+++ 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.

New/more pics from an older (and dusty...) model

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. Its production was preceded by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X was strictly a jet aircraft, built to demonstrate that a jet fighter with the features necessary to convert to Battroid mode was aerodynamically feasible. After the VF-X's testing was finished, an advanced concept atmospheric-only prototype, the VF-0 Phoenix, was flight-tested from 2005 to 2007 and briefly served as an active-duty fighter from 2007 to the VF-1's rollout in late 2008, while the bugs were being worked out of the full-up VF-1 prototype (VF-X-1).

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

General characteristics:

All-environment variable fighter and tactical combat Battroid,

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

Accommodation:

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

Dimensions:

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons;

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons;

MTOW: 37.0 metric tons

Power Plant:

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

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

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

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

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

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

g limit: in space +7

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

Design Features:

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

Transformation:

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

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

Armament:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

or a combination of above load-outs

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

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

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

The model and its assembly:

This is a major kit conversion, or better a kitbashing with major scratch work involved. By the time I built this model, there were no convincing 1:100 kits of the so-called "Super / Strike Valkyries" around. These VF-1s carry rocket boosters for non-atmospherical use, so-called FAST packages ("Fuel And Sensor Trays"). However, parts for these space operation packages are included in some ARII Battroid kits.

This is the second of such conversions I did on the basis of a 1:100 Bandai (ex Arii) Gerwalk Valkyrie model, with additional leftover pieces from Super Valkyrie kits in Battroid mode and even from vintage Imai transformable kits.

The legs in retracted position were completely built through kitbashing, since the FAST packages would hardly fit under the body. The folded arms between the legs were improvised and heavily tailored to fit into the narrow space between the legs as good as possible. Real arm parts would not fit at all!

The "UUM-7" rocket launchers with 5 x 3 HMM-01missiles each were built from scratch. other added details include a pilot figure and better cockpit interior parts, plus some other details like antennae that the simple, original kits lack.

Painting and markings:

The color scheme is based on the standard VF-1A livery, even though I used a lighter tan (RAF "Hemp", B.S. 4800/10B21, e .g. used on Nimrod sea patrol aircrafts or VC-10 tankers - Humbrol 168) instead of brown. The lighter contrast areas were painted in ivory (Humbrol 41) instead of pure white, the FAST packs received a grey finish (FS 36081, Humbrol 32).

What's a bit special about the colored details of this semi-fictional Valkyrie is that the squadron insignia is original Japanese: The panda with the red lightning is the emblem of the 203rd hikotai, a real world JASDF fighter squadron that used to fly F-86 Sabre and F-104 Starfighters – with some fantasy, you can read the "203" in the lightning's outline! The kit's idea was to show what a machine from such a "real" squadron might look like if it was (still) existent in the Macross universe?

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 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 .

+++ 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:

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.

Supermarine Shrike Mk1 (Type 250) #

Kitbashed Airfix Mk1 spit with nose and spated wheels from A-Model Hawker Fury.

Fuselage and wings shortened by a scale 2ft, nose grafted on from Fury for RR Kestrel power, rear cockpit faired in, rear flying surfaces reprofiled, scratchbuilt fixed undercarriage with spated wheels from Fury and lots of filler.

Camouflaged in RAF Light Earth, Light Green, Azure blue, markings from ancient superscale RAF interwar sheet and spares. Main paints MRP Lacquers, weathered with hairspray chipping technique and oil paints.

Short back story...

Britain intervenes in Abyssinia crisis, has a skirmish with Italy (think Spanish civil war only smaller scale) leading to longer proxy war with Italy and Germany.

Full Story:

Supermarine (Type 250) Shrike Mk1

Following the lessons learned from their failed Type 224, Supermarine’s next fighter project was initially a private venture and not to any specific Ministry requirements; they aimed to produce an aircraft that used proven technology while still offering a significant step up in capability. While more powerful engines were in the pipeline the proven Rolls Royce Kestrel was selected albeit with some modest tweaks to the supercharger and intake system to increase its performance, all metal monocoque construction was employed based on their experience with the Type 224 and their Schneider Trophy winning seaplanes. Named Shrike after the small predatory songbird the result was an aircraft touted in the press as the world’s first 300mph Interceptor, in reality the Shrike could only just attain 280mph under test conditions and operationally less than that but it still represented a healthy leap in performance over the Hawker Fury and Gloster Gauntlet it was intended to replace. Although no Specification existed to suit the Shrike one was created to hasten the RAFs entry into the Monoplane era and to ensure it stayed at the fore front of aviation technology, and so in July 1936 the Supermarine Shrike Mk1 entered service with 56 Squadron at RAF North Weald; the squadron had little time to get accustomed to their new mounts as Britain had decided to show solidarity with The Kingdom of Ethiopia (then commonly known as Abyssinia) in its occupation by Italian forces.

The RAF’s newest fighter was to be deployed but only to operate in a purely defensive capacity in the hope that their presence would stop aerial attacks, allowing the Ethiopian forces to at least hold their own. The League of Nations failure to oppose Italy’s occupation of Abyssinia had emboldened Germany’s chancellor Adolf Hitler who in March 1936 had marched troops into the Rhineland, Britain, fearing Italy would look to do the same towards their interests in the Mediterranean, chose to use the Abyssinia Crisis as an opportunity for a show of force as a deterrent to such aspirations. In December 1936 the RAF deployed 56 Squadron along with two squadrons of Hawker Harts which immediately began patrols, this initially had the desired effect, the Ethiopian Troops had been mercilessly gassed and strafed and the sight of patrolling Shrikes had an instant effect on moral; this however was to be short lived.

On New year’s day 1937 the Regia Aeronuatica attacked the RAF field at Addis Ababa damaging several aircraft but ultimately only causing minor damage, the first shots however had been fired and on 3rd January the RAF retaliated with a low level attack; the shooting war had begun proper. Attacks by formations of SM.81 bombers escorted by Fiat CR32 fighters quickly became the order of the day and 56 Squadron found itself engaged in WW1 style dogfights with the nimble Fiats, the Shrike had a higher top speed and could out climb and dive the biplane fighters but the Italians had the edge in roll and turn rate; the Ethiopian forces were mesmerized watching the melee occurring over their heads and would often risk standing out in the open during bombing raids to cheer on the RAF.

War had never actually been declared between Italy and Great Britain and this was still seen as something of a skirmish by the worlds Press, this changed on February 1st when Italy launched a pre-emptive strike on British forces on the island of Malta sinking HMS Glorious and damaging several other Royal Navy ships in Grand Harbour. The Anglo-Italo war had begun.

+++ 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.

+++ 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.

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.

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?

+++ 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 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.

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?

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.

+++ 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 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 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 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 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 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!

+++ 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!

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 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.

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, well hidden 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.

Putting the other half of that Calth characters sprue to use. This was a pretty simple kitbash, even if making room for the Terminator Lord head took a bit of creative cutting.

Really happy with the end result of this conversion, and the base - a mini diorama of sorts, I suppose - was quite the striking success, in my opinion. Certainly not bad for a spare bloodletter head, some hot glue and a paperclip. :)

If I could choose to improve on one thing, it would be the glow of the staff head - I've tried blue glows a few times, without any great success. Might be that I simply don't have the right colours - I may have to pick up some electric blue layers if I keep making psykers.

All in all though, proud of this project and somewhat self-satisfied to be able to say I now have a fully converted representation of each Chaos Marine HQ. I may have to add alternative versions as time goes on - a Jump Pack Lord, a Sorcerer on a Disc of Tzeentch, etc - but for now, I'd say this is quite an achievement in of itself. :)

C&C appreciated as always!

+++ 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!

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.

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.

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. 😉

How it came to be:

This model was initially inspired by a "what if" illustration of a Westland Wyvern in Russian markings (which looked disturbingly realistic...). I have always been fascinated by this brutal construction on the thin line between the prop and jet age, and building one had been a vague plan for a long time. But instead trying to get my hands on a Trumpeter Wyvern in 1:72 I thought: well, if I was going "what if", then I could also build the plane from scratch.

While browsing sources and older Hobby Japan issues, I came across the Sanka and Skyly fighters from Bandai - and things fell together. Why not build a fighter in the post-WWII look of "The Sky Crawlers"?

The construction:

The kit was constructed as a kitbashing, with some scratch elements added. Design benchmark was the Westland Wyvern, but the Skyly J2 also had some influence, as well as various turboprop prototype of the US Navy, esp. the Ryan "Darkshark".

What went into this model:

North American F-86 Sabre (1:72, Hobby Boss):

- Fuselage

- Cockpit interior

- Canopy

Vought F4U-5 Corsair (1:72; Revell):

- Wings

- Landing gear & wheels

- Antennae

Mitsubishi A6M Zero (1:72 , Hasegawa)

- Engine cowl

Gloster Meteor NF.11 (1:72, Xtrakit/Matchbox):

- Vertical fin & horizontal stabilizers

Other smaller donations:(

- McDonnell Douglas F-18A Hornet (1:72, Italieri):

Turboprop spinners (= drop tank halves)

- Martin B-26 Marauder (1x Matchbox, 1x Airfix): Propeller blades

- McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom (1:72, Matchbox):

RAF reconnaissance pod

- Grumman F9 Panther: underwing hardpoints

- Kamov Ka-34 "Hokum" (1:72, ESCI): jet exhaust bulges

- WWII pilot figure from an unknown Airfix kit

Building the thing went pretty straightforward. F-86 hull and the Mitsubishi Zero engine cowl were glued together and four coats of NC putty melted the into one. Only a small slit between fuselage and propeller was left open as an air intake for the turboprop engine.

The Corsair wings were taken right out fo the box and could be merged with only minor modifications. On the upper side of the wing/body intersection, bulges for the jet exhaust pipes were added on the fuselage flanks (they were intended to end behind the wings' trailing edge), they consist of parts of the engine pods of a Kamov Ka-34 "Hokum" kit from ESCI. Later, the fuselage was drilled open at their ends and sunk exhaust funnels added - simple polystyrene pipes of 6mm diameter.

A similar pipe was vertically fitted into the fuselage at the plane's CG, for in-flight display (photography purposes).

The cruciform tail comes from an Xtrakit Gloster Meteor NF.11. Originally I planned just to replace the Sabre tail with the complete Meteor tail cone, but the latter turned out to be too slim! As an emergency remedy, I only used the the Meteor's fin and cut away the original jet exhaust of the Sabre - replacing it with a new, fatter tail cone which was built with parts from an RAF F-4 reconnaissance pod from a Matchbox kit (and lots of putty, though). The result is a rather massive tail which reminds of a Mitsubishi Zero's shape, but overall the lines blend well.

The contraprops were built from scratch, and for photography purposes I built tweo specimen: one with propeller blades for static display, and the other one with two clear plastic discs, as if the propellers were running full speed. The base for both is a drop tank from an Italieri F-18 Hornet kit. For the static contraprop, this base was even cut in two and an axis fitted - the propeller is actually fully functional! Its propeller blades come from B-26 Marauder kits and were fitted with reversed pitches, so that the contra-rotating construction would be realistic. Inside of the fuselage, a plastic pipe was used as an adapter for both propellers, making the easily interchangeable.

Even though weapon hardpoints were added, the remained empty - even though my construction looks rather like an attack plane, I wanted to keep a clean air-to-air look and leave a clear view onto the very good Corsair landing gear. The latter was taken 1.1 from the donation kit, just the rear wheel was modified (w/o arresting hook) and a respective compartment cut out of the tail cone.

Livery and markings:

Another subject which was rather difficult. With "whif" planes, you easily end up with prominent markings and camouflage schemes - many such kits bear a Luft'46 look. While this would have been a nice option, I also considered Russian markings (on a pure Aluminum livery or a simple green/light blue cammo scheme). Even painting the whole thing dark blue and adding some white stars would have been a plausible option.

But for a special twist, I wanted to "catch" the retro but subtly colourful spirit of The Sky Crawlers, avoiding a retro-Luftwaffe look. First idea was something that would have looked like an USAF Mustang in late WWII: lower side bare metal, upper sides olive drab and some flashy colours on the spinner, wings and tail. But then I remembered "something different".

The final paint scheme was heavily derived from a rather weird livery which the P-47M "Thunderbolts" from the 63rd fighter squadron, 56th fighter group, 8th Air Force, based in the UK in the final WWII months. Those machines wore a bluish-grey two-tone camouflage on the upper sides, with bare metal undersides. The wings leading edges would be bare metal, too, the engine adorned with a red band and the vertical rudder would be blue. Pretty unique - and AFAIK there's even an airworthy P-47 in this guise around in the USA, flown/kept up by the Confederate Air Force historic flight. This specific machine was actually the benchmark for my paint scheme, because its colours are rather bright.

I more or less sticked to the P-47 paint scheme, just raised the bare metal undersides on the flanks and used brighter colors. These are:

- Testors #1562 "Flat Light Blue"

- Testors #2074 "RLM24 Dunkelblau"

- Testors #1401 "Aluminum Plate" Metallizer

All interior surfaces were painted with RLM02 from Testors, the spinner is plain Testors #1103 "Red". The white stripes were cut from a plain white decal sheet from TL Modellbau, the red insignia are actually French WWII squadron markings in 1:48 scale - also aftermarket pieces from Peddinghaus Decals. Stencelling and bort numbers come from the scrap box.

With the overall exotic shape and cammo scheme, I decided to leave other markings simple and rather neutral – no shark mouth or nose art, even though there would have been plenty of space for such a detail. But I think it would distract too much, and AFAIK no plane in The Sky Crawlers bears such flashy decoration.

The kit was lightly weathered with thinned black paint and some dry painting with shades of grey, plus gun smoke and exhaust fumes with dry-painted black. Everything was sealed under a thin coat of semi-matte varnish.

Final words:

This thing looks disturbingly realistic and plausible, even in its bright livery! While the finish is not perfect (hey, it is scratchbuilt!), the Fafnir (named after a German mythical dragon) really looks like a project from the late 40ies, one of the final high end fighters with a propeller. I am rather surprised how good the result became, and it is exciting to see how such a project evolves step by step, only with a vague idea as a basis. Won't be the last kitbashing!

+++ 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!

The Supermarine Spitfire was a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, using several wing configurations, and it was produced in greater numbers than any other British aircraft. It was also the only British fighter produced continuously throughout the war.

Since the Taurus-powered Spitfire turned out to be quite ineffective (it was no good either in the fighter or in an alternative ground attack role and 20 mph slower than the comparable Mk. V), production was already stopped in late 1942 after 353 aircraft. At the same time, the Spitfire Mk. IX with a much more powerful Merlin engine entered service, and all resources were immediately allocated to this more potent fighter variant and the idea of the Spitfire with a radial engine was ultimately dropped. Since the Taurus-powered type was quickly phased out of frontline service, the designation was later re-used for a pressurized high-altitude photo reconnaissance variant of the Spitfire, the PR.X, of which only 16 machines were built.

General characteristics:

Crew: one pilot

Length: 29 ft 6 in (9.00 m)

Wingspan: 32 ft 2 in (9.80 m)

Height: 11 ft 5 in (3.86 m)

Wing area: 242.1 ft2 (22.48 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 2213 (root)

NACA 2209.4 (tip)

Empty weight: 5,065 lb (2,297 kg)

Loaded weight: 6,622 lb (3,000 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 6,700 lb (3,039 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Taurus VI 14-Cylinder sleeve valve radial engine, 1.130 hp (830 kW)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 350 mph (312 kn, 565 km/h)

Combat radius: 410 nmi (470 mi/756 km)

Ferry range: 991 nmi (1,135 mi/1,827 km)

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

Rate of climb: 2,535 ft/min (12.9 m/s)

Wing loading: 27.35 lb/ft2 (133.5 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.22 hp/lb (0.36 kW/kg)

Armament:

2× 20 mm Hispano Mk II with 60 RPG

4× .303 in Browning Mk II machine guns with 350 RPG

The kit and its assembly:

My third contribution to the “RAF Centenary” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and the next one in chronological order. This one was spawned by the simple thought of “What would a Spitfire with a radial engine look like…?”. I have seen this stunt done in the form of a Fw190/Spitfire kitbash – nice result, but it did IMHO just not look like a “real” Spitfire with a radial engine, rather like an Fw 190 with elliptical wings. And the fact that I had already successfully transplanted a Centaurus engine onto a P-51 airframe made me feel positive that the stunt could be done!

Consequently, the conversion was pretty straightforward. The basis is a Revell 1:72 Spitfire VB (1996 mold), which was – except for the nose section – taken OOB. A simple, nice kit, even though it comes with some flaws, like a depression at the rear of the wing/fuselage intersection and the general need for PSR – not much, but I expected a better fit for such a relatively young mold?

For the engine, I used a personal replacement favorite, the cowling and the engine block from a Mitsubishi A6M2 “Zero” (Hasegawa). The Nakajima Sakae radial engine has a relatively small diameter, so that it serves well as a dummy for the compact Bristol Taurus engine – a replacement I have already used for a radial-powered Westland Whirlwind. The other benefit of the small diameter is that it is relatively easy to blend the round front end into the oval and very slender fuselage of the early Spitfire airframe. This was realized through massive body sculpting from scratch with 2C putty, widening the area in front of the cockpit and expanding its width to match the cowling – I guess that real life engineers would have followed a similar, simple path.

Since the radial engine would not need a radiator, I simple omitted this piece (cut out from the single piece lower wing half) and faired the respective underwing area over with a piece of styrene sheet and PSR. The asymmetrical oil cooler was retained, though. The propeller is a replacement from the scrap box, with a smaller diameter spinner and more slender blades which better suit the open cowling.

Since the Taurus had its best performance at low altitudes, I used the Revell kit’s OOB option of clipped wing tips – a move that makes the aircraft look much faster, esp. with the new, deeper nose section.

Painting and markings:

I did not want classic RAF markings, but still keep the model well within the Centenary GB confines. The original plan had been a classic Dark Green/Ocean Grey livery, which all Spitfire’s in USAAF service and based in the UK received. But I rather wanted to create a frontline aircraft, operated during Operation Torch in late 1942/early 1943 with American roundels – and the grey/green look would not look plausible on a machine taking part in the North African campaign. In fact, any Spitfire with American roundels I found that was used in North Africa carried the RAF Tropical Scheme in Dark Earth/Middle Stone. And, AFAIK, during Operation 'Torch' all British aircraft received American markings in the hope that the Vichy French, who were anti-British due to them bombing their ships in 1940, would switch to the allied cause. They were supposed to think that the Americans would be invading, not British troops as well. So I eventually switched to the classic Tropical Scheme (using Humbrol 29 and Modelmaster 2052 as basic tones), and it does not look bad at all - even though the yellow trim around the roundels does not stand out as much as on a Grey/Green aircraft.

Typically, the RAF codes were retained, as well as – at least during the early phases of Operation Torch – the RAF fin flash. A little personal twist is the pale blue (Humbrol 23, Duck Egg Blue) underside of the aircraft, instead of the typical Azure Blue. The rationale behind is that the Tropical Scheme was originally designed with Sky undersides, and the blue shades were later modifications after initial field experience.

The red spinner is a typical Northern Africa marking, and found on many 5th FS aircraft.

The interior (cockpit, landing gear wells) was painted with RAF Cockpit Green (Modelmaster), while wheels and struts became light grey.

As a standard procedure, the kit received a light black ink wash and a post shading treatment.

The decals were puzzled together from various sheets and sources, the design benchmark was a real USAAF Spitfire Vb from Operation Torch, though. The code letters were taken from an Xtradecal sheet, the roundels come from a Carpena Spitfire sheet, even though I placed American markings in all six positions – the roundels without yellow trim under the wings were taken from a Hobby Boss F6F sheet.

The serial number comes from the Revell kit’s OOB sheet, because it fits perfectly into the kit’s intended time frame. The nose art comes from a P-38 sheet (PrintScale) – not a typical feature for an RAF Spitfire, but a frequent personal decoration among USAAF machines during Operation Torch (e.g. on P-40s).

The Allied yellow ID markings on the wings’ leading edges, which were typically carried by Operation Torch Spitfires, too, were created with generic yellow decal sheet (TL Modellbau), while the maroon machine gun nozzle covers are part of Revell’s OOB sheet.

Finally, the kit received some soot stains around gun and exhaust nozzles, and was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

A bold experiment, and it turned out well. The Zero’s cowling has the perfect diameter for this transplant, and the scratch-sculpted new front fuselage section blends well with the new engine – the whole thing really looks intentional! I am just not certain if the resulting aircraft still deserves the “Spitfire” designation? Even though only the engine was changed, the aircraft looks really different and has a Ki-43ish aura? I guess that a dark green livery and some hinomaru would also look great and pretty plausible?

Chicago & Northwestern RS-3 #4250 sits outside the Green Bay roundhouse. The following information came from the Utah Rails C&NW diesel roster:

C&NW 4250, as C&NW 1613, re-powered by ALCO, March 1960, using an 1,800 horsepower 251 engine and a new RS-11 style long hood, renumbered to 4250 in 1981.

It was retired in August, 1983 and scrapped not long after this shot.

New pics form an old kit - and a special one it is. Even though there are Valkyrie kits with the FAST packages for deep space use available, this is a self-made conversion with many extra parts from various Valkyrie kits and some extra "functions".

The basis originally wa a normal amd rather simple 1:100 ARII Battroid mode VF-1A kit. But legs, arms and especially the torso were modified, or replaced with "better" donation parts.

Besides the FAST pack additions, the legs received additional joints in the thighs. The hip mounting was totally mofidied to allow 3D movement of the legs - it is a completely different lower body part from a transformable IMAI 1:100 Valkyrie.

The lower arms also received FAST pack additions (which include more detailed missiles, from the Valkyrie fighter mode kits) and further additional joints in the upper arms as well as new, more delicate hands to give a more agile impression. The latter come from leftover Dorvack PA-58 Powered Armors kits, actually they are 1:24th scale!

In order to keep the proportions of the more slender lower body from the transformable kit in tune with the upper torso, the latter had to be elongated.

The upper body's back side was totally modified to hold moveable wings, also from a transformable Valkyire kit in 1:100. Thorugh this huge modification the wings can now actually be swung into landing position, and even seperate rocket pods can be added in 4 vinyl caps! On the downside, the wings in forward position prevent free movement of the arms... one of the mysteries that surround the VF-1's construction. ;)

The FAST rocket boosters on the back* are leftover standard pieces from a 1:100 scale Bandai VF-1 Gerwalk kit, but also modified in detail.

Finally, the color scheme: it is a standard pattern of Roy Fokker's "Skull" squadron, just displaying a Valkyrie "from the lot", nothing specific.

Basis is an overall satin white, and almost all squadron markings in black and blue were applied with paint and by hand, since no decals for this "version" were available at the time of making.

* For the die-hard fans: this depicted weapon/Battroid arrangement is not authentic. The Rö-X2A shoulder laser can (according to Macross folklore) only be mounted on VF-1S Valkyries, the A, J and D versions only take the "simple" rocket pods. But it looks cool...! ;)

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

Bell's P-76 had its roots in the P-39 Airacobra, one of the principal American fighter aircraft in service when the United States entered World War II.

Only about 80 of this unique aircraft were built, before production switched to the more conventional P-63 Kingcobra.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 26 ft 10 1/2 in (8.2 m)

Wingspan: 31 ft 3 in (9,54 m)

Height: 13 ft (3.96 m)

Wing area: 190 sq ft (17.71 m²)

Empty weight: 4.900lb (2.225 kg)

Loaded weight: 6.530 lb (2.965 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 7.709 lb (3.500 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Allison V-1710-47R liquid-cooled V12 engine, 1,325 hp (955 kW),

driving a four-blade pusehr propeller

Performance:

Maximum speed: 390 mph at 19,300 ft (628 km/h)

Range: 635 mi (1,020 km)

Service ceiling: 35,000 ft (10,700 m)

Rate of climb: 3,750 ft/min (19 m/s)

Wing loading: 34.6 lb/sq ft (169 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.16 hp/lb (0.27 kW/kg)

Time to climb: 15,000 in 4.5 min at 160 mph (260 km/h).

Armament:

1x 1.5 cal. (37 mm) M4 cannon in the nose with 30 rounds of HE-T ammunition

4x .50 cal. (12.7 mm) Browning M2 machine guns, nose-mounted with 200 RPG

Up to 1.000 lb or ordnance, including a drop tank or (rarely used) a single 1.000 lb bomb on

a centerline pylon; alternatively two 500 lb (230 kg) bombs under the wings or six unguided

HVAR missiles.

The kit and its assembly:

This shinden-esque whif aircraft was spawned by a series of P-39 CG illustrations - modified skins for a flight simulator which depicted the Airacobra as a pusher with a canard layout. This looked very interesting, and since I had a Hobby Boss P-39Q in the stash with no real plan until now, I gave the inspiration green light and turned on the saw.

The CGs already showed some inplausibilities, though - all perspectives were carefully taken from a shallow side perspective, hiding problematic areas! So, soon it became clear that my build could not be a 1:1 copy of the virtual art, because that would either not be possible, or simply look poor in hardware form.

As consequence, the simple P-39 pusher conversion idea turned into a major kitbash and body sculpting job, that somehow looked more and more like a diminuitive Kyushu J7W Shinden!?

What went into the thing:

● Central fuselage with engine, cockpit and front end of a Hobby Boss P-39

● Wings from a revell Me 262

● Horizontal stabilizers from an Italeri Fw 190

● The twin fins are stabilizers from the Me 262, too

● The propeller comes from the MPM P-47H kit

● Landing gear was scratched from the spares box

A lucky find were the Me 262 wings: they perfectly fit in depth onto the Airacobra's fuselage, and they added the "modern" look I was looking for. The original wings were simply to straight and deep, proportions would hardly work. Unfortunatly this meant that the cutouts on the wings for the Me 262's engine nacelles had to be filled, and that the landing gear wells had to be improvised, too. The wings roots had to be re.sculpted, too, since the Me 262 wings are much thinner than the P-39's.

Another problem was the fuselage's relative length - with the tail cut off, it's just too short in order to take canards on the nose - that was already recognizable in the CGs where the front fuselage had been stretched.

I did the same, with two measures: Firstly, a 10mm plug was inserted in front of the cockpit - a massive lump of putty that was sanded into shape. Furthermore, just glueing the spinner onto the nose would not yield a proper look. So I added a P-38 nose (Airfix kit) that was reduced in height and re-scuplted the lower fuselage, adding depth. As a consequence, the front wheel well moved forward and had to be re-shaped, too. Lots of messy putty work!

A third dubious section was the propeller, or better its interesction with the fuselage. Again, the CGs did not yield any potential solution. Since pusher props call for ground clearance I decided to fix the propeller axis so high that the spinner would be flush with the aircraft's spine - the pointed XP-47H propeller (It's one massive piece, with lots of flash...) was perfect and finally found a good and unexpected use. As per usual I built a metal axis construction with a styrene tube adapter inside the fuselage for the propeller, so that it can spin freely.

In order to shape a more or less elegant transition from the oval P-39 fuselage to the round spinner I added another plug, about 5mm long and again sculpted from putty.

With that in place the overall proprotions became clearer. Next step was to clip the Me 262 wings, so that the span would match the fuselage length, and I had to devise a way to mount fins. The CG just used the P-39's stabilizers, vertically placed on the wings' trailing edge. But, again, this does not work well in hardware form. These "fins" are much too tall, and just mounting them in that place looks rather awkward.

My solution was then to add small carrier booms - actually these a massive, modern 500 lb bombs without fins, placed on the trailing edges and protruding. This makes a more plausible and stable-looking base for fins, IMHO, and after several options (including P-51 and P-47 stabilizers)I used trimmed Me 262 stabilizers. Their sweeped leading edge matches the wings' shape just well - and the Fw 190 stabilizers which were glued to the nose as canards also look in-style, and overall more modern than the P-39's rounded wing shapes.

Slowly the P-76 took more and more shape, and I was surprised how much it started to resemble the Kyushu Shinden, which was a bigger aircraft, though.

Painting and markings:

A weird aircraft needs IMHO a rather subtle paint scheme, so I settled for a standard USAAF livery with overall Olive Drab upper sides, some Medium Green blotches on all wing surfaces and Neutral Grey undersides.

As basic colors I used Modelmaster's ANA 613 for the upper surfaces and FS 36231 (instead of the true Neutral Grey FS 36173) for the lower sides; the green blotches are frequently quoted as FS 34096, but this is IMHO too "green", the tone has a rather blue-ish hue. So I went for a more a yellow-ish tone and settled for Humbrol 102 (Army Green). All tones were later lightened and weathered through dry-painting (also highlighting some panels) and a black ink wash - both tones somewhat came closer to each other through this treatment, but I think this happened on real world aircraft, too?

The only colorful highlight is a yellow nose.

All interior surfaces were painted in zinc chromate primer: on top of an olive green base (Humbrol 159) some dry-painting with Modelmaster's Zinc Chromate Green was added.

Markings were puzzled together from various sources. The red-rimmed Stars-And-Bars were AFAIK still in use in late 1943, and they add some contrast to the otherwise simple aircraft. The white stripes were used as ID markings in the Aleutian theatre - another small individual note. Otherwise, P-40's of the 344th FS/343rd FG were used as benchmarks.

In the end, and interesting experiment that shows that CG ideas must not translate well into model kit hardware form. Nevertheless, the P-76 looks interesting - at some times I thought it would look rather German or like an aircraft from Captain America or the 'The Sky Crawlers' anime movie?

Jiaou Doll wheat skin big bust figure .

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

Under the Treaty of Trianon (1920), Hungary was forbidden from owning military aircraft. However, a secret air arm was gradually established under the cover of civilian flying clubs. During 1938, as a result of the Bled agreement, the existence of the Royal Hungarian Air Force (Hungarian: Magyar Királyi Honvéd Légierő (MKHL)), was made known. The army's aviation service was reorganized and expanded.

Late 1938 the army aviation was once again reorganized. Admiral Horthy, the head of state, ordered that the army aviation should become an independent service with effect of 01.09.1939. It subsequently participated in clashes with the newly established Slovak Republic and in the border confrontation with the Kingdom of Romania.

In 1940, the decision was made to unite the Air Force, the anti-aircraft forces, and the civilian air defense organizations under one central headquarters. In April 1941, operations were conducted in support of the German invasion of Yugoslavia and, on 27 June 1941, Hungary declared war on the Soviet Union.

On 01.06.1941, the Air Defense Corps was established, and Lieutenant General Béla Rákosi became Commander of Army Aviation. In effect the Air Force had once again become part of the Army. In the summer of 1942, an air brigade was attached to the Luftwaffe's VIII. Fliegerkorps at the Eastern Front.

At that time, most of the Hungarian Air Force's fighter equipment was of German origin, consisting of types like Bf 109 F and G, Fw 190 A/F, Me 210. But some indigenous designs were under development, too, e. g. at the RMI, Repülo Muszaki Intézet, or Aviation Technical Institute. Its aircraft were primarily (but not exclusively) by László Varga, and as a result, RMI designs were often given the Varga name (in some cases, even when he was not the major designer). But the RMI designation was used in parallel, too.

One of the domestic developments was the RMI-11 'Sólyom' (= Falcon) fighter. This single engine aircraft drew heavily upon the Bf 109 design, but featured some changes and improvements like an inward-retracting landing gear or a bubble canopy. It also incorporated elements from the heavy RMI-8 fighter, a push/pull design with twin tail booms, but the RMI-8’s sole prototype was destroyed by Allied air raids before a serious test program could be launched.

In contrast to the complex RMI-8 the RMI-11 was a small and light aircraft, a conventional but clean design, based on simple shapes for easy, modular production. Most of its structure was made from wood, saving sparse metal whenever possible. Empty weight was, for instance, about 200 kg less than a contemporary Bf- 109 G.

The RMI-11 was driven by a liquid-cooled DB 605 inverted V12 engine, rated at 1.475 hp. Thanks to the low weight of the airframe, the machine achieved a high top speed and an exceptional high rate of climb.

Originally designed as a fast and agile interceptor in the early stages of WWII, the RMI was only armed with two 13mm MG 131 with 300 RPG and two 7.92 mm MG 17 in the outer wings. Two underwing hardpoints could carry up to 100 kg each.

The RMI-11 prototype made its maiden flight in late 1943 and after a basic but successful test program immediately ordered into production – in a hurry, though, and beginning March 1944, Allied bomber raids began on Hungary and progressively increased in intensity.

Production of the RMI-11 gained only slowly momentum, due to material shortages, because the RMI-11was primarily of plywood bonded with a special phenolic resin adhesive that was supplied from German sources. Due to Allied bombing raids on the glue’s original production sites the plywood glue had to be replaced by one that was not as strong, and was later found to react chemically, apparently in a corrosive manner, with the wood in RMI-11’s structure. In November 1944, several RMI-11s crashed with wing and tail failures due to plywood delamination. This same problem also critically affected the German Focke Wulf Ta 154 and Heinkel He 162 programs.

Late in 1944 all efforts were redirected towards countering the advancing Red Army. Soon it was clear that the type needed long range cannons with higher caliber in order to encounter heavy Allied bombers, so plans were made to add heavier German armament. This was realized through an extra pair of MG 151/20 20 mm cannons with 150 RPG, which were added in fairings under the wings instead of the original bomb hardpoints (which were hardly ever used in service at all). During the same refit, the rather ineffective MG 17s were deleted, saving weight and leaving more room inside of the wings for the MG 131s’ ammunition supply (now with 400 RPG)

At that time only about 60 production aircraft had been completed and modified, and production was halted due to the severe structural problems. These machines were nevertheless thrown into service, with repairs and upgrades done at the Hungarian airfields – but the glue problem was a constant operational danger.

Still, all these efforts were to no avail: All fighting in Hungary ended on 16 April 1945, and all RMI-11’s were scrapped after hostilities ended.

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 8.82 m (28 ft 10 ½ in)

Wingspan: 10.58 m (34 ft 8 in)

Height: 4.10 m (13 ft 5 in)

Wing area: 16.82 m² (181.00 ft²)

Empty weight: 1,964 kg (4,330 lb)

Loaded weight: 2,200 kg (4,840 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 2,395 kg (5,280 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Daimler-Benz DB 605A-1 liquid-cooled inverted V12, 1,475 PS (1,085 kW)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 640 km/h (398 mph) at 6,300 m (20,669 ft)

Cruise speed: 590 km/h (365 mph) at 6.000 m (19.680 ft)

Range: 850 km (528 mi)

Service ceiling: 12.000 m (39.370 ft)

Rate of climb: 17.0 m/s (3.345 ft/min)

Wing loading: 196 kg/m² (40 lb/ft²)

Power/mass: 344 W/kg (0.21 hp/lb)

Armament:

2× 13mm MG 131 (.51 in) machine guns in the wings,400 RPG, plus 2× 20mm MG 151/20 (.51 in) machine cannons, 150 RPG, in external underwing fairings.With the cannons deleted up to 8× 15 kg (33 lb) or 2× 50, 100, or 150 kg (110, 220, or 330 lb) bombs under the wings

The kit and its assembly:

This is a serious kitbash and a totally fictional aircraft - and you are IMHO an expert modeler if you recognize what basically went into it!

This build was inspired when I recently bought an RS Models Nakajima Kikka jet fighter, the double seater kit. As a bonus it comes with two fuselages: effectively, it is the single seater kit with an extra sprue and a different canopy. Looking at the Kikka's profile I found that it HAD to be converted into a piston engine aircraft, with a liquid-cooled engine. Wings and anything else would come from the scrap box, but it should become a sleek fighter aircraft, a late WWII design.

From that, things went straightforward:

● Fuselage from a RS Models Nakajima N9J1 "Kikka", front end cut away

● Wings from an Revell Macchi C.200 Saetta

● Stabilizers from an Art Model MiG I-210 fighter

● Canopy from a late Supermarine Spitfire (Special Hobby, IIRC)

● Nose/engine and radiators from an RS Models Ki-78

● The propeller was scratched from single pieces/blades and the Ki-78 spinner

● The landing gear is a Ki-78/C.200 parts mix.

I settled for the Ki-78's radiator installment on the rear flanks because it is a unique feature and simply does not hamper the sleek side profile. I also thought that this might have been a smart solution for modular production - fuselage and wings could be completed separately.

The Ki-78 engine had to be widened considerably to match the Kikka’s trapezoidal fuselage diameter, putty and major sculpting resulted in a relatively smooth and subtle intersection. As per usual, an axis construction for the propeller was added, too, so that it can spin freely. Mating wings and fuselage necessitated a new cockpit floor (which acts at the same time as landing gear well interior), and a 3mm bridge at the wing roots had to filled – but that was easy.

The cockpit interior was outfitted with spares, the Spitfire canopy needed some small styrene wedges under the windshield to make it fit onto the Kikka fuselage.

Things went rather smoothly until I fixed the wings to the completed fuselage. However I placed them, it looked odd – too far back, and the nose stood out; too far forward, and the tail was too long. Somehow, proportions did not match – only slightly, but it bugged me. So far that I eventually decided to shorten the fuselage – after having completed it, radiators already in place and everything sanded even. I made a vertical cut behind the cockpit and removed ~7mm of length – and suddenly the aircraft looked good! Needed some extra body work, but the aircraft looks much more balanced now.

The underwing fairings for the cannons were late additions, too. I wanted to keep the fuselage clean, with no nose guns, but adding heavier armament turned out to be tricky. The fairing solution was inspired by a real-world Fw 190 Rüstsatz which featured two MG 151/20 apiece. I had appropriate parts from an Academy Fw 190 left over, so I sliced these up and narrowed them for a single cannon each, and this was the right size for the slender aircraft. All gun barrels were created through heated and pulled-out styrene tubes.

Painting and markings:

Deciding what this aircraft was to become was tougher than building it! With its clearly German origin it had to be a WWII Axis type, but I did neither want a German nor a Japanese aircraft, even Italy was ruled out – all too obvious. With Hungary and its RMI designs I eventually found a good potential origin, and this also allowed a rather "colorful" livery. With the Hungarian background this kitbash became the RMI-11.

The paint scheme was inspired by an experimental Hungarian camouflage in Green, Gray and Brown, seen on a Bf 109G. I could not find color indications, but in the end I settled for three RLM tones for the upper sides, RLM 71, 75 and 79, coupled with RLM 76 for the lower sides. All tones are enamels from Modelmaster's Authentic range, panels and leading edges were slightly emphasized with lighter shades. As a small design twist I added a wavy, medium waterline on the fuselage sides.

Interior surfaces were, lacking any reference, kept in RLM 02. In order not to be too fanciful, the spinner became black with a green tip (RLM 62), and the blades were painted with a mix of RLM 70 (Black Green) and Black, for a very dark and dull green tone, Luftwaffe style.

The yellow markings correspond to German Luftwaffe markings of the late WWII era, the yellow 45° “V” under the lower left wing was introduced in the Balkan region in 1944, it was also carried by Luftwaffe aircraft in this conflict theatre.

The flashy decoration on all tail surfaces disappeared at that time on real aircraft (only small Hungarian flags were carried on the tail rudder), but I still incorporated the full national insignia because it's unique and a colorful contrast to the rest of the aircraft.

Most markings belong to a real Hungarian Bf 109G (from a Print Scale aftermarket sheet), I just scratched the national markings on the fuselage and the yellow markings (all cut from stock decal material) and parts of the Hungarian flag insignia on the tail: the tips were painted with red, the white and green bands were cut to measure from a Frecce Tricolori sheet.

A light black ink wash was applied and some dry painting added with gray and black (for soot and exhaust stains), for a lightly weathered effect. As final step, everything was sealed under matt acrylic varnish (Revell).

A quickie, done in just a week, but with a very convincing look. One might recognize Bf 109 F/G, Ki-78 and even He 100 features, but none of these aircraft really matches up with the RMI-11 at second glance, there are too many individual differences. If it gets you wondering – mission accomplished! ;)