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 Lavochkin OKB was founded in 1937 as OKB-301, a Soviet aircraft design bureau. The head designer was Vladimir P. Gorbunov. On October, 1945 Semyon Lavochkin was promoted for the head designer of the design bureau. The OKB gained distinction for its family of piston-engined fighter aircraft during World War II, and later shifted to missile and jet fighter designs.

The surviving "172 Red" prototype eventually ended up as an instructional airframe at the Kremenchuk Flight College of the National Aviation University, and it was scrapped in 1965.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 12.78 m (41 ft 10 in)

Wingspan: 11.27 m (36 ft 11 in)

Height: 4.59 m (15 ft 12 in)

Wing area: 21.7 m² (234 ft²)

Empty weight: 4,060 kg (8,951 lb)

Loaded weight: 6,473 kg (14,272 lb)

Fuel capacity: 1.350 kg

Max. takeoff weight: 7,130 kg (15,720 lb)

Powerplant:

2× Tumansky RD-10 YuF axial turbojets, each with 8.83 kN (1,984 lbf)dry thrust

and 11.17 kN (2,510 lbf) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: 900 km/h (559 mph)

Range: 1,050 km (652 mi)

Service ceiling: 11,450 m (37,565 ft)

Rate of climb: 1,200 m/min (At max weight of 7,130 kg) (3,900 ft/min)

Thrust/weight: 0.28

Armament:

2x Nudelman-Richter NR-23 23 mm (0.9") cannon in the lower right fuselage with 100 RPG

1x Nudelman-Suranov NS-45 45 mm (1.8") cannon in the lower left fuselage (30 RPG)

The kit and its assembly:

My fourth entry to the early 2016 Cold War GB at whatifmodelers.com. Again, it's a project from the long ideas list that finally made it to the hardware stage through a GB's occasion.

This one was originally inspired by an illustration in what I deem a 1950s book about aircraft, including Soviet designs. Based on vague pictures and probably lots of speculation, it is funny to see what the enemy's aircraft were supposed to look like.

In this case, my benchmark was a rather fictional "Lavochkin La-16" fighter, which looked like a travesty version of a Republic F-84G with engine pods under its wings. Actually, the painting rather shows the Yak-25 all-weather interceptor, but you can only recognize it if you know hat you were looking for!

Anyway, the idea of a modified Thunderstreak had some charm, and this is what my kitbash for a fictional Soviet fighter is based upon. For a stronger retro feeling I used the straight wing F-84G, a Heller kit which donated its fuselage and landing gear.

The wings come from a PM Model Ta 183, the engine nacelles (from a Matchbox Me 262) were inserted as spacers into the wings. Their wing position was defined by the landing gear starts' length.

The original nose air intake was closed with a radome from an F-94C (Emhar) and the tail shortened - mostly because of the new swept tail surfaces, which come from a KP MiG-15 (a horribly crude kit!).

While this combination sounds harmless the integration of the parts took some serious effort and sculpting with putty!

Painting and markings:

As a classic Soviet prototype of the Fifties, choice of livery was simple: an all-metal finish with some Red Stars plus a code number.

At first, and also in order to control the surface finish after all the PSR work, the kit received a uniform coat with "White Aluminum" acrylic spray paint - this revealed several flaws.

Later, after mending many dents and scratches, several silver and grey shades were used on different panel and rudder areas, including Revell Acrylic Aluminum, Alu Plate, Steel, Magnesium and Titanium Metallizer as well as RAF Barley Grey.

The cockpit interior was painted with PRU Blue while the landing gear wells received a more grey-ish coat with FS 35237. Some red dots mark openings for fuel and oil and slightly brighten things up, as well as a red trim tab on the fin.

Grinded graphite was used for a weathered look and to emphasize the metallic impression. Panel lines were painted manually onto wings and fuselage with a very soft pencil.

After decal application (Red Stars from a Hobby Boss MiG-15, the tactical code was puzzled together from various sources) the kit was sealed under a semi-glossy coat of acrylic varnish.

Not a spectacular masterpiece, but a funny build and in so far interesting as Aircraft 171 rather appears like a pregnant Me 262 than a converted F-84F? Even the similarity with the Yak-25 is only remote, mostly in top view where the wing planform with the nacelles resembles the much bigger Soviet interceptor most? Still, this creation carries some of the Fifties/Cold War retro feeling.

+++ 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 Nakajima Ki-104 was a further development of the Ki-87; the latter was a Japanese high-altitude fighter-interceptor of World War II, a single seat, exhaust-driven turbo-supercharged engined, low-wing monoplane with a conventional undercarriage.

The first operational Ki-104s reached this unit in spring 1945 and saw limited use against the incoming streams of B-29 bombers (2 unconfirmed downings in the Tokyo region). After these initial contacts that left a serious impression the new type received the USAF code name "Cooper", but the hostilities' soon end however stopped any further work and serial production. No Ki-104 survived the war.

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: Tatsuo Hasegawa airfoil

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

Loaded weight: 6.450 kg (14.220 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Nakajima Ha219 [Ha-44-12] 18-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, 1,835 kW (2,461 hp)

Performance

Maximum speed: 712 km/h (385 kn, 443 mph)

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

Range: 2,100 km (1,305 mi)

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× 30 mm (1.18 in) Ho-155-II cannons in the wings

Underwing hardpoints and centerline pylon for up to 3× 250 kg (551 lb) bombs

or a single 300l drop tank under the fuselage

The kit and its assembly:

This whif is the result of many ideas and occasions. First of all, I had a leftover six-blade propeller from a Hasegawa J7W Shinden in stock. Then I recently had an eye on kits of late Japanese high altitude fighters with turbosuperchargers, like the Ki-91-II or the Ki-106. These are available from RS Models, but rare and rather costly. And I wondered how a P-47 might look like without its deep belly? All this was finally thrown into a big idea stew, and the Ki-104 is the home-made hardware result!

As a side note: the Ki-104 was a real IJA project, AFAIK based/related to the Tachikawa Ki-94-I twin-boom/push-pull high altitude fighter, a re-worked, more conventional design. Information is sparese and it never reached any hardware stage and remained a paper project as the Rikugun Kogiken Ki-104; I just "revived" the number for my whif, but maybe the real Ki-104 could have looked like it... ;-)

The kit is a bashing of various parts and pieces:

- Fuselage and wing roots from an Academy P-47-25

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

- Tail fin is a modified part of a Matchbox Ju 188 stabilizer

- The stabilizers are outer sections from a Matchbox Douglas F3D Skyknight

- Cowling comes from an ART Model Grumman F8F Bearcat, the engine was scratched

- Propeller from a Hasegawa J7W Shinden

- Main wheels from a Matchbox F6F Hellcat

My choice fell onto the Academy Thunderbolt because it has engraved panel lines, offers the bubble canopy as well as good fit and detail. The belly duct had simply been sliced off, and the opening later faired over with styrene sheet and putty.

The Bearcat cowling was chosen because it had very good fitting width in order to match with the P-47 fuselage, and it turned out to be a very good choice - even though I had to add a dorsal connection, a simple styrene wedge, to create a good profile.

Inside, the engine consists of a reversed Hobby Boss F6F engine, with a fan dummy that covers any view on non-existent interior details... A styrene tube was added, into which a metal axis can be inserted. The latter holds the propeller, so that it can spin with little hindrance.

The Attacker wings were chosen because of their "modern" laminar profile - the Novo kit is horrible, but acceptable for donations. And the risen panel lines and rivets should later do great work during the weathering process... 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 where the large wheel fairings for the main landing gear ends.

The intersection with the Attacker wings is almost perfect in depth and width, relatively little putty work was necessary. I just had to cut out new landing gear well parts.

With the new wing shape, the tail surfaces had to be changed accordingly, with parts from a Matchbox Skyknight and a highly modified piece from a Matchbox Ju 188 stabilizer.

The OOB cockpit and landing gear was retained, I just replaced the main wheels with slightly more delicate alternatives from a Matchbox F6F Hellcat.

Once the basic bodywork was done I added the exhaust arrangement under the fuselage; the outlets are oil cooler parts from a Fw 190A, the air scoop once belonged to a Martin Marauder and the long ducts are actually HO scale roof rails. The oil cooler under the engine comes from a Hobby Boss La-7.

Pretty wild mix, but it works surprisingly well!

Painting and markings:

Even though this was supposed to become a late WWII IJA fighter, I did neither want the stereotype NMF look nor the classic green/grey livery or a respective mottled scheme. What I finally settled upon, though, took a long while to manifest, and it looks ...odd.

I wanted a camouflage scheme, but none of the more exotic real world options was fine for me; there had been fighters with black upper surfaces, bright blue ones, or blue mottle on top of NMF. But all this did not convince me, and I eventually created an experimental scheme. And the paint was supposed to look heavily worn, as if the paint had been applied directly onto the bare metal, without primer, so that it chips and flakes off easily.

The tones were supposed to be suitable for high altitudes, but not the classic IJA colors - nothing even close. eventuelly I came up with an all-around turquoise green (ModelMaster Fulcrum Grey Green) plus a pale grey-green (ModelMaster RAF Dark Slate Grey) as contrast for the upper sides. Sick combination, yes, esp. with the Aluminum shining through, which was applied first as a kind of acrylic primer. The camouflage paint was carefully brushed on top of that, with panel-wise strokes from back to front. Tedious, but effective.

The black tail was applied similarly, it is a free interpretation of real IJA markings; for instance, the 244th Sentai arcraft bore all-red tail sections. Black is an uncommon color, but since I wanted to create fictional squadron markings, too, this was a suitable concept. And it looks cool and mysterious...

The cockpit interior was painted with Aodake Iro (Modelmaster), the section behind the pilot's seat and where the sliding canopy moves on the outside, were painted with IJA Dark Green - just an odd idea. In front of the cockpit a black anti glare panel was added. The landing gear and the respective wells were painted with Steel Metallizer (just to set them apart from the lighter Aluminum all around). The propeller was painted in reddish brown tones, the spinner in Humbrol 160 and the blades in 173.

After this basic painting the kit received a black ink wash, and decals were applied. These were taken from various aftermarket sheets, including generic, white and yellow sheet for the Home Defence markings on wings and fuselage, the white fuselage trim or the yellow ID markings on the wings' leading edges.

As next step the complete kit was carefully wet-sanded, primarily from front to back, so that more of the aluminum primer showed through, the decals (esp. the Hinomaru) were worn out and the camouflage paint on top lost some of its hard edges.

The sanding residues had to be cleaned away thoroughly (with a soft toothbrush and lots of water), and then, repairs, e .g. where the bare plastic came through, as well as extra effects with dry-painted, lighter camouflage tones were done. Final cosmetics also include oil and dirt stains with Tamiya"Smoke", also applied by brush.

Once everything was dry and clean (despite the kit's look), everything was sealed under a coat of varnish - a 3:1 mix of matt and gloss Revell Acrylics.

A complex and lengthy painting process, but I think the effort paid out because the procedure mimicks the structure and look of a worn paint job instead of trying to look like it when you paint a cammo scheme and add metal effects "on top". This works for small chips, but not for the flaked look I had been looking for.

The Ki-104 turned out to be a very conclusive kitbashing - I think that the P-47-with-Attacker-wings-and-new-cowling bears more potential, and I might try it again, e. g. for a naval Thunderbolt development?

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The РТАК-30 attack vintoplan (also known as vintokryl) owed its existence to the Mil Mi-30 plane/helicopter project that originated in 1972. The Mil Mi-30 was conceived as a transport aircraft that could hold up to 19 passengers or two tons of cargo, and its purpose was to replace the Mi-8 and Mi-17 Helicopters in both civil and military roles. With vertical takeoff through a pair of tiltrotor engine pods on the wing tips (similar in layout to the later V-22 Osprey) and the ability to fly like a normal plane, the Mil Mi-30 had a clear advantage over the older models.

And this was just about to happen: Despite the РТАК-30’s development problems, the innovative attack vintoplan was included in the Soviet Union’s 5-year plan for 1989-1995, and the vehicle was eventually expected to enter service in 1996. However, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dwindling economics, neither the РТАК-30 nor its civil Mil Mi-30 sister did soar out in the new age of technology. In 1990 the whole program was stopped and both surviving РТАК-30 prototypes were mothballed – one (the 3rd prototype) was disassembled and its components brought to the Rostov-na-Donu Mil plant, while the other, prototype No. 1, is rumored to be stored at the Central Russian Air Force Museum in Monino, to be restored to a public exhibition piece some day.

General characteristics:

Crew: Two (pilot, copilot/WSO) plus space for up to three passengers or cargo

Length: 45 ft 7 1/2 in (13,93 m)

Rotor diameter: 20 ft 9 in (6,33 m)

Wingspan incl. engine nacelles: 42 ft 8 1/4 in (13,03 m)

Total width with rotors: 58 ft 8 1/2 in (17,93 m)

Height: 17 ft (5,18 m) at top of tailfin

Disc area: 4x 297 ft² (27,65 m²)

Wing area: 342.2 ft² (36,72 m²)

Empty weight: 8,500 kg (18,740 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 12,000 kg (26,500 lb)

Powerplant:

4× Klimov VK-2500PS-03 turboshaft turbines, 2,400 hp (1.765 kW) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 275 knots (509 km/h, 316 mph) at sea level

305 kn (565 km/h; 351 mph) at 15,000 ft (4,600 m)

Cruise speed: 241 kn (277 mph, 446 km/h) at sea level

Stall speed: 110 kn (126 mph, 204 km/h) in airplane mode

Range: 879 nmi (1,011 mi, 1,627 km)

Combat radius: 390 nmi (426 mi, 722 km)

Ferry range: 1,940 nmi (2,230 mi, 3,590 km) with auxiliary external fuel tanks

Service ceiling: 25,000 ft (7,620 m)

Rate of climb: 2,320–4,000 ft/min (11.8 m/s)

Glide ratio: 4.5:1

Disc loading: 20.9 lb/ft² at 47,500 lb GW (102.23 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.259 hp/lb (427 W/kg)

Armament:

1× 30 mm (1.18 in) 2A42 multi-purpose autocannon with 450 rounds

7 external hardpoints for a maximum ordnance of 2.500 kg (5.500 lb)

The kit and its assembly:

This exotic, fictional aircraft-thing is a contribution to the “The Flying Machines of Unconventional Means” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com in early 2019. While the propulsion system itself is not that unconventional, I deemed the quadrocopter concept (which had already been on my agenda for a while) to be suitable for a worthy submission.

The Mil Mi-30 tiltrotor aircraft, mentioned in the background above, was a real project – but my alternative combat vintoplan design is purely speculative.

I had already stashed away some donor parts, primarily two sets of tiltrotor backpacks for 1:144 Gundam mecha from Bandai, which had been released recently. While these looked a little toy-like, these parts had the charm of coming with handed propellers and stub wings that would allow the engine nacelles to swivel.

The search for a suitable fuselage turned out to be a more complex safari than expected. My initial choice was the spoofy Italeri Mi-28 kit (I initially wanted a staggered tandem cockpit), but it turned out to be much too big for what I wanted to achieve. Then I tested a “real” Mi-28 (Dragon) and a Ka-50 (Italeri), but both failed for different reasons – the Mi-28 was too slender, while the Ka-50 had the right size – but converting it for my build would have been VERY complicated, because the engine nacelles would have to go and the fuselage shape between the cockpit and the fuselage section around the original engines and stub wings would be hard to adapt. I eventually bought an Italeri Ka-52 two-seater as fuselage donor.

In order to mount the four engines to the fuselage I’d need two pairs of wings of appropriate span – and I found a pair of 1:100 A-10 wings as well as the wings from an 1:72 PZL Iskra (not perfect, but the most suitable donor parts I could find in the junkyard). On the tips of these wings, the swiveling joints for the engine nacelles from the Bandai set were glued. While mounting the rear wings was not too difficult (just the Ka-52’s OOB stabilizers had to go), the front pair of wings was more complex. The reason: the Ka-52’s engines had to go and their attachment points, which are actually shallow recesses on the kit, had to be faired over first. Instead of filling everything with putty I decided to cover the areas with 0.5mm styrene sheet first, and then do cosmetic PSR work. This worked quite well and also included a cover for the Ka-52’s original rotor mast mount. Onto these new flanks the pair of front wings was attached, in a mid position – a conceptual mistake…

The cockpit was taken OOB and the aircraft’s nose received an additional thimble radome, reminiscent of the Mi-28’s arrangement. The radome itself was created from a German 500 kg WWII bomb.

At this stage, the mid-wing mistake reared its ugly head – it had two painful consequences which I had not fully thought through. Problem #1: the engine nacelles turned out to be too long. When rotated into a vertical position, they’d potentially hit the ground! Furthermore, the ground clearance was very low – and I decided to skip the Ka-52’s OOB landing gear in favor of a heavier and esp. longer alternative, a full landing gear set from an Italeri MiG-37 “Ferret E” stealth fighter, which itself resembles a MiG-23/27 landing gear. Due to the expected higher speeds of the vintoplan I gave the landing gear full covers (partly scratched, plus some donor parts from an Academy MiG-27). It took some trials to get the new landing gear into the right position and a suitable stance – but it worked. With this benchmark I was also able to modify the engine nacelles, shortening their rear ends. They were still very (too!) close to the ground, but at least the model would not sit on them!

However, the more complete the model became, the more design flaws turned up. Another mistake is that the front and rear rotors slightly overlap when in vertical position – something that would be unthinkable in real life…

With all major components in place, however, detail work could proceed. This included the completion of the cockpit and the sensor turrets, the Ka-52 cannon and finally the ordnance. Due to the large rotors, any armament had to be concentrated around the fuselage, outside of the propeller discs. For this reason (and in order to prevent the rear engines to ingest exhaust gases from the front engines in level flight), I gave the front wings a slightly larger span, so that four underwing pylons could be fitted, plus a pair of underfuselage hardpoints.

The ordnance was puzzled together from the Italeri Ka-52 and from an ESCI Ka-34 (the fake Ka-50) kit.

Painting and markings:

With such an exotic aircraft, I rather wanted a conservative livery and opted for a typical Soviet tactical four-tone scheme from the Eighties – the idea was to build a prototype aircraft from the state acceptance trials period, not a flashy demonstrator. The scheme and the (guesstimated) colors were transferred from a Soviet air force MiG-21bis of that era, and it consists of a reddish light brown (Humbrol 119, Light Earth), a light, yellowish green (Humbrol 159, Khaki Drab), a bluish dark green (Humbrol 195, Dark Satin Green, a.k.a. RAL 6020 Chromdioxidgrün) and a dark brown (Humbrol 170, Brown Bess). For the undersides’ typical bluish grey I chose Humbrol 145 (FS 35237, Gray Blue), which is slightly lighter and less greenish than the typical Soviet tones. A light black ink wash was applied and some light post-shading was done in order to create panels that are structurally not there, augmented by some pencil lines.

The cockpit became light blue (Humbrol 89), with medium gray dashboard and consoles. The ejection seats received bright yellow seatbelts and bright blue pads – a detail seen on a Mi-28 cockpit picture.

Some dielectric fairings like the fin tip were painted in bright medium green (Humbrol 101), while some other antenna fairings were painted in pale yellow (Humbrol 71).

The landing gear struts and the interior of the wells became Aluminum Metalic (Humbrol 56), the wheels dark green discs (Humbrol 30).

The decals were puzzled together from various sources, including some Begemot sheets. Most of the stencils came from the Ka-52 OOB sheet, and generic decal sheet material was used to mark the walkways or the rotor tips and leading edges.

Only some light weathering was done to the leading edges of the wings, and then the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

A complex kitbashing project, and it revealed some pitfalls in the course of making. However, the result looks menacing and still convincing, esp. in flight – even though the picture editing, with four artificially rotating proprotors, was probably more tedious than building the model itself!

+++ 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 Yakovlev Yak-38 (Russian: Яковлева Як-38; NATO reporting name: "Forger") was the Soviet Naval Aviation's first and only operational VTOL strike fighter aircraft, in addition to being its first operational carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft. It was developed specifically for and served almost exclusively on the Kiev-class aircraft carriers.

Officially, all Ukrainian Yak-138 were scrapped until 1994, even though rumor has it that one or two airframes had been sold behind the scenes to China. In Russia only five specimen had survived, and since the spares situation was doubtful none could be kept in flying condition. One Yak-138 was eventually handed over to the Ulyanovsk Aircraft Museum, while the rest was either mothballed or scrapped, too. Unfortunately, the sole museum exhibit was lost in 1995 in a fire accident.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length (incl. pitot): 15.84 m (51 ft 10 1/2 in)

Wingspan: 8,17 m (26 ft 9 in)

Height: 4.19 m (14 ft 3 in)

Wing area: 24.18 m² (260.27 ft²)

Empty weight: 7,385 kg (16,281 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 11,300 kg (28,700 lb)

Powerplant:

1x Kuznetsov NK-32L-2 turbofan engine, rated at 137 kN (31,000 lbf)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,176 km/h (730 mph; 635 knots) at sea level

Combat radius: 230 mi (200 nmi, 370 km) lo-lo-lo with 4,400 lb (2,000 kg) payload

Ferry range: 2,129 mi (1,850 nmi, 3,425 km)

Endurance: 1 hr 30 min (combat air patrol – 115 mi (185 km) from base)

Service ceiling: 51,200 ft (15,600 m)

Time to climb to 40,000 ft (12,200 m): 2 min 23 s

Armament:

1x GSh-23L 23mm machine cannon with 250 RPG under the fuselage

5 hardpoints with a total external capacity of

- 3.000 kg (6,600 lb) for C/STOL operations and

- 2.000 kg (4.400 lb) in VTOL mode

Provisions to carry combinations of various types of unguided rockets (up to 240 mm), anti-ship

or air-to-surface Kh-23 (AS-7 Kerry) missiles (together with a Delta N guidance pod), R-60,

R-60M (AA-8 Aphid) or R-73 (AA-11 Archer) air-to-air missiles; tactical nuclear bombs, general

purpose bombs of up to 500 kg (1.100 lb) caliber, or incendiary ZB-500 napalm tanks or up to

three PTB-800 drop tanks under the fuselage and the inner pair of wing pylons

The kit and its assembly:

Sixth contribution to the “Soviet” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com in early 2017, on pretty short notice since the GB had been coming to its end. This totally fictional aircraft was inspired CG illustrations that had been roaming the WWW for some time: a hybrid between a Yak-38 (mostly the tail section), mated with an AV-8B Harrier II (cockpit, wings, landing gear). This did not look bad at all, yet a bit weird, with lift engines added in front of the fin. Certainly not conformal with a good CG balance – but I liked the idea of a single-engine Forger. And actually, OKB Yakovlev had been considering this.

So, the basic idea was a Harrier/Yak-38 kitbash. But the more I thought about the concept, the more additional donor parts came into play. One major addition was the nose section from a MiG-27 – with its slanted nose it would offer the pilot an excellent field of view, and the aircraft would, as a front line attack plane like the Harrier, not carry a radar, so the Flogger’s nose shape was perfect.

Therefore, initial ingredients for the Yak-138 were:

- Rear fuselage, wings and tail from a Tsukuda Hobby/Kangnam/Revell Yak-38

- Mid-fuselage with air intakes and front vectoring nozzles from a Matchbox Sea Harrier

- Cockpit from an Academy MiG-27

Work started with the MiG-27 cockpit, which was more or less taken OOB (except for side consoles in the cockpit and different seat), and the Yak-38 the tail section, built in parallel. To my surprise the Forger fuselage was easier to combine with the Harrier than expected, even though the position of the right cuts took multiple measurements until I came up with a proper solution. Since the Harrier is overall shorter than the Yak-38, the latter’s fuselage had to be shortened. I retained the tail cone, the Forger’s vectoring nozzles and the landing gear wells – and a 2cm plug was taken out between them. Instead of the Harrier’s tandem landing gear arrangement with outriggers under the outer wings, this one was to receive a conventional landing gear for optional C/STOL operations with a higher ordnance load, so that the Yak-38 parts were a welcome basis. Once the fuselage’s underside was more or less complete, the upper rest of the Yak-38 fuselage could be cut to size and integrated into the lower half and the Harrier parts.

After the rear end was settled, the MiG-27 cockpit could be mounted to the front end, which was slightly shortened by 2-3mm (since the Flogger’s is markedly longer than the short Harrier nose). In order to change the overall look of the aircraft, I eventually dropped the Harrier intakes and decided to use the Flogger’s boxy air intakes instead. These are considerably smaller than the gaping Harrier holes, and blending the conflicting shapes into each other for a more or less consistent look took several PSR turns. But it worked, better than expected, and it changes the aircraft’s look effectively, so that almost anything Harrier-esque was gone.

Once the fuselage was completed, I realized that I could not use the Yak-38 wings anymore. They are already pretty small, but with the more voluminous Harrier and Flogger parts added to the aircraft, they’d just be too small!

What to do...? I checked the donor bank and – in order to add even more individual flavor – used a pair of double delta wings from a PM Model Su-15! But only the core of them was left after considerable modifications: The inner delta wing sections were cut off, as well as the tip sections and parts of the trailing edge (for a planform similar to the Yak-38’s wings). On the underside, the landing gear openings were filled up and wing tips from the Yak-38, with puffer jet nozzles, transplanted. The inner leading edges had to be re-sculpted, too. The Su-15 wing fences were kept - a welcome, very Soviet design detail.

A lot of work, but I think it paid out because of the individual shape and look of these “new” wings?

As a consequence of the new, bigger wings, the little Yak-38 stabilizers could not be used anymore, either. In order to keep the square wing shape, I used modified stabilizers from an Intech F-16C/D – their trailing edges were clipped, but the bigger span retained. Together with the characteristic OOB Yak-38 fin they work well, and all of the aerodynamic surfaces IMHO blend well into the overall design of the aircraft.

After the hull was complete, work on smaller things could start. Under the fuselage, a GSh-23-2 pod from a MiG-21 was added, as well as pylons from the Tsukuda Yak-38 under the wings and a donor part from the scrap box in ventral position.

The landing gear is a mix, too: the main struts come from the Yak-38, the balloon wheels from the Matchbox Harrier. The front landing gear comes from the Academy MiG-27, including the wheels with mudguards. It was just mounted in a fashion that it now retracts forward.

The Harrier vectoring nozzles were modified, too, the exhaust “grills” replaced by square, simple ducts, scratched from styrene profile and putty. Care was taken that the nozzles would remain moveable in the fuselage flanks – for later hover pictures. The Yak-38’s nozzles were retained, but since they can OOB only be mounted in a single, fixed position, I added a simple pin to each nozzle, together with two holes in the hull, so that positions can now be switched between hover and level flight.

All around the hull, finally some small details like pitots, blade antennae and air scoops were finally added, and the ordnance consists of a pair of unguided 57mm rocket pods and a pair of Kh-23 (AS-7 Kerry) guided missiles – the latter come from the Yak-38 kit, but they are very crude and their tail sections were modified in order to come (slightly) closer to reality.

Painting and markings:

As an aircraft of the Soviet Frontal Aviation in the late Eighties, I settled upon a typical, disruptive four-tone camouflage with blue undersides. Very conventional, but with an exotic VTOL model I thought that a subtle look would be appropriate – and also separate it from the Naval Yak-38 cousin.

Design benchmark is the scheme on a contemporary MiG-21bis from a Soviert Frontal Aviation unit, chosen because of the disruptive pattern. The tones are guesstimates, though, based on various similar aircraft in more or less weathered condition. I settled for:

- Humbrol 195 (Dark Satin Green)

- Humbrol 78 (RAF Interior Green)

- Modelmaster 2005 (Burnt Umber)

- Humbrol 119 (Light Earth)

- Humbrol 115 (Russian Blue) for the undersides

The cockpit was painted in Russian Cockpit Green, opf course. The landing gear and their respective wells in a mix of Aluminum and Khaki Drab (Humbrol 56 & 26), and the wheel discs became bright green (Humbrol 131). Several di-electric panels and antennae were painted in Humbrol 106 (RAF Ocean Grey).

The kit received a thin black ink wash, in order to emphasize the panel lines, and panel post-shading with subtly lighter tones of the basic colors. National markings, codes and emblems come from several aftermarket sheets, mostly from High Decal Line and Begemot.

After some soot stains (grinded graphite) had been added, the kit was sealed with matt acrlyic varnish (Italeri) and the ordnace added.

Messy work, but I am surprised how consistent and normal the resulting aircraft appears? From certain angles, my Yak-138 creation reminds a good deal of the stillborn Hawker P.1154 (no similarity intended, though), the SEPECAT Jaguar or rather exotic Soko J-22 Orao/IAR-93 Vultur fighter bomber. IMHO, there’s also some A-4 Skyhawk style to it, esp. in planview? Anyway, there’s still some good Yak-38 heritage recognizable, and the tactical Frontal Aviation paint scheme suits the aircraft well - looks like a serious mud mover.

Tanker.

Picked up this tiny little Bandai, so detailed, so cheap! Anyway the parts are fun to play around with. Some interesting ship designs resulted.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The РТАК-30 attack vintoplan (also known as vintokryl) owed its existence to the Mil Mi-30 plane/helicopter project that originated in 1972. The Mil Mi-30 was conceived as a transport aircraft that could hold up to 19 passengers or two tons of cargo, and its purpose was to replace the Mi-8 and Mi-17 Helicopters in both civil and military roles. With vertical takeoff through a pair of tiltrotor engine pods on the wing tips (similar in layout to the later V-22 Osprey) and the ability to fly like a normal plane, the Mil Mi-30 had a clear advantage over the older models.

And this was just about to happen: Despite the РТАК-30’s development problems, the innovative attack vintoplan was included in the Soviet Union’s 5-year plan for 1989-1995, and the vehicle was eventually expected to enter service in 1996. However, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dwindling economics, neither the РТАК-30 nor its civil Mil Mi-30 sister did soar out in the new age of technology. In 1990 the whole program was stopped and both surviving РТАК-30 prototypes were mothballed – one (the 3rd prototype) was disassembled and its components brought to the Rostov-na-Donu Mil plant, while the other, prototype No. 1, is rumored to be stored at the Central Russian Air Force Museum in Monino, to be restored to a public exhibition piece some day.

General characteristics:

Crew: Two (pilot, copilot/WSO) plus space for up to three passengers or cargo

Length: 45 ft 7 1/2 in (13,93 m)

Rotor diameter: 20 ft 9 in (6,33 m)

Wingspan incl. engine nacelles: 42 ft 8 1/4 in (13,03 m)

Total width with rotors: 58 ft 8 1/2 in (17,93 m)

Height: 17 ft (5,18 m) at top of tailfin

Disc area: 4x 297 ft² (27,65 m²)

Wing area: 342.2 ft² (36,72 m²)

Empty weight: 8,500 kg (18,740 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 12,000 kg (26,500 lb)

Powerplant:

4× Klimov VK-2500PS-03 turboshaft turbines, 2,400 hp (1.765 kW) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 275 knots (509 km/h, 316 mph) at sea level

305 kn (565 km/h; 351 mph) at 15,000 ft (4,600 m)

Cruise speed: 241 kn (277 mph, 446 km/h) at sea level

Stall speed: 110 kn (126 mph, 204 km/h) in airplane mode

Range: 879 nmi (1,011 mi, 1,627 km)

Combat radius: 390 nmi (426 mi, 722 km)

Ferry range: 1,940 nmi (2,230 mi, 3,590 km) with auxiliary external fuel tanks

Service ceiling: 25,000 ft (7,620 m)

Rate of climb: 2,320–4,000 ft/min (11.8 m/s)

Glide ratio: 4.5:1

Disc loading: 20.9 lb/ft² at 47,500 lb GW (102.23 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.259 hp/lb (427 W/kg)

Armament:

1× 30 mm (1.18 in) 2A42 multi-purpose autocannon with 450 rounds

7 external hardpoints for a maximum ordnance of 2.500 kg (5.500 lb)

The kit and its assembly:

This exotic, fictional aircraft-thing is a contribution to the “The Flying Machines of Unconventional Means” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com in early 2019. While the propulsion system itself is not that unconventional, I deemed the quadrocopter concept (which had already been on my agenda for a while) to be suitable for a worthy submission.

The Mil Mi-30 tiltrotor aircraft, mentioned in the background above, was a real project – but my alternative combat vintoplan design is purely speculative.

I had already stashed away some donor parts, primarily two sets of tiltrotor backpacks for 1:144 Gundam mecha from Bandai, which had been released recently. While these looked a little toy-like, these parts had the charm of coming with handed propellers and stub wings that would allow the engine nacelles to swivel.

The search for a suitable fuselage turned out to be a more complex safari than expected. My initial choice was the spoofy Italeri Mi-28 kit (I initially wanted a staggered tandem cockpit), but it turned out to be much too big for what I wanted to achieve. Then I tested a “real” Mi-28 (Dragon) and a Ka-50 (Italeri), but both failed for different reasons – the Mi-28 was too slender, while the Ka-50 had the right size – but converting it for my build would have been VERY complicated, because the engine nacelles would have to go and the fuselage shape between the cockpit and the fuselage section around the original engines and stub wings would be hard to adapt. I eventually bought an Italeri Ka-52 two-seater as fuselage donor.

In order to mount the four engines to the fuselage I’d need two pairs of wings of appropriate span – and I found a pair of 1:100 A-10 wings as well as the wings from an 1:72 PZL Iskra (not perfect, but the most suitable donor parts I could find in the junkyard). On the tips of these wings, the swiveling joints for the engine nacelles from the Bandai set were glued. While mounting the rear wings was not too difficult (just the Ka-52’s OOB stabilizers had to go), the front pair of wings was more complex. The reason: the Ka-52’s engines had to go and their attachment points, which are actually shallow recesses on the kit, had to be faired over first. Instead of filling everything with putty I decided to cover the areas with 0.5mm styrene sheet first, and then do cosmetic PSR work. This worked quite well and also included a cover for the Ka-52’s original rotor mast mount. Onto these new flanks the pair of front wings was attached, in a mid position – a conceptual mistake…

The cockpit was taken OOB and the aircraft’s nose received an additional thimble radome, reminiscent of the Mi-28’s arrangement. The radome itself was created from a German 500 kg WWII bomb.

At this stage, the mid-wing mistake reared its ugly head – it had two painful consequences which I had not fully thought through. Problem #1: the engine nacelles turned out to be too long. When rotated into a vertical position, they’d potentially hit the ground! Furthermore, the ground clearance was very low – and I decided to skip the Ka-52’s OOB landing gear in favor of a heavier and esp. longer alternative, a full landing gear set from an Italeri MiG-37 “Ferret E” stealth fighter, which itself resembles a MiG-23/27 landing gear. Due to the expected higher speeds of the vintoplan I gave the landing gear full covers (partly scratched, plus some donor parts from an Academy MiG-27). It took some trials to get the new landing gear into the right position and a suitable stance – but it worked. With this benchmark I was also able to modify the engine nacelles, shortening their rear ends. They were still very (too!) close to the ground, but at least the model would not sit on them!

However, the more complete the model became, the more design flaws turned up. Another mistake is that the front and rear rotors slightly overlap when in vertical position – something that would be unthinkable in real life…

With all major components in place, however, detail work could proceed. This included the completion of the cockpit and the sensor turrets, the Ka-52 cannon and finally the ordnance. Due to the large rotors, any armament had to be concentrated around the fuselage, outside of the propeller discs. For this reason (and in order to prevent the rear engines to ingest exhaust gases from the front engines in level flight), I gave the front wings a slightly larger span, so that four underwing pylons could be fitted, plus a pair of underfuselage hardpoints.

The ordnance was puzzled together from the Italeri Ka-52 and from an ESCI Ka-34 (the fake Ka-50) kit.

Painting and markings:

With such an exotic aircraft, I rather wanted a conservative livery and opted for a typical Soviet tactical four-tone scheme from the Eighties – the idea was to build a prototype aircraft from the state acceptance trials period, not a flashy demonstrator. The scheme and the (guesstimated) colors were transferred from a Soviet air force MiG-21bis of that era, and it consists of a reddish light brown (Humbrol 119, Light Earth), a light, yellowish green (Humbrol 159, Khaki Drab), a bluish dark green (Humbrol 195, Dark Satin Green, a.k.a. RAL 6020 Chromdioxidgrün) and a dark brown (Humbrol 170, Brown Bess). For the undersides’ typical bluish grey I chose Humbrol 145 (FS 35237, Gray Blue), which is slightly lighter and less greenish than the typical Soviet tones. A light black ink wash was applied and some light post-shading was done in order to create panels that are structurally not there, augmented by some pencil lines.

The cockpit became light blue (Humbrol 89), with medium gray dashboard and consoles. The ejection seats received bright yellow seatbelts and bright blue pads – a detail seen on a Mi-28 cockpit picture.

Some dielectric fairings like the fin tip were painted in bright medium green (Humbrol 101), while some other antenna fairings were painted in pale yellow (Humbrol 71).

The landing gear struts and the interior of the wells became Aluminum Metalic (Humbrol 56), the wheels dark green discs (Humbrol 30).

The decals were puzzled together from various sources, including some Begemot sheets. Most of the stencils came from the Ka-52 OOB sheet, and generic decal sheet material was used to mark the walkways or the rotor tips and leading edges.

Only some light weathering was done to the leading edges of the wings, and then the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

A complex kitbashing project, and it revealed some pitfalls in the course of making. However, the result looks menacing and still convincing, esp. in flight – even though the picture editing, with four artificially rotating proprotors, was probably more tedious than building the model itself!

+++ 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 Nakajima Ki-104 was a further development of the Ki-87; the latter was a Japanese high-altitude fighter-interceptor of World War II, a single seat, exhaust-driven turbo-supercharged engined, low-wing monoplane with a conventional undercarriage.

The first operational Ki-104s reached this unit in spring 1945 and saw limited use against the incoming streams of B-29 bombers (2 unconfirmed downings in the Tokyo region). After these initial contacts that left a serious impression the new type received the USAF code name "Cooper", but the hostilities' soon end however stopped any further work and serial production. No Ki-104 survived the war.

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: Tatsuo Hasegawa airfoil

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

Loaded weight: 6.450 kg (14.220 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Nakajima Ha219 [Ha-44-12] 18-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, 1,835 kW (2,461 hp)

Performance

Maximum speed: 712 km/h (385 kn, 443 mph)

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

Range: 2,100 km (1,305 mi)

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× 30 mm (1.18 in) Ho-155-II cannons in the wings

Underwing hardpoints and centerline pylon for up to 3× 250 kg (551 lb) bombs

or a single 300l drop tank under the fuselage

The kit and its assembly:

This whif is the result of many ideas and occasions. First of all, I had a leftover six-blade propeller from a Hasegawa J7W Shinden in stock. Then I recently had an eye on kits of late Japanese high altitude fighters with turbosuperchargers, like the Ki-91-II or the Ki-106. These are available from RS Models, but rare and rather costly. And I wondered how a P-47 might look like without its deep belly? All this was finally thrown into a big idea stew, and the Ki-104 is the home-made hardware result!

As a side note: the Ki-104 was a real IJA project, AFAIK based/related to the Tachikawa Ki-94-I twin-boom/push-pull high altitude fighter, a re-worked, more conventional design. Information is sparese and it never reached any hardware stage and remained a paper project as the Rikugun Kogiken Ki-104; I just "revived" the number for my whif, but maybe the real Ki-104 could have looked like it... ;-)

The kit is a bashing of various parts and pieces:

- Fuselage and wing roots from an Academy P-47-25

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

- Tail fin is a modified part of a Matchbox Ju 188 stabilizer

- The stabilizers are outer sections from a Matchbox Douglas F3D Skyknight

- Cowling comes from an ART Model Grumman F8F Bearcat, the engine was scratched

- Propeller from a Hasegawa J7W Shinden

- Main wheels from a Matchbox F6F Hellcat

My choice fell onto the Academy Thunderbolt because it has engraved panel lines, offers the bubble canopy as well as good fit and detail. The belly duct had simply been sliced off, and the opening later faired over with styrene sheet and putty.

The Bearcat cowling was chosen because it had very good fitting width in order to match with the P-47 fuselage, and it turned out to be a very good choice - even though I had to add a dorsal connection, a simple styrene wedge, to create a good profile.

Inside, the engine consists of a reversed Hobby Boss F6F engine, with a fan dummy that covers any view on non-existent interior details... A styrene tube was added, into which a metal axis can be inserted. The latter holds the propeller, so that it can spin with little hindrance.

The Attacker wings were chosen because of their "modern" laminar profile - the Novo kit is horrible, but acceptable for donations. And the risen panel lines and rivets should later do great work during the weathering process... 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 where the large wheel fairings for the main landing gear ends.

The intersection with the Attacker wings is almost perfect in depth and width, relatively little putty work was necessary. I just had to cut out new landing gear well parts.

With the new wing shape, the tail surfaces had to be changed accordingly, with parts from a Matchbox Skyknight and a highly modified piece from a Matchbox Ju 188 stabilizer.

The OOB cockpit and landing gear was retained, I just replaced the main wheels with slightly more delicate alternatives from a Matchbox F6F Hellcat.

Once the basic bodywork was done I added the exhaust arrangement under the fuselage; the outlets are oil cooler parts from a Fw 190A, the air scoop once belonged to a Martin Marauder and the long ducts are actually HO scale roof rails. The oil cooler under the engine comes from a Hobby Boss La-7.

Pretty wild mix, but it works surprisingly well!

Painting and markings:

Even though this was supposed to become a late WWII IJA fighter, I did neither want the stereotype NMF look nor the classic green/grey livery or a respective mottled scheme. What I finally settled upon, though, took a long while to manifest, and it looks ...odd.

I wanted a camouflage scheme, but none of the more exotic real world options was fine for me; there had been fighters with black upper surfaces, bright blue ones, or blue mottle on top of NMF. But all this did not convince me, and I eventually created an experimental scheme. And the paint was supposed to look heavily worn, as if the paint had been applied directly onto the bare metal, without primer, so that it chips and flakes off easily.

The tones were supposed to be suitable for high altitudes, but not the classic IJA colors - nothing even close. eventuelly I came up with an all-around turquoise green (ModelMaster Fulcrum Grey Green) plus a pale grey-green (ModelMaster RAF Dark Slate Grey) as contrast for the upper sides. Sick combination, yes, esp. with the Aluminum shining through, which was applied first as a kind of acrylic primer. The camouflage paint was carefully brushed on top of that, with panel-wise strokes from back to front. Tedious, but effective.

The black tail was applied similarly, it is a free interpretation of real IJA markings; for instance, the 244th Sentai arcraft bore all-red tail sections. Black is an uncommon color, but since I wanted to create fictional squadron markings, too, this was a suitable concept. And it looks cool and mysterious...

The cockpit interior was painted with Aodake Iro (Modelmaster), the section behind the pilot's seat and where the sliding canopy moves on the outside, were painted with IJA Dark Green - just an odd idea. In front of the cockpit a black anti glare panel was added. The landing gear and the respective wells were painted with Steel Metallizer (just to set them apart from the lighter Aluminum all around). The propeller was painted in reddish brown tones, the spinner in Humbrol 160 and the blades in 173.

After this basic painting the kit received a black ink wash, and decals were applied. These were taken from various aftermarket sheets, including generic, white and yellow sheet for the Home Defence markings on wings and fuselage, the white fuselage trim or the yellow ID markings on the wings' leading edges.

As next step the complete kit was carefully wet-sanded, primarily from front to back, so that more of the aluminum primer showed through, the decals (esp. the Hinomaru) were worn out and the camouflage paint on top lost some of its hard edges.

The sanding residues had to be cleaned away thoroughly (with a soft toothbrush and lots of water), and then, repairs, e .g. where the bare plastic came through, as well as extra effects with dry-painted, lighter camouflage tones were done. Final cosmetics also include oil and dirt stains with Tamiya"Smoke", also applied by brush.

Once everything was dry and clean (despite the kit's look), everything was sealed under a coat of varnish - a 3:1 mix of matt and gloss Revell Acrylics.

A complex and lengthy painting process, but I think the effort paid out because the procedure mimicks the structure and look of a worn paint job instead of trying to look like it when you paint a cammo scheme and add metal effects "on top". This works for small chips, but not for the flaked look I had been looking for.

The Ki-104 turned out to be a very conclusive kitbashing - I think that the P-47-with-Attacker-wings-and-new-cowling bears more potential, and I might try it again, e. g. for a naval Thunderbolt development?

Hybrid Work

Sunday Evening Post, Vol.3, No.7

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

After the Second World War, France’s armored force consisted, almost entirely, of US-built vehicles, such as the M4 Sherman, M26 Pershing, and M24 Chaffee (among others). France received these vehicles as aid as part of the Marshall Plan and the Mutual Defense Assistance Act (MDAA). These aid pacts also financed the reconstruction of France’s economy and armed forces from 1948 until the late 1950s. In April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, and NATO was born, resulting in the United States extending the MDAA. This resulted in France receiving newer vehicles, such as the M47 Patton II tank.

In 2000, nearly ten years after the end of the civil war, the SLA disbanded, and the surviving former IDF tanks were returned to Israel to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands – spelling the end to the AMX-US long career, of which four were returned and subsequently scrapped.

Specifications:

Crew: Four (Commander, Loader, Gunner, Driver)

Weight: 15 tons

Length: 4.88 m (16 ft) overall

Width: 2.51 m (8 ft 2 in)

Height: 2.30 m (7 ft 5 in)

Suspension: Torsion arms; Tracked chassis, 5 roadwheels, drive sprocket front, idler rear,

3.00 m length, 0.35 width, 2.16 m track

Ground clearance: 0.37 m (1 ft 2½ in)

Fording depth: 2 ft (0.6 m) unprepared, 6.9 ft (2.1 m) with snorkel

Grade: 60%

Side slope: 60%

Trench crossing: 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in)

Vertical wall climb: 0.65 m (2 ft 1½ ft)

Fuel capacity: 480 l (127 gal)

Engine:

1× water-cooled Renault SOFAM Model 8Gxb 8-cylinder gasoline with 250 hp

Transmission:

Hydramatic automatic transmission; 8 speeds forward, 4 reverse

Armor:

Hull: 10 - 40 mm (1.57 in)

Turret: max. 38 mm (1.49 in)

Performance:

Speed: 60 km/h (40 mph) maximum, road

Operational range: 350 km (217 mi) on streets with internal fuel only

Power/weight: 17 hp/t

Armament:

1× 75 mm Lightweight Tank Gun M6 in Mount M64 with 48 rounds

1× co-axial 0.30 Cal. (7.62 mm) Browning M1919 machine gun, 2.200 rounds

1× 0.50 Caliber (12.7 mm) M2 Browning anti-aircraft heavy machine gun, 440 rounds

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional tank model is the result of recycling: After a T-34 conversion, which used an AMX-13 turret, I was left with the chassis of a 1:72 Heller kit. The latter is a rather simple and primitive affair, with many wrong details and a very weak running gear. From another, even older conversion project I also had an almost complete turret from a Hasegawa M24 Chaffee left over. When I stumbled in literature over the French AMX-US hybrid I decided to use these leftover bits to create one!

The AMX-13 chassis was taken OOB, because I did want to invest too much energy into this build, despite its many flaws. Its running gear is rubbish, the vinyl tracks featureless, and overall the detail level is rather soft. From a distance it looks like an AMX-13, but any closer inspection reveals the model's simplicity and toy-likeness. The Chaffee turret was also built with the original parts – but I had to replace the gun barrel and find a replacement for the gunner’s hatch.

Nevertheless, some scratch work had to be done. The biggest challenge was the AMX-US’ characteristic turret adapter ring, which markedly raises the M24 turret above the AMX-13 hull. My solution became a manually bent a piece of soft styrene profile - it’s not perfectly circular, but that’s not obvious when the turret is in place, and it looks the part. Furthermore, some small bits were added to hide flaws and distract. These include vertical bars in the exhaust opening, shallow storage boxes on the fenders (hiding the wacky distance ring) and tarpaulin/cammo net packs (created from paper tissue and nylon stockings drenched with white glue). The commander cupola’s hatch was left open and a figure (an ESCI German WWII tank commander) added, to make the model appear livelier. Since the M24’s AA machine gun had been gone, I had to replace it with one from an ESCI Merkava, its mount was moved in front of the cupola.

Painting and markings:

Initially, I just had the French army as potential operator for the AMX-US but found that rather boring due to the very limited livery options: any French tank from the era would have carried a dark olive-green livery, even those operated in North Africa! Some French M24s had been operated in South-East Asia in a sand/green/brown/green jungle scheme, but the time frame would not match well. So, I checked other AMX-13 operators and took liking in an IDF vehicle. However, while looking for potential liveries I came upon the SLA. The AMX-US, had it been handed over to the IDF, could have been among these donor tanks, and their unique (if not spectacular) light blue livery made them outstanding. I am not certain whether the blue tone was intended as serious camouflage or just as an IFF measure? However, among typical light rocks and mountains of the Lebenon and in dusty/hazy air, the bluish tone actually works quite fine, better than expected.

While a uniform livery is not complex, finding a suitable tone for the model took a while. Real life color pictures (of dubious quality) show a wide range of light blue and/or grey tones, ranging from a bright sky blue over pale grey (like FS 36375) to a medium bluish grey (FS 35237), frequently with severe signs of weathering/sun-bleaching which makes some tanks appear almost white. Some M50s also had olive drab or dark grey patches or patterns added on top as additional camouflage.

After testing several options I chose RLM78 (Modelmaster 2088) as basic tone. Odd choice, but it turned out to be light enough, is a rather blue tone (with a slight hint of green), but still dull enough to look like a military tone. An overall washing with a mix of grey, black and red brown followed, and then the model received a thorough, overall dry brushing treatment with various shades of light blue grey, including Modelmaster RLM76, FS 36320 and Revell 75, for a worn and bleached appearance.

The markings had to be completely improvised, though, and were created with Corel Draw on an ink jet printer and with white and clear decal paper. They include the SLA’s cedar tree emblem and the Arabic tactical codes. The white “X” markings were created with generic decal stripes.

After the model had been sealed with matt acrylic varnish, sand and dust residues were created with watercolors, and some beige mineral pigments were dusted into the running gear and over the upper surfaces.

A quick build and a good use of leftover parts from other projects, melded into a plausible result. The SLA livery adds a weird twist to this model, even though it is – in the end – just a mix of real-world elements: the AMX-US existed, and the SLA operated light blue tanks! Life is sometimes stranger than fiction.

A kitbash using a Phicen body with a Scarlet Witch headsculpt by Hot Toy's and an outfit by Super Duck .

Some background:

A vanship is a type of flying machine from the animated series Last Exile. It is often referred to as a "flying boat" in that it does not fly by means of aerodynamics like planes do, but rather by floating on the air and propelling itself through the use of a substance known as "Claudia" (see below).

All vanships in the series were rendered as 3D images, a hallmark of Japanese animation studio Gonzo, makers of such series as Vandread and Blue Submarine No. 6.

The kit and its assembly:

I love the Vanships from Last Exile - even though I have never seen the series.

While these vehicles appear as retro stuff, they are very original and unique in look and feel - a modeler's dream if you are into scratchbuilding and kitbashing. There's also a 1:72 Vanship kit available (actually, in two versions) from Hasegawa, but it is IMHO overpriced. And there are so many different Vanships in the series that it is a shame that not more of them have been kitted, scratched, or at least used as a source of modelling inspiration.

The latter's the case here. I had a scratched Vanship on the agenda for a long time and also a basic idea with what I'd start, but it took a SF racing GB at phoxim.de ( a German SF model building forum) to make a move.

I wanted a small and fast single seater, and this evolved through the GB into a Racer with a more prominent engine unit and a rather purposeful livery instead of bright colors. But the basic concept was retained: originally, the plan was to use a 1:72 F4U as fuselage basis, and I had the idea to integrate some parts of a 1:43 Citroen 11CV from Heller, e. g. its grill and bonnet.

The F4U is the SMER kit, and it has the benefit of having separate wings for a folded display. The fin was cut off and the landing gear wells covered.

The cockpit opening was slightly enlarged in order to take a 1:48 Japanese WWII resin pilot and a seat from the 1:43 11CV - pretty cramped, but it worked and looks good. Only the wind screen of the OOB F4U canopy was used, as well as the original dashboard.

Most work was done on the outside, though. The first problem turned up when I realized that the 11CV bonnet could hardly be mated with the F4U. As a plan B I found a cover for the brush head of a Philipps electric toothbrush in my donor bank - a bit too high and narrow, but overall a unique addition and characteristic nose for my creation!

The landing gear comes from an Amodel Ju-87A - together with the drooped F4U inner wings the result looked a bit stalky at first, but the Vanship still needed its engines.

As a racer, I went for double power, and the long pods that carry the propulsion system were scratched from several non-model-kit parts:

- Front comes from a Revell 1:32 AH-64 Apache, its engines

- The intakes come from a Matchbox Gloster Meteor NF.14

- The "ring" consists of wheel parts from the Heller 11CV

- The conic isolators are ball pen grips, cut to size and closed with tank wheels on both ends

- The fins are plastic knives, primarily the blades and parts of the handles

In between these engine pods, which are only held under the wings and stabilized internally through steel wire, a generator pod from a 1:72 Matchbox EA-6B fills the void. It also holds a characteristic "knife" under the front grill - again carved from the handle of the plastic knives.

In order to blend the changes in fuselage shape and diameter and create a kind of Cord-style grill I added three styrene strips which were wrapped around the nose, the upper line reaching back to the cockpit - a kind of 3D rally stripe that also streches the shape.

Some air scoops and surface details were added, made from styrene, and stiff cable was used under the front fuselage to create hoses between the bonnet with the Claudia reactor and the engines.

I was frequently tempted to add more things and details or decoration, but found that a rather clean look would better suit a dedicated racer Vanship - the Stutz Blackhawk land speed record car was a vague benchmark.

Painting and markings:

I wanted to keep things simple and dry. Before this turned into a racer I considered several colors like pale blue, a greyish-green, British Racing Green or Crimson, with ivory trim. Anyway, I rejected this in favir of a pure, bare metal finish. I even did not add colorful stripes - the only "color" comes from the mechanical parts (ivory and dark brown on the engine pods, the idea was to add an isolator impression) and the small sponsor decals.

The kit initially received a basic coat of Revell's acrylic Aluminum, and onto that panels/field with several Metallizer tones (Steel, Magnesium, Titanium, polished Aluminum) were added. On top of that, the whole thing received a rubbing with grinded graphite - intensifying the metal shine and also weathering the vehicle.

The pilot received a rather conservatie outfit, with a brown leather jacket - matching the overall style of the Vanship. Some engine parts (e. g. the blades and the knife under the nose) were painted with a mix of Steel Metallizer and Gold. The cockpit interior was painted in RLM 02.

The markings were puzzled together. The start number '24' in that nice retro type comes from an 1:72 Airfix Il-2, the black disc below is from a slot car aftermarket sheet. The many sponsor stickers come mostly from an 1:72 Su-27 demonstrator aircraft sheet from Begemot - with their cyrillic typo they blend well into the Last Exile look and feel (where Greek/Cyrillic typo pops up).

Finally, the kit received a coat with acrylic gloss varnish, while the anti glare panel in front of the windscreen became matt.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

Specifications:

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

Weight: 31 tonnes (34.5 short tons)

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

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

Width: 3.20 metres (10 ft 6 in)

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

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

Suspension: Torsion bar

Fuel capacity: 450 litres (120 US gal)

Armor:

10–80 mm (0.4 – 3.15 in)

Performance:

Speed

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

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

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

Operational range: 210 km (130 mi)

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

Engine:

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

Transmission:

ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears

Armament:

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

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

After the Second World War, France’s armored force consisted, almost entirely, of US-built vehicles, such as the M4 Sherman, M26 Pershing, and M24 Chaffee (among others). France received these vehicles as aid as part of the Marshall Plan and the Mutual Defense Assistance Act (MDAA). These aid pacts also financed the reconstruction of France’s economy and armed forces from 1948 until the late 1950s. In April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, and NATO was born, resulting in the United States extending the MDAA. This resulted in France receiving newer vehicles, such as the M47 Patton II tank.

In 2000, nearly ten years after the end of the civil war, the SLA disbanded, and the surviving former IDF tanks were returned to Israel to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands – spelling the end to the AMX-US long career, of which four were returned and subsequently scrapped.

Specifications:

Crew: Four (Commander, Loader, Gunner, Driver)

Weight: 15 tons

Length: 4.88 m (16 ft) overall

Width: 2.51 m (8 ft 2 in)

Height: 2.30 m (7 ft 5 in)

Suspension: Torsion arms; Tracked chassis, 5 roadwheels, drive sprocket front, idler rear,

3.00 m length, 0.35 width, 2.16 m track

Ground clearance: 0.37 m (1 ft 2½ in)

Fording depth: 2 ft (0.6 m) unprepared, 6.9 ft (2.1 m) with snorkel

Grade: 60%

Side slope: 60%

Trench crossing: 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in)

Vertical wall climb: 0.65 m (2 ft 1½ ft)

Fuel capacity: 480 l (127 gal)

Engine:

1× water-cooled Renault SOFAM Model 8Gxb 8-cylinder gasoline with 250 hp

Transmission:

Hydramatic automatic transmission; 8 speeds forward, 4 reverse

Armor:

Hull: 10 - 40 mm (1.57 in)

Turret: max. 38 mm (1.49 in)

Performance:

Speed: 60 km/h (40 mph) maximum, road

Operational range: 350 km (217 mi) on streets with internal fuel only

Power/weight: 17 hp/t

Armament:

1× 75 mm Lightweight Tank Gun M6 in Mount M64 with 48 rounds

1× co-axial 0.30 Cal. (7.62 mm) Browning M1919 machine gun, 2.200 rounds

1× 0.50 Caliber (12.7 mm) M2 Browning anti-aircraft heavy machine gun, 440 rounds

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional tank model is the result of recycling: After a T-34 conversion, which used an AMX-13 turret, I was left with the chassis of a 1:72 Heller kit. The latter is a rather simple and primitive affair, with many wrong details and a very weak running gear. From another, even older conversion project I also had an almost complete turret from a Hasegawa M24 Chaffee left over. When I stumbled in literature over the French AMX-US hybrid I decided to use these leftover bits to create one!

The AMX-13 chassis was taken OOB, because I did want to invest too much energy into this build, despite its many flaws. Its running gear is rubbish, the vinyl tracks featureless, and overall the detail level is rather soft. From a distance it looks like an AMX-13, but any closer inspection reveals the model's simplicity and toy-likeness. The Chaffee turret was also built with the original parts – but I had to replace the gun barrel and find a replacement for the gunner’s hatch.

Nevertheless, some scratch work had to be done. The biggest challenge was the AMX-US’ characteristic turret adapter ring, which markedly raises the M24 turret above the AMX-13 hull. My solution became a manually bent a piece of soft styrene profile - it’s not perfectly circular, but that’s not obvious when the turret is in place, and it looks the part. Furthermore, some small bits were added to hide flaws and distract. These include vertical bars in the exhaust opening, shallow storage boxes on the fenders (hiding the wacky distance ring) and tarpaulin/cammo net packs (created from paper tissue and nylon stockings drenched with white glue). The commander cupola’s hatch was left open and a figure (an ESCI German WWII tank commander) added, to make the model appear livelier. Since the M24’s AA machine gun had been gone, I had to replace it with one from an ESCI Merkava, its mount was moved in front of the cupola.

Painting and markings:

Initially, I just had the French army as potential operator for the AMX-US but found that rather boring due to the very limited livery options: any French tank from the era would have carried a dark olive-green livery, even those operated in North Africa! Some French M24s had been operated in South-East Asia in a sand/green/brown/green jungle scheme, but the time frame would not match well. So, I checked other AMX-13 operators and took liking in an IDF vehicle. However, while looking for potential liveries I came upon the SLA. The AMX-US, had it been handed over to the IDF, could have been among these donor tanks, and their unique (if not spectacular) light blue livery made them outstanding. I am not certain whether the blue tone was intended as serious camouflage or just as an IFF measure? However, among typical light rocks and mountains of the Lebenon and in dusty/hazy air, the bluish tone actually works quite fine, better than expected.

While a uniform livery is not complex, finding a suitable tone for the model took a while. Real life color pictures (of dubious quality) show a wide range of light blue and/or grey tones, ranging from a bright sky blue over pale grey (like FS 36375) to a medium bluish grey (FS 35237), frequently with severe signs of weathering/sun-bleaching which makes some tanks appear almost white. Some M50s also had olive drab or dark grey patches or patterns added on top as additional camouflage.

After testing several options I chose RLM78 (Modelmaster 2088) as basic tone. Odd choice, but it turned out to be light enough, is a rather blue tone (with a slight hint of green), but still dull enough to look like a military tone. An overall washing with a mix of grey, black and red brown followed, and then the model received a thorough, overall dry brushing treatment with various shades of light blue grey, including Modelmaster RLM76, FS 36320 and Revell 75, for a worn and bleached appearance.

The markings had to be completely improvised, though, and were created with Corel Draw on an ink jet printer and with white and clear decal paper. They include the SLA’s cedar tree emblem and the Arabic tactical codes. The white “X” markings were created with generic decal stripes.

After the model had been sealed with matt acrylic varnish, sand and dust residues were created with watercolors, and some beige mineral pigments were dusted into the running gear and over the upper surfaces.

A quick build and a good use of leftover parts from other projects, melded into a plausible result. The SLA livery adds a weird twist to this model, even though it is – in the end – just a mix of real-world elements: the AMX-US existed, and the SLA operated light blue tanks! Life is sometimes stranger than fiction.

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.

Here aremy three TVC Mandos. Early Season 1, a late Season 1I made using the Mines of Mandalore figure as a base, but then gave a dark grey cape to and swapped out the right thigh armor. I do need to see if I can customize the original left leg to leave off the knee pad, but I'm fine with it being there for now.And last the Mines of Mandalore figure, but with a plastic cape as at this scale I'm not as huge fan of soft goods.

Much like my refresher of the Black Series Mando from season 1, I bought the TVC Mines of Mandalore figure as I found that it was still the original mold from back in 2019, but with new and improved ankle articulation.

Well, considering the 2019 figure is what made me abandon 3.75 inch collecting, I figured I'd see if I could kitbash an improvement into this older figure and you know, I like it!

What I did was swap the legs from the knee down. Easy enough and if that was all i did I would be pleased, but in addition to that I swapped the hands to the black and orange gloves, and even swapped the belt and bandolier as I wanted the hip armor to match the new knee pad. It did require repainting that little flap that hangs below the belt buckle and back of the belt to match that grey-ish midsection this version of Mando sports. I also added the black cape from the first TVC Beskar Mando as in the show this cape often appears as just black. I then swapped the helmet as I felt the gunmetal color they used was just too dark and the dirt application way too sparse. I then removed that easy to scrape brown paint from his rifle grip and repainted it with some more robust paint.

In the end I think this is huge improvement over the initial release and I'm quite happy with how this turned out.

+++ 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 Lavochkin OKB was founded in 1937 as OKB-301, a Soviet aircraft design bureau. The head designer was Vladimir P. Gorbunov. On October, 1945 Semyon Lavochkin was promoted for the head designer of the design bureau. The OKB gained distinction for its family of piston-engined fighter aircraft during World War II, and later shifted to missile and jet fighter designs.

The surviving "172 Red" prototype eventually ended up as an instructional airframe at the Kremenchuk Flight College of the National Aviation University, and it was scrapped in 1965.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 12.78 m (41 ft 10 in)

Wingspan: 11.27 m (36 ft 11 in)

Height: 4.59 m (15 ft 12 in)

Wing area: 21.7 m² (234 ft²)

Empty weight: 4,060 kg (8,951 lb)

Loaded weight: 6,473 kg (14,272 lb)

Fuel capacity: 1.350 kg

Max. takeoff weight: 7,130 kg (15,720 lb)

Powerplant:

2× Tumansky RD-10 YuF axial turbojets, each with 8.83 kN (1,984 lbf)dry thrust

and 11.17 kN (2,510 lbf) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: 900 km/h (559 mph)

Range: 1,050 km (652 mi)

Service ceiling: 11,450 m (37,565 ft)

Rate of climb: 1,200 m/min (At max weight of 7,130 kg) (3,900 ft/min)

Thrust/weight: 0.28

Armament:

2x Nudelman-Richter NR-23 23 mm (0.9") cannon in the lower right fuselage with 100 RPG

1x Nudelman-Suranov NS-45 45 mm (1.8") cannon in the lower left fuselage (30 RPG)

The kit and its assembly:

My fourth entry to the early 2016 Cold War GB at whatifmodelers.com. Again, it's a project from the long ideas list that finally made it to the hardware stage through a GB's occasion.

This one was originally inspired by an illustration in what I deem a 1950s book about aircraft, including Soviet designs. Based on vague pictures and probably lots of speculation, it is funny to see what the enemy's aircraft were supposed to look like.

In this case, my benchmark was a rather fictional "Lavochkin La-16" fighter, which looked like a travesty version of a Republic F-84G with engine pods under its wings. Actually, the painting rather shows the Yak-25 all-weather interceptor, but you can only recognize it if you know hat you were looking for!

Anyway, the idea of a modified Thunderstreak had some charm, and this is what my kitbash for a fictional Soviet fighter is based upon. For a stronger retro feeling I used the straight wing F-84G, a Heller kit which donated its fuselage and landing gear.

The wings come from a PM Model Ta 183, the engine nacelles (from a Matchbox Me 262) were inserted as spacers into the wings. Their wing position was defined by the landing gear starts' length.

The original nose air intake was closed with a radome from an F-94C (Emhar) and the tail shortened - mostly because of the new swept tail surfaces, which come from a KP MiG-15 (a horribly crude kit!).

While this combination sounds harmless the integration of the parts took some serious effort and sculpting with putty!

Painting and markings:

As a classic Soviet prototype of the Fifties, choice of livery was simple: an all-metal finish with some Red Stars plus a code number.

At first, and also in order to control the surface finish after all the PSR work, the kit received a uniform coat with "White Aluminum" acrylic spray paint - this revealed several flaws.

Later, after mending many dents and scratches, several silver and grey shades were used on different panel and rudder areas, including Revell Acrylic Aluminum, Alu Plate, Steel, Magnesium and Titanium Metallizer as well as RAF Barley Grey.

The cockpit interior was painted with PRU Blue while the landing gear wells received a more grey-ish coat with FS 35237. Some red dots mark openings for fuel and oil and slightly brighten things up, as well as a red trim tab on the fin.

Grinded graphite was used for a weathered look and to emphasize the metallic impression. Panel lines were painted manually onto wings and fuselage with a very soft pencil.

After decal application (Red Stars from a Hobby Boss MiG-15, the tactical code was puzzled together from various sources) the kit was sealed under a semi-glossy coat of acrylic varnish.

Not a spectacular masterpiece, but a funny build and in so far interesting as Aircraft 171 rather appears like a pregnant Me 262 than a converted F-84F? Even the similarity with the Yak-25 is only remote, mostly in top view where the wing planform with the nacelles resembles the much bigger Soviet interceptor most? Still, this creation carries some of the Fifties/Cold War retro feeling.

Painting and markings:

I am not certain how ChADI 9 was painted (I assume overall silver), but I wanted for „скорость“ a little more color. Being a child of the Soviet era, red was a settled design element, but I thought that an all-red vehicle might have looked too cheesy. Other colors I considered were orange or white with blue trim, but did not find them to be appropriate for what I was looking. Eventually, I added some Russian Utilitarianism in the form of light grey for the upper hull (Humbrol 166, RAF Light Aircraft Grey), and the red (Humbrol 19) as a dark contrast around the complete air intake as well as the shock cone (somewhat inspired by the Green Monster #15 LSR vehicle), and then extended backwards into a narrowing cheatline along the flanks, which emphasizes the vehicle’s slender hull. For some more contrast between the two basic tones I later added thin white borders between them created with 2mm white decal stripes from TL Modellbau. Around the hull some bright red (Humbrol 238 Red Arrows Red) highlights as warning signs were added.

Painted the awnings

+++ 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 Hütter Hü 324 was the final development stage of BMW's 'Schnellbomber II' project, which had been designed around two mighty BMW 109-028 turboprops.

From medium altitude, the Hü 324 A-2 proved to be a highly accurate bomber – thanks to its "Elbegast" radar system which also allowed the planes to act as pathfinders for older types or fast bombers with less accurate equipment like the Ar 232, Ju 388 or Me 410. Loss rates were far lower than in the early, low-level days, with the Hü 324 stated by the RLM as having the lowest loss rate in the European Theatre of Operations at less than 0.8 %.

BMW-Hütter Ha 324A-2, general characteristics:

Crew: 4

Length: 18.58 m (60 ft 10 in)

Wingspan: 21.45 m (70 ft 4½ in )

Height: 4.82 m (15 ft 9½ in)

Wing area: 60.80 m² (654.5 ft.²)

Empty weight: 12,890 kg (28,417 lb)

Loaded weight: 18,400 kg (40,565 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 21,200 kg (46,738 lb)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 810 km/h (503 mph) at optimum height

Cruising speed: 750 km/h (460 mph) at 10,000 m (32,800 ft)

Range: 3.500 km (2.180 ml)

Service ceiling: 11.400 m (37.500 ft)

Rate of climb: 34.7 m/s (6,820 ft/min)

Powerplant:

Two BMW 109-028 ‘Mimir’ turboprop engines, limited to 5.500 WPS (4.044 WkW) each plus an additional residual thrust of 650kg (1.433 lb), driving four-bladed contraprops.

Armament:

6× 13mm MG 131 in three FDL 131Z turrets

1× 20mm MG 151/20 in unmanned/remote-controlled tail barbette

Up to 4.500 kg (9.800 lbs) in a large enclosed bomb-bay in the fuselage and/or four underwing hardpoints.

Typically, bomb load was limited to 3.000 kg (6.500 lbs) internally.

The kit and its assembly

This project/model belongs in the Luft '46 category, but it has no strict real world paradigm - even though Luftwaffe projects like the Ju 288, the BMW Schnellbomber designs or Arado's E560/2 and E560/7 had a clear influence. Actually, “my” Hü 324 design looks pretty much like a He 219 on steroids! Anyway, this project was rather inspired by a ‘click’ when two ideas/elements came together and started forming something new and convincing. This is classic kitbashing, and the major ingredients are:

● Fuselage, wings, landing gear and engine nacelles from a Trumpeter Ilyushin Il-28 bomber

● Nose section from an Italeri Ju 188 (donated from a friend, leftover from his Ju 488 project)

● Stabilisers from an Italeri B-25, replacing the Il-28’s swept tail

● Contraprops and fuselage barbettes from a vintage 1:100 scale Tu-20(-95) kit from VEB Plasticart (yes, vintage GDR stuff!)

Most interestingly, someone from the Netherlands had a similar idea for a kitbashing some years ago: www.airwar1946.nl/whif/L46-ju588.htm. I found this after I got my idea for the Hü 324 together, though - but its funny to see how some ideas manifest independently?

Building the thing went pretty straightforward, even though Trumpeter's Il-28 kit has a rather poor fit. Biggest problem turned out to be the integration of the Ju 188 cockpit section: it lacks 4-5mm in width! That does not sound dramatic, but it took a LOT of putty and internal stabilisation to graft the parts onto the Il-28's fuselage.

The cockpit was completely re-equipped with stuff from the scrap box, and the main landing gear received twin wheels.

The chin turret was mounted after the fuselage was complete, the frontal defence had been an issue I had been pondering about for a long while. Originally, some fixed guns (just as the Il-28 or Tu-16) had been considered. But when I found an old Matchbox B-17G turret in my scrap box, I was convinced that this piece could do literally the same job in my model, and it was quickly integrated. As a side effect, this arrangement justifies the bulged cockpit bottom well, and it just looks "more dangerous".

Another task was the lack of a well for the front wheel, after the Il-28 fuselage had been cut and lacked the original interior. This was also added after the new fuselage had been fitted together, and the new well walls were built with thin polystyrene plates. Not 100% exact and clean, but the arrangement fits the bill and takes the twin front wheel.

The bomb bay was left open, since the Trumpeter kit offers a complete interior. I also added four underwing hardpoints for external loads (one pair in- and outboard of the engine nacelles), taken from A-7 Corsair II kits, but left them empty. Visually-guided weapons like the 'Fritz X' bomb or Hs 293 missiles would IMHO hardly make sense during night sorties? I also did not want to overload the kit with more and more distracting details.

Painting

Even though it is a whif I wanted to incorporate some serious/authentic late WWII Luftwaffe looks. Since the Hü 324 would have been an all-weather bomber, I went for a night bomber livery which was actually used on a He 177 from 2./KG 100, based in France: Black (RLM 22, I simply used Humbrol 33) undersides, and upper surfaces in RLM 76 (Base is Humbrol 128, FS36320, plus some added areas with Testors 2086, the authentic tone which is a tad lighter, but very close) with mottles in RLM 75 (Grauviolett, Testors 2085, plus some splotches of Humbrol 27, Medium Sea Grey), and some weathering through black ink, some enhanced panel lines (with a mix of matte varnish and Panzergrau), as well as some dry painting all over the fuselage.

All interior surfaces were painted in RLM 66 (Schwarzgrau/Black Grey, Testors 2079), typical for German late WWII aircraft. Propeller spinners were painted RLM 70 (Schwarzgrün) on the front half, the rear half was painted half black and half white.

Pretty simple scheme, but it looks VERY cool, esp. on this sleek aircraft. I am very happy with this decision, and I think that this rather simple livery is less distracting from the fantasy plane itself, making the whif less obvious. In the end, the whole thing looks a bit grey-in-grey, but that spooky touch just adds to the menacing look of this beefy aircraft. I think it would not look as good if it had been kept in daytime RLM 74/75/76 or even RLM 82/83/76?

Markings and squadron code were puzzled together from an Authentic Decal aftermarket sheet for a late He 111 and individual letters from TL Modellbau. The "F3" code for the fictional Kampfgruppe (KG) 210 is a random choice, "EV" marks the individual plane, the red "E" and the control letter "V" at the end designate a plane from the eleventh squadron of KG 210. My idea is that the Hü 324 would replace these machines and literally taking their place in the frontline aviaton units. So I tried to keep in line with the German aircraft code, but after all, it's just a whif...

So, after some more surgical work than expected, the Hü 324 medium bomber is ready to soar!

Some background:

A vanship is a type of flying machine from the animated series Last Exile. It is often referred to as a "flying boat" in that it does not fly by means of aerodynamics like planes do, but rather by floating on the air and propelling itself through the use of a substance known as "Claudia" (see below).

All vanships in the series were rendered as 3D images, a hallmark of Japanese animation studio Gonzo, makers of such series as Vandread and Blue Submarine No. 6.

The kit and its assembly:

I love the Vanships from Last Exile - even though I have never seen the series.

While these vehicles appear as retro stuff, they are very original and unique in look and feel - a modeler's dream if you are into scratchbuilding and kitbashing. There's also a 1:72 Vanship kit available (actually, in two versions) from Hasegawa, but it is IMHO overpriced. And there are so many different Vanships in the series that it is a shame that not more of them have been kitted, scratched, or at least used as a source of modelling inspiration.

The latter's the case here. I had a scratched Vanship on the agenda for a long time and also a basic idea with what I'd start, but it took a SF racing GB at phoxim.de ( a German SF model building forum) to make a move.

I wanted a small and fast single seater, and this evolved through the GB into a Racer with a more prominent engine unit and a rather purposeful livery instead of bright colors. But the basic concept was retained: originally, the plan was to use a 1:72 F4U as fuselage basis, and I had the idea to integrate some parts of a 1:43 Citroen 11CV from Heller, e. g. its grill and bonnet.

The F4U is the SMER kit, and it has the benefit of having separate wings for a folded display. The fin was cut off and the landing gear wells covered.

The cockpit opening was slightly enlarged in order to take a 1:48 Japanese WWII resin pilot and a seat from the 1:43 11CV - pretty cramped, but it worked and looks good. Only the wind screen of the OOB F4U canopy was used, as well as the original dashboard.

Most work was done on the outside, though. The first problem turned up when I realized that the 11CV bonnet could hardly be mated with the F4U. As a plan B I found a cover for the brush head of a Philipps electric toothbrush in my donor bank - a bit too high and narrow, but overall a unique addition and characteristic nose for my creation!

The landing gear comes from an Amodel Ju-87A - together with the drooped F4U inner wings the result looked a bit stalky at first, but the Vanship still needed its engines.

As a racer, I went for double power, and the long pods that carry the propulsion system were scratched from several non-model-kit parts:

- Front comes from a Revell 1:32 AH-64 Apache, its engines

- The intakes come from a Matchbox Gloster Meteor NF.14

- The "ring" consists of wheel parts from the Heller 11CV

- The conic isolators are ball pen grips, cut to size and closed with tank wheels on both ends

- The fins are plastic knives, primarily the blades and parts of the handles

In between these engine pods, which are only held under the wings and stabilized internally through steel wire, a generator pod from a 1:72 Matchbox EA-6B fills the void. It also holds a characteristic "knife" under the front grill - again carved from the handle of the plastic knives.

In order to blend the changes in fuselage shape and diameter and create a kind of Cord-style grill I added three styrene strips which were wrapped around the nose, the upper line reaching back to the cockpit - a kind of 3D rally stripe that also streches the shape.

Some air scoops and surface details were added, made from styrene, and stiff cable was used under the front fuselage to create hoses between the bonnet with the Claudia reactor and the engines.

I was frequently tempted to add more things and details or decoration, but found that a rather clean look would better suit a dedicated racer Vanship - the Stutz Blackhawk land speed record car was a vague benchmark.

Painting and markings:

I wanted to keep things simple and dry. Before this turned into a racer I considered several colors like pale blue, a greyish-green, British Racing Green or Crimson, with ivory trim. Anyway, I rejected this in favir of a pure, bare metal finish. I even did not add colorful stripes - the only "color" comes from the mechanical parts (ivory and dark brown on the engine pods, the idea was to add an isolator impression) and the small sponsor decals.

The kit initially received a basic coat of Revell's acrylic Aluminum, and onto that panels/field with several Metallizer tones (Steel, Magnesium, Titanium, polished Aluminum) were added. On top of that, the whole thing received a rubbing with grinded graphite - intensifying the metal shine and also weathering the vehicle.

The pilot received a rather conservatie outfit, with a brown leather jacket - matching the overall style of the Vanship. Some engine parts (e. g. the blades and the knife under the nose) were painted with a mix of Steel Metallizer and Gold. The cockpit interior was painted in RLM 02.

The markings were puzzled together. The start number '24' in that nice retro type comes from an 1:72 Airfix Il-2, the black disc below is from a slot car aftermarket sheet. The many sponsor stickers come mostly from an 1:72 Su-27 demonstrator aircraft sheet from Begemot - with their cyrillic typo they blend well into the Last Exile look and feel (where Greek/Cyrillic typo pops up).

Finally, the kit received a coat with acrylic gloss varnish, while the anti glare panel in front of the windscreen became matt.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The РТАК-30 attack vintoplan (also known as vintokryl) owed its existence to the Mil Mi-30 plane/helicopter project that originated in 1972. The Mil Mi-30 was conceived as a transport aircraft that could hold up to 19 passengers or two tons of cargo, and its purpose was to replace the Mi-8 and Mi-17 Helicopters in both civil and military roles. With vertical takeoff through a pair of tiltrotor engine pods on the wing tips (similar in layout to the later V-22 Osprey) and the ability to fly like a normal plane, the Mil Mi-30 had a clear advantage over the older models.

And this was just about to happen: Despite the РТАК-30’s development problems, the innovative attack vintoplan was included in the Soviet Union’s 5-year plan for 1989-1995, and the vehicle was eventually expected to enter service in 1996. However, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dwindling economics, neither the РТАК-30 nor its civil Mil Mi-30 sister did soar out in the new age of technology. In 1990 the whole program was stopped and both surviving РТАК-30 prototypes were mothballed – one (the 3rd prototype) was disassembled and its components brought to the Rostov-na-Donu Mil plant, while the other, prototype No. 1, is rumored to be stored at the Central Russian Air Force Museum in Monino, to be restored to a public exhibition piece some day.

General characteristics:

Crew: Two (pilot, copilot/WSO) plus space for up to three passengers or cargo

Length: 45 ft 7 1/2 in (13,93 m)

Rotor diameter: 20 ft 9 in (6,33 m)

Wingspan incl. engine nacelles: 42 ft 8 1/4 in (13,03 m)

Total width with rotors: 58 ft 8 1/2 in (17,93 m)

Height: 17 ft (5,18 m) at top of tailfin

Disc area: 4x 297 ft² (27,65 m²)

Wing area: 342.2 ft² (36,72 m²)

Empty weight: 8,500 kg (18,740 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 12,000 kg (26,500 lb)

Powerplant:

4× Klimov VK-2500PS-03 turboshaft turbines, 2,400 hp (1.765 kW) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 275 knots (509 km/h, 316 mph) at sea level

305 kn (565 km/h; 351 mph) at 15,000 ft (4,600 m)

Cruise speed: 241 kn (277 mph, 446 km/h) at sea level

Stall speed: 110 kn (126 mph, 204 km/h) in airplane mode

Range: 879 nmi (1,011 mi, 1,627 km)

Combat radius: 390 nmi (426 mi, 722 km)

Ferry range: 1,940 nmi (2,230 mi, 3,590 km) with auxiliary external fuel tanks

Service ceiling: 25,000 ft (7,620 m)

Rate of climb: 2,320–4,000 ft/min (11.8 m/s)

Glide ratio: 4.5:1

Disc loading: 20.9 lb/ft² at 47,500 lb GW (102.23 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.259 hp/lb (427 W/kg)

Armament:

1× 30 mm (1.18 in) 2A42 multi-purpose autocannon with 450 rounds

7 external hardpoints for a maximum ordnance of 2.500 kg (5.500 lb)

The kit and its assembly:

This exotic, fictional aircraft-thing is a contribution to the “The Flying Machines of Unconventional Means” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com in early 2019. While the propulsion system itself is not that unconventional, I deemed the quadrocopter concept (which had already been on my agenda for a while) to be suitable for a worthy submission.

The Mil Mi-30 tiltrotor aircraft, mentioned in the background above, was a real project – but my alternative combat vintoplan design is purely speculative.

I had already stashed away some donor parts, primarily two sets of tiltrotor backpacks for 1:144 Gundam mecha from Bandai, which had been released recently. While these looked a little toy-like, these parts had the charm of coming with handed propellers and stub wings that would allow the engine nacelles to swivel.

The search for a suitable fuselage turned out to be a more complex safari than expected. My initial choice was the spoofy Italeri Mi-28 kit (I initially wanted a staggered tandem cockpit), but it turned out to be much too big for what I wanted to achieve. Then I tested a “real” Mi-28 (Dragon) and a Ka-50 (Italeri), but both failed for different reasons – the Mi-28 was too slender, while the Ka-50 had the right size – but converting it for my build would have been VERY complicated, because the engine nacelles would have to go and the fuselage shape between the cockpit and the fuselage section around the original engines and stub wings would be hard to adapt. I eventually bought an Italeri Ka-52 two-seater as fuselage donor.

In order to mount the four engines to the fuselage I’d need two pairs of wings of appropriate span – and I found a pair of 1:100 A-10 wings as well as the wings from an 1:72 PZL Iskra (not perfect, but the most suitable donor parts I could find in the junkyard). On the tips of these wings, the swiveling joints for the engine nacelles from the Bandai set were glued. While mounting the rear wings was not too difficult (just the Ka-52’s OOB stabilizers had to go), the front pair of wings was more complex. The reason: the Ka-52’s engines had to go and their attachment points, which are actually shallow recesses on the kit, had to be faired over first. Instead of filling everything with putty I decided to cover the areas with 0.5mm styrene sheet first, and then do cosmetic PSR work. This worked quite well and also included a cover for the Ka-52’s original rotor mast mount. Onto these new flanks the pair of front wings was attached, in a mid position – a conceptual mistake…

The cockpit was taken OOB and the aircraft’s nose received an additional thimble radome, reminiscent of the Mi-28’s arrangement. The radome itself was created from a German 500 kg WWII bomb.

At this stage, the mid-wing mistake reared its ugly head – it had two painful consequences which I had not fully thought through. Problem #1: the engine nacelles turned out to be too long. When rotated into a vertical position, they’d potentially hit the ground! Furthermore, the ground clearance was very low – and I decided to skip the Ka-52’s OOB landing gear in favor of a heavier and esp. longer alternative, a full landing gear set from an Italeri MiG-37 “Ferret E” stealth fighter, which itself resembles a MiG-23/27 landing gear. Due to the expected higher speeds of the vintoplan I gave the landing gear full covers (partly scratched, plus some donor parts from an Academy MiG-27). It took some trials to get the new landing gear into the right position and a suitable stance – but it worked. With this benchmark I was also able to modify the engine nacelles, shortening their rear ends. They were still very (too!) close to the ground, but at least the model would not sit on them!

However, the more complete the model became, the more design flaws turned up. Another mistake is that the front and rear rotors slightly overlap when in vertical position – something that would be unthinkable in real life…

With all major components in place, however, detail work could proceed. This included the completion of the cockpit and the sensor turrets, the Ka-52 cannon and finally the ordnance. Due to the large rotors, any armament had to be concentrated around the fuselage, outside of the propeller discs. For this reason (and in order to prevent the rear engines to ingest exhaust gases from the front engines in level flight), I gave the front wings a slightly larger span, so that four underwing pylons could be fitted, plus a pair of underfuselage hardpoints.

The ordnance was puzzled together from the Italeri Ka-52 and from an ESCI Ka-34 (the fake Ka-50) kit.

Painting and markings:

With such an exotic aircraft, I rather wanted a conservative livery and opted for a typical Soviet tactical four-tone scheme from the Eighties – the idea was to build a prototype aircraft from the state acceptance trials period, not a flashy demonstrator. The scheme and the (guesstimated) colors were transferred from a Soviet air force MiG-21bis of that era, and it consists of a reddish light brown (Humbrol 119, Light Earth), a light, yellowish green (Humbrol 159, Khaki Drab), a bluish dark green (Humbrol 195, Dark Satin Green, a.k.a. RAL 6020 Chromdioxidgrün) and a dark brown (Humbrol 170, Brown Bess). For the undersides’ typical bluish grey I chose Humbrol 145 (FS 35237, Gray Blue), which is slightly lighter and less greenish than the typical Soviet tones. A light black ink wash was applied and some light post-shading was done in order to create panels that are structurally not there, augmented by some pencil lines.

The cockpit became light blue (Humbrol 89), with medium gray dashboard and consoles. The ejection seats received bright yellow seatbelts and bright blue pads – a detail seen on a Mi-28 cockpit picture.

Some dielectric fairings like the fin tip were painted in bright medium green (Humbrol 101), while some other antenna fairings were painted in pale yellow (Humbrol 71).

The landing gear struts and the interior of the wells became Aluminum Metalic (Humbrol 56), the wheels dark green discs (Humbrol 30).

The decals were puzzled together from various sources, including some Begemot sheets. Most of the stencils came from the Ka-52 OOB sheet, and generic decal sheet material was used to mark the walkways or the rotor tips and leading edges.

Only some light weathering was done to the leading edges of the wings, and then the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

A complex kitbashing project, and it revealed some pitfalls in the course of making. However, the result looks menacing and still convincing, esp. in flight – even though the picture editing, with four artificially rotating proprotors, was probably more tedious than building the model itself!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The Douglas F3D Skyknight (later designated F-10 Skyknight) was a United States twin-engined, mid-wing jet fighter aircraft manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company in El Segundo, California. The F3D was designed as a carrier-based all-weather night fighter and saw service with the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. The mission of the F3D-2 was to search out and destroy enemy aircraft at night.

The F3D was not intended to be a typical sleek and nimble dogfighter, but as a standoff night fighter, packing a powerful radar system and a second crew member. It originated in 1945 with a US Navy requirement for a jet-powered, radar-equipped, carrier-based night fighter. The Douglas team led by Ed Heinemann designed around the bulky air intercept radar systems of the time, with side-by-side seating for the pilot and radar operator. The result was an aircraft with a wide, deep, and roomy fuselage. Instead of ejection seats, an escape tunnel was used.

As a night fighter that was not expected to be as fast as smaller daylight fighters, the expectation was to have a stable platform for its radar system and the four 20 mm cannon mounted in the lower fuselage. The F3D was, however, able to outturn a MiG-15 in an inside circle. The fire control system in the F3D-1 was the Westinghouse AN/APQ-35.

The AN/APQ-35 was advanced for the time, a combination of three different radars, each performing separate functions: an AN/APS-21 search radar, an AN/APG-26 tracking radar, both located in the nose, and an AN/APS-28 tail warning radar. The complexity of this vacuum tube-based radar system, which was produced before the advent of semiconductor electronics, required intensive maintenance to keep it operating properly.

The F3D Skyknight was never produced in great numbers but it did achieve many firsts in its role as a night fighter over Korea. While it never achieved the fame of the North American F-86 Sabre, it did down several Soviet-built MiG-15s as a night fighter over Korea with only one air-to-air loss of its own against a Chinese MiG-15 on the night of 29 May 1953.

In the years after the Korean War, the F3D was gradually replaced by more powerful aircraft with better radar systems. The F3D's career was not over though; its stability and spacious fuselage made it easily adaptable to other roles. The Skyknight played an important role in the development of the radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow missile in the 1950s which led to further guided air-to-air missile developments.

In 1954, the F3D-2M was the first U.S. Navy jet aircraft to be fitted with an operational air-to-air missile: the Sparrow I,an all weather day/night BVR missile that used beam riding guidance for the aircrew to control the flight of the missile. Only 38 aircraft (12 F3D-1Ms, and 16 F3D-2Ms) were modified to use the missiles, though.

One of the F3D's main flaws, which it shared with many early jet aircraft, was its lack of power and performance. Douglas tried to mend this through a radical redesign: The resulting F3D-3 was the designation assigned to a swept-winged version (36° sweep at quarter chord) of the Skyknight. It was originally to be powered by the J46 turbojet, rated at 4.080 lbf for takeoff, which was under development but suffered serious trouble.

This led to the cancellation of the J46, and calculated performance of the F3D-3 with the substitute J34 was deemed insufficient. As an alternative the aircraft had to be modified to carry two larger and longer J47-GE-2 engines, which also powered the USN's FJ-2 "Fury" fighter.

This engine's thrust of 6.000 pounds-force (27 kN) at 7,950 rpm appeared sufficient for the heavy, swept-wing aircraft, and in 1954 an order for 287 production F3D-3s was issued, right time to upgrade the new type with the Sparrow I.

While the F3D-3's outline resembled that of its straight wing predecessors, a lot of structural changes had to be made to accommodate the shifted main wing spar, and the heavy radar equipment also took its toll: the gross weight climbed by more than 3 tons, and as a result much of the gained performance through the stronger engines and the swept wings was eaten away.

Maximum internal fuel load was 1.350 US gallons, plus a further 300 in underwing drop tanks. Overall wing surface remained the same, but the swept wing surfaces reduced the wing span.

In the end, thrust-to-weight ratio was only marginally improved and in fact, the F3D-3 had a lower rate of climb than the F3D-2, its top speed at height was only marginally higher, and stall speed climbed by more than 30 mph, making carrier landings more complicated.

It's equipment was also the same - the AN/APQ-35 was still fitted, but mainly because the large radar dish offered the largest detection range of any carrier-borne type of that time, and better radars that could match this performance were still under construction. Anyway, the F3D-3 was able to carry Sparrow I from the start, and this would soon be upgraded to Sparrow III (which became the AIM-7), and it showed much better flight characteristics at medium altitude.

Despite the ,many shortcomings the "new" aircraft represented an overall improvement over the F3D-2 and was accepted for service. Production of the F3D-3 started in 1955, but technology advanced quickly and a serious competitor with supersonic capability appeared with the McDonnell F3H Demon and the F4D Skyray - much more potent aircraft that the USN immediately preferred to the slow F3Ds. As a consequence, the production contract was cut down to only 102 aircraft.

But it came even worse: production of the swept wing Skyknight already ceased after 18 months and 71 completed airframes. Ironically, the F3D-3's successor, the F3H and its J40 engine, turned out to be more capricious than expected, which delayed the Demon's service introduction and seriously hampered its performance, so that the F3D-3 kept its all weather/night fighter role until 1960, and was eventually taken out of service in 1964 when the first F-4 Phantom II fighters appeared in USN service.

In 1962 all F3D versions were re-designated into F-10, the swept wing F3D-3 became the F-10C. The straight wing versions were used as trainers and also served as an electronic warfare platform into the Vietnam War as a precursor to the EA-6A Intruder and EA-6B Prowler, while the swept-wing fighters were completely retired as their performance and mission equipment had been outdated. The last F-10C flew in 1965.

General characteristics

Crew: two

Length: 49 ft (14.96 m)

Wingspan: 42 feet 5 inches (12.95 m)

Height: 16 ft 1 in (4.90 m)

Wing area: 400 ft² (37.16 m²)

Empty weight: 19.800 lb (8.989 kg)

Loaded weight: 28,843 lb (13.095 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 34.000 lb (15.436 kg)

Powerplant:

2× General Electric J47-GE-2 turbojets, each rated at 6.000 lbf (26,7 kN) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 630 mph (1.014 km/h) at sea level, 515 mph (829 km/h) t (6,095 m)

Cruise speed: 515 mph (829 km/h) at 40,000 feet

Stall speed: 128 mph (206 km/h)

Range: 890 mi (1.433 km) with internal fuel; 1,374 mi, 2,212 km with 2× 300 gal (1.136 l) tanks

Service ceiling: 43.000 ft (13.025 m)

Rate of climb: 2,640 ft/min (13,3 m/s)

Wing loading: 53.4 lb/ft² (383 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.353

Armament

4× 20 mm Hispano-Suiza M2 cannon, 200 rpg, in the lower nose

Four underwing hardpoints inboard of the wing folding points for up to 4.000 lb (1.816 kg)

ordnance, including AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles, 11.75 in (29.8cm) Tiny Tim rockets, two

150 or 300 US gal drop tanks or bombs of up to 2.000 lb (900 kg) caliber, plus four hardpoints

under each outer wing for a total of eight 5" HVARs or eight pods with six 2 3/4" FFARs each

The kit and its assembly:

Another project which had been on the list for some years now but finally entered the hardware stage. The F3D itself is already a more or less forgotten aircraft, and there are only a few kits available - there has been a vacu kit, the Matchbox offering and lately kits in 1:72 and 1:48 by Sword.

The swept wing F3D-3 remained on the drawing board, but would have been a very attractive evolution of the tubby Skyknight. In fact, the swept surfaces resemble those of the A3D/B-66 a Iot, and this was the spark that started the attempt to build this aircraft as a model through a kitbash.

This model is basically the Matchbox F3D coupled with wings from an Italeri B-66, even though, being much bigger, these had to be modified.

The whole new tail is based on B-66 material. The fin's chord was shortened, though, and a new leading edge (with its beautiful curvature) had to be sculpted from 2C putty. The vertical stabilizers also come from the B-66, its span was adjusted to the Skyknight's and a new root intersection was created from styrene and putty, so that a cross-shaped tail could be realized.

The tail radar dish was retained, even though sketches show the F3D-3 without it.

The wings were take 1:1 from the B-66 and match well. They just had to be shortened, I set the cut at maybe 5mm outwards of the engine pods' attachment points. They needed some re-engraving for the inner flaps, as these would touch the F3D-3's engines when lowered, but shape, depth and size are very good for the conversion.

On the fuselage, the wings' original "attachment bays" had to be filled, and the new wings needed a new position much further forward, directly behind the cockpit, in order to keep the CoG.

One big issue would be the main landing gear. On the straight wing aircraft it retracts outwards, and I kept this arrangement. No detail of the exact landing gear well position was available to me, so I used the Matchbox parts as stencils and placed the new wells as much aft as possible, cutting out new openings from the B-66 wings.

The OOB landing gear was retained, but I added some structure to the landing gear wells with plastic blister material - not to be realistic, just for the effect. A lot of lead was added in the kit's nose section, making sure it actually stands on the front wheel.

The Matchbox Skyknight basically offers no real problems, even though the air intake design leaves, by tendency some ugly seams and even gaps. I slightly pimped the cockpit with headrests, additional gauges and a gunsight, as well as two (half) pilot figures. I did not plan to present the opened cockpit and the bulbous windows do not allow a clear view onto the inside anyway, so this job was only basically done. In fact, the pilots don't have a lower body at all...

Ordnance comprises of four Sparrow III - the Sparrow I with its pointed nose could have been an option, too, but I think at the time of 1960 the early version was already phased out?

Painting and markings:

This was supposed to become a typical USN service aircraft of the 60ies, so a grey/white livery was predetermined. I had built an EF-10B many years ago from the Matchbox kit, and the grey/white guise suits the Whale well - and here it would look even better, with the new, elegant wings.

For easy painting I used semi matt white from the rattle can on the lower sides (painting the landing gear at the same time!), and then added FS 36440 (Light Gull Grey, Humbrol 129) with a brush to the upper sides. The radar nose became semi matt black (with some weathering), while the RHAWS dish was kept in tan (Humbrol 71).

In order to emphasize the landing gear and the respective wells I added a red rim to the covers.

The cockpit interior was painted in dark grey - another factor which made adding too many details there futile, too...

The aircraft's individual marking were to be authentic, and not flamboyant. In the mid 50ies the USN machines were not as colorful as in the Vietnam War era, that just started towards the 60ies.

The markings I used come primarily from an Emhar F3H Demon, which features no less than four(!) markings, all with different colors. I settled for a machine of VF-61 "Jolly Rogers", which operated from the USS Saratoga primarily in the Mediterranean from 1958 on - and shortly thereafter the unit was disbanded.

I took some of the Demon markings and modified them with very similar but somewhat more discrete markings from VMF-323, which flew FJ-4 at the time - both squadrons marked their aircraft with yellow diamonds on black background, and I had some leftover decals from a respective Xtradecal sheet in the stash.

IMHO a good result with the B-66 donation parts, even though I am not totally happy with the fin - it could have been more slender at the top, and with a longer, more elegant spine fillet, but for that the B-66 fin was just too thick. Anyway, I am not certain if anyone has ever built this aircraft? I would not call the F3D-3 elegant or beautiful, but the swept wings underline the fuselage's almost perfect teardrop shape, and the thing reminds a lot of the later Grumman A-6 Intruder?

Some background:

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

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

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

Specifications:

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

Weight: 8.3 tons

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

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

Height: 9 ft 2¾ in (2,81 m)

Ground clearance: 12 in (30.5 cm)

Turning radius: 39 ft (12 m)

Suspension: Wheel, rigid front and rear axles;

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

Fuel capacity: 31 imp gal (141 litres)

Armour:

5–15 mm (0.2 – 0.6 in)

Performance:

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

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

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

Operational range: 250 mi (400 km)

Power/weight: 11,44 hp/ton

Engine:

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

Transmission:

4-speed, with a 2-speed auxiliary box

Armament:

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

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

2-4× smoke dischargers, mounted on the turret

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background

The Hütter Hü 324 was the final development stage of BMW's 'Schnellbomber II' project, which had been designed around two mighty BMW 109-028 turboprops.

From medium altitude, the Hü 324 A-2 proved to be a highly accurate bomber – thanks to its "Elbegast" radar system which also allowed the planes to act as pathfinders for older types or fast bombers with less accurate equipment like the Ar 232, Ju 388 or Me 410. Loss rates were far lower than in the early, low-level days, with the Hü 324 stated by the RLM as having the lowest loss rate in the European Theatre of Operations at less than 0.8 %.

BMW-Hütter Ha 324A-2, general characteristics:

Crew: 4

Length: 18.58 m (60 ft 10 in)

Wingspan: 21.45 m (70 ft 4½ in )

Height: 4.82 m (15 ft 9½ in)

Wing area: 60.80 m² (654.5 ft.²)

Empty weight: 12,890 kg (28,417 lb)

Loaded weight: 18,400 kg (40,565 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 21,200 kg (46,738 lb)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 810 km/h (503 mph) at optimum height

Cruising speed: 750 km/h (460 mph) at 10,000 m (32,800 ft)

Range: 3.500 km (2.180 ml)

Service ceiling: 11.400 m (37.500 ft)

Rate of climb: 34.7 m/s (6,820 ft/min)

Powerplant:

Two BMW 109-028 ‘Mimir’ turboprop engines, limited to 5.500 WPS (4.044 WkW) each plus an additional residual thrust of 650kg (1.433 lb), driving four-bladed contraprops.

Armament:

6× 13mm MG 131 in three FDL 131Z turrets

1× 20mm MG 151/20 in unmanned/remote-controlled tail barbette

Up to 4.500 kg (9.800 lbs) in a large enclosed bomb-bay in the fuselage and/or four underwing hardpoints.

Typically, bomb load was limited to 3.000 kg (6.500 lbs) internally.

The kit and its assembly

This project/model belongs in the Luft '46 category, but it has no strict real world paradigm - even though Luftwaffe projects like the Ju 288, the BMW Schnellbomber designs or Arado's E560/2 and E560/7 had a clear influence. Actually, “my” Hü 324 design looks pretty much like a He 219 on steroids! Anyway, this project was rather inspired by a ‘click’ when two ideas/elements came together and started forming something new and convincing. This is classic kitbashing, and the major ingredients are:

● Fuselage, wings, landing gear and engine nacelles from a Trumpeter Ilyushin Il-28 bomber

● Nose section from an Italeri Ju 188 (donated from a friend, leftover from his Ju 488 project)

● Stabilisers from an Italeri B-25, replacing the Il-28’s swept tail

● Contraprops and fuselage barbettes from a vintage 1:100 scale Tu-20(-95) kit from VEB Plasticart (yes, vintage GDR stuff!)

Most interestingly, someone from the Netherlands had a similar idea for a kitbashing some years ago: www.airwar1946.nl/whif/L46-ju588.htm. I found this after I got my idea for the Hü 324 together, though - but its funny to see how some ideas manifest independently?

Building the thing went pretty straightforward, even though Trumpeter's Il-28 kit has a rather poor fit. Biggest problem turned out to be the integration of the Ju 188 cockpit section: it lacks 4-5mm in width! That does not sound dramatic, but it took a LOT of putty and internal stabilisation to graft the parts onto the Il-28's fuselage.

The cockpit was completely re-equipped with stuff from the scrap box, and the main landing gear received twin wheels.

The chin turret was mounted after the fuselage was complete, the frontal defence had been an issue I had been pondering about for a long while. Originally, some fixed guns (just as the Il-28 or Tu-16) had been considered. But when I found an old Matchbox B-17G turret in my scrap box, I was convinced that this piece could do literally the same job in my model, and it was quickly integrated. As a side effect, this arrangement justifies the bulged cockpit bottom well, and it just looks "more dangerous".

Another task was the lack of a well for the front wheel, after the Il-28 fuselage had been cut and lacked the original interior. This was also added after the new fuselage had been fitted together, and the new well walls were built with thin polystyrene plates. Not 100% exact and clean, but the arrangement fits the bill and takes the twin front wheel.

The bomb bay was left open, since the Trumpeter kit offers a complete interior. I also added four underwing hardpoints for external loads (one pair in- and outboard of the engine nacelles), taken from A-7 Corsair II kits, but left them empty. Visually-guided weapons like the 'Fritz X' bomb or Hs 293 missiles would IMHO hardly make sense during night sorties? I also did not want to overload the kit with more and more distracting details.

Painting

Even though it is a whif I wanted to incorporate some serious/authentic late WWII Luftwaffe looks. Since the Hü 324 would have been an all-weather bomber, I went for a night bomber livery which was actually used on a He 177 from 2./KG 100, based in France: Black (RLM 22, I simply used Humbrol 33) undersides, and upper surfaces in RLM 76 (Base is Humbrol 128, FS36320, plus some added areas with Testors 2086, the authentic tone which is a tad lighter, but very close) with mottles in RLM 75 (Grauviolett, Testors 2085, plus some splotches of Humbrol 27, Medium Sea Grey), and some weathering through black ink, some enhanced panel lines (with a mix of matte varnish and Panzergrau), as well as some dry painting all over the fuselage.

All interior surfaces were painted in RLM 66 (Schwarzgrau/Black Grey, Testors 2079), typical for German late WWII aircraft. Propeller spinners were painted RLM 70 (Schwarzgrün) on the front half, the rear half was painted half black and half white.

Pretty simple scheme, but it looks VERY cool, esp. on this sleek aircraft. I am very happy with this decision, and I think that this rather simple livery is less distracting from the fantasy plane itself, making the whif less obvious. In the end, the whole thing looks a bit grey-in-grey, but that spooky touch just adds to the menacing look of this beefy aircraft. I think it would not look as good if it had been kept in daytime RLM 74/75/76 or even RLM 82/83/76?

Markings and squadron code were puzzled together from an Authentic Decal aftermarket sheet for a late He 111 and individual letters from TL Modellbau. The "F3" code for the fictional Kampfgruppe (KG) 210 is a random choice, "EV" marks the individual plane, the red "E" and the control letter "V" at the end designate a plane from the eleventh squadron of KG 210. My idea is that the Hü 324 would replace these machines and literally taking their place in the frontline aviaton units. So I tried to keep in line with the German aircraft code, but after all, it's just a whif...

So, after some more surgical work than expected, the Hü 324 medium bomber is ready to soar!

+++ 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.

Some background:

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

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

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

Specifications:

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

Weight: 8.3 tons

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

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

Height: 9 ft 2¾ in (2,81 m)

Ground clearance: 12 in (30.5 cm)

Turning radius: 39 ft (12 m)

Suspension: Wheel, rigid front and rear axles;

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

Fuel capacity: 31 imp gal (141 litres)

Armour:

5–15 mm (0.2 – 0.6 in)

Performance:

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

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

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

Operational range: 250 mi (400 km)

Power/weight: 11,44 hp/ton

Engine:

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

Transmission:

4-speed, with a 2-speed auxiliary box

Armament:

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

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

2-4× smoke dischargers, mounted on the turret

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

In the first years of the war, the Wehrmacht had only little interest in developing self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, but as the Allies developed air superiority and dedicated attack aircraft threatened the ground troops from above, the need for more mobile and better-armed self-propelled anti-aircraft guns increased. As a stopgap solution the Wehrmacht initially adapted a variety of wheeled, half-track and tracked vehicles to serve as mobile forward air defense positions. Their tasks were to protect armor and infantry units in the field, as well as to protect temporary forward area positions such as mobile headquarters and logistic points.

All Ostwind II tanks were built from recovered ‘Panther’ battle tanks of various versions. The new Panther-based SPAAGs gradually replaced most of the outdated Panzer IV AA variants as well as the Ostwind I. Their production immediately stopped in the course of 1945 when the more sophisticated 'Coelian' family of anti-aircraft tanks with fully enclosed turrets became available. This system was based on Panzer V hulls, too, and it was soon followed by the first E-50 SPAAGs with the new, powerful twin-55 mm gun.

Specifications:

Crew: Six (commander, gunner, 2× loader, driver, radio-operator/hull machine gunner)

Weight: 43.8 tonnes (43.1 long tons; 48.3 short tons)

Length (hull only): 6.87 m (22 ft 6 in)

Width: 3.42 m (11 ft 3 in)

Height: 3.53 m (11 ft 6 3/4 in)

Suspension: Double torsion bar, interleaved road wheels

Fuel capacity: 720 litres (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)

Armor:

15–80 mm (0.6 – 3.15 in)

Performance:

Maximum road speed: 46 km/h (29 mph)

Operational range: 250 km (160 mi)

Power/weight: 15.39 PS (11.5 kW)/tonne (13.77 hp/ton)

Engine:

Maybach HL230 P30 V-12 petrol engine with 700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW)

ZF AK 7-200 gear; 7 forward 1 reverse

Armament:

2× 37 mm (1.46 in) FlaK 43 cannon in twin mount with 1.200 rounds

1× 7.92 mm MG 34 machine gun in the front glacis plate with 2.500 rounds

The kit and its assembly:

This was a spontaneous build, more or less the recycling of leftover parts from a 1:72 Revell Ostwind tank on a Panzer III chassis that I had actually bought primarily for the chassis (it became a fictional Aufklärungspanzer III). When I looked at the leftover turret, I wondered about a beefed-up/bigger version with two 37 mm guns. Such an 'Ostwind II' was actually on the German drawing boards, but never realized - but what-if modelling can certainly change that. However, such a heavy weapon would have to be mounted on a bigger/heavier chassis, so the natural choice became the Panzer V, the Panther medium battle tank. This way, my ‘Ostwind II’ interpretation was born.

The hull for this fictional AA tank is a Hasegawa ‘Panther Ausf. G’ kit, which stems from 1973 and clearly shows its age, at least from today’s point of view. While everything fits well, the details are rather simple, if not crude (e. g. the gratings on the engine deck or the cupola on the turret). However, only the lower hull and the original wheels were used since I wanted to portray a revamped former standard battle tank.

The turret was a more complicated affair. It had to be completely re-constructed, to accept the enlarged twin gun and to fit onto the Panther hull. The first step was the assembly of the twin gun mount, using parts from the original Ostwind kit and additional parts from a second one. In order to save space and not to make thing uber-complicated I added the second weapon to the right side of the original gun and changed some accessories.

This, together with the distance between the barrels, gave the benchmark for the turret's reconstruction. Since the weapon had not become longer, I decided to keep things as simple as possible and just widen the open turret - I simply took the OOB Ostwind hexagonal turret (which consists of an upper and lower half), cut it up vertically and glued them onto the Panther turret's OOB base, shifting the sides just as far to the outside that the twin gun barrels would fit between them - a distance of ~0.4 inch (1 cm). At the rear the gap was simply closed with styrene sheet, while the front used shield parts from the Revell Ostwind kit that come from a ground mount for the FlaK 43. Two parts from this shield were glued together and inserted into the front gap. While this is certainly not as elegant as e. g. the Wirbelwind turret, I think that this solution was easier to integrate.

Massive PSR was necessary to blend the turret walls with the Panther turret base, and as a late modification the opening for the sight had to be moved, too. To the left of the weapons, I also added a raised protective shield for the commander.

Inside of the turret, details from the Ostwind kit(s), e. g. crew seats and ammunition clips, were recycled, too.

Painting and markings:

Since the Ostwind II would be based on a repaired/modified former Panzer V medium battle tank, I settled upon a relatively simple livery. The kit received a uniform finish in Dunkelgelb (RAL 7028), with a network of greenish-grey thin stripes added on top, to break up the tank's outlines and reminiscent of the British ‘Malta’ scheme, but less elaborate. The model and its parts were initially primed with matt sand brown from the rattle can (more reddish than RAL 7028) and then received an overall treatment with thinned RAL 7028 from Modelmaster, for an uneven, dirty and worn look. The stripes were created with thinned Tamiya XF-65 (Field Grey).

Once dry, the whole surface received a dark brown wash, details were emphasized with dry-brushing in light grey and beige. Decals were puzzled together from various German tank sheets, and the kit finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

The black vinyl tracks were also painted/weathered, with a wet-in-wet mix of black, grey, iron and red brown (all acrylics). Once mounted into place, mud and dust were simulated around the running gear and the lower hull with a greyish-brown mix of artist mineral pigments.

A bit of recycling and less exotic than one would expect, but it’s still a whiffy tank model that fits well into the historic gap between the realized Panzer IV AA tanks and the unrealized E-50/75 projects. Quite subtle! Creating the enlarged turret was the biggest challenge, even, even more so because it was/is an open structure and the interior can be readily seen. But the new/bigger gun fits well into it, and it even remained movable!

+++ 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 Hütter Hü 324 was the final development stage of BMW's 'Schnellbomber II' project, which had been designed around two mighty BMW 109-028 turboprops.

From medium altitude, the Hü 324 A-2 proved to be a highly accurate bomber – thanks to its "Elbegast" radar system which also allowed the planes to act as pathfinders for older types or fast bombers with less accurate equipment like the Ar 232, Ju 388 or Me 410. Loss rates were far lower than in the early, low-level days, with the Hü 324 stated by the RLM as having the lowest loss rate in the European Theatre of Operations at less than 0.8 %.

BMW-Hütter Ha 324A-2, general characteristics:

Crew: 4

Length: 18.58 m (60 ft 10 in)

Wingspan: 21.45 m (70 ft 4½ in )

Height: 4.82 m (15 ft 9½ in)

Wing area: 60.80 m² (654.5 ft.²)

Empty weight: 12,890 kg (28,417 lb)

Loaded weight: 18,400 kg (40,565 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 21,200 kg (46,738 lb)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 810 km/h (503 mph) at optimum height

Cruising speed: 750 km/h (460 mph) at 10,000 m (32,800 ft)

Range: 3.500 km (2.180 ml)

Service ceiling: 11.400 m (37.500 ft)

Rate of climb: 34.7 m/s (6,820 ft/min)

Powerplant:

Two BMW 109-028 ‘Mimir’ turboprop engines, limited to 5.500 WPS (4.044 WkW) each plus an additional residual thrust of 650kg (1.433 lb), driving four-bladed contraprops.

Armament:

6× 13mm MG 131 in three FDL 131Z turrets

1× 20mm MG 151/20 in unmanned/remote-controlled tail barbette

Up to 4.500 kg (9.800 lbs) in a large enclosed bomb-bay in the fuselage and/or four underwing hardpoints.

Typically, bomb load was limited to 3.000 kg (6.500 lbs) internally.

The kit and its assembly

This project/model belongs in the Luft '46 category, but it has no strict real world paradigm - even though Luftwaffe projects like the Ju 288, the BMW Schnellbomber designs or Arado's E560/2 and E560/7 had a clear influence. Actually, “my” Hü 324 design looks pretty much like a He 219 on steroids! Anyway, this project was rather inspired by a ‘click’ when two ideas/elements came together and started forming something new and convincing. This is classic kitbashing, and the major ingredients are:

● Fuselage, wings, landing gear and engine nacelles from a Trumpeter Ilyushin Il-28 bomber

● Nose section from an Italeri Ju 188 (donated from a friend, leftover from his Ju 488 project)

● Stabilisers from an Italeri B-25, replacing the Il-28’s swept tail

● Contraprops and fuselage barbettes from a vintage 1:100 scale Tu-20(-95) kit from VEB Plasticart (yes, vintage GDR stuff!)

Most interestingly, someone from the Netherlands had a similar idea for a kitbashing some years ago: www.airwar1946.nl/whif/L46-ju588.htm. I found this after I got my idea for the Hü 324 together, though - but its funny to see how some ideas manifest independently?

Building the thing went pretty straightforward, even though Trumpeter's Il-28 kit has a rather poor fit. Biggest problem turned out to be the integration of the Ju 188 cockpit section: it lacks 4-5mm in width! That does not sound dramatic, but it took a LOT of putty and internal stabilisation to graft the parts onto the Il-28's fuselage.

The cockpit was completely re-equipped with stuff from the scrap box, and the main landing gear received twin wheels.

The chin turret was mounted after the fuselage was complete, the frontal defence had been an issue I had been pondering about for a long while. Originally, some fixed guns (just as the Il-28 or Tu-16) had been considered. But when I found an old Matchbox B-17G turret in my scrap box, I was convinced that this piece could do literally the same job in my model, and it was quickly integrated. As a side effect, this arrangement justifies the bulged cockpit bottom well, and it just looks "more dangerous".

Another task was the lack of a well for the front wheel, after the Il-28 fuselage had been cut and lacked the original interior. This was also added after the new fuselage had been fitted together, and the new well walls were built with thin polystyrene plates. Not 100% exact and clean, but the arrangement fits the bill and takes the twin front wheel.

The bomb bay was left open, since the Trumpeter kit offers a complete interior. I also added four underwing hardpoints for external loads (one pair in- and outboard of the engine nacelles), taken from A-7 Corsair II kits, but left them empty. Visually-guided weapons like the 'Fritz X' bomb or Hs 293 missiles would IMHO hardly make sense during night sorties? I also did not want to overload the kit with more and more distracting details.

Painting

Even though it is a whif I wanted to incorporate some serious/authentic late WWII Luftwaffe looks. Since the Hü 324 would have been an all-weather bomber, I went for a night bomber livery which was actually used on a He 177 from 2./KG 100, based in France: Black (RLM 22, I simply used Humbrol 33) undersides, and upper surfaces in RLM 76 (Base is Humbrol 128, FS36320, plus some added areas with Testors 2086, the authentic tone which is a tad lighter, but very close) with mottles in RLM 75 (Grauviolett, Testors 2085, plus some splotches of Humbrol 27, Medium Sea Grey), and some weathering through black ink, some enhanced panel lines (with a mix of matte varnish and Panzergrau), as well as some dry painting all over the fuselage.

All interior surfaces were painted in RLM 66 (Schwarzgrau/Black Grey, Testors 2079), typical for German late WWII aircraft. Propeller spinners were painted RLM 70 (Schwarzgrün) on the front half, the rear half was painted half black and half white.

Pretty simple scheme, but it looks VERY cool, esp. on this sleek aircraft. I am very happy with this decision, and I think that this rather simple livery is less distracting from the fantasy plane itself, making the whif less obvious. In the end, the whole thing looks a bit grey-in-grey, but that spooky touch just adds to the menacing look of this beefy aircraft. I think it would not look as good if it had been kept in daytime RLM 74/75/76 or even RLM 82/83/76?

Markings and squadron code were puzzled together from an Authentic Decal aftermarket sheet for a late He 111 and individual letters from TL Modellbau. The "F3" code for the fictional Kampfgruppe (KG) 210 is a random choice, "EV" marks the individual plane, the red "E" and the control letter "V" at the end designate a plane from the eleventh squadron of KG 210. My idea is that the Hü 324 would replace these machines and literally taking their place in the frontline aviaton units. So I tried to keep in line with the German aircraft code, but after all, it's just a whif...

So, after some more surgical work than expected, the Hü 324 medium bomber is ready to soar!

A kitbash using a Phicen body and a Kimi headsculpt .

Painting and markings:

Finding a suitable and somewhat interesting – but still plausible – paint scheme was not easy. Taking the A-10 as benchmark, an overall light grey livery (with focus on low contrast against the sky as protection against ground fire) would have been a likely choice – and in fact the last operational American OV-10s were painted in this fashion. But in order to provide a different look I used the contemporary USAF V-22Bs and Special Operations MC-130s as benchmark, which typically carry a darker paint scheme consisting of FS 36118 from above, FS 36375 underneath (with a low, wavy waterline), plus low-viz markings. Not spectacular, but plausible – and very similar to the late r/w Colombian OV-10s.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General F-24A characteristics:

Crew: 1 pilot

Length: 47 ft 4 in (14.4 m)

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

Height: 13 ft 10 in (4.20 m)

Wing area: 36.55 m² (392 ft²)

Empty weight: 13.150 lb (5.090 kg)

Loaded weight: 15.480 lb (6.830 kg)

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

Powerplant:

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

Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 2+

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

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

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

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

Wing loading: 70.0 lb/ft² (342 kg/m²)

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

Armament

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some background:

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

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

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

Specifications:

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

Weight: 8.3 tons

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

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

Height: 9 ft 2¾ in (2,81 m)

Ground clearance: 12 in (30.5 cm)

Turning radius: 39 ft (12 m)

Suspension: Wheel, rigid front and rear axles;

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

Fuel capacity: 31 imp gal (141 litres)

Armour:

5–15 mm (0.2 – 0.6 in)

Performance:

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

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

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

Operational range: 250 mi (400 km)

Power/weight: 11,44 hp/ton

Engine:

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

Transmission:

4-speed, with a 2-speed auxiliary box

Armament:

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

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

2-4× smoke dischargers, mounted on the turret

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The ZSU-62 (Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka = anti-aircraft self-propelled mount) was a potential successor for the Soviet ZSU-57-2 SPAAG, developed in parallel with the ZSU-23-4. But unlike its brethren, the ZSU-62 was only produced in limited numbers, but it received limited fame during its late operational second-line career when it was successfully deployed to Afghanistan.

With the USSR’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988 and 1989, the last operational ZSU-62s were retired. In the training units, the vehicles had already been replaced by ZSU-23-4s by 1984.

Specifications:

Crew: Four (commander, gunner, radar operator, driver)

Weight: 37 t (41 short tons; 36 long tons)

Length: 6.63 m (21 ft 9 in) hull only

9.22 m (30 ft 3½ in) with barrel in forward position

Width: 3.30 m (10 ft 10 in)

Height: 3.88 m (12 ft 9 in) with search radar fully extended,

2.84 m (9 ft 3¾ in) with search radar stowed

Suspension: Torsion bar

Ground clearance: 425 mm (16.7 in)

Fuel capacity: 960 l

Armor:

20 mm (hull bottom) – 102 mm (hull front)

Performance:

Speed: 50 km/h (31 mph) on roads,

40 km/h (25 mph) cross country)

Range: 450 km (280 mi) on road;

650 km (400 mi) with two 200 l (53 US gal; 44 imp gal) extra fuel tanks;

320 km (200 mi) cross-country

450 km (280 mi) with two 200-liter extra fuel tanks

Climbing ability: 0.7 m (2.3')

Maximum climb gradient: 30°

Trench crossing ability: 2.5 m (8.2')

Fording depth: 1.0 m (3.3')

Operational range: 500 km (310 mi)

Power/weight: 14.5 hp/tonne (10.8 kW/tonne)

Engine:

1x V-55 12-cylinder 4-stroke one-chamber 38.88 liter water-cooled diesel engine

with 581 hp (433 kW) at 2,000 rpm

Transmission:

Hydromechanical

Armament:

2× S-68 57mm (1.5 in) cannon with 255 rounds each

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional tank model came to be as a classic what-if, based on the question “what could have been a successor of the Soviet ZSU-57-2 SPAAG?”. Not an existential question that comes to your mind frequently, but it made me wonder – also because the real-world successor, the ZSU-23-4 “Shilka”, lacked the ZSU-57-2’s range and large-caliber firepower.

From this conceptual basis I decided to retain the 57mm twin guns, add an RPK-2 radar and mount these into a fully enclosed turret. The latter became a leftover M48 turret, which was suitably bulky, and the gun mount was taken from a Modelcollect E-75 SPAAG. However, both were heavily modified: the gun mount lost its boxy armor protection, just the brass barrels and the joint at the base were retained, the rest was scratched from styrene bits and wire. To accept the much taller weapon mount, the turret front had to be re-sculpted with putty, resulting in a boxier shape with steeper side walls – but the whole affair looks very organic. A simpler commander cupola was used and the whole radar dish arrangement on the rear roof was scratched, too.

The hull came from a Trumpeter T-62, just for the reasons explained in the background: the T-54/55 had a relatively small turret ring, and this caused severe development problems, because the MBT could not take a bigger turret and with it a more powerful cannon. Since this SPAAG would have been developed a couple of years later than the T-54/55, its successor, the T-62, appeared logical, and the “marriage” with the M48 turret worked like a charm. Even the turret’s adapter had the same diameter as the hull opening, I just had to modify the notches that hold it in place! The hull itself remained unmodified.

Painting and markings:

I wanted to place this SPAAG into the Afghanistan theatre of operations, and this was historically not very easy since I had to bridge some fifteen years of service to make this idea work. However, I found a story for the background, and the model received an appropriate paint scheme, based on real world vehicles around 1980 (actually from a BMP-1 operated in northern Afghanistan).

The camouflage consists of three tones, a pale/greyish sand, an olive drab tone and some contrasts in a dark, dull brown – it reminds of the US Army’s more complex MERDC scheme. The paints became Humbrol 167 (Hemp), Tamiya XF-62 (Olive Drab) and Humbrol 98 (Chocolate), even though the green appears darker than expected due to the high contrast with the sand tone.

The model received an overall washing with dark brown, highly thinned acrylic paint, and some dry-brushing with cream, faded olive drab and light grey. The few markings/decals were taken from the T-62 kit, and everything was sealed with matt acrylic varnish before the lower areas were finally dusted with a greyish-sand brown mix of artist pigments, simulating dust.

A plausible result, even though a cast turret might not appear to be a natural choice for a SPAAG? But the AMX-30 SPAAG from 1969 had a very similar design and there was a German prototype called “MATADOR” (a Gepard forerunner from 1968) that had a turret of similar shape, too. However, the kitbashed/scratched turret looks really good and convincing, and the T-62 hull is a great match for it in shape, size and timeframe. The ZSU-62 turned out way better than hoped for! :D

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The Douglas F3D Skyknight (later designated F-10 Skyknight) was a United States twin-engined, mid-wing jet fighter aircraft manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company in El Segundo, California. The F3D was designed as a carrier-based all-weather night fighter and saw service with the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. The mission of the F3D-2 was to search out and destroy enemy aircraft at night.

The F3D was not intended to be a typical sleek and nimble dogfighter, but as a standoff night fighter, packing a powerful radar system and a second crew member. It originated in 1945 with a US Navy requirement for a jet-powered, radar-equipped, carrier-based night fighter. The Douglas team led by Ed Heinemann designed around the bulky air intercept radar systems of the time, with side-by-side seating for the pilot and radar operator. The result was an aircraft with a wide, deep, and roomy fuselage. Instead of ejection seats, an escape tunnel was used.

As a night fighter that was not expected to be as fast as smaller daylight fighters, the expectation was to have a stable platform for its radar system and the four 20 mm cannon mounted in the lower fuselage. The F3D was, however, able to outturn a MiG-15 in an inside circle. The fire control system in the F3D-1 was the Westinghouse AN/APQ-35.

The AN/APQ-35 was advanced for the time, a combination of three different radars, each performing separate functions: an AN/APS-21 search radar, an AN/APG-26 tracking radar, both located in the nose, and an AN/APS-28 tail warning radar. The complexity of this vacuum tube-based radar system, which was produced before the advent of semiconductor electronics, required intensive maintenance to keep it operating properly.

The F3D Skyknight was never produced in great numbers but it did achieve many firsts in its role as a night fighter over Korea. While it never achieved the fame of the North American F-86 Sabre, it did down several Soviet-built MiG-15s as a night fighter over Korea with only one air-to-air loss of its own against a Chinese MiG-15 on the night of 29 May 1953.

In the years after the Korean War, the F3D was gradually replaced by more powerful aircraft with better radar systems. The F3D's career was not over though; its stability and spacious fuselage made it easily adaptable to other roles. The Skyknight played an important role in the development of the radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow missile in the 1950s which led to further guided air-to-air missile developments.

In 1954, the F3D-2M was the first U.S. Navy jet aircraft to be fitted with an operational air-to-air missile: the Sparrow I,an all weather day/night BVR missile that used beam riding guidance for the aircrew to control the flight of the missile. Only 38 aircraft (12 F3D-1Ms, and 16 F3D-2Ms) were modified to use the missiles, though.

One of the F3D's main flaws, which it shared with many early jet aircraft, was its lack of power and performance. Douglas tried to mend this through a radical redesign: The resulting F3D-3 was the designation assigned to a swept-winged version (36° sweep at quarter chord) of the Skyknight. It was originally to be powered by the J46 turbojet, rated at 4.080 lbf for takeoff, which was under development but suffered serious trouble.

This led to the cancellation of the J46, and calculated performance of the F3D-3 with the substitute J34 was deemed insufficient. As an alternative the aircraft had to be modified to carry two larger and longer J47-GE-2 engines, which also powered the USN's FJ-2 "Fury" fighter.

This engine's thrust of 6.000 pounds-force (27 kN) at 7,950 rpm appeared sufficient for the heavy, swept-wing aircraft, and in 1954 an order for 287 production F3D-3s was issued, right time to upgrade the new type with the Sparrow I.

While the F3D-3's outline resembled that of its straight wing predecessors, a lot of structural changes had to be made to accommodate the shifted main wing spar, and the heavy radar equipment also took its toll: the gross weight climbed by more than 3 tons, and as a result much of the gained performance through the stronger engines and the swept wings was eaten away.

Maximum internal fuel load was 1.350 US gallons, plus a further 300 in underwing drop tanks. Overall wing surface remained the same, but the swept wing surfaces reduced the wing span.

In the end, thrust-to-weight ratio was only marginally improved and in fact, the F3D-3 had a lower rate of climb than the F3D-2, its top speed at height was only marginally higher, and stall speed climbed by more than 30 mph, making carrier landings more complicated.

It's equipment was also the same - the AN/APQ-35 was still fitted, but mainly because the large radar dish offered the largest detection range of any carrier-borne type of that time, and better radars that could match this performance were still under construction. Anyway, the F3D-3 was able to carry Sparrow I from the start, and this would soon be upgraded to Sparrow III (which became the AIM-7), and it showed much better flight characteristics at medium altitude.

Despite the ,many shortcomings the "new" aircraft represented an overall improvement over the F3D-2 and was accepted for service. Production of the F3D-3 started in 1955, but technology advanced quickly and a serious competitor with supersonic capability appeared with the McDonnell F3H Demon and the F4D Skyray - much more potent aircraft that the USN immediately preferred to the slow F3Ds. As a consequence, the production contract was cut down to only 102 aircraft.

But it came even worse: production of the swept wing Skyknight already ceased after 18 months and 71 completed airframes. Ironically, the F3D-3's successor, the F3H and its J40 engine, turned out to be more capricious than expected, which delayed the Demon's service introduction and seriously hampered its performance, so that the F3D-3 kept its all weather/night fighter role until 1960, and was eventually taken out of service in 1964 when the first F-4 Phantom II fighters appeared in USN service.

In 1962 all F3D versions were re-designated into F-10, the swept wing F3D-3 became the F-10C. The straight wing versions were used as trainers and also served as an electronic warfare platform into the Vietnam War as a precursor to the EA-6A Intruder and EA-6B Prowler, while the swept-wing fighters were completely retired as their performance and mission equipment had been outdated. The last F-10C flew in 1965.

General characteristics

Crew: two

Length: 49 ft (14.96 m)

Wingspan: 42 feet 5 inches (12.95 m)

Height: 16 ft 1 in (4.90 m)

Wing area: 400 ft² (37.16 m²)

Empty weight: 19.800 lb (8.989 kg)

Loaded weight: 28,843 lb (13.095 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 34.000 lb (15.436 kg)

Powerplant:

2× General Electric J47-GE-2 turbojets, each rated at 6.000 lbf (26,7 kN) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 630 mph (1.014 km/h) at sea level, 515 mph (829 km/h) t (6,095 m)

Cruise speed: 515 mph (829 km/h) at 40,000 feet

Stall speed: 128 mph (206 km/h)

Range: 890 mi (1.433 km) with internal fuel; 1,374 mi, 2,212 km with 2× 300 gal (1.136 l) tanks

Service ceiling: 43.000 ft (13.025 m)

Rate of climb: 2,640 ft/min (13,3 m/s)

Wing loading: 53.4 lb/ft² (383 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.353

Armament

4× 20 mm Hispano-Suiza M2 cannon, 200 rpg, in the lower nose

Four underwing hardpoints inboard of the wing folding points for up to 4.000 lb (1.816 kg)

ordnance, including AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles, 11.75 in (29.8cm) Tiny Tim rockets, two

150 or 300 US gal drop tanks or bombs of up to 2.000 lb (900 kg) caliber, plus four hardpoints

under each outer wing for a total of eight 5" HVARs or eight pods with six 2 3/4" FFARs each

The kit and its assembly:

Another project which had been on the list for some years now but finally entered the hardware stage. The F3D itself is already a more or less forgotten aircraft, and there are only a few kits available - there has been a vacu kit, the Matchbox offering and lately kits in 1:72 and 1:48 by Sword.

The swept wing F3D-3 remained on the drawing board, but would have been a very attractive evolution of the tubby Skyknight. In fact, the swept surfaces resemble those of the A3D/B-66 a Iot, and this was the spark that started the attempt to build this aircraft as a model through a kitbash.

This model is basically the Matchbox F3D coupled with wings from an Italeri B-66, even though, being much bigger, these had to be modified.

The whole new tail is based on B-66 material. The fin's chord was shortened, though, and a new leading edge (with its beautiful curvature) had to be sculpted from 2C putty. The vertical stabilizers also come from the B-66, its span was adjusted to the Skyknight's and a new root intersection was created from styrene and putty, so that a cross-shaped tail could be realized.

The tail radar dish was retained, even though sketches show the F3D-3 without it.

The wings were take 1:1 from the B-66 and match well. They just had to be shortened, I set the cut at maybe 5mm outwards of the engine pods' attachment points. They needed some re-engraving for the inner flaps, as these would touch the F3D-3's engines when lowered, but shape, depth and size are very good for the conversion.

On the fuselage, the wings' original "attachment bays" had to be filled, and the new wings needed a new position much further forward, directly behind the cockpit, in order to keep the CoG.

One big issue would be the main landing gear. On the straight wing aircraft it retracts outwards, and I kept this arrangement. No detail of the exact landing gear well position was available to me, so I used the Matchbox parts as stencils and placed the new wells as much aft as possible, cutting out new openings from the B-66 wings.

The OOB landing gear was retained, but I added some structure to the landing gear wells with plastic blister material - not to be realistic, just for the effect. A lot of lead was added in the kit's nose section, making sure it actually stands on the front wheel.

The Matchbox Skyknight basically offers no real problems, even though the air intake design leaves, by tendency some ugly seams and even gaps. I slightly pimped the cockpit with headrests, additional gauges and a gunsight, as well as two (half) pilot figures. I did not plan to present the opened cockpit and the bulbous windows do not allow a clear view onto the inside anyway, so this job was only basically done. In fact, the pilots don't have a lower body at all...

Ordnance comprises of four Sparrow III - the Sparrow I with its pointed nose could have been an option, too, but I think at the time of 1960 the early version was already phased out?

Painting and markings:

This was supposed to become a typical USN service aircraft of the 60ies, so a grey/white livery was predetermined. I had built an EF-10B many years ago from the Matchbox kit, and the grey/white guise suits the Whale well - and here it would look even better, with the new, elegant wings.

For easy painting I used semi matt white from the rattle can on the lower sides (painting the landing gear at the same time!), and then added FS 36440 (Light Gull Grey, Humbrol 129) with a brush to the upper sides. The radar nose became semi matt black (with some weathering), while the RHAWS dish was kept in tan (Humbrol 71).

In order to emphasize the landing gear and the respective wells I added a red rim to the covers.

The cockpit interior was painted in dark grey - another factor which made adding too many details there futile, too...

The aircraft's individual marking were to be authentic, and not flamboyant. In the mid 50ies the USN machines were not as colorful as in the Vietnam War era, that just started towards the 60ies.

The markings I used come primarily from an Emhar F3H Demon, which features no less than four(!) markings, all with different colors. I settled for a machine of VF-61 "Jolly Rogers", which operated from the USS Saratoga primarily in the Mediterranean from 1958 on - and shortly thereafter the unit was disbanded.

I took some of the Demon markings and modified them with very similar but somewhat more discrete markings from VMF-323, which flew FJ-4 at the time - both squadrons marked their aircraft with yellow diamonds on black background, and I had some leftover decals from a respective Xtradecal sheet in the stash.

IMHO a good result with the B-66 donation parts, even though I am not totally happy with the fin - it could have been more slender at the top, and with a longer, more elegant spine fillet, but for that the B-66 fin was just too thick. Anyway, I am not certain if anyone has ever built this aircraft? I would not call the F3D-3 elegant or beautiful, but the swept wings underline the fuselage's almost perfect teardrop shape, and the thing reminds a lot of the later Grumman A-6 Intruder?

+++ 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 Soviet Laboratory of High-Speed Automobiles (LSA ChADI, today the Chardiv National Automobile and Highway University) was founded in 1953. One of the laboratory’s founders was Vladimir Nikitin, a famous racer not only inside the Soviet Union but also around the world. The main purpose of Vladimir Nikitin’s of was to build the fastest car in the world. This idea of creating race cars became the purpose of the laboratory and has been continued by students of Nikitin throughout the years, with research and prototypes in various fields of car propulsion.

This time the goal was to push „скорость“ and the national land speed record in excess of 800 km/h (500 mph), and step by step the vehicle’s top speed was gradually increased. On August 15, an officially timed record attempt was made, again with Victor Barchenkov at the steering wheel. The first of the two obligatory runs within an hour was recorded at a very promising 846.961 km/h (526.277 mph), but, at the end of the second run, „скорость“ veered off and no time was measured. Even worse, the vehicle lost its parachute brakes and went out of control, skidding away from the dry race track into Lake Baskunchak’s wet salt sludge, where it hit a ground wave at around 200 mph (320 km/h) and was catapulted through the air into a brine pond where it landed on its right side and eventually sank. Again, pilot Victor Barchenkov remained mostly unharmed and was able to leave the car before it sank – but this fatal crash meant the end of the „скорость“ vehicle and the complete KhAGI 9-II project. Furthermore, the break-up of the Soviet Union at the same time prevented and further developments of high speed vehicles. The whereabouts of the „скорость“ wreck remain unclear, too, since no official attempt had been made to save the vehicle’s remains from Lake Baskunchak’s salt swamps.

The kit and its assembly:

This is another contribution to the late 2018 “Racing & Competition Group Build” at whatifmodelers.com. Since I primarily build aircraft in 1:72 scale, building a land speed record (LSR) vehicle from such a basis appeared like a natural choice. A slick streamliner? A rocket-powered prototype with Mach 1 potential? Hmmm… However, I wanted something else than the typical US or British Bonneville Salt Flats contender.

Inspiration struck when I remembered the real world high speed vehicle projects of LSA ChAGI in the former USSR, and especially the ill-fated, jet-powered ChADI 9, which looked a lot like Western, rocket-powered absolute LSR designs like The Blue Flame or Wingfoot Express 2. Another inspiration was a contemporary LSR vehicle called North American Eagle – basically a wingless F-104 Starfighter, put on wheels and sporting a garish, patriotic livery.

With this conceptual basis, the MiG-21 was quickly identified as the potential starting basis – but I wanted more than just a Fishbed sans wings and with some bigger wheels attached to it. I nevertheless wanted to retain the basic shape of the aircraft, but change the rest as good as possible with details that I have learned from reading about historic LSR vehicles (a very good source are the books by German author and LSR enthusiast Ferdinand C. W. Käsmann, which have, AFAIK, even been translated into English).

At the model’s core is a contemporary KP MiG-21MF, but it’s a hideous incarnation of the venerable Kovozávody Prostějov mold. While the wheels and the dashboard of this kit were surprisingly crisp, the fuselage halves did hardly match each other and some other parts like the landing gear covers could only be described as “blurred blobs”. Therefore it was no shame to slice the kit up, and the resulting kitbash with many donor parts and scratching almost became a necessity.

The MiG-21 fuselage and cockpit were more or less retained, the landing gear wells covered and PSR-ed. Fin, spine and the ventral stabilizer were cut away, and the attachment points for the wings and the horizontal stabilizers blended into the rest of the fuselage. Actually, only a few parts from the KP MiG-21 were eventually used.

The original shock cone in the air intake was used, but it was set further back into the nose opening – as an attachment point for a new, more organic shock cone which is actually the rear end of a drop tank from an Airfix 1:72 P-61 Black Widow. This detail was inspired by a real world benchmark: Art Arfons’ home-built “Green Monster” LSR car. This vehicle also inspired the highly modified air intake shape, which was scratched from the tail cone from a Matchbox 1:72 Blackburn Buccaneer – the diameter matched well with the MiG-21’s nose! With the new nose, I was able to retain the original MiG-21 layout, yet the shape and the extension forward changed the overall look enough to make it clear that this was not simply a MiG-21 on wheels.

With the spine gone, I also had to integrate a different, much smaller canopy, which came from an 1:144 Tornado. The cockpit opening had to be narrowed accordingly, and behind the canopy a new spine fairing was integrated – simply a piece from a streamlined 1:72 1.000 lb bomb plus lots of PSR.

Inside of the cockpit, a simpler seat was used, but the original cockpit tub and the dashboard were retained.

The large MiG-21 fin was replaced with a smaller piece, left over from an Amodel Kh-20 missile, with a scratched brake parachute fairing (cut from sprue material) placed under its rear. The exhaust nozzle was replaced, too, because the fit of the KP MiG-21’s rear end was abysmal. So I cut away a short piece and added an afterburner nozzle from a vintage 1:72 F-100, which fits well. Inside, the part’s rear wall was drilled open and extended inwards with a styrene tube.

The wheels of the vehicle come from an 1:72 Hasegawa “Panther with Schmalturm” tank kit – it comes not only with two turrets, but also with a second set of simplified track wheels. These had IMHO the perfect size and shape as massive aluminum wheels for the high speed vehicle.

For the front wheels, I used the thinner outer Panther wheels, and they were put, closely together, onto a central suspension pylon. This received a new “well” in the forward fuselage, with an internal attachment point. In order to streamline the front wheel installation (and also to change the overall look of the vehicle away from the MiG-21 basis), I added a scratched an aerodynamic fairing around it. This was made from tailored styrene strips, which were later filled and blended into the hull with putty.

The rear suspension was also fully scratched: the outriggers were made from styrene profiles while the wheel attachments were once part of an 1:35 tank kit suspension – I needed something to hold the three struts per side together. These parts look a bit large, but the vehicle is, after all, a Soviet design, so a little sturdiness may not be wrong, and I simply did not want to stick the wheels directly onto the outriggers. The rear wheels (in this case, the wider inner Panther track wheels with a central hub cover were used) also received a stabilizing notch around the contact surface, in an attempt to make them look slimmer than they actually are.

Final touches included the chines under the nose as well as spoilers on the rear suspension (both made from styrene profiles), and I added a pitot made from wire to the original MiG-21 angle of attack sensor fairing.

As an addition outside the model itself I also created a display base for the beauty pics, since I did not have anything at hand that would resemble the vastness of a flat and dry salt sea. The base is an 18x12” MDF board, on top of which I added a thin coat of white tile grout (which I normally use as a snow placebo, instead of plaster, which tends to absorb humidity over time and to become yellow). While the stuff was still wet I sprinkled some real salt onto the surface and wetted the whole affair with water sprays – hoping to create a flat yet structured surface with some glitter reflexes. And it actually worked!

Painting and markings:

I am not certain how ChADI 9 was painted (I assume overall silver), but I wanted for „скорость“ a little more color. Being a child of the Soviet era, red was a settled design element, but I thought that an all-red vehicle might have looked too cheesy. Other colors I considered were orange or white with blue trim, but did not find them to be appropriate for what I was looking. Eventually, I added some Russian Utilitarianism in the form of light grey for the upper hull (Humbrol 166, RAF Light Aircraft Grey), and the red (Humbrol 19) as a dark contrast around the complete air intake as well as the shock cone (somewhat inspired by the Green Monster #15 LSR vehicle), and then extended backwards into a narrowing cheatline along the flanks, which emphasizes the vehicle’s slender hull. For some more contrast between the two basic tones I later added thin white borders between them created with 2mm white decal stripes from TL Modellbau. Around the hull some bright red (Humbrol 238 Red Arrows Red) highlights as warning signs were added.

The vehicle’s afterburner section was painted with Modelmaster Steel Metallizer, the Panther wheels became Aluminum (Revell 99) with a black ink wash. Some black ink was also applied to the jet nozzle, so that the details became more pronounced, and some grinded graphite was used to enhance the burnt metal effect.

Since this would rather be an experimental car built and operated by a high school institute, and also operated in the Soviet Union, flashy sponsor markings would not be appropriate. Therefore I created some fictional marking at home with the help of PC software and printed them by myself. These designs included a fictional logo of the ChADI institute itself (created from a car silhouette drawing) and a logo for the vehicle’s title, “„скорость““. The latter was created from the cyrillic lettering, with some additions like the vehicle’s silhouette.

Unfortunately the production process for the home-made decals did not work properly – when coating the prints with gloss acrylic varnish the printer ink started to dissolve, bleeding magenta, so that the decals would look as if there was a red halo or glow around the otherwise black motifs. Thanks to the use of red in the vehicle’s overall design this flaw is not too apparent, so I stuck with the outcome and applied the decals to the car.

Beyond these basic markings, many stencils were added, including dull red inscriptions from an Italeri MiG-37 “Ferret” kit – finally, I found an expedient use for them! The Soviet flags on the fin came from an 1:144 Tu-144 airliner Braz Decal aftermarket sheet.

Finally, some panel lines were drawn onto the hull with a soft pencil and then the model was sealed with Italeri semi-gloss acrylic varnish. Just the black anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen became matt and the metallic rear section was left in “natural” finish.

I am very pleased with the outcome – the „скорость“ looks purposeful and does IMHO blend well into the line of spectacular USA and UK jet/rocket car designs that broke the 800 km/h barrier. I also find that, even though the MiG-21 ancestry is certainly there, the vehicle looks different enough so that the illusion that it was designed along the jet fighter’s lines (and not converted from one, like the real world “North American Eagle” which was built from an F-104 Starfighter) works well. I also think that the vehicle’s livery works well – it looks quite retro for a vehicle from the late Eighties, but that just adds to the “Soviet style”. An interesting project, outside of my normal comfort zone. :D

+++ 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.

1/6 female kitbash using a Phicen body and other various other pieces .

A kitbash using a Phicen body and a 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 Bell XP-68A owed its existence to the manufacturer’s rather disappointing outcome of its first jet fighter design, the XP-59A Airacomet. The Airacomet was a twin jet-engined fighter aircraft, designed and built during World War II after Major General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold became aware of the United Kingdom's jet program when he attended a demonstration of the Gloster E.28/39 in April 1941. He requested, and was given, the plans for the aircraft's powerplant, the Power Jets W.1, which he took back to the U.S. He also arranged for an example of the engine, the Whittle W.1X turbojet, to be flown to the U.S., along with drawings for the more powerful W.2B/23 engine and a small team of Power Jets engineers. On 4 September 1941, he offered the U.S. company General Electric a contract to produce an American version of the engine, which subsequently became the General Electric I-A. On the following day, he approached Lawrence Dale Bell, head of Bell Aircraft Corporation, to build a fighter to utilize it. As a disinformation tactic, the USAAF gave the project the designation "P-59A", to suggest it was a development of the unrelated, canceled Bell XP-59 fighter project. The P-59A was the first design fighter to have its turbojet engine and air inlet nacelles integrated within the main fuselage. The jet aircraft’s design was finalized on 9 January 1942 and the first prototype flew in October of the same year.

However, compared with the XP-59A, the XP-68A was a considerable step forward, but it had become quickly clear that the XP-68A and its outfit-a-propeller-design-with jet-engines approach did not bear the potential for any service fighter development: it was already outdated when the prototypes were starting their test program. No further XP-68A was ordered or built, and the three prototypes fulfilled their test and evaluation program until May 1945. During these tests, the first prototype was lost on the ground due to an engine fire. After the program’s completion, the two remaining machines were handed over to the US Navy and used for research at the NATC Patuxent River Test Centre, where they were operated until 1949 and finally scrapped.

General characteristics.

Crew: 1

Length: 33 ft 9 in (10.36 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft 4 in (11.7 m)

Height: 13 ft (3.96 m)

Wing area: 248 sq ft (23 m²)

Empty weight: 8,799 lb (3,995 kg)

Loaded weight: 15,138 lb (6,873 kg)

Max. take-off weight: 17,246 lb (7,830 kg)

Powerplant:

2× Halford H-1 (De Havilland Goblin) turbojets, rated at 3,500 lbf (15.6 kN) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 559 mph (900 km/h)

Range: 500 mi (444 nmi, 805 km)

Service ceiling: 37,565 ft (11,450 m)

Rate of climb: 3.930 ft/min (20 m/s)

Wing loading: 44.9 lb/ft² (218.97 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.45

Time to altitude: 5.0 min to 30,000 ft (9,145 m)

Armament:

4× Hispano M2 20 mm cannon with 150 rounds

One ventral hardpoint for a single drop tank or a 1.000 lb (550 kg) bomb

6× 60 lb (30 kg) rockets or 2× 500 lb (227 kg) bombs under the outer wings

The kit and its assembly:

This whiffy Kingcobra conversion was spawned by a post by fellow user nighthunter in January 2019 at whatifmodelers.com about a potential jet-powered variant. In found the idea charming, since the XP-59 had turned out to be a dud and the Gloster Meteor had been tested by the USAAF. Why not combine both into a fictional, late WWII Bell prototype?

The basic idea was simple: take a P-63 and add a Meteor’s engine nacelles, while keeping the Kingcobra’s original proportions. This sounds pretty easy but was more challenging than the first look at the outcome might suggest.

The donor kits are a vintage Airfix 1:72 Gloster Meteor Mk.III, since it has the proper, small nacelles, and an Eastern Express P-63 Kingcobra. The latter looked promising, since this kit comes with very good surface and cockpit details (even with a clear dashboard) as well as parts for several P-63 variants, including the A, C and even the exotic “pinball” manned target version. However, anything comes at a price, and the kit’s low price point is compensated by soft plastic (which turned out to be hard to sand), some flash and mediocre fit of any of the major components like fuselage halves, the wings or the clear parts. It feels a lot like a typical short-run kit. Nevertheless, I feel inclined to build another one in a more conventional fashion some day.

Work started with the H-1 nacelles, which had to be cut out from the Meteor wings. Since they come OOB only with a well-visible vertical plate and a main wing spar dummy in the air intake, I added some fine mesh to the plate – normally, you can see directly onto the engine behind the wing spar. Another issue was the fact that the Meteor’s wings are much thicker and deeper than the P-63s, so that lots of PSR work was necessary.

Simply cutting the P-63 OOB wings up and inserting the Meteor nacelles was also not possible: the P-63 has a very wide main landing gear, due to the ventral radiators and oil coolers, which were originally buried in the wing roots and under the piston engine. The only solution: move the complete landing gear (including the wells) inward, so that the nacelles could be placed as close as possible to the fuselage in a mid-span position. Furthermore, the - now useless - radiator openings had to disappear, resulting in a major redesign of the wing root sections. All of this became a major surgery task, followed by similarly messy work on the outer wings during the integration of the Meteor nacelles. LOTS of PSR, even though the outcome looks surprisingly plausible and balanced.

Work on the fuselage started in parallel. It was built mainly OOB, using the optional ventral fin for a P-63C. The exhaust stubs as well as the dorsal carburetor intake had to disappear (the latter made easy thanks to suitable optional parts for the manned target version). Since the P-63 had a conventional low stabilizer arrangement (unlike the Meteor with its cruciform tail), I gave them a slight dihedral to move them out of the engine efflux, a trick Sukhoi engineers did on the Su-11 prototype with afterburner engines in 1947, too.

Furthermore, the whole nose ahead of the cockpit was heavily re-designed, because I wanted the “new” aircraft to lose its propeller heritage and the P-63’s round and rather pointed nose. Somewhat inspired by the P-59 and the P-80, I omitted the propeller parts altogether and re-sculpted the nose with 2C putty, creating a deeper shape with a tall, oval diameter, so that the lower fuselage line was horizontally extended forward. In a profile view the aircraft now looks much more massive and P-80esque. The front landing gear was retained, just its side walls were extended downwards with the help of 0.5mm styrene sheet material, so that the original stance could be kept. Lots of lead in the nose ensured that the model would properly stand on its three wheels.

Once the rhinoplasty was done I drilled four holes into the nose and used hollow steel needles as gun barrels, with a look reminiscent of the Douglas A-20G.

Adding the (perfectly) clear parts of the canopy as a final assembly step also turned out to be a major fight against the elements.

Painting and markings:

With an USAAF WWII prototype in mind, there were only two options: either an NMF machine, or a camouflage in Olive Drab and Neutral Grey. I went for the latter and used Tamiya XF-62 for the upper surfaces and Humbrol 156 (Dark Camouflage Grey) underneath. The kit received a light black ink wash and some post shading in order to emphasize panels. A little dry-brushing with silver around the leading edges and the cockpit was done, too.

The cockpit interior became chromate green (I used Humbrol 150, Forest Green) while the landing gear wells were painted with zinc chromate yellow (Humbrol 81). The landing gear itself was painted in aluminum (Humbrol 56).

Markings/decals became minimal, puzzled together from various sources – only some “Stars and Bars” insignia and the serial number.

Somehow this conversion ended up looking a lot like the contemporary Soviet Sukhoi Su-9 and -11 (Samolyet K and LK) jet fighter prototype – unintentionally, though. But I am happy with the outcome – the P-63 ancestry is there, and the Meteor engines are recognizable, too. But everything blends into each other well, the whole affair looks very balanced and believable. This is IMHO furthermore emphasized by the simple paint scheme. A jet-powered Kingcobra? Why not…?

+++ 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 Bell XP-68A owed its existence to the manufacturer’s rather disappointing outcome of its first jet fighter design, the XP-59A Airacomet. The Airacomet was a twin jet-engined fighter aircraft, designed and built during World War II after Major General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold became aware of the United Kingdom's jet program when he attended a demonstration of the Gloster E.28/39 in April 1941. He requested, and was given, the plans for the aircraft's powerplant, the Power Jets W.1, which he took back to the U.S. He also arranged for an example of the engine, the Whittle W.1X turbojet, to be flown to the U.S., along with drawings for the more powerful W.2B/23 engine and a small team of Power Jets engineers. On 4 September 1941, he offered the U.S. company General Electric a contract to produce an American version of the engine, which subsequently became the General Electric I-A. On the following day, he approached Lawrence Dale Bell, head of Bell Aircraft Corporation, to build a fighter to utilize it. As a disinformation tactic, the USAAF gave the project the designation "P-59A", to suggest it was a development of the unrelated, canceled Bell XP-59 fighter project. The P-59A was the first design fighter to have its turbojet engine and air inlet nacelles integrated within the main fuselage. The jet aircraft’s design was finalized on 9 January 1942 and the first prototype flew in October of the same year.

However, compared with the XP-59A, the XP-68A was a considerable step forward, but it had become quickly clear that the XP-68A and its outfit-a-propeller-design-with jet-engines approach did not bear the potential for any service fighter development: it was already outdated when the prototypes were starting their test program. No further XP-68A was ordered or built, and the three prototypes fulfilled their test and evaluation program until May 1945. During these tests, the first prototype was lost on the ground due to an engine fire. After the program’s completion, the two remaining machines were handed over to the US Navy and used for research at the NATC Patuxent River Test Centre, where they were operated until 1949 and finally scrapped.

General characteristics.

Crew: 1

Length: 33 ft 9 in (10.36 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft 4 in (11.7 m)

Height: 13 ft (3.96 m)

Wing area: 248 sq ft (23 m²)

Empty weight: 8,799 lb (3,995 kg)

Loaded weight: 15,138 lb (6,873 kg)

Max. take-off weight: 17,246 lb (7,830 kg)

Powerplant:

2× Halford H-1 (De Havilland Goblin) turbojets, rated at 3,500 lbf (15.6 kN) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 559 mph (900 km/h)

Range: 500 mi (444 nmi, 805 km)

Service ceiling: 37,565 ft (11,450 m)

Rate of climb: 3.930 ft/min (20 m/s)

Wing loading: 44.9 lb/ft² (218.97 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.45

Time to altitude: 5.0 min to 30,000 ft (9,145 m)

Armament:

4× Hispano M2 20 mm cannon with 150 rounds

One ventral hardpoint for a single drop tank or a 1.000 lb (550 kg) bomb

6× 60 lb (30 kg) rockets or 2× 500 lb (227 kg) bombs under the outer wings

The kit and its assembly:

This whiffy Kingcobra conversion was spawned by a post by fellow user nighthunter in January 2019 at whatifmodelers.com about a potential jet-powered variant. In found the idea charming, since the XP-59 had turned out to be a dud and the Gloster Meteor had been tested by the USAAF. Why not combine both into a fictional, late WWII Bell prototype?

The basic idea was simple: take a P-63 and add a Meteor’s engine nacelles, while keeping the Kingcobra’s original proportions. This sounds pretty easy but was more challenging than the first look at the outcome might suggest.

The donor kits are a vintage Airfix 1:72 Gloster Meteor Mk.III, since it has the proper, small nacelles, and an Eastern Express P-63 Kingcobra. The latter looked promising, since this kit comes with very good surface and cockpit details (even with a clear dashboard) as well as parts for several P-63 variants, including the A, C and even the exotic “pinball” manned target version. However, anything comes at a price, and the kit’s low price point is compensated by soft plastic (which turned out to be hard to sand), some flash and mediocre fit of any of the major components like fuselage halves, the wings or the clear parts. It feels a lot like a typical short-run kit. Nevertheless, I feel inclined to build another one in a more conventional fashion some day.

Work started with the H-1 nacelles, which had to be cut out from the Meteor wings. Since they come OOB only with a well-visible vertical plate and a main wing spar dummy in the air intake, I added some fine mesh to the plate – normally, you can see directly onto the engine behind the wing spar. Another issue was the fact that the Meteor’s wings are much thicker and deeper than the P-63s, so that lots of PSR work was necessary.

Simply cutting the P-63 OOB wings up and inserting the Meteor nacelles was also not possible: the P-63 has a very wide main landing gear, due to the ventral radiators and oil coolers, which were originally buried in the wing roots and under the piston engine. The only solution: move the complete landing gear (including the wells) inward, so that the nacelles could be placed as close as possible to the fuselage in a mid-span position. Furthermore, the - now useless - radiator openings had to disappear, resulting in a major redesign of the wing root sections. All of this became a major surgery task, followed by similarly messy work on the outer wings during the integration of the Meteor nacelles. LOTS of PSR, even though the outcome looks surprisingly plausible and balanced.

Work on the fuselage started in parallel. It was built mainly OOB, using the optional ventral fin for a P-63C. The exhaust stubs as well as the dorsal carburetor intake had to disappear (the latter made easy thanks to suitable optional parts for the manned target version). Since the P-63 had a conventional low stabilizer arrangement (unlike the Meteor with its cruciform tail), I gave them a slight dihedral to move them out of the engine efflux, a trick Sukhoi engineers did on the Su-11 prototype with afterburner engines in 1947, too.

Furthermore, the whole nose ahead of the cockpit was heavily re-designed, because I wanted the “new” aircraft to lose its propeller heritage and the P-63’s round and rather pointed nose. Somewhat inspired by the P-59 and the P-80, I omitted the propeller parts altogether and re-sculpted the nose with 2C putty, creating a deeper shape with a tall, oval diameter, so that the lower fuselage line was horizontally extended forward. In a profile view the aircraft now looks much more massive and P-80esque. The front landing gear was retained, just its side walls were extended downwards with the help of 0.5mm styrene sheet material, so that the original stance could be kept. Lots of lead in the nose ensured that the model would properly stand on its three wheels.

Once the rhinoplasty was done I drilled four holes into the nose and used hollow steel needles as gun barrels, with a look reminiscent of the Douglas A-20G.

Adding the (perfectly) clear parts of the canopy as a final assembly step also turned out to be a major fight against the elements.

Painting and markings:

With an USAAF WWII prototype in mind, there were only two options: either an NMF machine, or a camouflage in Olive Drab and Neutral Grey. I went for the latter and used Tamiya XF-62 for the upper surfaces and Humbrol 156 (Dark Camouflage Grey) underneath. The kit received a light black ink wash and some post shading in order to emphasize panels. A little dry-brushing with silver around the leading edges and the cockpit was done, too.

The cockpit interior became chromate green (I used Humbrol 150, Forest Green) while the landing gear wells were painted with zinc chromate yellow (Humbrol 81). The landing gear itself was painted in aluminum (Humbrol 56).

Markings/decals became minimal, puzzled together from various sources – only some “Stars and Bars” insignia and the serial number.

Somehow this conversion ended up looking a lot like the contemporary Soviet Sukhoi Su-9 and -11 (Samolyet K and LK) jet fighter prototype – unintentionally, though. But I am happy with the outcome – the P-63 ancestry is there, and the Meteor engines are recognizable, too. But everything blends into each other well, the whole affair looks very balanced and believable. This is IMHO furthermore emphasized by the simple paint scheme. A jet-powered Kingcobra? Why not…?