IIs were built by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway's Derby Carriage Works.

Specifications:

Crew: Four (commander, gunner, driver, co-driver/radio operator/loader)

Weight: 8.3 tons

Length: 20 ft 5 in (6,30 m)

Width: 7 ft 5 in (2,27 m)

Height: 9 ft 2¾ in (2,81 m)

Ground clearance: 12 in (30.5 cm)

Turning radius: 39 ft (12 m)

Suspension: Wheel, rigid front and rear axles;

4x8 rear-wheel drive with selectable additional 6x8 front axle drive

Fuel capacity: 31 imp gal (141 litres)

Armour:

5–15 mm (0.2 – 0.6 in)

Performance:

Maximum road speed: 35 mph (56 km/h)

Sustained road speed: 30 mph (48 km/h)

Cross country speed: up to 20 mph (32 km/h)

Operational range: 250 mi (400 km)

Power/weight: 11,44 hp/ton

Engine:

1× Leyland 7-litre six-cylinder diesel engine, 95 hp (70 kW)

Transmission:

4-speed, with a 2-speed auxiliary box

Armament:

1× QF Two-pounder (40 mm/1.57 in) cannon with 94 rounds

1× 7.92 mm Besa machine gun mounted co-axially with 2.425 rounds

2-4× smoke dischargers, mounted on the turret

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional British WWII vehicle might look weird, but it has a real-world inspiration: the Marmon Herrington Mk. VI armoured heavy scout car. This vehicle only existed as a prototype and is AFAIK still preserved in a museum in South Africa – and upon a cursory glance it looks like an SdKfz. 232 with the shrunk turret from a “Crusader” cruiser tank with a short-barreled six pounder gun. It looks like a fake! Another reason for this build was a credible “canvas” for the application of the iconic “Caunter Scheme”, so that I placed the Type D in a suitable historic time frame.

The Type D was not supposed to be a truthful Marmon Herrington Mk. VI copy, so I started with a 1:72 “First to Fight” SdKfz. 232. This is a simple and sturdy tabletop wargaming model, but it is quite accurate, goes together well, is cheap and even comes with a metal gun barrel. It’s good value for the money, even though the plastic is a little thick and soft.

However, from this basis things changed in many ways. I initially wanted to shorten the hull, but the new wheels (see below) made this idea impossible. Nevertheless, the front glacis plate was completely re-modeled with 2C putty in the style of the Humber scout car, and the crew cabin was extended backwards with the same method. New observation slits had to be scratched with styrene profile material. The engine bay received a raised cover, simulating extra air intakes. The turret was replaced with a resin piece for an A13 “Valentine” Mk.III tank (S&S Models), which had a perfect size and even came with a suitable gun.

The suspension was taken OOB, but the wheels were replaced with two aftermarket resin sets (Silesian Models) with special Allied desert wheels/tires from 1941, they originally belong to a Chevrolet truck and are markedly bigger and wider than the SdKfz. 232 wheels. However, they had to be modified to match the rest of the suspension, and their size necessitated a thorough modification of the mudguards. They were not only mounted 1mm higher on the flanks, their sides, normally consisting of closed skirts, were fully opened to make sufficient room for the new wheels to change the vehicle’s look. They were furthermore separated into four two-wheel covers and their front and rear ends were slightly bent upwards. Sufficient space for the side doors had to be made, too. The spare wheels that came with the respective sets were mounted to the front (again Humber-style) and onto the engine bay cover, under a scratched tarpaulin (made from paper tissue drenched with white glue).

To conceal the SdKfz. 232 heritage even more I added more equipment to the vehicle’s flanks. Tool boxed were added to the engine bay’s flanks, some more tools to the fenders, scratched tarpaulin rolls above the side doors and I tried to scratch PSP plates with aluminum foil rubbed against a flight stand diorama floor made from PSP. Not perfect, but all the stuff livens the Type D up. A new exhaust (IIRC from a Panzer IV) was added to the rear and bumpers scratched from wire and mounted low unto the hull.

Painting and markings:

Finally, the British, so-called “Caunter Scheme”, a great source of misinterpretation not only in museums but also by modelers who have painted their British tanks in dubious if not garish colors. I do not claim that my interpretation of the colors is authentic, but I did some legwork and tried to improvise with my resources some tones that appear plausible (at least to me), based on descriptions and contemporary references.

The pattern itself was well defined for each vehicle type, and I adapted a M3 “Stuart” pattern for the model. All three basic colors, “Light Stone”, “Silver Grey” and “Slate”, were guesstimated. “Slate” is a relatively dark and greenish tone, and I chose Tamiya XF-65 (Field Grey). “Light Stone” is rather yellow-ish, light sand tone, and I used Humbrol 103 (Cream). Some sources suggest the use of Humbrol 74 (linen) as basis, but that is IMHO too yellow-ish and lacks red. The most obscure tone is “Silver Grey”, and its depictions range from a pale and dull light olive drab over blue-grey, greenish grey to bright light blue and even turquoise. In fact, this tone must have had a greenish-blue hue, and so I mixed Humbrol 145 (FS 35237) with maybe Humbrol 94 in a 3:1 ratio to achieve an “in between” tone, which is hard to describe - maybe as a greenish sand-grey? A funny effect of the colors in direct contrast is that the XF-65 appeared with an almost bluish hue! Overall, the choice of colors seems to work, though, and the impression is good.

Painting was, as usual, done with brushes and, due to the vehicle’s craggy shape, free-handedly. After basic painting the model received a light washing with a mix of black ink and brown, and some post-shading was done with light grey (Revell 75) and Hemp (Humbrol 168). Decals came from the scrap box, and before an overall protective coat of matt acrylic varnish was applied, the model received an additional treatment with thinned Revell 82 (supposed to be RAF Dark Earth but it is a much paler tone).

A more demanding build than one would expect at first sight. The SdKafz. 232 is unfortunately still visible, but the desert wheels, including the spare wheels, change the look considerably, and the British replacement turret works well, too. Using the tabletop model basis was not a good move, though, because everything is rather solid and somewhat blurry, esp. the many molded surface details, which suffered under the massive body work. On the other side, the Counter Scheme IMHO turned out well, esp. the colors, even though the slender hull made the adaptation of the pattern from a (much shorter) tank not easy. But most of the critical areas were hidden under extra equipment, anyway. 😉

+++ 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 Gudkov Gu-1 was a Soviet fighter aircraft produced shortly after World War II in small numbers at the start of the jet age, but work on the Gudkov Gu-1 already started in 1944. Towards the end of World War II the Soviet Union saw the need for a strategic bombing capability similar to that of the United States Army Air Forces. The Soviet VVS air arm had the locally designed Petlyakov Pe-8 four-engined heavy bomber in service at the start of the war, but only 93 had been built by the end of the war and the type had become obsolete. By that time the U.S. regularly conducted bombing raids on Japan from distant Pacific forward bases using B-29 Superfortresses, and the Soviet Air Force lacked this capability.

There even was a highly modified mixed powerplant version on the drawing boards in 1952, the Gu-1M. Its standard radial powerplant for cruise flight was enhanced with a new, non-afterburning Mikulin AM-5 axial flow jet engine with 2.270 kgf/5,000 lbf/23 kN additional thrust in the rear fuselage. With this temporary booster, a top speed of up to 850 km/h was expected. But to no avail - the pure jet fighter promised a far better performance and effectiveness, and the Gu-1 remained the only aircraft to exclusively carry the Gudkov name.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 12 m (39 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 14 m (45 ft 11 in)

Height: 4.65 m (15 ft 3 in)

Wing area: 28 m² (301.388 ft²)

Airfoil:

Empty weight: 4,637 kg (10,337 lb)

Loaded weight: 6.450 kg (14.220 lb)

Maximum take-off weight: 7,938 kg (17,500 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Shvetsov ASh-82TKF 18-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, rated at 2,720 hp (2,030 kW)

1x RD-20 axial-flow turbojet with 7.8 kN (1,754 lbf) thrust as temporary booster

Performance

Maximum speed: 676 km/h (420 mph) at 29,000 ft (8,839 m) with the radial only,

800 km/h (497 mph/432 kn,) with additional jet booster

Cruise speed: 440 km/h (237 kn, 273 mph)

Combat radius: 820 nmi (945 mi, 1,520 km)

Maximum range: 3.000 km (1.860 mi, 1.612 nmi) with drop tanks

Service ceiling: 14,680 m (48,170 ft)

Wing loading: 230.4 kg/m² (47.2 lb/ft²)

Power/mass: 0.28 kW/kg (0.17 hp/lb)

Climb to 5,000 m (16,400 ft): 5 min 9 sec;

Climb to 10,000 m (32,800 ft): 17 min 38 sec;

Climb to 13,000 m (42,640 ft): 21 min 03 sec

Armament

4× 23 mm Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 cannons with 100 RPG in the outer wings

Five hardpoints for an external ordnance of 1.500 kg (3.300 lb)

The kit and its assembly:

This whif is the incarnation of a very effective kitbashing combo that already spawned my fictional Japanese Ki-104 fighter, and it is another submission to the 2018 “Cold War” group build at whatifmodelers.com. This purely fictional Soviet escort fighter makes use of my experiences from the first build of this kind, yet with some differences.

The kit is a bashing of various parts and pieces:

· Fuselage, wing roots, landing gear and propeller from an Academy P-47D

· Wings from an Ark Model Supermarine Attacker (ex Novo)

· Tail fin comes from a Heller F-84G

· The stabilizers were taken from an Airfix Ki-46

· Cowling from a Matchbox F6F, mounted and blended onto the P-47 front

· Jet exhaust is the intake of a Matchbox Me 262 engine pod

My choice fell onto the Academy Thunderbolt because it has engraved panel lines, offers the bubble canopy as well as good fit, detail and solid material. The belly duct had simply been sliced off, and the opening later faired over with styrene sheet and putty, so that the P-47’s deep belly would not disappear.

The F6F cowling was chosen because it looks a lot like the ASh-73TK from the Tu-4. But this came at a price: the P-47 cowling is higher, tighter and has a totally different shape. It took serious body sculpting with putty to blend the parts into each other. Inside of the engine, a styrene tube was added for a metal axis that holds the uncuffed OOB P-47 four blade propeller. The P-47’s OOB cockpit tub was retained, too, just the seat received scratched armrests for a more luxurious look.

The Attacker wings were chosen because of their "modern" laminar profile. The Novo kit itself is horrible and primitive, but acceptable for donations. OOB, the Attacker wings had too little span for the big P-47, so I decided to mount the Thunderbolt's OOB wings and cut them at a suitable point: maybe 0.5", just outside of the large main wheel wells. The intersection with the Attacker wings is almost perfect in depth and width, relatively little putty work was necessary in order to blend the parts into each other. I just had to cut out new landing gear wells from the lower halves of the Attacker wings, and with new attachment points the P-47’s complete OOB landing gear could be used.

With the new wing shape, the tail surfaces had to be changed accordingly. The trapezoid stabilizers come from an Airfix Mitsubishi Ki-46, and their shape is a good match. The P-47 fin had to go, since I wanted something bigger and a different silhouette. The fuselage below was modified with a jet exhaust, too. I actually found a leftover F-84G (Heller) tail, complete with the jet pipe and the benefit that it has plausible attachment points for the stabilizers far above the jet engine in the Gu-1’s tail.

However, the F-84 jet pipe’s diameter turned out to be too large, so I went for a smaller but practical alternative, a Junkers Jumo 004 nacelle from a Me 262 (the ancestor of the Soviet RD-20!). Its intake section was cut off, flipped upside down, the fin was glued on top of it and then the new tail was glued to the P-47 fuselage. Some (more serious) body sculpting was necessary to create a more or less harmonious transition between the parts, but it worked.

The plausible placement of the air intakes and their shape was a bit of a challenge. I wanted them to be obvious, but still keep an aerodynamic look. An initial idea had been to keep the P-47’s deep belly and widen the central oil cooler intake under the nose, but I found the idea wacky and a bit pointless, since such a long air duct would not make much sense since it would waste internal space and the long duct’s additional weight would not offer any benefit?

Another idea were air intakes in the wing roots, but these were also turned down since the landing gear wells would be in the way, and placing the ducts above or below the wings would also make no sense. A single ventral scoop (looking like a P-51 radiator bath) or two smaller, dorsal intakes (XP-81 style) behind the cockpit were other serious candidates – but these were both rejected because I wanted to keep a clean side profile.

I eventually settled for very simple, fixed side intakes, level with the jet exhaust, somewhat inspired by the Lavochkin La-200B heavy fighter prototype. The air scoops are simply parts from an Italeri Saab 39 Gripen centerline drop tank (which has a flat, oval diameter), and their shape is IMHO a perfect match.

Painting and markings:

While the model itself is a wild mix of parts with lots of improvisation involved, I wanted to keep the livery rather simple. The most plausible choice would have been an NMF finish, but I rather wanted some paint – so I used Soviet La-9 and -11 as a benchmark and settled for a simple two-tone livery: uniform light grey upper and light blue lower surfaces.

I used RAF Medium Sea Grey (Humbrol 165) and Soviet Underside Blue (Humbrol 114) as basic tones, and, after a black ink wash, these were lightened up through dry-brushed post-shading. The yellow spinner and fin tip are based on typical (subtle) squadron markings of the late 40ies era.

The cockpit as well the engine and landing gear interior became blue-grey (Revell 57), similar to the typical La-9/11’s colors. The green wheel discs and the deep blue propeller blades are not 100% in the aircraft's time frame, but I added these details in order to enhance the Soviet touch and some color accents.

Tactical markings were kept simple, too. The "38" and the Red Stars come form a Mastercraft MiG-15, the Guards badge from a Begemoth MiG-25 sheet and most of the stencils were taken from a Yak-38 sheet, also from Begemoth.

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri) and it received some mild soot stains and chipped paint around the cockpit and on the leading edges. Some oil stains were added around the engine (with Tamiya Smoke), too.

A massive aircraft, and this new use of the P-47/Attacker combo results again in a plausible solution. The added jet engine might appear a bit exotic, but the mixed powerplant concept was en vogue after WWII, but only a few aircraft made it beyond the prototype stage.

While painting the model I also wondered if an all dark blue livery and some USN markings could also have made this creation the Grumman JetCat? With the tall fin, the Gu-1 could also be an F8F Bearcat on steroids? Hmmm...

+++ 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 Gloster Glaive was basically a modernized and re-engined variant of the successful, British-built Gloster Gladiator (or Gloster SS.37), the RAF’s final biplane fighter to enter service. The Gladiator was not only widely used by the RAF at the dawn of WWII and in almost every theatre of operations, but also by many other nations. Operators included Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania or Nationalist China, and while the RAF already opted for more modern monoplanes, Gloster saw the opportunity to sell an updated Gladiator to countries which were not as progressive.

Originally designated Gladiator Mk. IV, the machine received many aerodynamic refinements and the motor was changed from a draggy radial to a liquid-cooled inline engine. The latter was the new Rolls Royce Peregrine, a development of the Kestrel. It was, in its original form, a 21-litre (1,300 cu in) liquid-cooled V-12 aero engine ), delivering 885-horsepower (660 kW). The engine was housed under a streamlined cowling, driving a three blade metal propeller, and was coupled with a ventral radiator bath, reminiscent of the Hawker Fury biplane’s arrangement.

By April 1941, however, lack of spares and attrition had forced the Hellenic Air Force to merge the surviving seven Glaives with five leftover PZL.24s into one understrength squadron supported by five Gloster Gladiators Mk I & II and the two surviving MB.151s. These fought hopelessly against the Luftwaffe onslaught, and most aircraft were eventually lost on the ground. None of the Hellenic Gloster Glaives survived the conflict.

General characteristics:

Crew: two

Length: 8.92m (29 ft 3 in)

Wingspan: 34 ft 0 in (10.36 m)

Height: 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m)

Wing area: 317 ft² (29.4 m²)

Empty weight: 1,295 kg (2,855 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 1,700 kg (3,748 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Rolls Royce Peregrine II liquid-cooled V12 inline engine, rated at 940 hp (700 kw)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 405 km/h (252 mph; 219 kn) at 4,400 m (14,436 ft)

Cruise speed: 345 km/h (214 mph; 186 kn)

Stall speed: 60 mph (52 knots, 96 km/h)

Range: 373 mi (600 km; 324 nmi)

Endurance: 2 hours

Service ceiling: 10,600 m (34,800 ft)

Rate of climb: 2,982 ft/min (15.15 m/s)

Time to altitude: 10.000 ft (3.050 m) in 3 minutes 20 seconds

Armament:

4× 0.303 calibre (7.7 mm) M1919 Browning machine guns in the fuselage

Provisions for 6× 10 kg (22 lb) or 4x 20 kg (44 lb) bombs under the lower wings

The kit and its assembly:

The fictional Gloster Glaive started quite simple with the idea of replacing the Gladiator’s radial with an inline engine. But this soon did not appear enough for an update – the Peregrine hardly delivered much more power than the former Mercury, so I considered some structural updates, too. Most of them comprised the replacement of former fabric-covered structures, and this led conceptually to a kitbash with only some Gladiator fuselage and tail parts left.

The basis is (once more) the very nice Matchbox Gloster Gladiator, but it was heavily modified. As an initial step, fuselage, fin and stabilizers (all OOB parts) lost their rib-and-fabric structure, simply sanded away. A minor detail, but it changes the overall look of the aircraft a lot, making it appear much more modern.

The fuselage was left without the OOB radial, and instead a leftover Merlin front end from an Airfix Hurricane (ca. 1cm long, left over from one of my first whif builds ever, a Hurricane with a radial engine!) was added. The lines match pretty well: the side profile looks sleek, if not elegant, but the Gladiator fuselage turned out to be wider than expected. Some major body work/PSR was necessary to integrate the new nose, but the result looks very good.

The liquid-cooled engine necessitated a radiator somewhere on the airframe…! Since I wanted the nose to remain slim and streamlined I eventually placed the radiator bath under the fuselage, much like the arrangement of the Hawker Fury biplane. The radiator itself comes from a late Spitfire (FROG kit).

The exhaust was taken from the Hurricane kit, too, and matching slits dug into the putty nose to take them. The three blade propeller is a mash-up, too: the spinner belongs, IIRC, to an early Spitfire (left over from an AZ Models kit) while the blades came from a damaged Matchbox Brewster Buffalo.

The Gladiator’s fuselage flank machine guns were kept and their “bullet channels” extrapolated along the new cowling, running under the new exhaust pipes. Another pair of machine guns were placed on top of the engine – for these, openings were carved into the upper hull and small fairings (similar to the Browning guns in the flanks) added. This arrangement appeared plausible to me, since the Gladiator’s oil cooler was not necessary anymore and the new lower wings (see below) were not big enough anymore to take the Gladiator’s underwing guns. Four MGs in the fuselage appears massive – but there were other types with such an arrangement, e.g. the Avia B-534 with four guns in the flanks and an inline engine.

The wings are complete replacements: the upper wing comes from a Heller Curtiss SBC4, while the lower wings as well as the spats (on shortened OOB Gladiator struts) come from an ICM Polikarpov I-153. All struts were scratched. Once the lower wings were in place and the relative position of the upper wing clear, the outer struts were carved from 1mm styrene sheet, using the I-153 design as benchmark. These were glued to the lower wing first, and, once totally dry after 24h, the upper wing was simply glued onto the top and the wing position adjusted. This was left to dry another 24h, and as a final step the four struts above the cowling (using the OOB struts, but as single parts and trimmed for proper fit) were placed. This way, a stable connection is guaranteed – and the result is surprisingly sturdy.

Rigging was done with heated sprue material – my personal favorite for this delicate task, and executed before painting the kit started so that the glue could cure and bond well.

Painting and markings:

The reason why this aircraft ended in Greek service is a color photograph of a crashed Hellenic Bloch M.B. 152 (coded ‘D 177’, to be specific). I guess that the picture was post-colored, though, because the aircraft of French origin sports rather weird colors: the picture shows a two-tone scheme in a deep, rather reddish chestnut brown and a light green that almost looks like teal. Unique, to say the least... Underside colors couldn’t be identified with certainty in the picture, but appeared like a pale but not too light blue grey.

Anyway, I assume that these colors are pure fiction and exaggerated Photoshop work, since the few M.B. 152s delivered to Greece carried AFAIK standard French camouflage (in French Khaki, Chestnut Brown and Blue-Grey on the upper surfaces, and a very light blue-grey from below). I’d assume that the contrast between the grey and green tones was not very obvious in the original photograph, so that the artist, not familiar with WWII paint schemes, replaced both colors with the strange teal tone and massively overmodulated the brown.

As weird as it looked, I liked this design and used it as an inspirational benchmark for my Hellenic Glaive build. After all, it’s a fictional aircraft… Upper basic colors are Humbrol 31 (RAF Slate Grey) and 160 (German Camouflage Red Brown), while the undersides became French Dark Blue Grey (ModelMaster Authentics 2105). The result looks rather odd…

Representing a combat-worn aircraft, I applied a thorough black ink wash and did heavier panel shading and dry-brushing on the leading edges, along with some visible touches of aluminum.

The Hellenic roundels come from a TL Modellbau aftermarket sheet. The tactical code was puzzled together from single letters, and the Greek “D” was created from single decal strips. For better contrast I used white decals – most Hellenic aircraft of the time had black codes, but the contrast is much better, and I found evidence that some machines actually carried white codes. The small fin flash is another free interpretation. Not every Hellenic aircraft carried these markings, and instead of painting the whole rudder in Greek colors I just applied a small fin flash. This was created with white and blue decal strips, closely matching the roundels’ colors.

Finally, after some soot stains around the guns and the exhausts, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

Modified beyond recognition, perhaps…? The fictional Gloster Glaive looks IMHO good and very modern, just like one of those final biplane designs that were about to be outrun by monoplanes at the brink of WWII.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

After World War I, the German aircraft industry had several problems. German airlines were forbidden to operate multi engine aircraft and during a period all manufacturing of aircraft in Germany was banned. By 1921, some of the restrictions was lifted, civilian aircraft could be made after approval of an international control commission if they fulfilled certain requirements. To bypass these rules and to be able to make whatever aircraft they wanted several aircraft manufacturers moved abroad. In 1921, Carl Bücker handled the purchase of a reconnaissance aircraft from Caspar-Werke in Travemünde. Because they expected problems due to the rules in the peace treaty regarding the export of German fighter aircraft, Bücker explored the possibility to smuggle the parts out of Germany and assemble the aircraft in Sweden.

Because the airframes were still young and had a lot of service life ahead of them, most SA-16s were from 1941 on relegated to patrol and reconnaissance missions along the Swedish coastlines, observing ship and aircraft traffic in the Baltic Sea and undertaking rescue missions with droppable life rafts. For long-range missions, the forked ventral swing arm was replaced with a fixed plumbed pylon for an external 682 liters (150 Imp. gal.) auxiliary tank that more than doubled the aircraft’s internal fuel capacity of 582 liters, giving it an endurance of around 8 hours. In many cases, the machine guns on these aircraft were removed to save weight. In this configuration the SA-16 was re-designated S 9 (“S” for Spaning) and the machines served in their naval observation and SAR role well into the Fifties, when the last SA-16s were retired.

General characteristics:

Crew: two, pilot and observer

Length: 9,58 m (31 ft 11 in)

Wingspan: 10,67 m (34 ft 11 in)

Height: 3,82 m (12 ft 6 in)

Wing area: 30.2 m² (325 sq ft)

Empty weight: 2,905 kg (6,404 lb)

Gross weight: 4,245 kg (9,359 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 4,853 kg (10,700 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Mercury XII nine-cylinder radial engine with 880 hp (660 kW),

driving a three-bladed variable pitch metal propeller

u>Performance:

Maximum speed: 319 km/h (198 mph, 172 kn) at 3,650 m (11,980 ft)

274 km/h (170 mph; 148 kn) at sea level

299 km/h (186 mph; 161 kn) at 2,000 m (6,600 ft)

308 km/h (191 mph; 166 kn) at 5,000 m (16,000 ft)

Stall speed: 110 km/h (68 mph, 59 kn)

Range: 1,260 km (780 mi, 680 nmi)

Service ceiling: 7,300 m (24,000 ft)

Time to altitude: 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in 4 minutes 45 seconds

4,000 m (13,000 ft) in 15 minutes 10 seconds

Armament:

2× fixed 8 mm (0.315 in) Flygplanskulspruta Ksp m/22F (M1919 Browning AN/M2) machine guns

in the wings outside of the propeller disc (with 600 RPG), plus

1× 8 mm (0.315 in) Ksp m/22F machine gun on a flexible mount in the rear cockpit with 800 rounds

Ventral and underwing hardpoints for a total external bomb load of 700 kg (1,500 lb)

The kit and its assembly:

This purely fictional Swedish dive bomber was inspired by reading about Flygvapnet‘s pre-WWII trials with dive bombing tactics and the unsuited aircraft fleet for this task. When I found a Hasegawa SOC Seagull floatplane in The Stash™ and looks at the aircraft’s profile, I thought that it could be converted into a two-seat monoplane – what would require massive changes, though.

However, I liked the SOC’s boxy and rustic look, esp. the fuselage, and from this starting point other ingredients/donors were integrated. Work started with the tail. Originally, I wanted to retain the SOCs fin and stabilizer, but eventually found them oversized for a land-based airplane. In the scrap box I found a leftover fin from an Academy P-47, and it turned out to be a very good, smaller alternative, with the benefit that it visually lengthened the rear fuselage. The stabilizers were replaced with leftover parts from a NOVO Supermarine Attacker – an unlikely choice, but their size was good, they blended well into the overall lines of the aircraft, and they helped to stabilize the fin donor. Blending these new parts into to SOC’s hull required massive PSR, though.

The wings were also not an easy choice, and initially I planned the aircraft with a retractable landing gear. I eventually settled on the outer wings (just outside of the gullwing kink) from an MPM Ju 87 B, because of their shape and the archaic “double wings” that would complement the SOC’s rustic fuselage. However, at this point I refrained from the retractable landing gear and instead went for a fixed spatted alternative, left over from an Airfix Hs 123, which would round up the aircraft’s somewhat vintage look. Because the wheels were missing, I inserted two Matchbox MiG-21 wheels (which were left over in the spares bin from two different kits, though). The tail wheel came from an Academy Fw 190.

Cowling and engine inside (thankfully a 9-cylinder radial that could pose as a Mercury) were taken OOB, just the original two-blade propeller was replaced with a more appropriate three-blade alternative, IIRC from a Hobby Boss Grumman F4F. The cockpit was taken OOB, and I also used the two pilot figures from the kit. The rear crew member just had the head re-positioned to look sideways, and had to have the legs chopped off because there’s hardly and space under the desk with the radio set he’s sitting at.

The ventral 500 kg bomb came from a Matchbox Ju 87, the bomb arms are Fw 189 landing gear parts. Additional underwing pylons came from an Intech P-51, outfitted with 50 kg bombs of uncertain origin (they look as if coming from an old Hasegawa kit). The protruding machine gun barrel fairings on the wings were scratched from styrene rod material, with small holes drilled into them.

A real Frankenstein creation, but it does not look bad or implausible!

Painting and markings:

I gave the B 9 a camouflage that was carried by some Flygvapnet aircraft in the late Thirties, primarily by fighters imported from the United States but also some bombers like the B 3 (Ju 86). The IMHO quite attractive scheme consists on the upper surfaces of greenish-yellow zinc chromate primer (Humbrol 81, FS 33481), on top of which a dense net of fine dark green wriggles (supposed to be FS 34079, but I rather used Humbrol 163, RAF Dark Green, because it is more subdued) was manually applied with a thin brush, so that the primer would still shine through, resulting in a mottled camouflage.

On the real aircraft, this was sealed with a protective clear lacquer to which 5% of the dark green had been added, and I copied this procedure on the model, too, using semi-gloss acrylic varnish with a bit of Revell 46 added. The camouflage was wrapped around the wings’ leading edges and the spatted landing gear was painted with the upper camouflage, too.

The undersides were painted with Humbrol 87 (Steel Grey), to come close to the original blue-grey tone, which is supposed to be FS 35190 on this type of camouflage. The tone is quite dark, almost like RAF PRU Blue.

The interior was painted – using a Saab J 21 cockpit as benchmark – in a dark greenish grey (RAL 7009).

The model received the usual light black ink washing and some post-panel shading on the lower surfaces, because this effect would hardly be recognizable on the highly fragmented upper surface.

The markings are reflecting Flygvapnet’s m/37 regulations, from the direct pre-WWII era when the roundels had turned from black on white to yellow on blue but still lacked the yellow edge around the roundel for more contrast. F6 Västgöta flygflottilj was chosen because it was a dive bomber unit in the late Thirties, and the individual aircraft code (consisting of large white two-digit numbers) was added with the fin and the front of the fuselage. “27” would indicate an aircraft of the unit’s 2nd division, which normally had blue as a standardized color code, incorporated through the blue bands on the spats and the small "2nd div." tag on the rudder (from a contemporary F8 Swedish Gladiator).

Roundels and codes came from an SBS Models sheet, even though they belong to various aircraft types. Everything was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Development studies at Grumman for jet-powered fighter aircraft began near the end of World War II as the first jet engines emerged. In a competition for a jet-powered night fighter for the United States Navy, on 3 April 1946 the Douglas F3D Skyknight was selected over Grumman's G-75, a two-seater powered by four Westinghouse J30s. The Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) also issued a contract to Grumman for two G-75 prototype aircraft on 11 April 1946, in case the Skyknight ran into problems.

However, Grumman soon realized that the G-75 was a dead end. But the company had been working on a completely different day fighter, the G-79, which offered a higher potential. In order to keep Grumman in the US Navy’s procurement loop, BuAer, in a bureaucratic maneuver, did not cancel the G-75 contract, but changed the wording to include prototypes of the entirely different G-79, too.

However, the JetCat remained unpopular among its flight and ground crews and, after its less-than-satisfactory performance against MiGs, quickly retired. After the end of the Korean War in July 1953, all machines were grounded and by 1954 all had been scrapped. However, the turboprop-powered fighter bomber lived on with the USMC, which ordered the Vought A3U SeaScorpion as successor.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 40 ft 5 in (12,31 m)

Wingspan: 43 ft 5 in (13,25 m)

Height: 15 ft 6 3/4 in (4,75 m)

Wing area: 250 ft² (23 m²)

Empty weight: 12,979 lb (5,887 kg)

Gross weight: 24,650 lb (11,181 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Allison T38E turboprop, rated at 2,500 shp (1,863 kW) plus 600 lbf (2.7 kN) residual thrust

1× Westinghouse J34-WE-13 turbojet booster with 3,000 lbf (13.35 kN)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 507 mph (441 kn; 816 km/h) at 30,000 ft (9,100 m)

497 mph (432 kn, 800 km/h) at sea level

Cruise speed: 275 mph (443 km/h; 239 kn) at 30,000 ft (9,100 m)

Stall speed: 74 mph (119 km/h; 64 kn) with flaps

Range: 2,500 mi (2,172 nmi; 4,023 km)

Service ceiling: 47,000 ft (14,000 m)

Rate of climb: 5,300 ft/min (27 m/s)

Wing loading: 71 lb/ft² (350 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.42

Armament:

4× 20 mm (0.79 in) AN/M3 cannon in the outer, foldable wings with 220 RPG

Underwing hardpoints and provisions to carry combinations of up to 6× 5 " (127 mm) HVAR

missiles and/or bombs on underwing hardpoints, for a total ordnance of 3,000 lb (1,362 kg)

The kit and its assembly:

This is another submission to the Cold War GB at whatifmodelers in early 2018, and rather a spontaneous idea. It was actually spawned after I finished my fictional Gudkov Gu-1 mixed propulsion fighter - while building (using the engine front from an F6F Hellcat) I had the impression that it could also have ended up as a post-war USN fighter design.

A couple of days later, while browsing literature for inspiration, I came across Grumman's G-79 series of designs that eventually led to the F9F Panther - and I was amazed that the 'A' design almost looked like my kitbashed Soviet fighter!

So I considered a repeated build of a P-47D/Supermarine Attacker kitbash, just in American colors. But with the F9F relationship, I planned the integration of Panther parts, so that the new creation would look different from the Gu-1, but also show some (more) similarity to the Panther.

The plan appeared feasible. Again, the aircraft's core is an Academy P-47D, with its outer wings cut off. Cockpit and landing gear were retained. However, instead of Supermarine Attacker wings from a Novo kit, I attached F9F-2 wings from a Hasegawa kit. Shape-wise this worked fine, but the Panther wings are much thinner than the Thunderbolt’s, so that I had to integrate spacers inside of the intersections which deepen the Hasegawa parts. Not perfect, but since the type would feature folding wings, the difference and improvisation is not too obvious.

On the fuselage, the Thunderbolt’s air outlets on its flanks were faired over and most of the tail section cut away. In the lower part of the tail, a jet pipe (from a Heller F-84G) was added and blended with PSR into the Thunderbolt fuselage, similar to the Gu-1. A completely new fin was scratched from an outer wing section from a Heinkel He 189, in an attempt to copy the G-79B's shape according to the drawing I used as benchmark for the build. I also used the F9F's stabilizers. With clipped tips they match well in size and shape, and add to the intended Grumman family look. The original tail wheel well was retained, but the tail wheel was placed as far back as possible and replaced by the twin wheel from a Hasegawa F5U. The Panther’s OOB tail hook was integrated under the jet pipe, too.

The front section is completely different and new, and my choice fell on the turboprop-powered G-79B because I did not want to copy the Gu-1 with its radial engine. However, the new turboprop nose was not less complicated to build. Its basis is a 1:100 engine and contraprop from a VEB Plasticart Tu-20/95 bomber, a frequent ingredient in my builds because it works so well in 1:72 scale. This slender core was attached to the Thunderbolt's fuselage, and around this basis a new cowling was built up with 2C putty, once more in an attempt to mimic the original G-79B design as good as possible.

In order to blend the new engine with the fuselage and come close to the G-79B’s vaguely triangular fuselage diameter, the P-47's deep belly was cut away, faired over with styrene sheet, and everything blended into each other with more PSR work. As a final step, two exhaust pipes were mounted to the lower fuselage in front of the wings’ leading edge.

The air intakes for the jet booster are actually segments from a Sopwith Triplane fuselage (Revell) – an unlikely source, but the shape of the parts was just perfect. More PSR was necessary to blend them into the aircraft’s flanks, though.

Painting and markings:

As per usual, I'd rather go with conservative markings on a fictional aircraft. Matching the Korean War era, the aircraft became all-over FS 35042 (Modelmaster). A black ink wash emphasized the partly re-engraved panel lines, and some post shading highlighted panels.

The wings’ leading edges and the turboprop’s intake were painted with aluminum, similar edges on fin and stabilizers were created with silver decal material. The interior of cockpit and landing gear was painted with green chromate primer.

The markings were puzzled together. “Stars and Bars” and VF-53 markings were taken from a Hobby Boss F4U-4 kit. The blue fin tip is the marking for the 3rd squadron, so that the “307” tactical code is plausible, too (the latter comes from a Hobby Boss F9F-2). In order to keep things subtle and more business-like (after all, the aircraft is supposed to be operated during the ongoing Korean War), I did not carry the bright squadron color to any other position like the spinner or the wing tips.

After some final detail work and gun and exhaust soot stains, the kit was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic varnish (Italeri). Matt acrylic varnish was used for weathering effects, so that the aircraft would not look too clean and shiny.

While it is not a prefect recreation of the Grumman G-79B, I am quite happy with the result. The differences between the model and the original design sketch can be explained through serial production adaptations, and overall the whole thing looks pretty conclusive. In fact, the model appears from certain angles like a naval P-51 on steroids, even though the G-79B was a much bigger aircraft than the Mustang.

+++ 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 Indian „Samudree Baaj“ (समुद्री बाज, Sea Hawk) was a highly modified, navalized version of the British BAE Systems Hawk land-based training jet aircraft, which had been manufactured under license by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The first indigenously built Hawk Mk. 132 trainer was delivered in 2008 to the Indian Air Force, and the type has since then been updated with indigenous avionics into the “Hawk-I” Mk. 132 from 2020 onwards. The aircraft’s Rolls Royce Adour Mk 871 engine was also license-built by HAL, and the company had experience from a wide range of aircraft projects in the past.

In late 2020, the Indian Navy expected to commission Vikrant by the end of 2021. Until then, the Samudree Baaj fleet will remain land-based at INS Hansa near Goa. This not only is the INAS 300 home base, it is also the location of the Indian Navy's Shore Based Test Facility (SBTF), which is a mock-up of the 283-metre (928 ft) INS Vikramaditya (a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier) deck built to train and certify navy pilots, primarily the the Mikoyan MiG-29K for operating from the aircraft carrier, but now also for the Samudree Baaj and for the developmental trials of the naval HAL Tejas lightweight fighter.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 11.38 m (37 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 9.39 m (30 ft 10 in)

Height: 4.30 m (14 ft 1 in)

Wing area: 17.66 m2 (190.1 sq ft)

Empty weight: 9,394 lb (4,261 kg)

Gross weight: 12,750 lb (5,783 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 9,101 kg (20,064 lb)

Fuel capacity: 1,360 kg (3,000 lb) internal

3,210 kg (7,080 lb) with 3 drop tanks

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour Mk. 871-1N non-afterburning turbofan, 28,89 kN (6,445 lbf) thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,037 km/h (644 mph, 560 kn) at sea level

Maximum speed: Mach 1.2 (never exceed at altitude)

Cruise speed: 796 km/h (495 mph, 430 kn) at 12,500 m (41,000 ft)

Carrier launch speed: 121 kn (139 mph; 224 km/h)

Approach speed: 125 kn (144 mph; 232 km/h)

Never exceed speed: 575 kn (662 mph, 1,065 km/h) / M1.04 design dive limit

Stall speed: 197 km/h (122 mph, 106 kn) flaps down

Range: 892 km (554 mi, 482 nmi) internal fuel only

Combat range: 617 km (383 mi, 333 nmi) with 2x AGM-84 and 2x 592 l (156 US gal; 130 imp gal)

Ferry range: 1,950 km (1,210 mi, 1,050 nmi) with 3 drop tanks

Service ceiling: 15,250 m (50,030 ft)

G-limits: +8/-3

Rate of climb: 58.466 m/s (11,509.1 ft/min)

Takeoff distance with maximum weapon load: 2,134 m (7,001 ft)

Landing distance at maximum landing weight with brake chute: 854 m (2,802 ft)

Landing distance at maximum landing weight without brake chute: 1,250 m (4,100 ft)

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.181 in) Aden cannon with 150 rounds each

7× hardpoints (4× under-wing, 1× under-fuselage and 2 × wingtip)

for a total ordnance of 3.085 kg (6,800 lb) and a wide range of weapons

The kit and its assembly:

A subtle kitbashing project, inspired by a CG-rendition of a carrier-based (yet un-navalized) BAe Hawk 200 in Indian Navy service by fellow user SPINNERS in January 2021. I found the idea inspiring but thought that the basic concept could be taken further and into hardware form with a model. And I had a Matchbox Hawk 200 in The Stash™, as well as a McDonnell T-45 trainer from Italeri…

The plan sounds simple: take a T-45 and replace the cockpit section with the single-seat cockpit from the Hawk 200. And while the necessary cuts were easy to make, reality rears its ugly head when you try to mate parts from basically the same aircraft but from models by different manufacturers.

The challenges started with the fact that the fuselage shapes of both models differ – the Matchbox kit is more “voluminous”, and the different canopy shape called for a partial spine transplant, which turned out to be of very different shape than the T-45’s respective section! Lots of PSR…

In order to improve the pretty basic Matchbox Hawk cockpit I integrated the cockpit tub from the Italeri T-45, including the ejection seat, dashboard and its top cover.

For the totally different T-45 front wheel I had to enlarge the respective well and added a “ceiling” to it, since the strut had to be attached somewhere. The Hawk 200’s ventral tub for the cannons (which only the first prototype carried, later production aircraft did not feature them) were retained – partly because of their “whiffy“ nature, but also because making it disappear would have involved more major surgeries.

Most of the are behind the cockpit comes from the Italeri T-45, I just added a RHAWS fairing to the fin, extending it by 3mm.

A major problem became the air intakes, because the two kits differ in their construction. I wanted to use the Italeri parts, because they match the fairings on the fuselage flanks well and are better detailed than the Matchbox parts. But the boundary layer spacers between intakes and fuselage are molded into the Italeri parts, while the Matchbox kit has them molded into the fuselage. This called for major surgery and eventually worked out fine, and more PSR blended the rest of the fuselage donors around the cockpit together. A tedious process, though.

The pylons were puzzled together, including a former Matchbox EA-6B wing pylon under the fuselage, cut down and mounted in reverse and upside down! The ordnance comes from the Italeri NATO weapons set (Matra Magic and AGM-84), the ventral drop tank comes IIRC from an Eduard L-39 Albatros. Matra Magics were chosen because India never operated any Sidewinder AAM, just French or Soviet/Russian missiles like the R-60 or R-73 (unlikely on the Hawk, IMHO), and I had preferred a pair of Sea Eagle ASMs (from a Hasegawa Sea Harrier kit), but their span turned out to be too large for the Hawk’s low wings. The alternative, more slender Harpoons are plausible, though, since they are actually part of the Indian Navy’s inventory.

Painting and markings:

The Indian Navy theme was already settled, and I wanted to stay close to SPINNERS’ illustration as well as to real world Indian Navy aircraft. SPINNERS’ Hawk carried the typical Sea Harreir scheme in Extra Dark Sea Grey and White, and I found this livery to look a bit too much retro, because I’d place this what-if aircraft in the early 2020s, when the Sea Harriers had already been phased out. A “realistic” livery might have been an overall mid-grey paint scheme (like the land-based Indian Hawk 132s), but I found this to look too boring. As a compromise, I gave the Samudree Baaj a simple two-tone paint scheme, carried by a few late Indian Sea Harriers. It consists of upper surfaces in Dark Sea Grey (Humbrol 164) and undersides in Medium Sea Grey (Modelmaster 2058), with a low waterline. The Modelmaster MSG has – for my taste – a rather bluish hue and appears almost like PRU Blue, but I left it that way.

The decals were puzzled together from variosu sources. the roundels come from a MiG-21F (Begemot), the unit markings and tactical codes from a Model Alliance Sea Harrier sheet, and the stencils are a mix from the Matchbox Hawk 200 and the Italeri T-45.

The kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish from Italeri.

The fictional HAL „Samudree Baaj“ looks simple, but combining kits of the basically same aircraft from different manufacturers reveals their differences, and they are not to be underestimated! However, I like the result of a navalized Hawk single-seater, and - also with the relatively simple and dull livery - it looks pretty convincing.

Many thanks to SPINNERS for the creative inspiration - even though my build is not a 100% "copy" of the artwork, but rather a step further into the navalisation idea with the T-45 parts.

+++ 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 Indian „Samudree Baaj“ (समुद्री बाज, Sea Hawk) was a highly modified, navalized version of the British BAE Systems Hawk land-based training jet aircraft, which had been manufactured under license by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The first indigenously built Hawk Mk. 132 trainer was delivered in 2008 to the Indian Air Force, and the type has since then been updated with indigenous avionics into the “Hawk-I” Mk. 132 from 2020 onwards. The aircraft’s Rolls Royce Adour Mk 871 engine was also license-built by HAL, and the company had experience from a wide range of aircraft projects in the past.

In late 2020, the Indian Navy expected to commission Vikrant by the end of 2021. Until then, the Samudree Baaj fleet will remain land-based at INS Hansa near Goa. This not only is the INAS 300 home base, it is also the location of the Indian Navy's Shore Based Test Facility (SBTF), which is a mock-up of the 283-metre (928 ft) INS Vikramaditya (a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier) deck built to train and certify navy pilots, primarily the the Mikoyan MiG-29K for operating from the aircraft carrier, but now also for the Samudree Baaj and for the developmental trials of the naval HAL Tejas lightweight fighter.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 11.38 m (37 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 9.39 m (30 ft 10 in)

Height: 4.30 m (14 ft 1 in)

Wing area: 17.66 m2 (190.1 sq ft)

Empty weight: 9,394 lb (4,261 kg)

Gross weight: 12,750 lb (5,783 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 9,101 kg (20,064 lb)

Fuel capacity: 1,360 kg (3,000 lb) internal

3,210 kg (7,080 lb) with 3 drop tanks

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour Mk. 871-1N non-afterburning turbofan, 28,89 kN (6,445 lbf) thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,037 km/h (644 mph, 560 kn) at sea level

Maximum speed: Mach 1.2 (never exceed at altitude)

Cruise speed: 796 km/h (495 mph, 430 kn) at 12,500 m (41,000 ft)

Carrier launch speed: 121 kn (139 mph; 224 km/h)

Approach speed: 125 kn (144 mph; 232 km/h)

Never exceed speed: 575 kn (662 mph, 1,065 km/h) / M1.04 design dive limit

Stall speed: 197 km/h (122 mph, 106 kn) flaps down

Range: 892 km (554 mi, 482 nmi) internal fuel only

Combat range: 617 km (383 mi, 333 nmi) with 2x AGM-84 and 2x 592 l (156 US gal; 130 imp gal)

Ferry range: 1,950 km (1,210 mi, 1,050 nmi) with 3 drop tanks

Service ceiling: 15,250 m (50,030 ft)

G-limits: +8/-3

Rate of climb: 58.466 m/s (11,509.1 ft/min)

Takeoff distance with maximum weapon load: 2,134 m (7,001 ft)

Landing distance at maximum landing weight with brake chute: 854 m (2,802 ft)

Landing distance at maximum landing weight without brake chute: 1,250 m (4,100 ft)

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.181 in) Aden cannon with 150 rounds each

7× hardpoints (4× under-wing, 1× under-fuselage and 2 × wingtip)

for a total ordnance of 3.085 kg (6,800 lb) and a wide range of weapons

The kit and its assembly:

A subtle kitbashing project, inspired by a CG-rendition of a carrier-based (yet un-navalized) BAe Hawk 200 in Indian Navy service by fellow user SPINNERS in January 2021. I found the idea inspiring but thought that the basic concept could be taken further and into hardware form with a model. And I had a Matchbox Hawk 200 in The Stash™, as well as a McDonnell T-45 trainer from Italeri…

The plan sounds simple: take a T-45 and replace the cockpit section with the single-seat cockpit from the Hawk 200. And while the necessary cuts were easy to make, reality rears its ugly head when you try to mate parts from basically the same aircraft but from models by different manufacturers.

The challenges started with the fact that the fuselage shapes of both models differ – the Matchbox kit is more “voluminous”, and the different canopy shape called for a partial spine transplant, which turned out to be of very different shape than the T-45’s respective section! Lots of PSR…

In order to improve the pretty basic Matchbox Hawk cockpit I integrated the cockpit tub from the Italeri T-45, including the ejection seat, dashboard and its top cover.

For the totally different T-45 front wheel I had to enlarge the respective well and added a “ceiling” to it, since the strut had to be attached somewhere. The Hawk 200’s ventral tub for the cannons (which only the first prototype carried, later production aircraft did not feature them) were retained – partly because of their “whiffy“ nature, but also because making it disappear would have involved more major surgeries.

Most of the are behind the cockpit comes from the Italeri T-45, I just added a RHAWS fairing to the fin, extending it by 3mm.

A major problem became the air intakes, because the two kits differ in their construction. I wanted to use the Italeri parts, because they match the fairings on the fuselage flanks well and are better detailed than the Matchbox parts. But the boundary layer spacers between intakes and fuselage are molded into the Italeri parts, while the Matchbox kit has them molded into the fuselage. This called for major surgery and eventually worked out fine, and more PSR blended the rest of the fuselage donors around the cockpit together. A tedious process, though.

The pylons were puzzled together, including a former Matchbox EA-6B wing pylon under the fuselage, cut down and mounted in reverse and upside down! The ordnance comes from the Italeri NATO weapons set (Matra Magic and AGM-84), the ventral drop tank comes IIRC from an Eduard L-39 Albatros. Matra Magics were chosen because India never operated any Sidewinder AAM, just French or Soviet/Russian missiles like the R-60 or R-73 (unlikely on the Hawk, IMHO), and I had preferred a pair of Sea Eagle ASMs (from a Hasegawa Sea Harrier kit), but their span turned out to be too large for the Hawk’s low wings. The alternative, more slender Harpoons are plausible, though, since they are actually part of the Indian Navy’s inventory.

Painting and markings:

The Indian Navy theme was already settled, and I wanted to stay close to SPINNERS’ illustration as well as to real world Indian Navy aircraft. SPINNERS’ Hawk carried the typical Sea Harreir scheme in Extra Dark Sea Grey and White, and I found this livery to look a bit too much retro, because I’d place this what-if aircraft in the early 2020s, when the Sea Harriers had already been phased out. A “realistic” livery might have been an overall mid-grey paint scheme (like the land-based Indian Hawk 132s), but I found this to look too boring. As a compromise, I gave the Samudree Baaj a simple two-tone paint scheme, carried by a few late Indian Sea Harriers. It consists of upper surfaces in Dark Sea Grey (Humbrol 164) and undersides in Medium Sea Grey (Modelmaster 2058), with a low waterline. The Modelmaster MSG has – for my taste – a rather bluish hue and appears almost like PRU Blue, but I left it that way.

The decals were puzzled together from variosu sources. the roundels come from a MiG-21F (Begemot), the unit markings and tactical codes from a Model Alliance Sea Harrier sheet, and the stencils are a mix from the Matchbox Hawk 200 and the Italeri T-45.

The kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish from Italeri.

The fictional HAL „Samudree Baaj“ looks simple, but combining kits of the basically same aircraft from different manufacturers reveals their differences, and they are not to be underestimated! However, I like the result of a navalized Hawk single-seater, and - also with the relatively simple and dull livery - it looks pretty convincing.

Many thanks to SPINNERS for the creative inspiration - even though my build is not a 100% "copy" of the artwork, but rather a step further into the navalisation idea with the T-45 parts.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

After World War I, the German aircraft industry had several problems. German airlines were forbidden to operate multi engine aircraft and during a period all manufacturing of aircraft in Germany was banned. By 1921, some of the restrictions was lifted, civilian aircraft could be made after approval of an international control commission if they fulfilled certain requirements. To bypass these rules and to be able to make whatever aircraft they wanted several aircraft manufacturers moved abroad. In 1921, Carl Bücker handled the purchase of a reconnaissance aircraft from Caspar-Werke in Travemünde. Because they expected problems due to the rules in the peace treaty regarding the export of German fighter aircraft, Bücker explored the possibility to smuggle the parts out of Germany and assemble the aircraft in Sweden.

Because the airframes were still young and had a lot of service life ahead of them, most SA-16s were from 1941 on relegated to patrol and reconnaissance missions along the Swedish coastlines, observing ship and aircraft traffic in the Baltic Sea and undertaking rescue missions with droppable life rafts. For long-range missions, the forked ventral swing arm was replaced with a fixed plumbed pylon for an external 682 liters (150 Imp. gal.) auxiliary tank that more than doubled the aircraft’s internal fuel capacity of 582 liters, giving it an endurance of around 8 hours. In many cases, the machine guns on these aircraft were removed to save weight. In this configuration the SA-16 was re-designated S 9 (“S” for Spaning) and the machines served in their naval observation and SAR role well into the Fifties, when the last SA-16s were retired.

General characteristics:

Crew: two, pilot and observer

Length: 9,58 m (31 ft 11 in)

Wingspan: 10,67 m (34 ft 11 in)

Height: 3,82 m (12 ft 6 in)

Wing area: 30.2 m² (325 sq ft)

Empty weight: 2,905 kg (6,404 lb)

Gross weight: 4,245 kg (9,359 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 4,853 kg (10,700 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Mercury XII nine-cylinder radial engine with 880 hp (660 kW),

driving a three-bladed variable pitch metal propeller

u>Performance:

Maximum speed: 319 km/h (198 mph, 172 kn) at 3,650 m (11,980 ft)

274 km/h (170 mph; 148 kn) at sea level

299 km/h (186 mph; 161 kn) at 2,000 m (6,600 ft)

308 km/h (191 mph; 166 kn) at 5,000 m (16,000 ft)

Stall speed: 110 km/h (68 mph, 59 kn)

Range: 1,260 km (780 mi, 680 nmi)

Service ceiling: 7,300 m (24,000 ft)

Time to altitude: 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in 4 minutes 45 seconds

4,000 m (13,000 ft) in 15 minutes 10 seconds

Armament:

2× fixed 8 mm (0.315 in) Flygplanskulspruta Ksp m/22F (M1919 Browning AN/M2) machine guns

in the wings outside of the propeller disc (with 600 RPG), plus

1× 8 mm (0.315 in) Ksp m/22F machine gun on a flexible mount in the rear cockpit with 800 rounds

Ventral and underwing hardpoints for a total external bomb load of 700 kg (1,500 lb)

The kit and its assembly:

This purely fictional Swedish dive bomber was inspired by reading about Flygvapnet‘s pre-WWII trials with dive bombing tactics and the unsuited aircraft fleet for this task. When I found a Hasegawa SOC Seagull floatplane in The Stash™ and looks at the aircraft’s profile, I thought that it could be converted into a two-seat monoplane – what would require massive changes, though.

However, I liked the SOC’s boxy and rustic look, esp. the fuselage, and from this starting point other ingredients/donors were integrated. Work started with the tail. Originally, I wanted to retain the SOCs fin and stabilizer, but eventually found them oversized for a land-based airplane. In the scrap box I found a leftover fin from an Academy P-47, and it turned out to be a very good, smaller alternative, with the benefit that it visually lengthened the rear fuselage. The stabilizers were replaced with leftover parts from a NOVO Supermarine Attacker – an unlikely choice, but their size was good, they blended well into the overall lines of the aircraft, and they helped to stabilize the fin donor. Blending these new parts into to SOC’s hull required massive PSR, though.

The wings were also not an easy choice, and initially I planned the aircraft with a retractable landing gear. I eventually settled on the outer wings (just outside of the gullwing kink) from an MPM Ju 87 B, because of their shape and the archaic “double wings” that would complement the SOC’s rustic fuselage. However, at this point I refrained from the retractable landing gear and instead went for a fixed spatted alternative, left over from an Airfix Hs 123, which would round up the aircraft’s somewhat vintage look. Because the wheels were missing, I inserted two Matchbox MiG-21 wheels (which were left over in the spares bin from two different kits, though). The tail wheel came from an Academy Fw 190.

Cowling and engine inside (thankfully a 9-cylinder radial that could pose as a Mercury) were taken OOB, just the original two-blade propeller was replaced with a more appropriate three-blade alternative, IIRC from a Hobby Boss Grumman F4F. The cockpit was taken OOB, and I also used the two pilot figures from the kit. The rear crew member just had the head re-positioned to look sideways, and had to have the legs chopped off because there’s hardly and space under the desk with the radio set he’s sitting at.

The ventral 500 kg bomb came from a Matchbox Ju 87, the bomb arms are Fw 189 landing gear parts. Additional underwing pylons came from an Intech P-51, outfitted with 50 kg bombs of uncertain origin (they look as if coming from an old Hasegawa kit). The protruding machine gun barrel fairings on the wings were scratched from styrene rod material, with small holes drilled into them.

A real Frankenstein creation, but it does not look bad or implausible!

Painting and markings:

I gave the B 9 a camouflage that was carried by some Flygvapnet aircraft in the late Thirties, primarily by fighters imported from the United States but also some bombers like the B 3 (Ju 86). The IMHO quite attractive scheme consists on the upper surfaces of greenish-yellow zinc chromate primer (Humbrol 81, FS 33481), on top of which a dense net of fine dark green wriggles (supposed to be FS 34079, but I rather used Humbrol 163, RAF Dark Green, because it is more subdued) was manually applied with a thin brush, so that the primer would still shine through, resulting in a mottled camouflage.

On the real aircraft, this was sealed with a protective clear lacquer to which 5% of the dark green had been added, and I copied this procedure on the model, too, using semi-gloss acrylic varnish with a bit of Revell 46 added. The camouflage was wrapped around the wings’ leading edges and the spatted landing gear was painted with the upper camouflage, too.

The undersides were painted with Humbrol 87 (Steel Grey), to come close to the original blue-grey tone, which is supposed to be FS 35190 on this type of camouflage. The tone is quite dark, almost like RAF PRU Blue.

The interior was painted – using a Saab J 21 cockpit as benchmark – in a dark greenish grey (RAL 7009).

The model received the usual light black ink washing and some post-panel shading on the lower surfaces, because this effect would hardly be recognizable on the highly fragmented upper surface.

The markings are reflecting Flygvapnet’s m/37 regulations, from the direct pre-WWII era when the roundels had turned from black on white to yellow on blue but still lacked the yellow edge around the roundel for more contrast. F6 Västgöta flygflottilj was chosen because it was a dive bomber unit in the late Thirties, and the individual aircraft code (consisting of large white two-digit numbers) was added with the fin and the front of the fuselage. “27” would indicate an aircraft of the unit’s 2nd division, which normally had blue as a standardized color code, incorporated through the blue bands on the spats and the small "2nd div." tag on the rudder (from a contemporary F8 Swedish Gladiator).

Roundels and codes came from an SBS Models sheet, even though they belong to various aircraft types. Everything was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

+++ 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 historical facts. BEWARE!

The F-112 started life as a privately funded light fighter program by Republic under the handle AP-95 in the mid-1950s, aiming at export markets which were about to replace their 1st generation jet fighters like the F-86 or F-84 and air forces which could not afford or simply want the heavy supersonic fighters under development at that time. In the USA, it was also aimed at the replacement of these Korean War era types in the Air National Guards.

No F-112 was ever used in combat, despite the raging Vietnam War. The original F-112As remained with the USAF, but these were only used for training purposes or as instructional airframes on the ground. These F-112As were quickly phased out during the 70ies, the last one in September 1977. The modernized F-112C soldiered on with several ANG forces until 1985, being replaced by F-4 and F-16 as interceptors and multi-role combat aircraft.

F-112A general characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 56 ft 9 ¼ in (17.02 m)

Wingspan: 25 ft 7 in (7.81 m)

Height: 15 ft 9 ¼ in (4.82 m)

Wing area: 277 ft² (25.75 m²)

Empty weight: 14.000 lb (6.350 kg)

Loaded weight: 20.640 lb (9.365 kg)

Max. take-off weight: 29.027 lb (13.170 kg)

Powerplant

1× Pratt & Whitney J57-P-21 turbojet with 10.200 lbf (45 kN) dry thrust and 16.000 lbf (71 kN) with afterburner:

Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 1.86 (1.225 mph, 1.975 km/h) at 36,000 ft (11.000 m)

Combat radius: 450 mi (730 km)

Ferry range: 1.735 mi (2.795 km) with external fuel

Service ceiling: 58.000 ft (17.700 m)

Rate of climb: 31.950 ft/min (162.3 m/s)

Armament

1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61 Vulcan gatling cannon with 725 RPG

5 hardpoints for 6.000 lb of ordnance (2.727 kg); typically 2× or 4× AIM-9 Sidewinder under the wings, plus an optional drop tank under the fuselage.

The kit and its assembly:

This is a totally fictional aircraft with no real paradigm. The initial idea was that I wondered if one could not make something from an early MiG-21F with its small diameter air intake, when this would be replaced by a radome?

That the project eventually evolved into a kind of anti-Starfighter came through the wings: there was the problem of placing the air intakes somewhere. To solve that problem I remembered the Tamiya 1:100 F-105 kit, I built one years ago and it’s still available, even though I had to import a NIB kit from Hong Kong for this occasion. Calculations had indicated that the wing size and span would match a 1:72 MiG-21 well, and so the F-112 was born*. The Thunderchief’s air intakes are SO characteristic that anything else than a Republic design was out of question, the rest was spun around this basic idea.

But back to the model itself: the whole thing is a true Frankenstein job, puzzled together from a lot of bits and pieces. The most important ingredients:

● Fuselage from a 1:72 Academy MiG-21F, incl. canopy

● Radome from a 1:72 Hasegawa F-4E

● Wings, pylons and main landing gear from a 1:100 Tamiya F-105

● Stabilizer fins from a 1:72 Revell F-16, shortened

● Main wheels from a 1:72 Hobby Boss F-86F

● Fin from a 1:100 Il-28(!)

● Horizontal stabilizers from a 1:72 Matchbox A-7E w. reduced span

● Front wheel from an 1:72 Italeri A-4M

● Engine nozzle from a 1:72 Matchbox F-104G

● The afterburner inside is actually a sprocket wheel from an 1:72 ESCI M1A1 Abrams

● Cockpit tub and dashboard come from a 1:72 Heller Alpha Jet

● Seat and pilot from Matchbox (unknown origin)

The MiG-21 lost any characteristic detail (blow-in doors, 30mm cannons, slots for wings and stabilizers, even its fin and spine), and the landing gear wells were covered. The F-105 wings were placed slightly lower on the fuselage side. The fin was simply replaced, the tail a bit shortened and the new/bigger nozzle attached. The new nose had almost the same diameter as the original air intake piece from the Academy MiG-21F. For the Corsair II stabilizers, ‘consoles’ were added on the lower rear fuselage, so that they could also be placed in a lower position.

My plan/wish was to make the thing look as little MiG-21ish as possible, and IMHO I succeeded well. Actually, the Thunderdart reminds a LOT of the much bigger F-105, and there is also a lot of F-101 in it, too, despite its ADC livery? You take at least two looks, since proportions are different from the F-105, yet the thing looks VERY familiar… “Could it have been…?”

External loads were limited to just two AIM-9 training rounds with launch rails under the outer pylons, even though all wing pylons were fitted (the Tamiya kit has large slots to hold them, I was too lazy to fill them).

The cannon bulges, the IR sensor as well as some air scoops and antennae were sculpted from simple pieces of sprue or styrene.

Painting and markings:

As an USAF/ADC interceptor, an overall Aircraft Grey (FS 36473, used ModelMaster 1731) was clear from the start – and it’s actually a fine option, as the F-105 as lookalike benchmark was basically only operated in bare metal or SEA camouflage. An ADC aircraft would be deceiving, too, and provoke third looks.

The cockpit interior was painted medium grey, the landing gear wells in interior green and the air intakes in white with red trim.

Anyway, making an ANG aircraft from this base was more tricky. At first I wanted to create an Oklahoma ANG aircraft (had some nice markings for the fin, but they turned out to me too large since they belong to a modern F-16…), but finally settled on a D.C. Air Guard aircraft since I had such fuselage markings from a F-86H at hand.

Basic tone is an overall FS 16473 ADC Grey (Testors 1731), some panels on the upper side and the flanks were highlighted with a slightly lighter grey (FS 16515). The cockpit front area received a flat black anti-glare panel, to which a black trim was added - F-106 style, and this turned out to be VERY characteristic, if not deceiving! Around the rear fuselage some heat marks – reminiscent of the F-100 – were added through metallizer (Steel and Titanium, partly mixed with Humbrol 113, Rust) and some dry-painting. The kit was then lightly weathered through a thin wash with black ink and very light dry-painting with pale grey.

The colorful fin markings were designed by myself – inspired by a 2008 postal stamp from the ‘Flags of our Nation’series. My fin decoration is purely fictional, though, and incorporates the D.C. flag (two red horizontal bars on a white ground, with three red stars above) as well as some iconic cherry blossoms, as these seem to be a local identity symbol? Additionally the fin features on one side the District of Columbia Sign, on the other side the Eastern Air Defence Sector badge. The fin decoration was created on a PC with Corel Draw and printed on Experts' Choice white decal paper with an inkjet printer at 600dpi - even though the touchy decals suffered under the soaking process... A lot of cosmetic correction had to be done by hand/brush, it's far from perfect, just the result of my first large scale self-.made decal experiment. The rest of the markings were puzzled together from the scrap box.

After painting and decals, the kit received an overall coat of semi-gloss Humbrol varnish, since I wanted a slight shine but not a hi-gloss finish. The anti-glare panel was covered with matt varnish - which did not dry up properly, leaving a milky film. Nevertheless, it looks like sun-bleached black paint, so I kept it. Undesired side effect... The radome was painted with gloss varnish, so that three shades of black meet at the Thunderdart's nose.

A major kitbash. The Thunderdart looks unspectacular, but it is IMHO very deceiving. It combines characteristic elements of various Century fighters in shape and color, and it should keep some folks wondering what's actually wrong about it... Sleek aircraft - behold what's in a simple 1st generation MiG-21!

*As a side note: This what-if kit originally bore the designation “F-109”, which was originally allocated to a Bell VTOL aircraft that never made it beyond a mock-up stage. “F-109”, however, has recently found a common use for a fictional fighter which is more or less a crossbreed of an F-104 with F-100 wings and a low tail, so I switched to “F-112” for my own Thunderdart creation. “F-112” had NEVER been used, even though Douglas had used the F-112 code for an F-101 development, but only for internal purposes. Offially it has AFAIK never been used.

+++ 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 Indian „Samudree Baaj“ (समुद्री बाज, Sea Hawk) was a highly modified, navalized version of the British BAE Systems Hawk land-based training jet aircraft, which had been manufactured under license by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The first indigenously built Hawk Mk. 132 trainer was delivered in 2008 to the Indian Air Force, and the type has since then been updated with indigenous avionics into the “Hawk-I” Mk. 132 from 2020 onwards. The aircraft’s Rolls Royce Adour Mk 871 engine was also license-built by HAL, and the company had experience from a wide range of aircraft projects in the past.

In late 2020, the Indian Navy expected to commission Vikrant by the end of 2021. Until then, the Samudree Baaj fleet will remain land-based at INS Hansa near Goa. This not only is the INAS 300 home base, it is also the location of the Indian Navy's Shore Based Test Facility (SBTF), which is a mock-up of the 283-metre (928 ft) INS Vikramaditya (a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier) deck built to train and certify navy pilots, primarily the the Mikoyan MiG-29K for operating from the aircraft carrier, but now also for the Samudree Baaj and for the developmental trials of the naval HAL Tejas lightweight fighter.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 11.38 m (37 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 9.39 m (30 ft 10 in)

Height: 4.30 m (14 ft 1 in)

Wing area: 17.66 m2 (190.1 sq ft)

Empty weight: 9,394 lb (4,261 kg)

Gross weight: 12,750 lb (5,783 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 9,101 kg (20,064 lb)

Fuel capacity: 1,360 kg (3,000 lb) internal

3,210 kg (7,080 lb) with 3 drop tanks

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour Mk. 871-1N non-afterburning turbofan, 28,89 kN (6,445 lbf) thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,037 km/h (644 mph, 560 kn) at sea level

Maximum speed: Mach 1.2 (never exceed at altitude)

Cruise speed: 796 km/h (495 mph, 430 kn) at 12,500 m (41,000 ft)

Carrier launch speed: 121 kn (139 mph; 224 km/h)

Approach speed: 125 kn (144 mph; 232 km/h)

Never exceed speed: 575 kn (662 mph, 1,065 km/h) / M1.04 design dive limit

Stall speed: 197 km/h (122 mph, 106 kn) flaps down

Range: 892 km (554 mi, 482 nmi) internal fuel only

Combat range: 617 km (383 mi, 333 nmi) with 2x AGM-84 and 2x 592 l (156 US gal; 130 imp gal)

Ferry range: 1,950 km (1,210 mi, 1,050 nmi) with 3 drop tanks

Service ceiling: 15,250 m (50,030 ft)

G-limits: +8/-3

Rate of climb: 58.466 m/s (11,509.1 ft/min)

Takeoff distance with maximum weapon load: 2,134 m (7,001 ft)

Landing distance at maximum landing weight with brake chute: 854 m (2,802 ft)

Landing distance at maximum landing weight without brake chute: 1,250 m (4,100 ft)

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.181 in) Aden cannon with 150 rounds each

7× hardpoints (4× under-wing, 1× under-fuselage and 2 × wingtip)

for a total ordnance of 3.085 kg (6,800 lb) and a wide range of weapons

The kit and its assembly:

A subtle kitbashing project, inspired by a CG-rendition of a carrier-based (yet un-navalized) BAe Hawk 200 in Indian Navy service by fellow user SPINNERS in January 2021. I found the idea inspiring but thought that the basic concept could be taken further and into hardware form with a model. And I had a Matchbox Hawk 200 in The Stash™, as well as a McDonnell T-45 trainer from Italeri…

The plan sounds simple: take a T-45 and replace the cockpit section with the single-seat cockpit from the Hawk 200. And while the necessary cuts were easy to make, reality rears its ugly head when you try to mate parts from basically the same aircraft but from models by different manufacturers.

The challenges started with the fact that the fuselage shapes of both models differ – the Matchbox kit is more “voluminous”, and the different canopy shape called for a partial spine transplant, which turned out to be of very different shape than the T-45’s respective section! Lots of PSR…

In order to improve the pretty basic Matchbox Hawk cockpit I integrated the cockpit tub from the Italeri T-45, including the ejection seat, dashboard and its top cover.

For the totally different T-45 front wheel I had to enlarge the respective well and added a “ceiling” to it, since the strut had to be attached somewhere. The Hawk 200’s ventral tub for the cannons (which only the first prototype carried, later production aircraft did not feature them) were retained – partly because of their “whiffy“ nature, but also because making it disappear would have involved more major surgeries.

Most of the are behind the cockpit comes from the Italeri T-45, I just added a RHAWS fairing to the fin, extending it by 3mm.

A major problem became the air intakes, because the two kits differ in their construction. I wanted to use the Italeri parts, because they match the fairings on the fuselage flanks well and are better detailed than the Matchbox parts. But the boundary layer spacers between intakes and fuselage are molded into the Italeri parts, while the Matchbox kit has them molded into the fuselage. This called for major surgery and eventually worked out fine, and more PSR blended the rest of the fuselage donors around the cockpit together. A tedious process, though.

The pylons were puzzled together, including a former Matchbox EA-6B wing pylon under the fuselage, cut down and mounted in reverse and upside down! The ordnance comes from the Italeri NATO weapons set (Matra Magic and AGM-84), the ventral drop tank comes IIRC from an Eduard L-39 Albatros. Matra Magics were chosen because India never operated any Sidewinder AAM, just French or Soviet/Russian missiles like the R-60 or R-73 (unlikely on the Hawk, IMHO), and I had preferred a pair of Sea Eagle ASMs (from a Hasegawa Sea Harrier kit), but their span turned out to be too large for the Hawk’s low wings. The alternative, more slender Harpoons are plausible, though, since they are actually part of the Indian Navy’s inventory.

Painting and markings:

The Indian Navy theme was already settled, and I wanted to stay close to SPINNERS’ illustration as well as to real world Indian Navy aircraft. SPINNERS’ Hawk carried the typical Sea Harreir scheme in Extra Dark Sea Grey and White, and I found this livery to look a bit too much retro, because I’d place this what-if aircraft in the early 2020s, when the Sea Harriers had already been phased out. A “realistic” livery might have been an overall mid-grey paint scheme (like the land-based Indian Hawk 132s), but I found this to look too boring. As a compromise, I gave the Samudree Baaj a simple two-tone paint scheme, carried by a few late Indian Sea Harriers. It consists of upper surfaces in Dark Sea Grey (Humbrol 164) and undersides in Medium Sea Grey (Modelmaster 2058), with a low waterline. The Modelmaster MSG has – for my taste – a rather bluish hue and appears almost like PRU Blue, but I left it that way.

The decals were puzzled together from variosu sources. the roundels come from a MiG-21F (Begemot), the unit markings and tactical codes from a Model Alliance Sea Harrier sheet, and the stencils are a mix from the Matchbox Hawk 200 and the Italeri T-45.

The kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish from Italeri.

The fictional HAL „Samudree Baaj“ looks simple, but combining kits of the basically same aircraft from different manufacturers reveals their differences, and they are not to be underestimated! However, I like the result of a navalized Hawk single-seater, and - also with the relatively simple and dull livery - it looks pretty convincing.

Many thanks to SPINNERS for the creative inspiration - even though my build is not a 100% "copy" of the artwork, but rather a step further into the navalisation idea with the T-45 parts.

+++ 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.

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:

The Indian „Samudree Baaj“ (समुद्री बाज, Sea Hawk) was a highly modified, navalized version of the British BAE Systems Hawk land-based training jet aircraft, which had been manufactured under license by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The first indigenously built Hawk Mk. 132 trainer was delivered in 2008 to the Indian Air Force, and the type has since then been updated with indigenous avionics into the “Hawk-I” Mk. 132 from 2020 onwards. The aircraft’s Rolls Royce Adour Mk 871 engine was also license-built by HAL, and the company had experience from a wide range of aircraft projects in the past.

In late 2020, the Indian Navy expected to commission Vikrant by the end of 2021. Until then, the Samudree Baaj fleet will remain land-based at INS Hansa near Goa. This not only is the INAS 300 home base, it is also the location of the Indian Navy's Shore Based Test Facility (SBTF), which is a mock-up of the 283-metre (928 ft) INS Vikramaditya (a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier) deck built to train and certify navy pilots, primarily the the Mikoyan MiG-29K for operating from the aircraft carrier, but now also for the Samudree Baaj and for the developmental trials of the naval HAL Tejas lightweight fighter.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 11.38 m (37 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 9.39 m (30 ft 10 in)

Height: 4.30 m (14 ft 1 in)

Wing area: 17.66 m2 (190.1 sq ft)

Empty weight: 9,394 lb (4,261 kg)

Gross weight: 12,750 lb (5,783 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 9,101 kg (20,064 lb)

Fuel capacity: 1,360 kg (3,000 lb) internal

3,210 kg (7,080 lb) with 3 drop tanks

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour Mk. 871-1N non-afterburning turbofan, 28,89 kN (6,445 lbf) thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,037 km/h (644 mph, 560 kn) at sea level

Maximum speed: Mach 1.2 (never exceed at altitude)

Cruise speed: 796 km/h (495 mph, 430 kn) at 12,500 m (41,000 ft)

Carrier launch speed: 121 kn (139 mph; 224 km/h)

Approach speed: 125 kn (144 mph; 232 km/h)

Never exceed speed: 575 kn (662 mph, 1,065 km/h) / M1.04 design dive limit

Stall speed: 197 km/h (122 mph, 106 kn) flaps down

Range: 892 km (554 mi, 482 nmi) internal fuel only

Combat range: 617 km (383 mi, 333 nmi) with 2x AGM-84 and 2x 592 l (156 US gal; 130 imp gal)

Ferry range: 1,950 km (1,210 mi, 1,050 nmi) with 3 drop tanks

Service ceiling: 15,250 m (50,030 ft)

G-limits: +8/-3

Rate of climb: 58.466 m/s (11,509.1 ft/min)

Takeoff distance with maximum weapon load: 2,134 m (7,001 ft)

Landing distance at maximum landing weight with brake chute: 854 m (2,802 ft)

Landing distance at maximum landing weight without brake chute: 1,250 m (4,100 ft)

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.181 in) Aden cannon with 150 rounds each

7× hardpoints (4× under-wing, 1× under-fuselage and 2 × wingtip)

for a total ordnance of 3.085 kg (6,800 lb) and a wide range of weapons

The kit and its assembly:

A subtle kitbashing project, inspired by a CG-rendition of a carrier-based (yet un-navalized) BAe Hawk 200 in Indian Navy service by fellow user SPINNERS in January 2021. I found the idea inspiring but thought that the basic concept could be taken further and into hardware form with a model. And I had a Matchbox Hawk 200 in The Stash™, as well as a McDonnell T-45 trainer from Italeri…

The plan sounds simple: take a T-45 and replace the cockpit section with the single-seat cockpit from the Hawk 200. And while the necessary cuts were easy to make, reality rears its ugly head when you try to mate parts from basically the same aircraft but from models by different manufacturers.

The challenges started with the fact that the fuselage shapes of both models differ – the Matchbox kit is more “voluminous”, and the different canopy shape called for a partial spine transplant, which turned out to be of very different shape than the T-45’s respective section! Lots of PSR…

In order to improve the pretty basic Matchbox Hawk cockpit I integrated the cockpit tub from the Italeri T-45, including the ejection seat, dashboard and its top cover.

For the totally different T-45 front wheel I had to enlarge the respective well and added a “ceiling” to it, since the strut had to be attached somewhere. The Hawk 200’s ventral tub for the cannons (which only the first prototype carried, later production aircraft did not feature them) were retained – partly because of their “whiffy“ nature, but also because making it disappear would have involved more major surgeries.

Most of the are behind the cockpit comes from the Italeri T-45, I just added a RHAWS fairing to the fin, extending it by 3mm.

A major problem became the air intakes, because the two kits differ in their construction. I wanted to use the Italeri parts, because they match the fairings on the fuselage flanks well and are better detailed than the Matchbox parts. But the boundary layer spacers between intakes and fuselage are molded into the Italeri parts, while the Matchbox kit has them molded into the fuselage. This called for major surgery and eventually worked out fine, and more PSR blended the rest of the fuselage donors around the cockpit together. A tedious process, though.

The pylons were puzzled together, including a former Matchbox EA-6B wing pylon under the fuselage, cut down and mounted in reverse and upside down! The ordnance comes from the Italeri NATO weapons set (Matra Magic and AGM-84), the ventral drop tank comes IIRC from an Eduard L-39 Albatros. Matra Magics were chosen because India never operated any Sidewinder AAM, just French or Soviet/Russian missiles like the R-60 or R-73 (unlikely on the Hawk, IMHO), and I had preferred a pair of Sea Eagle ASMs (from a Hasegawa Sea Harrier kit), but their span turned out to be too large for the Hawk’s low wings. The alternative, more slender Harpoons are plausible, though, since they are actually part of the Indian Navy’s inventory.

Painting and markings:

The Indian Navy theme was already settled, and I wanted to stay close to SPINNERS’ illustration as well as to real world Indian Navy aircraft. SPINNERS’ Hawk carried the typical Sea Harreir scheme in Extra Dark Sea Grey and White, and I found this livery to look a bit too much retro, because I’d place this what-if aircraft in the early 2020s, when the Sea Harriers had already been phased out. A “realistic” livery might have been an overall mid-grey paint scheme (like the land-based Indian Hawk 132s), but I found this to look too boring. As a compromise, I gave the Samudree Baaj a simple two-tone paint scheme, carried by a few late Indian Sea Harriers. It consists of upper surfaces in Dark Sea Grey (Humbrol 164) and undersides in Medium Sea Grey (Modelmaster 2058), with a low waterline. The Modelmaster MSG has – for my taste – a rather bluish hue and appears almost like PRU Blue, but I left it that way.

The decals were puzzled together from variosu sources. the roundels come from a MiG-21F (Begemot), the unit markings and tactical codes from a Model Alliance Sea Harrier sheet, and the stencils are a mix from the Matchbox Hawk 200 and the Italeri T-45.

The kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish from Italeri.

The fictional HAL „Samudree Baaj“ looks simple, but combining kits of the basically same aircraft from different manufacturers reveals their differences, and they are not to be underestimated! However, I like the result of a navalized Hawk single-seater, and - also with the relatively simple and dull livery - it looks pretty convincing.

Many thanks to SPINNERS for the creative inspiration - even though my build is not a 100% "copy" of the artwork, but rather a step further into the navalisation idea with the T-45 parts.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

The Fiat Macchi C.170 Brezza ("Gust of wind") was a single-seat biplane fighter which served primarily in Italy's Regia Aeronautica before and in the early stages of World War II. The aircraft was produced by the Varese firm, and entered service, in smaller numbers, with the air forces of Italy, Austria and Hungary.

Although an obsolete design, it proved to be robust, durable and effective especially in severe conditions. In spring 1943, surviving C.170s were rounded up from training schools and delivered to night ground attack units operating on the Eastern Front. The C.170 was used to conduct night harassment sorties on the Eastern Front until September 1944, when the units were disbanded, due to a lack of serviceable airframes and spare parts.

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 8.25 m (27 ft 1 in)

Wingspan: 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)

Height: 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m)

Wing area: 323 ft² (30.0 m²)

Empty weight: 3,217 lb (1,462 kg)

Loaded weight: 4,594 lb (2,088 kg)

Powerplant

1× Fiat A.74 R.C.38 14-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, 650 kW (870 hp) at 2,520 rpm for take-off

Performance

Maximum speed: 441 km/h (238 kn, 274 mph) at 20,000 ft

Cruise speed: 338 km/h (187 kn, 210 mph)

Range: 780 km (420 nmi, 485 mi)

Service ceiling: 10,210 m (33,500 ft)

Rate of climb: 11.8 m/s (2,340 ft/min)

Climb to 10,000 ft (3,050 m): 4.75 min

Wing loading: 69,6 kg/m² (15,3 lb/ft²)

Power/mass: 311 W/kg (0.19 hp/lb)

Armament

2× 12.7 mm (0.5 in) Breda-SAFAT synchronized machine guns above the engine, 370 rpg

Some aircraft were field-modified to carry up to 8× 15 kg (33 lb) or 2× 50 or 100 kg (110/220 lb) bombs under the wings

The kit and its assembly

Inspiration for this little, whiffy biplane came when I posted a pic of an Austrian Ju 86 bomber as a reply/ suggestion to a fellow modeler's (NARSES2) search at whatifmodelers.com for “something” to make from a Gloster Gladiator.

When I looked at the paint scheme a second time I remembered that I still had some Austrian roundels in stock, as well some very old biplane spare parts... hmmm.

Biplanes are tricky to build, even OOB, and kitbashing this kind of whif would not make things easier. Anyway, I love such challenges, and the potential outcome would surely look nice, if not exotic, so I decided to tackle the project.

Basically, the following donation ingredients went into it:

● Fuselage, engine, cockpit/pilot and tail from a Revell Macchi C.200 "Saetta"

● Upper wing from a Matchbox Gloster "Gladiator"

● Lower wings from a Matchbox SBC "Helldiver"

● Wheels from a Matchbox Hs 126 (shortened)

Pretty straightforward, but even though it would be a small aircraft model, it would come with two big challenges: mounting the lower wings and shaping the resulting, gaping belly, and the custom-made struts and wirings for the upper wing.

Work started with the Macchi C.200’s fuselage, which was built OOB - just without the wing, which is a single part, different pilot (the included one is a pygmy!) and with a free spinning metal axis for the propeller.

The wing installation started with the lower wings. I glued the Helldiver wings onto the C.200 fuselage, so that the wings' trailing edge would match the C.200's wing root ends. From that, a floor plate was fitted under the fuselage and any excessive material removed, the gaps filled with lumps of 2C putty. That moved the lower wing's roots backwards, creating space at the lower forward fuselage for the new landing gear.

The latter was taken from a vintage Matchbox Hs 126 reconnaissance aircraft - probably 25, if 30 years old... Size was O.K., but the struts had to shortened by about 5mm, as thge HS 126 is a much bigger/longer aircraft than the C.200. A cut was made just above the wheel spats, material taken out, and the separate parts were glued back together again.

With the lower wings in place I started building strut supports for the upper wing from styrene strips - tricky and needs patience, but effective. I started with the outer supports, carving something SBC-style from styrene. These were glued into place, slightly canted outwards, and their length/height adapted to the upper wing’s position.

When this was settled, the upper Gladiator wing was glued into place. After a thorough drying period the short fuselage supports in front of the cockpit – again, styrene strips – were inserted into the gap. This allowed an individual lengthening, and was easier than expected, with a stable result.

After having the upper wing glued in place I added some wiring, made from heated and pulled-out styrene sprues. This not only enhances the kit's look, it also (just like in real life) improves rigidity of the model. Also a tedious task, but IMHO worth the effort. I tried thin wire, nylon strings and sewing yarn for this job, but finally the styrene solution is what worked best for me.

The exhaust installation had also to be modified: the new Hs 126 struts with spats would have been where the original C.200’s hot exhaust gases would have gone, so I added new exhaust pipes that would go between the new legs.

Other small added details included, among others, a pitot on a wing strut, a visor in front of the cockpit, a radio antenna, a ladder made from wire.

Painting and markings:

I would not call the Austrian 3+1-tone pre-WWII-scheme spectacular, but the colors are unique. My scheme is based on an Austrian Ju 86 bomber from 1938, so it fits into the intended time frame.

The colors were puzzled together from various sources and are subjective guesstimates:

● A pale, yellow-ish beige (Humbrol 74, ‘Linen’, out of production)

● A rather brownish green (Testors 1711, ‘Olive Drab’, FS 34087)

● A dark green with a yellow-ish hue (Humbrol 116, ‘US Dark Green’ FS 34079)

● Light blue for the undersides (Humbrol 65, ‘Aircraft Blue’, RLM 65)

In order to add some details I painted the area behind the engine cowling in aluminum. The respective part under the fuselage, where the exhaust gases would pass, was painted in Steel – both Testors Metallizers.

The interior surfaces were painted in a neutral Grey – but with the engine and the pilot in place you cannot see anything of that at all.

Markings are minimal: the Austrian roundels come from a TL Decals aftermarket sheet, the flag on the rudder was laid out with red paint (a mix of Humbrol 19 and 60), the white bar is a decal. The tactical code is fictional, puzzled together from single digits in various sizes (also from TL Modellbau sheets). The original documents how purely black fuselage codes, but I found these hard to read. So I chose digits with a white rim (actually, these belong to modern German Luftwaffe tactical codes in 1:32), which improve contrast a little.

The kit received a thin black ink wash and some shading/dry-painting with lighter basic tones (Humbrol 103, 155, Model Master 2138,‘Israeli Armor Sand Grey’, and Humbrol 122). After decal application, another turn with overall Hemp and Light Grey was done in order to fade contrast and to emphasize the surface structure. The wires were also painted, but only with thinned black ink and a VERY soft brush.

Finally, everything was sealed under a spray coat of matt acrylic varnish.

Voilà, and done in just about a week!

Phicen Kimi kitbash

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

After World War I, the German aircraft industry had several problems. German airlines were forbidden to operate multi engine aircraft and during a period all manufacturing of aircraft in Germany was banned. By 1921, some of the restrictions was lifted, civilian aircraft could be made after approval of an international control commission if they fulfilled certain requirements. To bypass these rules and to be able to make whatever aircraft they wanted several aircraft manufacturers moved abroad. In 1921, Carl Bücker handled the purchase of a reconnaissance aircraft from Caspar-Werke in Travemünde. Because they expected problems due to the rules in the peace treaty regarding the export of German fighter aircraft, Bücker explored the possibility to smuggle the parts out of Germany and assemble the aircraft in Sweden.

Because the airframes were still young and had a lot of service life ahead of them, most SA-16s were from 1941 on relegated to patrol and reconnaissance missions along the Swedish coastlines, observing ship and aircraft traffic in the Baltic Sea and undertaking rescue missions with droppable life rafts. For long-range missions, the forked ventral swing arm was replaced with a fixed plumbed pylon for an external 682 liters (150 Imp. gal.) auxiliary tank that more than doubled the aircraft’s internal fuel capacity of 582 liters, giving it an endurance of around 8 hours. In many cases, the machine guns on these aircraft were removed to save weight. In this configuration the SA-16 was re-designated S 9 (“S” for Spaning) and the machines served in their naval observation and SAR role well into the Fifties, when the last SA-16s were retired.

General characteristics:

Crew: two, pilot and observer

Length: 9,58 m (31 ft 11 in)

Wingspan: 10,67 m (34 ft 11 in)

Height: 3,82 m (12 ft 6 in)

Wing area: 30.2 m² (325 sq ft)

Empty weight: 2,905 kg (6,404 lb)

Gross weight: 4,245 kg (9,359 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 4,853 kg (10,700 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Mercury XII nine-cylinder radial engine with 880 hp (660 kW),

driving a three-bladed variable pitch metal propeller

u>Performance:

Maximum speed: 319 km/h (198 mph, 172 kn) at 3,650 m (11,980 ft)

274 km/h (170 mph; 148 kn) at sea level

299 km/h (186 mph; 161 kn) at 2,000 m (6,600 ft)

308 km/h (191 mph; 166 kn) at 5,000 m (16,000 ft)

Stall speed: 110 km/h (68 mph, 59 kn)

Range: 1,260 km (780 mi, 680 nmi)

Service ceiling: 7,300 m (24,000 ft)

Time to altitude: 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in 4 minutes 45 seconds

4,000 m (13,000 ft) in 15 minutes 10 seconds

Armament:

2× fixed 8 mm (0.315 in) Flygplanskulspruta Ksp m/22F (M1919 Browning AN/M2) machine guns

in the wings outside of the propeller disc (with 600 RPG), plus

1× 8 mm (0.315 in) Ksp m/22F machine gun on a flexible mount in the rear cockpit with 800 rounds

Ventral and underwing hardpoints for a total external bomb load of 700 kg (1,500 lb)

The kit and its assembly:

This purely fictional Swedish dive bomber was inspired by reading about Flygvapnet‘s pre-WWII trials with dive bombing tactics and the unsuited aircraft fleet for this task. When I found a Hasegawa SOC Seagull floatplane in The Stash™ and looks at the aircraft’s profile, I thought that it could be converted into a two-seat monoplane – what would require massive changes, though.

However, I liked the SOC’s boxy and rustic look, esp. the fuselage, and from this starting point other ingredients/donors were integrated. Work started with the tail. Originally, I wanted to retain the SOCs fin and stabilizer, but eventually found them oversized for a land-based airplane. In the scrap box I found a leftover fin from an Academy P-47, and it turned out to be a very good, smaller alternative, with the benefit that it visually lengthened the rear fuselage. The stabilizers were replaced with leftover parts from a NOVO Supermarine Attacker – an unlikely choice, but their size was good, they blended well into the overall lines of the aircraft, and they helped to stabilize the fin donor. Blending these new parts into to SOC’s hull required massive PSR, though.

The wings were also not an easy choice, and initially I planned the aircraft with a retractable landing gear. I eventually settled on the outer wings (just outside of the gullwing kink) from an MPM Ju 87 B, because of their shape and the archaic “double wings” that would complement the SOC’s rustic fuselage. However, at this point I refrained from the retractable landing gear and instead went for a fixed spatted alternative, left over from an Airfix Hs 123, which would round up the aircraft’s somewhat vintage look. Because the wheels were missing, I inserted two Matchbox MiG-21 wheels (which were left over in the spares bin from two different kits, though). The tail wheel came from an Academy Fw 190.

Cowling and engine inside (thankfully a 9-cylinder radial that could pose as a Mercury) were taken OOB, just the original two-blade propeller was replaced with a more appropriate three-blade alternative, IIRC from a Hobby Boss Grumman F4F. The cockpit was taken OOB, and I also used the two pilot figures from the kit. The rear crew member just had the head re-positioned to look sideways, and had to have the legs chopped off because there’s hardly and space under the desk with the radio set he’s sitting at.

The ventral 500 kg bomb came from a Matchbox Ju 87, the bomb arms are Fw 189 landing gear parts. Additional underwing pylons came from an Intech P-51, outfitted with 50 kg bombs of uncertain origin (they look as if coming from an old Hasegawa kit). The protruding machine gun barrel fairings on the wings were scratched from styrene rod material, with small holes drilled into them.

A real Frankenstein creation, but it does not look bad or implausible!

Painting and markings:

I gave the B 9 a camouflage that was carried by some Flygvapnet aircraft in the late Thirties, primarily by fighters imported from the United States but also some bombers like the B 3 (Ju 86). The IMHO quite attractive scheme consists on the upper surfaces of greenish-yellow zinc chromate primer (Humbrol 81, FS 33481), on top of which a dense net of fine dark green wriggles (supposed to be FS 34079, but I rather used Humbrol 163, RAF Dark Green, because it is more subdued) was manually applied with a thin brush, so that the primer would still shine through, resulting in a mottled camouflage.

On the real aircraft, this was sealed with a protective clear lacquer to which 5% of the dark green had been added, and I copied this procedure on the model, too, using semi-gloss acrylic varnish with a bit of Revell 46 added. The camouflage was wrapped around the wings’ leading edges and the spatted landing gear was painted with the upper camouflage, too.

The undersides were painted with Humbrol 87 (Steel Grey), to come close to the original blue-grey tone, which is supposed to be FS 35190 on this type of camouflage. The tone is quite dark, almost like RAF PRU Blue.

The interior was painted – using a Saab J 21 cockpit as benchmark – in a dark greenish grey (RAL 7009).

The model received the usual light black ink washing and some post-panel shading on the lower surfaces, because this effect would hardly be recognizable on the highly fragmented upper surface.

The markings are reflecting Flygvapnet’s m/37 regulations, from the direct pre-WWII era when the roundels had turned from black on white to yellow on blue but still lacked the yellow edge around the roundel for more contrast. F6 Västgöta flygflottilj was chosen because it was a dive bomber unit in the late Thirties, and the individual aircraft code (consisting of large white two-digit numbers) was added with the fin and the front of the fuselage. “27” would indicate an aircraft of the unit’s 2nd division, which normally had blue as a standardized color code, incorporated through the blue bands on the spats and the small "2nd div." tag on the rudder (from a contemporary F8 Swedish Gladiator).

Roundels and codes came from an SBS Models sheet, even though they belong to various aircraft types. Everything was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The English Electric Skyspark was a British fighter aircraft that served as an interceptor during the 1960s, the 1970s and into the late 1980s. It remains the only UK-designed-and-built fighter capable of Mach 2. The Skyspark was designed, developed, and manufactured by English Electric, which was later merged into the newly-formed British Aircraft Corporation. Later the type was marketed as the BAC Skyspark.

The Skyspark's direct replacement was the Tornado F.3, an interceptor variant of the Panavia Tornado. The Tornado featured several advantages over the Skyspark, including far larger weapons load and considerably more advanced avionics. Skysparks were slowly phased out of service between 1974 and 1988, even though they lasted longer than expected because the definitive Tornado F.3 went through serious teething troubles and its service introduction was delayed several times. In their final years, the Skysparks’ airframes required considerable maintenance to keep them airworthy due to the sheer number of accumulated flight hours.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 51 ft 2 in (15,62 m) fuselage only

57 ft 3½ in (17,50 m) including pitot

Wingspan: 34 ft 10 in (10.62 m)

Height: 17 ft 6¾ in (5.36 m)

Wing area: 474.5 sq ft (44.08 m²)

Empty weight: 31,068 lb (14,092 kg) with armament and no fuel

Gross weight: 41,076 lb (18,632 kg) with two Red Tops, ammunition, and internal fuel

Max. takeoff weight: 45,750 lb (20,752 kg)

Powerplant:

2× Rolls-Royce Avon 301R afterburning turbojet engines,

12,690 lbf (56.4 kN) thrust each dry, 16,360 lbf (72.8 kN) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: Mach 2.27 (1,500 mph+ at 40,000 ft)

Range: 738 nmi (849 mi, 1,367 km)

Combat range: 135 nmi (155 mi, 250 km) supersonic intercept radius

Range: 800 nmi (920 mi, 1,500 km) with internal fuel

1,100 nmi (1,300 mi; 2,000 km) with external overwing tanks

Service ceiling: 60,000 ft (18,000 m)

Zoom ceiling: 70,000 ft (21,000 m)

Rate of climb: 20,000 ft/min (100 m/s) sustained to 30,000 ft (9,100 m)

Zoom climb: 50,000 ft/min

Time to altitude: 2.8 min to 36,000 ft (11,000 m)

Wing loading: 76 lb/sq ft (370 kg/m²) with two AIM-9 and 1/2 fuel

Thrust/weight: 0.78 (1.03 empty)

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.181 in) ADEN cannon with 120 RPG in the lower fuselage

2× forward fuselage hardpoints for a single Firestreak or Red Top AAM each

2× overwing pylon stations for 2.000 lb (907 kg each)

for 260 imp gal (310 US gal; 1,200 l) ferry tanks

The kit and its assembly:

This build was a submission to the “Hunter, Lightning, Canberra” group build at whatifmodellers.com, and one of my personal ultimate challenges – a project that you think about very often, but the you put the thought back into its box when you realize that turning this idea into hardware will be a VERY tedious, complex and work-intensive task. But the thematic group build was the perfect occasion to eventually tackle the idea of a model of a “side-by-side engine BAC Lightning”, a.k.a. “Flatning”, as a rather conservative alternative to the real aircraft’s unique and unusual design with stacked engines in the fuselage, which brought a multitude of other design consequences that led to a really unique aircraft.

And it sound so simple: take a Lightning, just change the tail section. But it’s not that simple, because the whole fuselage shape would be different, resulting in less depth, the wings have to be attached somewhere and somehow, the landing gear might have to be adjusted/shortened, and how the fuselage diameter shape changes along the hull, so that you get a more or less smooth shape, was also totally uncertain!

Initially I considered a MiG Ye-152 as a body donor, but that was rejected due to the sheer price of the only available kit (ModelSvit). A Chinese Shenyang J-8I would also have been ideal – but there’s not 1:72 kit of this aircraft around, just of its successor with side intakes, a 1:72 J-8II from trumpeter.

I eventually decided to keep costs low, and I settled for the shaggy PM Model Su-15 (marketed as Su-21) “Flagon” as main body donor: it’s cheap, the engines have a good size for Avons and the pen nib fairing has a certain retro touch that goes well with the Lightning’s Fifties design.

The rest of this "Flatning" came from a Hasegawa 1:72 BAC Lightning F.6 (Revell re-boxing).

Massive modifications were necessary and lots of PSR. In an initial step the Flagon lost its lower wing halves, which are an integral part of the lower fuselage half. The cockpit section was cut away where the intake ducts begin. The Lightning had its belly tank removed (set aside for a potential later re-installation), and dry-fitting and crude measures suggested that only the cockpit section from the Lightning, its spine and the separate fin would make it onto the new fuselage.

Integrating the parts was tough, though! The problem that caused the biggest headaches: how to create a "smooth" fuselage from the Lightning's rounded front end with a single nose intake that originally develops into a narrow, vertical hull, combined with the boxy and rather wide Flagon fuselage with large Phantom-esque intakes? My solution: taking out deep wedges from all (rather massive) hull parts along the intake ducts, bend the leftover side walls inwards and glue them into place, so that the width becomes equal with the Lightning's cockpit section. VERY crude and massive body work!

However, the Lightning's cockpit section for the following hull with stacked engines is much deeper than the Flagon's side-by-side layout. My initial idea was to place the cockpit section higher, but I would have had to transplant a part of the Lightning's upper fuselage (with the spine on top, too!) onto the "flat" Flagon’s back. But this would have looked VERY weird, and I'd have had to bridge the round ventral shape of the Lightning into the boxy Flagon underside, too. This was no viable option, so that the cockpit section had to be further modified; I cut away the whole ventral cockpit section, at the height of the lower intake lip. Similar to my former Austrian Hasegawa Lightning, I also cut away the vertical bulkhead directly behind the intake opening - even though I did not improve the cockpit with a better tub with side consoles. At the back end, the Flagon's jet exhausts were opened and received afterburner dummies inside as a cosmetic upgrade.

Massive PSR work followed all around the hull. The now-open area under the cockpit was filled with lead beads to keep the front wheel down, and I implanted a landing gear well (IIRC, it's from an Xtrakit Swift). With the fuselage literally taking shape, the wings were glued together and the locator holes for the overwing tanks filled, because they would not be mounted.

To mount the wings to the new hull, crude measurements suggested that wedges had to be cut away from the Lightning's wing roots to match the weird fuselage shape. They were then glued to the shoulders, right behind the cockpit due to the reduced fuselage depth. At this stage, the Lightning’s stabilizer attachment points were transplanted, so that they end up in a similar low position on the rounded Su-15 tail. Again, lots of PSR…

At this stage I contemplated the next essential step: belly tank or not? The “Flatning” would have worked without it, but its profile would look rather un-Lightning-ish and rather “flat”. On the other side, a conformal tank would probably look quite strange on the new wide and flat ventral fuselage...? Only experiments could yield an answer, so I glued together the leftover belly bulge parts from the Hasegawa kit and played around with it. I considered a new, wider belly tank, but I guess that this would have looked too ugly. I eventually settled upon the narrow F.6 tank and also used the section behind it with the arrestor hook. I just reduced its depth by ~2 mm, with a slight slope towards the rear because I felt (righteously) that the higher wing position would lower the model’s stance. More massive PSR followed….

Due to the expected poor ground clearance, the Lightning’s stabilizing ventral fins were mounted directly under the fuselage edges rather than on the belly tank. Missile pylons for Red Tops were mounted to the lower front fuselage, similar to the real arrangement, and cable fairings, scratched from styrene profiles, were added to the lower flanks, stretching the hull optically and giving more structure to the hull.

To my surprise, I did not have to shorten the landing gear’s main legs! The wings ended up a little higher on the fuselage than on the original Lightning, and the front wheel sits a bit further back and deeper inside of its donor well, too, so that the fuselage comes probably 2 mm closer to the ground than an OOB Lightning model. Just like on the real aircraft, ground clearance is marginal, but when the main wheels were finally in place, the model turned out to have a low but proper stance, a little F8U-ish.

Painting and markings:

I was uncertain about the livery for a long time – I just had already settled upon an RAF aircraft. But the model would not receive a late low-viz scheme (the Levin, my mono-engine Lightning build already had one), and no NMF, either. I was torn between an RAF Germany all-green over NMF undersides livery, but eventually went for a pretty standard RAF livery in Dark Sea Grey/Dark Green over NMF undersides, with toned-down post-war roundels.

A factor that spoke in favor of this route was a complete set of markings for an RAF 11 Squadron Lightning F.6 in such a guise on an Xtradecal set, which also featured dayglo orange makings on fin, wings and stabilizers – quite unusual, and a nice contrast detail on the otherwise very conservative livery. All stencils were taken from the OOB Revell sheet for the Lightning. Just the tactical code “F” on the tail was procured elsewhere, it comes from a Matchbox BAC Lightning’s sheet.

After basic painting the model received the usual black ink washing, some post-panel-shading and also a light treatment with graphite to create soot strains around the jet exhausts and the gun ports, and to emphasize the raised panel lines on the Hasegawa parts.

Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish and final bits and pieces like the landing gear and the Red Tops (taken OOB) were mounted.

A major effort, and I have seriously depleted my putty stocks for this build! However, the result looks less spectacular than it actually is: changing a Lightning from its literally original stacked engine layout into a more conservative side-by-side arrangement turned out to be possible, even though the outcome is not really pretty. But it works and is feasible!