Some background:

The idea for a heavy infantry support vehicle capable of demolishing heavily defended buildings or fortified areas with a single shot came out of the experiences of the heavy urban fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. At the time, the Wehrmacht had only the Sturm-Infanteriegeschütz 33B available for destroying buildings, a Sturmgeschütz III variant armed with a 15 cm sIG 33 heavy infantry gun. Twelve of them were lost in the fighting at Stalingrad. Its successor, the Sturmpanzer IV, also known by Allies as Brummbär, was in production from early 1943. This was essentially an improved version of the earlier design, mounting the same gun on the Panzer IV chassis with greatly improved armour protection.

Total production numbers of the SdKfz. 184/1 are uncertain but, being an emergency product and based on a limited chassis supply, the number of vehicles that left the Nibelungenwerke in Austria was no more than ten – also because the tank hunter conversion had top priority and the exotic RW 61 launcher was in very limited supply. As a consequence, only a total of 18 Sturmtiger had been finished by December 1945 and put into service, too. However, the 380 mm Raketen-Werfer 61 remained in production and was in early 1946 adapted to the new Einheitspanzer E-50/75 chassis.

Specifications:

Crew: Six (driver, radio operator/machine gunner in the front cabin,

commander, gunner, 2× loader in the casemate section)

Weight: 75 tons

Length: 7,05 m (23 ft 1½ in)

Width: 3,38 m (11 ft 1 in)

Height w/o crane: 3,02 m (9 ft 10¾ in)

Ground clearance: 1ft 6¾ in (48 cm)

Climbing: 2 ft 6½ in (78 cm)

Fording depth: 3 ft 3¼ (1m)

Trench crossing: 8 ft 7 ¾ in (2,64 m)

Suspension: Longitudinal torsion-bar

Fuel capacity: 1.050 liters

Armour:

62 to 200 mm (2.44 to 7.87 in)

Performance:

30 km/h (19 mph) on road

15 km/h (10 miles per hour () off road

Operational range: 150 km (93 mi) on road

90 km (56 mi) cross-country

Power/weight: 8 hp/ton

Engine:

2× Maybach HL120 TRM petrol engines with 300 PS (246 hp, 221 kW) each, powering…

2× Siemens-Schuckert D1495a 500 Volt electric engines with 320 PS (316 hp, 230 kW) each

Transmission:

Electric

Armament:

1x 380 mm RW 61 rocket launcher L/5.4 with 14 rounds

1x 7.92 mm (0.312 in) MG 34 machine gun with 600 rounds

1x 100 mm grenade launcher (firing anti-personnel mines, smoke grenades or signal flares)

The kit and its assembly:.

This fictional tank model is not my own idea, it is rather based on a picture of a similar kitbashing of an Elefant with a Sturmtiger casemate and its massive missile launcher – even though it was a rather crude model, with a casemate created from cardboard. However, I found the idea charming, even more so because the Ferdinand/Elefant was rather a rolling bunker than an agile tank hunter, despite its powerful weapon. Why not use the same chassis as a carrier for the Sturmtiger’s huge mortar as an assault SPG?

The resulting Sturmelefant was created as a kitbashing: the chassis is an early boxing of the Trumpeter Elefant, which comes not only with IP track segments but also alternative vinyl tracks (later boxing do not feature them), and casemate parts come from a Trumpeter Sturmtiger.

While one would think that switching the casemate would be straightforward affair, the conversion turned out to be more complex than expected. Both Elefant and Sturmtiger come with separate casemate pieces, but they are not compatible. The Sturmtiger casemate is 2mm wider than the Elefant’s hull, and its glacis plate is deeper than the Elefant’s, leaving 4mm wide gaps at the sides and the rear. One option could have been to trim down the glacis plate, but I found the roofline to become much too low – and the casemate’s length would have been reduced.

So, I used the Sturmtiger casemate “as is” and filled the gaps with styrene sheet strips. This worked, but the casemate’s width created now inward-bent sections that looked unplausible. Nobody, even grazed German engineers, would not have neglected the laws of structural integrity. What to do? Tailoring the casemate’s sides down would have been one route, but this would have had created a strange shape. The alternative I chose was to widen the flanks of the Elefant’s hull underneath the casemate, which was achieved with tailored 0.5 mm styrene sheet panels and some PSR – possible through the Elefant’s simple shape and the mudguards that run along the vehicle’s flanks.

Some more PSR was necessary to blend the rear into a coherent shape and to fill a small gap at the glacis plate’s base. Putty was also used to fill/hide almost all openings on the glacis plate, since no driver sight or ball mount for a machine gun was necessary anymore. New bolts between hull and casemate were created with small drops of white glue. The rest of the surface details were taken from the respective donor kits.

Painting and markings:

This was not an easy choice. A classic Hinterhalt scheme would have been a natural choice, but since the Sturmelefant would have been converted from existing hulls with new parts, I decided to emphasize this heritage through a simple, uniform livery: all Ferdinand elements would be painted/left in a uniform Dunkelgelb (RAL, 7028, Humbrol 83), while the new casemate as well as the bolted-on front armor were left in a red primer livery, in two different shades (Humbrol 70 and 113). This looked a little too simple for my taste, so that I eventually added snaky lines in Dunkelgelb onto the primer-painted sections, blurring the contrast between the two tones.

Markings remained minimal, just three German crosses on the flanks and at the rear and a tactical code on the casemate – the latter in black and in a hand-written style, as if the vehicle had been rushed into frontline service.

After the decals had been secured under sone varnish the model received an overall washing with dark brown, highly thinned acrylic paint, some dry-brushing with light grey and some rust traces, before it was sealed overall with matt acrylic varnish and received some dirt stains with mixed watercolors and finally, after the tracks had been mounted, some artist pigments as physical dust on the lower areas.

Again a project that appeared simple but turned out to be more demanding because the parts would not fit as well as expected. The resulting bunker breaker looks plausible, less massive than the real Sturmtiger but still a menacing sight.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

In the late 1920s, the Aéronautique Militaire (Belgian Air Force) set out to replace its old aircraft. Accordingly, Belgian officers attended the Hendon Air Display where they saw a Fairey Firefly and met Fairey staff. The Firefly toured Belgian air bases in 1930 and met with approval from pilots. This led to a contract for 12 UK-built Firefly II to be followed by a further 33 aircraft built in Belgium.

With the looming German neighbors, Belgium also ordered Hawker Hurricanes to be built in Belgium. However, on 10 May 1940, the Avions Fairey factory was heavily bombed by the Germans, the company personnel evacuated to France, and then left for England. Their ship was sunk by German bombers outside St Nazaire, though, and eight Fairey staff were killed; the survivors worked for the parent company during the Second World War. None of the Belgian Faunes survived this WWII episode.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 27 ft 5 in (8.36 m)

Wingspan: 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)

Height: 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m)

Wing area: 323 ft2 (30.0 m2)

Empty weight: 3,217 lb (1,462 kg)

Loaded weight: 4,594 lb (2,088 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Mercury VIII radial engine, 625 kW (840 hp)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 253 mph (220 knots, 407 km/h) at 14,500 ft (4,400 m)

Cruise speed: 210 mph[94]

Stall speed: 53 mph (46 knots, 85 km/h)

Endurance: 2 hours

Service ceiling: 32,800 ft (10,000 m)

Rate of climb: 2,300 ft/min[94] (11.7 m/s)

Climb to 10,000 ft (3,050 m): 4.75 min

Armament:

Initially (Mk. I) two synchronised .303" Vickers machine guns in fuselage sides,

plus two .303" Lewis machine guns; one beneath each lower wing.

Mk. IA aircraft had the wing-mounted machine guns replaced by

two 20mm Hispano-Suiza HS.404 cannon

The kit and its assembly:

This one was inspired on short notice by a series of side profiles of a fictional British creation called "Bristol Badger", published by whatifmodeler.com's NightHunter with support from Eswube and Darth Panda - very reminiscent of the PZL 24 fighter, but a biplane. A very pretty creation that could rival with the Gloster Gladiator - and seeing the profiles I wondered if a retractable landing gear could be added, in the style of a Grumman F4F or the Curtiss SBC? Hence the idea was born to take this CG creation to the hardware stage.

Another side of the story is that I had been pondering about changing the ugly Curtiss SBC into a single seat fighter. And since the "Badger" would be an equivalent build I eventually decided to combine both ideas.

Legwork turned out that the Bristol Badger actually existed, so it was not the proper name for this creation. Since my designh benchmark was a Belgian aircraft I simply switched the manufacturer to Avions Fairey (see above). ;)

Effectively the Faune is a kitbash of a Heller SBC and a Polikarpov I-15 from ICM - the latter is a noteworthy, small kit because it is full of details, including even an internal frame structure for the cockpit and a highly detailed engine - without any PE parts.

From the SBC the fuselage and the lower wing was taken. The I-15 donated the upper gull wing and its tail - the SBC's was cut away where the observer's station would be, and the diameter of both fuselage sections matches well. The I-15's fabric cover on the tail disappeared under putty. The SBC's canopy was also used , just the observer's rearmost part was cut away and a new spine and fairing sculpted from putty.

Since I wanted a different engine installation (not the streamlined but somewhat ugly solution of the SBC) the SBC fuselage was also cut away in front of the landing gear wells. Bulkheads from styrene sheet were added, and I implanted the nose section and the Bristol Jupiter engine with an open ring cowling from a Matchbox Vickers Wellesley.

Once the wings were in place I implanted the SBC's struts and some wiring was added. The landing gear comes from the SBC, too. The cannons under the wings come from a Hobby Boss Bf 109F.

Painting and markings:

As mentioned above, I used a Belgian Air Force aircraft as design benchmark, and this meant a simple livery in khaki and aluminum dope, similar to Belgian Gloster Gladiators or Fairey Foxes in the late 30ies.

The paint scheme is very simple, I used "French Khaki" from Modelmaster's Authentic enamel range and acrylic Aluminum from Revell. All internal surfaces were painted with RAF Cockpit Green (Modelmaster). The wing struts were painted glossy black, just as on Belgian Foxes or Gladiators of the time.

After a light black ink wash I did some shading with Faded Olive Drab, Humbrol 102 and even some RLM 02, while the Aluminum received some panels in Humbrol 56 and Modelmaster's Aluminum Lacquer. Panel lines were added with a simple, soft pencil.

The decals had to be puzzled together - originally I wanted to use a set for a Belgian Hurricane, but the carreir film turned out to be brittle, so the roundels now come from a generic TL Modellbau sheet, the "Cocotte Bleue" from an anniversary Mirage 5BE, and the codes actually belong to a Chilean D.H. Venom...

Finally, everything was sealed under a mix of 80% flat and 20% gloss acrylic varnish.

In the end, a major kitbash that looks rather simple - but I am actually surprised how well the parts of the I-15 and SBC went together. And the result does not look like the Frankenstein creation this whif kit actually is... ;)

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

In the late 1920s, the Aéronautique Militaire (Belgian Air Force) set out to replace its old aircraft. Accordingly, Belgian officers attended the Hendon Air Display where they saw a Fairey Firefly and met Fairey staff. The Firefly toured Belgian air bases in 1930 and met with approval from pilots. This led to a contract for 12 UK-built Firefly II to be followed by a further 33 aircraft built in Belgium.

With the looming German neighbors, Belgium also ordered Hawker Hurricanes to be built in Belgium. However, on 10 May 1940, the Avions Fairey factory was heavily bombed by the Germans, the company personnel evacuated to France, and then left for England. Their ship was sunk by German bombers outside St Nazaire, though, and eight Fairey staff were killed; the survivors worked for the parent company during the Second World War. None of the Belgian Faunes survived this WWII episode.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 27 ft 5 in (8.36 m)

Wingspan: 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)

Height: 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m)

Wing area: 323 ft2 (30.0 m2)

Empty weight: 3,217 lb (1,462 kg)

Loaded weight: 4,594 lb (2,088 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Mercury VIII radial engine, 625 kW (840 hp)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 253 mph (220 knots, 407 km/h) at 14,500 ft (4,400 m)

Cruise speed: 210 mph[94]

Stall speed: 53 mph (46 knots, 85 km/h)

Endurance: 2 hours

Service ceiling: 32,800 ft (10,000 m)

Rate of climb: 2,300 ft/min[94] (11.7 m/s)

Climb to 10,000 ft (3,050 m): 4.75 min

Armament:

Initially (Mk. I) two synchronised .303" Vickers machine guns in fuselage sides,

plus two .303" Lewis machine guns; one beneath each lower wing.

Mk. IA aircraft had the wing-mounted machine guns replaced by

two 20mm Hispano-Suiza HS.404 cannon

The kit and its assembly:

This one was inspired on short notice by a series of side profiles of a fictional British creation called "Bristol Badger", published by whatifmodeler.com's NightHunter with support from Eswube and Darth Panda - very reminiscent of the PZL 24 fighter, but a biplane. A very pretty creation that could rival with the Gloster Gladiator - and seeing the profiles I wondered if a retractable landing gear could be added, in the style of a Grumman F4F or the Curtiss SBC? Hence the idea was born to take this CG creation to the hardware stage.

Another side of the story is that I had been pondering about changing the ugly Curtiss SBC into a single seat fighter. And since the "Badger" would be an equivalent build I eventually decided to combine both ideas.

Legwork turned out that the Bristol Badger actually existed, so it was not the proper name for this creation. Since my designh benchmark was a Belgian aircraft I simply switched the manufacturer to Avions Fairey (see above). ;)

Effectively the Faune is a kitbash of a Heller SBC and a Polikarpov I-15 from ICM - the latter is a noteworthy, small kit because it is full of details, including even an internal frame structure for the cockpit and a highly detailed engine - without any PE parts.

From the SBC the fuselage and the lower wing was taken. The I-15 donated the upper gull wing and its tail - the SBC's was cut away where the observer's station would be, and the diameter of both fuselage sections matches well. The I-15's fabric cover on the tail disappeared under putty. The SBC's canopy was also used , just the observer's rearmost part was cut away and a new spine and fairing sculpted from putty.

Since I wanted a different engine installation (not the streamlined but somewhat ugly solution of the SBC) the SBC fuselage was also cut away in front of the landing gear wells. Bulkheads from styrene sheet were added, and I implanted the nose section and the Bristol Jupiter engine with an open ring cowling from a Matchbox Vickers Wellesley.

Once the wings were in place I implanted the SBC's struts and some wiring was added. The landing gear comes from the SBC, too. The cannons under the wings come from a Hobby Boss Bf 109F.

Painting and markings:

As mentioned above, I used a Belgian Air Force aircraft as design benchmark, and this meant a simple livery in khaki and aluminum dope, similar to Belgian Gloster Gladiators or Fairey Foxes in the late 30ies.

The paint scheme is very simple, I used "French Khaki" from Modelmaster's Authentic enamel range and acrylic Aluminum from Revell. All internal surfaces were painted with RAF Cockpit Green (Modelmaster). The wing struts were painted glossy black, just as on Belgian Foxes or Gladiators of the time.

After a light black ink wash I did some shading with Faded Olive Drab, Humbrol 102 and even some RLM 02, while the Aluminum received some panels in Humbrol 56 and Modelmaster's Aluminum Lacquer. Panel lines were added with a simple, soft pencil.

The decals had to be puzzled together - originally I wanted to use a set for a Belgian Hurricane, but the carreir film turned out to be brittle, so the roundels now come from a generic TL Modellbau sheet, the "Cocotte Bleue" from an anniversary Mirage 5BE, and the codes actually belong to a Chilean D.H. Venom...

Finally, everything was sealed under a mix of 80% flat and 20% gloss acrylic varnish.

In the end, a major kitbash that looks rather simple - but I am actually surprised how well the parts of the I-15 and SBC went together. And the result does not look like the Frankenstein creation this whif kit actually is... ;)

+++ 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 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 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!

In the period immediately after the Second World War the world found itself with hundreds of thousands of surplus aircraft and just as many surplus aviators. Most aircraft would meet the salvage blade and the smelter’s fiery furnace. Most pilots would return to civilian life, the bulk of them never to fly again.

Anyway, prices were steep and from the United States more modern and economical offerings ruled the market. Maintaining a former military jet was also a costly business, so, consequently, after a slight buzz (more of a hum, actually) in the early Seventies, the Mystery Jet and Jet Craft of Las Vegas, also fuelled by some dubious business practices by the company's owner, disappeared. Even further developments of the original concept, e .g. with a wide body for up to 14 passengers and two engines, would not save the Mystery Jet from failure.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1 pilot plus 5-7 passengers

Length (Mystery Jet 160): 38 ft 5 in (11.73 m)

Wingspan incl. tip tanks: 39 ft 7 1/2 in (12.09 m)

Height: 8 ft 10 in (2.69 m)

Wing area: 262 ft² (24.34 m²)

Empty weight: 7,283 lb (3,304 kg)

Max. take-off weight: 12,390 lb (5,620 kg)

Powerplant:

1× de Havilland Goblin 3 centrifugal turbojet, rated at 3,350 lbf (14.90 kN)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 516 mph (832 km/h)

Cruising speed: 400 mph (644 km/h)

Range: 1,220 mi (1,960 km)

Service ceiling: 37,700 ft (11,500 m)

Armament:

None

The kit and its assembly:

The first finished work in 2017 is a different kind of whif, one of the few civilian models in my collection. This conversion looks sick, but ,as weird as it may seem, the Business-Jet-From-Vintage-Vampires idea was real. For more information, and the source from where some of the backgound story was gathered, please check:

www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/article...

Anyway, my build is just a personal interpretation of the original concept, not a true model of the Mystery Jet. In fact, this was limited through the donor parts for this kitbash.

The rear end was the smaller problem: Airfix offers a very good Vampire T.11 trainer with excellent detail and fit - the passenger cabin was the bigger challenge. Finding "something" that would fit in shape and especialsl size was not easy - my first choice was a nose section from a vintage 1:100 Antonow An-24 from VEB Plasticart (still much too wide, though), and the best solution came as an accidental find in a local model kit shop where I found a heavily discounted MPM Focke Wulf Fw 189 B-0 trainer.

The reason: the kit was complete, but the bag holding the sprues must have been heated immensely during the packaging process: the main sprues were horrible warped - except for some single parts including the canopies and the sprue with the cabin! Height wind width were perfect, only the boxy shape caused some headaches. But I guess I would not find anything better...

That said, the transplantation mess started. I never built any of the two donor kits before, so I carefully tried to find the best place where to cut the Vampire's nose - I ended up with a staggered solution right in front of the wing root air intakes.

The Fw 189's cabin was bit more tricky, because I had to get rid of the original wing roots and wanted to use as much space as possible, up to the rear bulkhead and together with the rear cabin window. The idea was to blend the Fw 189's roof line into the Vampire's engine section, while keeping the original air intake ducts, so that the overall arrangement would look plausible.

The result became a pretty long nose section - and at that time the tail booms were not fited yet, so I was not certain concerning overall proportions. The cabin's underside had to be improvised, and blending the boxy front end with a flat underside into the tubby, round Vampire fuselage caused some headaches. I also had to re-create the lower flank section with styrene sheet, because I had originally hoped that I could "push" the new cabin between the wing roots - but that space was occupied by the Goblin's inlet ducts.

Inside of the cabin, the original floor, bulkheads and dashboard were used, plus five bucket seats that come with the MPM kit. In order to hide the body work from the inside, side panels from 0.5mm styrene sheet were added in the cabin - with the benefit of additional stability, but also costing some space... Since the machine was built with closed cabin, a pilot was added - actually a bash of a WWII Matchbox pilot and a German officer from an ESCI tank kit. Looks pretty good and "professional". ;-)

Once the cabin was in place, lots of PSR followed and the tail booms could be fitted. To my relief, the longer nose did not look too unbalanced (and actually, design sketches for the original Mystery Jet suggest just this layout!) - but I decided to add wing tip tanks which would beef up wingspan and shift the visual mass slightly forward. They come from an 1:100 Tamiya Il-28, or better the "R" recce variant.

The only other big change concerned the nose wheel. While the OOB wheel and strut were used, the well is now located in front of the wheel and it would retract forwards, giving the nose a more balanced look - and the cabin arrangement made this change more plausible, too.

Another addition were three small porthole windows in the solid parts of the cabin flanks - one of them ending up in the middle of the cabin door on starboard, where a solid part of the canopy roof lent itself for a good place just behind the pilots' seats.

Painting and markings:

I cannot help it, but the thing looks like a design from a vintage Tintin or Yoko Tsuno comic! This was not planned or expected - and actually the paint scheme evolved step by step. I had no plan or clue what to apply - the real Mystery Jet mock-up in silver with blue trim looked sharp, but somehow I did not want blue. So I started with the interior (out of a necessity, as the fuselage had to be closed before any further work progress at some point) and settled for plushy, British colors: Cream (walls and roof) and Claret-Red (carpet and seats).

I tried to find something for the outside that would complement this choice of colors, and eventually settled on Ivory and White (upper and lower fuselage halves, respectively) with some deep red trim, plus pale grey wing surfaces. I even considered some thin golden trim lines, but I think this would have been too much?

The trim was created with decals tripes from generic sheet material, the black anti-glare panel was painted, though. As a color contrast I painted some of the upper canopy panels in translucent, light blue, and this looks very good.

The wings received a lightb treatment with thinned black ink, in order to emphasize the engravings. No post-shading was done, though, for a rather clean look.

Most markings were puzzled together; the registration G-AZRE actually belonged to a Vickers Vanguard (from the 1:144 Airfix kit), the large letters above and under the wings were created with single 45° letters (USAF style). Most stencils come from a Vampire trainer aftermarket sheet from Xtradecal, from the OOB sheet only the "No step" warnings on the wings were used.

Finally, the kit was sealed with a semi-matt coat of varnish, except for the anti-glare panel, which recived a matt coat. The three small windows received artificial panes made from Clearfix, after their rims had been painted black.

A messy project, and you better do not take a close look. But the overall elegance of this creation surprises me - the real Mystery Jet already looked sleek, and this model, despite a more blunt nose, confirms this impression. The colors work together well, too - and the thing has a dedicated retro feel about it. Tintin might be on board, as well as Elton John, both sharing a cigar on the rear seats... ;)

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

How it came to be:

It has been a long time since I built a "real" airplane kit, and this one here is a one-of-a-kind. After a bleak phase with lots of reading about German WWII airplane projects I found a spark to fire up a project I kept in the back of my mind for a long time: building one of these semi-fictional WWII airplanes from scratch. These astonishing designs were on the drawing boards at their time and rarely made it beyond that. Only a few reached prototype status at the end of the war, but today these partly weird designs are the basis of today's Luft '46 model kit genre: What-if airplanes, based on sketches, construction plans and pure speculation, in the case the war would have gone on.

At this point I want to make clear that this kit has NO political background. It is not even intended, and any Nazi symbolism is intentionally avoided and rejected. It is rather a hommage to an impressive design and, from my personal point of view, pure science fiction, based on vague historic facts.

Some historic background on this plane:

This plane is a Focke-Wulf study from 1941 for a heavy fighter. It was developes shortly after the Fw 190 introduction and surely influenced by the twin-boom Fw 189 reconnaissance aircraft, which became very popular due to its high agility, stable flight characteristics and toughness against enemy fire. The small "Flitzer" turbine engine fighter will surely also have had some impact, since it was on Focke Wulf's drawing boards in 1943, too.

This beast here would have been a much larger airplane, though: a heavy, high performance fighter built around the potent BMW 803 engine: a 28 cylinder, liquid-cooled radial engine in the 4.000 hp output range - comparable to the P&W-R-4360 Wasp Major engine (the so-called "corncob") which actually found its way into the Vought F2G Corsair but "just" put out 3.000 hp.

For reference, this Focke Wulf design was quite comparable to the US American XP-54, both in design and performance

The Focke Wulf fighter never received an official designation, and saw some mutation in the course of 1943. Even though the basic layout as a twin-boom, single pusher engine airplane with a tricycle landing gear was retained, the radiator placements, wing and tail shape changed.

From the original 1941 annular radiator design (a ring opening around the central fuselage), the arrangement was modified in April 1943 to a single drum radiator in the nose and, alternatively, twin drum radiators in the front ends of the tailbooms. The latter design is the layout I chose for my model, or better: where I ended up (see below).

Valuable sources:

Walter Schick, Ingolf Meyer: Luftwaffe Secret Projects, Fighters 1939-1945, Hinckley, 2005 (this is an English translation of the original German edition, Stuttgart, 1994, but with many colored illustrations added).

Sundin, Claes; Bergstroem, Christer: Deutsche Jaqgdflugzeuge 1939-1945 in Farbprofilen, Bonn, 1999.

www.luft46.com - a great online institution which offers many facts, information and artwork about secret German WWII airplane designs like this one - you can find a nice CG graphic of the initial 1941 design of this machine there.

wp.scn.ru - "Wings Palette" - a Russian website which collects plane profiles and some details about the respective machine's history. A nice reference archive, since a lot information concerning colors can be found there, too. Handling is poor, though. But once you get it, it is a great model kit building source.

The construction:

Anyway, this Focke Wulf design never left the drawing board, and this model here is just an interpretation of the vague design sketches I found in literature. It is also limited by the use of various existing kits as a kitbashing basis. My idea was to build a what-if version of the airplane if it had entered service, which would allow some deviations from the blueprints and also leave some room for a semi-realistic Luftwaffe livery.

What went into this model:

Grumman Panther (1:72, Matchbox/Revell):

- Main body,

- Parts of the outer wings

- Cockpit interior

- Canopy

Lockheed P-38E Lightning (1:72; Airfix):

- Tailbooms

- Horizontal fin

- Cockpit parts

- Landing gear

- Propeller spinners

Messerschmidt Me 262 A-2a (1:72, Hobby Master):

- Outer wings

- Wheels

Dornier Do 217N (1:72, Italeri):

- Engine cowling (rear central fuselage)

- Propellers

Other smaller donations:

- Kamow Ka-25 (1:72, Airfix): Vertical fins

- Chance Vought XF5U-1 (1:72, Hasegawa): Propeller spinners

- Chance Vought F4U (1:72, Matchbox): Engine block

- Messerschmidt Me-110 (1:72, Matchbox): Pilot figure

...and a lot of small stuff of unknown origin!

Laying the foundations

The basic choice for donation kits was quickly done: the central body would come from the Grumman F9F-4 Panther kit from Matchbox (currently released by Revell). Its overall proportions match well with the Focke Wulf design's central body and its size well, and the kit's construction with folded wings and a separate tail fin allowed easy modification for the pusher engine layout.

Originally, I wanted to use the Panther's jet intakes as radiator openings for a fictional (and more elegant) design alternative to the "official" radiator solutions, but I had to skip this idea (see below). The slender tailbooms come from a vintage Airfix P-38H kit and are much more slender than the Focke Wulf designs. Furthermore, the original Focke Wulf main landing gear looks as if it would retract inwards - which collided with my intial radiator ideas! Due to the pusher propeller, a much longer landing gear than the Panther's wpould be necessary, and this would have needed much bigger compartments. Enlarging them appeared too complex, and there's be actually no space with my inital wing root radiator idea. Therefore, I decided to retract the main wheels into the twin booms, and the P-38 pieces were just perfect for my ideas (and at hand). They'd undergo major modifications, though.

The twin booms were to be mounted onto the Panther's inner wings, and from there the rest of the model design would come when the parts were needed or available, since matching proportions for a balanced look is an important aspect when you build from scratch - a lesson I learned through varioius mecha bashings and modifications. I had some plans though: for the outer wings, for instance, I considered straight wings from a Fw 190 or parts from a Do 335 "Arrow", since these are slightly swept and would match the original drawings quite well.

The body parts get assembled

Work started straightforward with the tailbooms: they needed total cleaning, so that the P-38 look would disappear as much as possible: intercooolers and turbochargers had to go, and the engines were to "disappear", too. The Airfix kit is pretty old and clumsy, but offers massive material to work with. Another positive aspect is that the main landing gear compartments are complete parts, including the doors and all the inside. A neat arrangement which would later allow a switch between extended and retracted wheels!

The Panther's fuselage was cut open at the rear end to hold the BMW 803 engine, which requiered a new cowling. This came from a Dornier Do 217 with BMW 801 engines from Italeri, the BMW 803 dummy inside comes from a Matchbox F4U kit. The diameters of both segments were pretty equal and were easily merged with putty.

The Panther's front end was taken as it is, including the cockpit. The latter is actually very detailed for a Matchbox kit, with side consoles, a dashboard with instruments and even steering stick is included. I just fitted a better seat and a WWII pilot figure, which received an oxygen mask and its head was turned left for a more vivid look.

Since the front wheel had to be much longer than the Panther pieces I decided to use the P-38 front landing gear. Consequently, I enlarged its compartment (towards the nose, with a transplanted interior) and moved the Panther's nose guns from their original low position upwards. The kit's nose was filled with lots of lead in order to ensure a good weight on the front wheel for free standing on its tricycle undercarriage.

The BMW 803's contraprops had to be built from scratch. The basis were two leftover three-bladed rotors from the aforementioned Do 217 Italeri kit (they had just the correct diameter!) for the static display version, and two transparent plastic discs of the same diameter in order to mimic running propellers for photo shooting purposes in flight.

The spinners were a nightmare, though. They come from a wrecked 1:72 Hasegawa kit of a Chance Vought XF5U-1 (The "Flying Pancake"). Cut into three pieces, the three-bladed props were implanted into the spinner segments and a metal axis inserted, so that the propellers can be moved and interchanged. A plastic tube inside of the engine dummy is the respective adapter and offers a stable hold.

Trouble! ...and even more trouble!

As rough work progressed, some fundamental problems became obvious:

a) the P-38 booms were too long at their front, and their diameter was much too large. Cutting the front ends off did not help much, since I would have had to create new front covers/noses from putty and their bulky shape would look very unsinspired - way off of the Focke Wulf design! Hence, I finally decided to switch my personal design plan from the wing root intake arrangement to the authetic twin drum radiator layout from April 1943.

The Panther's air intakes would be totally closed, leaving pretty "fat" wing roots of high thickness. But since armament was supposed to be loacted in both the nose and wing roots of this machine (see below), this offered a good chance to cover the mess up a little.

Finding something to act as drum radiators was another problem that followed suit! At first I thought I'd become happy with two leftover engines from a Matchbox PB4-Y2 Privateer in 1:72 scale. These are/were actually Twin Wasp radial engines, but their diameter, the grates inside and their cooling flaps made them suited for my kit. They fitted well, but it just did not look right (see some of the WIP pics).

Heavy-hearted I skipped this approach and also built the drums radiators from scratch. I finally found some good parts in model railraod equipment: in a HO Modulars set from Cornerstone with various roof detils for industrial buildings, I found two nice "tubs" (parts for motorized vents) which were merged with lots of putty and sanding onto the clipped tail booms. The radiator arrangement inside was made up from parts from a 1:72 scale Panzer IV(!) and from the Airfix P-38 spinners. The cooling flaps are very thin Plasticard. Comparing this solution with the original plane sketches, the result looks convicing and more "realistic" than originally planned! Whew...

b) The wing root/twin boom area was another source of headaches, since I had to merge parts that were never supposed to meet, in places even less intended for construction. But a mini drill with a diamond cutter and epoxy putty are wonderful things!

Spacers between the Panther hull and the booms had to be made, closing a 5mm gap on each side because the propeller needed this much space between the booms. Parts of the leftover Panther kit's outer wings were the basis, and the original P-38's horizonmtal fin could be used, too. Sound simple, but almost the complete area had to be remodeled with putty.

The big picture becomes clear(er)

Now that the main part of the body was finished, the final missing pieces could be added and first details defined.

For the outer wings, I finally settled on parts from a Me 262 from Hobby Boss. These have the advantage that they are massive pieces (not two halves, as usual) and that the Me 262's engine nacelles could easily be left away. As a result, I had two thin, slightly swept wings which could easily be cut into the right length for my project. Fixing them to the P-38 tail booms was another story, though!

The original Focke Wulf design uses simpler and thicker wings, which look very similar to the Do 335. But I justify my choice with the advancements in aerodynamics since the 1943 revision of the original plane's design and the effective introduction of the Me 262 into production and service. Using these parts or a similar design for high speeds in another airplane appears plausible in order to get this machine into the air quickly, and the slender Me 262 wings blend well with the angles of the inner wings from the Panther.

The vertical fins also puzzled me for some time. The round P-38 fins had definitively to go, but the different Focke Wulf design sketches did not show a definitive vertical fin shape or arrangement. Since I wanted an old-fashioned, not jet-like look, I went for parts from the scrap box again. And, believe it or not, the model's retro-looking vertical fins actually come from a helicopter: from an antique 1:72 scale Kamow Ka-25 "Hokum" from Airfix!

The main landing gear was taken from the P-38, but the wheels come from the scrap box. I am not sure where these come from - they could come from a Douglas Skyknight from Matchbox. Since the Airfix kit's contruction offers the main landing gear to be inserted as complete units, I also used the covers for the retracted gear for the photo shootings, for some pictures in flight.

Armament:

Being a heavy daylight fighter, I stuck to the original 1941 design armament: four fixed 20mm MG 151/20 in the nose, plus "provision for two larger calibre cannons", plus two or four machine guns installed in the wing-roots. The firepower would have been massive!

For my model I adopted the four 20mm guns in the upper nose and added four 30mm MK 103 cannons in the wing roots. Since these offered now lots of space, this arrangement would make the thick wing and the blended bodywork plausible, without looking exagerrated.

The nose guns are just thin polystyrol sticks, the larger calibre guns are syringe needles cut to length with the beloved diamond cutter.

But beyond the guns, I also wanted to add some of the experimental air-to-air weapons that were under development against allied bomber forces in 1945. Among those was the world's probably first guided AAM, the Kramer X-4: a relatively small, wire-guided missile with a range of just 3 miles and a contact detonator.

Tests with this innovative weapon were conducted in the late war months, and the X-4 was suppoesed to be carried by e. g. Me 262 fighters. The targeting procedure would easily overstress a single pilot's capabilities, though, esp. in the heat of a bomber formation attack at high speeds. Therefore, field tests were rather performed by multi-seated planes like the Ju 88, and the X-4 did not enter serious service.

But this missile would have been a plausible weapon for this Focke Wulf design, and so two X-4s found their way with starting racks under my model's wings.

Each missile consists of nine parts and had to be built from scratch. The body is a streamlined, modern 250 lbs. Mk 81 bomb, the wings were cut from thin polystyrol. The wire spools on the wing tips are actually parts from a HO scale fence(!), the acoustic detonator nose are leftover tool handles from a 1:35 scale tank kit.

Livery and markings:

Being a semi-fictional design that never left the drawing board, I tried to implement a "typical" late war Luftwaffe livery. Benchmarks were Me 262 fighter paint schemes, as well as late Fw 190D-9 and Ta-152 machines. Since the plane itself was already centre of attraction, the paint job should be rather subtle, yet authentic.

All interior areas (cockpit, engine, landing gear) were painted in RLM 02. For the outside I ended up with a basic livery in RLM 74/75/76, using colors from Testor's Military Models and Figures range, 2071, 2084, 2085, 2086.

The upper splinter scheme with faded/mottled fuselage sides (which includes RLM 02 in order to create a soft color transition from the dark upper sides into the light RLM 76 underneath, a common practice in field conditions) was derived from a Me 262 profile. This machine also contributed the dark green (RLM 82) color fields on the nose and other fuselage parts. These would not have been standard livery, I think, rather improvised in the field. But this subtle detail prevents the plane from being all grey-in-grey.

The markings come from various decal sheets and were a kind of challenge. I intended to mark this machine as being part of an Erprobungskommando (test unit), or EKdo or EK, for short. But these squadrons would not have special designations, though. Prototypes woud carry a "V"-number (for Versuch/test), but I wanted a machine already in service. So I made up a semi-fictional squadron marking as a part of the late Reich defense.

Typical markings are the colored band at the rear fuselage, its color and scheme being associated with certain Jagdgeschwader (JG) wings, dedicated to interception tasks. The red tail band(s) denote this machine as being part of JG 1, which comprised several Staffeln/groups and squadrons with individual emblems. The JG 1's red tail band would not have been used in the late war years in real life, but, hey, it LOOKS good, and we're finally doing fictional things here! As a side note, JG 1 was the only wing (to be exact: 1./JG 1 and later, in April 1945 III./JG 1) to use the He 162 Salamender jet fighter, so JG 1 appears to be a general plausible choice for this fictional Focke Wulf fighter.

The red wave symbol should, AFAIK, mark the 2nd group of that wing, but it could also be a symbol for the pilot's rank - that's quite obscure and had not been handled consistently. For squadron markings I setlled on 6./JG 1 - the red wyvern was this group's squadron emblem.

Decals come from aftermarkets sheet from TL-Modellbau (superb quality) and others i e. from a MiG-25 from Hasegawa (the red bort number) or the leftover decal sheet of the Hobby Boss Me 262 (mostly stencellings and warning signs).

After application of the decals on the semi-matte paint, everything was sealed under matte varnish.

The X-4 missiles were painted in a color livery I found for a museum X-4. Other test missiles were painted in black and white, checkered. Not sure if the field use missiles would have looked that bright, but for a test unit, the blank fuselage and the hi-vis, orange fins look just right and make a nice contrast to the dull rest of the machine.

Finally...

Lots of work, but the result looks better and more harmonious than I expected. O.K., the Panther's fuselage and cockpit deviate from the Focke Wulf sketches - but the plane I built would have had entered service 3 years after its redesign to the drum radiator design, and details like the bubble canopy or more modern weaponry would have certainly been incorporated.

The finish is not as good as a kit "out of the box", but considering the massive putty work, this machine looks quite good :)

And, after all, it is a fictional design!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The 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

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

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!

The Fiat Macchi C.170 Brezza ("Gust of wind") was a single-seat biplane fighter which served primarily in Italy's Regia Aeronautica before and in the early stages of World War II. The aircraft was produced by the Varese firm, and entered service, in smaller numbers, with the air forces of Italy, Austria and Hungary.

Although an obsolete design, it proved to be robust, durable and effective especially in severe conditions. In spring 1943, surviving C.170s were rounded up from training schools and delivered to night ground attack units operating on the Eastern Front. The C.170 was used to conduct night harassment sorties on the Eastern Front until September 1944, when the units were disbanded, due to a lack of serviceable airframes and spare parts.

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 8.25 m (27 ft 1 in)

Wingspan: 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)

Height: 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m)

Wing area: 323 ft² (30.0 m²)

Empty weight: 3,217 lb (1,462 kg)

Loaded weight: 4,594 lb (2,088 kg)

Powerplant

1× Fiat A.74 R.C.38 14-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, 650 kW (870 hp) at 2,520 rpm for take-off

Performance

Maximum speed: 441 km/h (238 kn, 274 mph) at 20,000 ft

Cruise speed: 338 km/h (187 kn, 210 mph)

Range: 780 km (420 nmi, 485 mi)

Service ceiling: 10,210 m (33,500 ft)

Rate of climb: 11.8 m/s (2,340 ft/min)

Climb to 10,000 ft (3,050 m): 4.75 min

Wing loading: 69,6 kg/m² (15,3 lb/ft²)

Power/mass: 311 W/kg (0.19 hp/lb)

Armament

2× 12.7 mm (0.5 in) Breda-SAFAT synchronized machine guns above the engine, 370 rpg

Some aircraft were field-modified to carry up to 8× 15 kg (33 lb) or 2× 50 or 100 kg (110/220 lb) bombs under the wings

The kit and its assembly

Inspiration for this little, whiffy biplane came when I posted a pic of an Austrian Ju 86 bomber as a reply/ suggestion to a fellow modeler's (NARSES2) search at whatifmodelers.com for “something” to make from a Gloster Gladiator.

When I looked at the paint scheme a second time I remembered that I still had some Austrian roundels in stock, as well some very old biplane spare parts... hmmm.

Biplanes are tricky to build, even OOB, and kitbashing this kind of whif would not make things easier. Anyway, I love such challenges, and the potential outcome would surely look nice, if not exotic, so I decided to tackle the project.

Basically, the following donation ingredients went into it:

● Fuselage, engine, cockpit/pilot and tail from a Revell Macchi C.200 "Saetta"

● Upper wing from a Matchbox Gloster "Gladiator"

● Lower wings from a Matchbox SBC "Helldiver"

● Wheels from a Matchbox Hs 126 (shortened)

Pretty straightforward, but even though it would be a small aircraft model, it would come with two big challenges: mounting the lower wings and shaping the resulting, gaping belly, and the custom-made struts and wirings for the upper wing.

Work started with the Macchi C.200’s fuselage, which was built OOB - just without the wing, which is a single part, different pilot (the included one is a pygmy!) and with a free spinning metal axis for the propeller.

The wing installation started with the lower wings. I glued the Helldiver wings onto the C.200 fuselage, so that the wings' trailing edge would match the C.200's wing root ends. From that, a floor plate was fitted under the fuselage and any excessive material removed, the gaps filled with lumps of 2C putty. That moved the lower wing's roots backwards, creating space at the lower forward fuselage for the new landing gear.

The latter was taken from a vintage Matchbox Hs 126 reconnaissance aircraft - probably 25, if 30 years old... Size was O.K., but the struts had to shortened by about 5mm, as thge HS 126 is a much bigger/longer aircraft than the C.200. A cut was made just above the wheel spats, material taken out, and the separate parts were glued back together again.

With the lower wings in place I started building strut supports for the upper wing from styrene strips - tricky and needs patience, but effective. I started with the outer supports, carving something SBC-style from styrene. These were glued into place, slightly canted outwards, and their length/height adapted to the upper wing’s position.

When this was settled, the upper Gladiator wing was glued into place. After a thorough drying period the short fuselage supports in front of the cockpit – again, styrene strips – were inserted into the gap. This allowed an individual lengthening, and was easier than expected, with a stable result.

After having the upper wing glued in place I added some wiring, made from heated and pulled-out styrene sprues. This not only enhances the kit's look, it also (just like in real life) improves rigidity of the model. Also a tedious task, but IMHO worth the effort. I tried thin wire, nylon strings and sewing yarn for this job, but finally the styrene solution is what worked best for me.

The exhaust installation had also to be modified: the new Hs 126 struts with spats would have been where the original C.200’s hot exhaust gases would have gone, so I added new exhaust pipes that would go between the new legs.

Other small added details included, among others, a pitot on a wing strut, a visor in front of the cockpit, a radio antenna, a ladder made from wire.

Painting and markings:

I would not call the Austrian 3+1-tone pre-WWII-scheme spectacular, but the colors are unique. My scheme is based on an Austrian Ju 86 bomber from 1938, so it fits into the intended time frame.

The colors were puzzled together from various sources and are subjective guesstimates:

● A pale, yellow-ish beige (Humbrol 74, ‘Linen’, out of production)

● A rather brownish green (Testors 1711, ‘Olive Drab’, FS 34087)

● A dark green with a yellow-ish hue (Humbrol 116, ‘US Dark Green’ FS 34079)

● Light blue for the undersides (Humbrol 65, ‘Aircraft Blue’, RLM 65)

In order to add some details I painted the area behind the engine cowling in aluminum. The respective part under the fuselage, where the exhaust gases would pass, was painted in Steel – both Testors Metallizers.

The interior surfaces were painted in a neutral Grey – but with the engine and the pilot in place you cannot see anything of that at all.

Markings are minimal: the Austrian roundels come from a TL Decals aftermarket sheet, the flag on the rudder was laid out with red paint (a mix of Humbrol 19 and 60), the white bar is a decal. The tactical code is fictional, puzzled together from single digits in various sizes (also from TL Modellbau sheets). The original documents how purely black fuselage codes, but I found these hard to read. So I chose digits with a white rim (actually, these belong to modern German Luftwaffe tactical codes in 1:32), which improve contrast a little.

The kit received a thin black ink wash and some shading/dry-painting with lighter basic tones (Humbrol 103, 155, Model Master 2138,‘Israeli Armor Sand Grey’, and Humbrol 122). After decal application, another turn with overall Hemp and Light Grey was done in order to fade contrast and to emphasize the surface structure. The wires were also painted, but only with thinned black ink and a VERY soft brush.

Finally, everything was sealed under a spray coat of matt acrylic varnish.

Voilà, and done in just about a week!

I kitbashed the Power Girl figure using the Jiaou doll instead of using the Tbleague body since the Jiaou seems much more curvey than the Tbleague bodies , especially the lower half of the bodies and she filled her suit a whole lot better .

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

In the late 1920s, the Aéronautique Militaire (Belgian Air Force) set out to replace its old aircraft. Accordingly, Belgian officers attended the Hendon Air Display where they saw a Fairey Firefly and met Fairey staff. The Firefly toured Belgian air bases in 1930 and met with approval from pilots. This led to a contract for 12 UK-built Firefly II to be followed by a further 33 aircraft built in Belgium.

With the looming German neighbors, Belgium also ordered Hawker Hurricanes to be built in Belgium. However, on 10 May 1940, the Avions Fairey factory was heavily bombed by the Germans, the company personnel evacuated to France, and then left for England. Their ship was sunk by German bombers outside St Nazaire, though, and eight Fairey staff were killed; the survivors worked for the parent company during the Second World War. None of the Belgian Faunes survived this WWII episode.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 27 ft 5 in (8.36 m)

Wingspan: 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)

Height: 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m)

Wing area: 323 ft2 (30.0 m2)

Empty weight: 3,217 lb (1,462 kg)

Loaded weight: 4,594 lb (2,088 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Mercury VIII radial engine, 625 kW (840 hp)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 253 mph (220 knots, 407 km/h) at 14,500 ft (4,400 m)

Cruise speed: 210 mph[94]

Stall speed: 53 mph (46 knots, 85 km/h)

Endurance: 2 hours

Service ceiling: 32,800 ft (10,000 m)

Rate of climb: 2,300 ft/min[94] (11.7 m/s)

Climb to 10,000 ft (3,050 m): 4.75 min

Armament:

Initially (Mk. I) two synchronised .303" Vickers machine guns in fuselage sides,

plus two .303" Lewis machine guns; one beneath each lower wing.

Mk. IA aircraft had the wing-mounted machine guns replaced by

two 20mm Hispano-Suiza HS.404 cannon

The kit and its assembly:

This one was inspired on short notice by a series of side profiles of a fictional British creation called "Bristol Badger", published by whatifmodeler.com's NightHunter with support from Eswube and Darth Panda - very reminiscent of the PZL 24 fighter, but a biplane. A very pretty creation that could rival with the Gloster Gladiator - and seeing the profiles I wondered if a retractable landing gear could be added, in the style of a Grumman F4F or the Curtiss SBC? Hence the idea was born to take this CG creation to the hardware stage.

Another side of the story is that I had been pondering about changing the ugly Curtiss SBC into a single seat fighter. And since the "Badger" would be an equivalent build I eventually decided to combine both ideas.

Legwork turned out that the Bristol Badger actually existed, so it was not the proper name for this creation. Since my designh benchmark was a Belgian aircraft I simply switched the manufacturer to Avions Fairey (see above). ;)

Effectively the Faune is a kitbash of a Heller SBC and a Polikarpov I-15 from ICM - the latter is a noteworthy, small kit because it is full of details, including even an internal frame structure for the cockpit and a highly detailed engine - without any PE parts.

From the SBC the fuselage and the lower wing was taken. The I-15 donated the upper gull wing and its tail - the SBC's was cut away where the observer's station would be, and the diameter of both fuselage sections matches well. The I-15's fabric cover on the tail disappeared under putty. The SBC's canopy was also used , just the observer's rearmost part was cut away and a new spine and fairing sculpted from putty.

Since I wanted a different engine installation (not the streamlined but somewhat ugly solution of the SBC) the SBC fuselage was also cut away in front of the landing gear wells. Bulkheads from styrene sheet were added, and I implanted the nose section and the Bristol Jupiter engine with an open ring cowling from a Matchbox Vickers Wellesley.

Once the wings were in place I implanted the SBC's struts and some wiring was added. The landing gear comes from the SBC, too. The cannons under the wings come from a Hobby Boss Bf 109F.

Painting and markings:

As mentioned above, I used a Belgian Air Force aircraft as design benchmark, and this meant a simple livery in khaki and aluminum dope, similar to Belgian Gloster Gladiators or Fairey Foxes in the late 30ies.

The paint scheme is very simple, I used "French Khaki" from Modelmaster's Authentic enamel range and acrylic Aluminum from Revell. All internal surfaces were painted with RAF Cockpit Green (Modelmaster). The wing struts were painted glossy black, just as on Belgian Foxes or Gladiators of the time.

After a light black ink wash I did some shading with Faded Olive Drab, Humbrol 102 and even some RLM 02, while the Aluminum received some panels in Humbrol 56 and Modelmaster's Aluminum Lacquer. Panel lines were added with a simple, soft pencil.

The decals had to be puzzled together - originally I wanted to use a set for a Belgian Hurricane, but the carreir film turned out to be brittle, so the roundels now come from a generic TL Modellbau sheet, the "Cocotte Bleue" from an anniversary Mirage 5BE, and the codes actually belong to a Chilean D.H. Venom...

Finally, everything was sealed under a mix of 80% flat and 20% gloss acrylic varnish.

In the end, a major kitbash that looks rather simple - but I am actually surprised how well the parts of the I-15 and SBC went together. And the result does not look like the Frankenstein creation this whif kit actually is... ;)

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

After the success of the Soviet Union’s first carrier ship, the Moskva Class (Projekt 1123, also called „Кондор“/„Kondor“) cruisers in the mid 1960s, the country became more ambitious. This resulted in Project 1153 Orel (Russian: Орёл, Eagle), a planned 1970s-era Soviet program to give the Soviet Navy a true blue water aviation capability. Project Orel would have resulted in a program very similar to the aircraft carriers available to the U.S. Navy. The ship would have been about 75-80,000 tons displacement, with a nuclear power plant and carried about 70 aircraft launched via steam catapults – the first Soviet aircraft carrier that would be able to deploy fixed-wing aircraft.

Beyond this core capability, the Orel carrier was designed with a large offensive capability with the ship mounts including 24 vertical launch tubes for anti-ship cruise missiles. In the USSR it was actually classified as the "large cruiser with aircraft armament".

Furthermore, carrier Project 1153 was cancelled in October 1978 as being too expensive, and a program for a smaller ship called Project 11435, more V/STOL-aircraft-oriented, was developed instead; in its initial stage, a version of 65,000 tons and 52 aircraft was proposed, but eventually an even smaller ship was built in the form of the Kuznetsov-class aircraft carriers in 1985, outfitted with a 12-degree ski-jump bow flight deck instead of using complex aircraft catapults. This CTOL carrier was finally equipped with navalized Su-33, MiG-29 and Su-25 aircraft – and the MiG-SK paved the early way to these shipboard fighters, especially the MiG-29K.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 13.28 m (43 ft 6 in)

Wingspan: 10.39 m (34 ft)

Height: 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in)

Wing area: 22.6 m² (242.5 ft²)

Empty weight: 5.172 kg (11,392 lb)

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

Powerplant:

2× Sorokin R3M-28 turbojets afterburning turbojets, rated at 33.8 kN (7,605 lbf) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,145 km/h (618 knots, 711 mph) at 3,000 m (10,000 ft)

Range: 2,060 km (1,111 nmi, 1,280 mi) with drop tanks

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

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

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

Thrust/weight: 0.86

Armament:

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

This kitbash creation was spawned by thoughts concerning the Soviet Naval Aviation and its lack of CTOL aircraft carriers until the 1980ies and kicked-off by a CG rendition of a navalized MiG-17 from fellow member SPINNERS at whatifmodelers.com, posted a couple of months ago. I liked this idea, and at first I wanted to convert a MiG-17 with a solid nose as a dedicated carrier aircraft. But the more I thought about it and did historic research, the less probable this concept appeared to me: the MiG-17 was simply too old to match Soviet plans for a carrier ship, at least with the real world as reference.

A plausible alternative was the MiG-19, esp. with its twin-engine layout, even though the highly swept wings and the associated high start and landing speeds would be rather inappropriate for a shipborne fighter. Anyway, a MiG-21 was even less suitable, and I eventually took the Farmer as conversion basis, since it would also fit into the historic time frame between the late 60ies and the mid-70ies.

In this case, the basis is a Plastyk MiG-19 kit, one of the many Eastern European re-incarnations of the vintage KP kit. This cheap re-issue became a positive surprise, because any former raised panel and rivet details have disappeared and were replaced with sound, recessed engravings. The kit is still a bit clumsy, the walls are very thick (esp. the canopy – maybe 2mm!), but IMHO it’s a considerable improvement with acceptable fit, even though there are some sink holes and some nasty surprises (in my case, for instance, the stabilizer fins would not match with the rear fuselage at all, and you basically need putty everywhere).

Not much from the Plastyk kit was taken over, though: only the fuselage’s rear two-thirds were used, some landing gear parts as well as fin and the horizontal stabilizers. The latter were heavily modified and reduced in sweep in order to match new wings from a Hobby Boss MiG-15 (the parts were cut into three pieces each and then set back together again).

Furthermore, the complete front section from a Novo Supermarine Attacker was transplanted, because its short nose and the high cockpit are perfect parts for a carrier aircraft. The Attacker’s front end, including the air intakes, fits almost perfectly onto the round MiG-19 forward fuselage, only little body work was necessary. A complete cockpit tub and a new seat were implanted, as well as a front landing gear well and walls inside of the (otherwise empty) air intakes. The jet exhausts were drilled open, too, and afterburner dummies added. Simple jobs.

On the other side, the wings were trickier than expected. The MiG-19 kit comes with voluminous and massive wing root fairings, probably aerodynamic bodies for some area-ruling. I decided to keep them, but this caused some unexpected troubles…

The MiG-15 wings’ position, considerably further back due to the reduced sweep angle, was deduced from the relative MiG-19’s landing gear position. A lot of sculpting and body work followed, and after the wings were finally in place I recognized that the aforementioned, thick wing root fairings had reduced the wing sweep – basically not a bad thing, but with the inconvenient side effect that the original wing MiG-15 fences were not parallel to the fuselage anymore, looking rather awkward! What to do? Grrrr…. I could not leave it that way, so I scraped them away and replaced with them with four scratched substitutes (from styrene profiles), moving the outer pair towards the wing folding mechanism.

Under the wings, four new pylons were added (two from an IAI Kfir, two from a Su-22) and the ordnance gathered from the scrap box – bombs and rocket pods formerly belonged to a Kangnam/Revell Yak-38.

The landing gear was raised by ~2mm for a higher stance on the ground. The original, thick central fin was reduced in length, so that it could become a plausible attachment point for an arrester hook (also from the spares box), and a pair of splayed stabilizer fins was added as a compensation. Finally, some of the OOB air scoops were placed all round the hull and some pitots, antennae and a gun camera fairing added.

Painting and markings:

This whif was to look naval at first sight, so I referred to the early Yak-38 VTOL aircraft and their rather minimalistic paint scheme in an overall dull blue. The green underside, seen on many service aircraft, was AFAIK a (later) protective coating – an obsolete detail for a CTOL aircraft.

Hence, all upper surfaces and the fuselage were painted in a uniform “Field Blue” (Tamiya XF-50). It’s a bit dark, but I have used this unique, petrol blue tone many moons ago on a real world Kangnam Forger where it looks pretty good, and in this case the surface was furthermore shaded with Humbrol 96 and 126 after a black in wash.

For some contrast I painted the undersides of the wings and stabilizers as well as a fuselage section between the wings in a pale grey (Humbrol 167), seen on one of the Yak-38 prototypes. Not very obvious, but at least the aircraft did not end up in a boring, uniform color.

The interior was painted in blue-gray (PRU Blue, shaded with Humbrol 87) while the landing gear wells became Aluminum (Humbrol 56). The wheel discs became bright green, just in order to keep in style and as a colorful contrast, and some di-electric panels and covers became very light grey or bright green. For some color contrast, the anti-flutter weight tips on the stabilizers as well as the pylons’ front ends were painted bright red.

The markings/decals reflect the early Soviet Navy style, with simple Red Stars, large yellow tactical codes and some high contrast warning stencils, taken from the remains of a Yak-38 sheet (American Revell re-release of the Kangnam kit).

Finally, after some soot stains with graphite around the gun muzzles and the air bleed doors, the kit was sealed with a coat of semi-matt acrylic varnish and some matt accents (anti-glare panel, radomes).

A simple idea that turned out to be more complex than expected, due to the wing fence troubles. But I am happy that the Attacker nose could be so easily transplanted, it changes the MiG-19’s look considerably, as well as the wings with (much) less sweep angle.

The aircraft looks familiar, but you only recognize at second glance that it is more than just a MiG-19 with a solid nose. The thing looks pretty retro, reminds me a bit of the Supermarine Scimitar (dunno?), and IMHO it appears more Chinese than Soviet (maybe because the layout reminds a lot of the Q-5 fighter bomber)? It could even, with appropriate markings, be a Luft ’46 design?

Some background:

The idea for a heavy infantry support vehicle capable of demolishing heavily defended buildings or fortified areas with a single shot came out of the experiences of the heavy urban fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. At the time, the Wehrmacht had only the Sturm-Infanteriegeschütz 33B available for destroying buildings, a Sturmgeschütz III variant armed with a 15 cm sIG 33 heavy infantry gun. Twelve of them were lost in the fighting at Stalingrad. Its successor, the Sturmpanzer IV, also known by Allies as Brummbär, was in production from early 1943. This was essentially an improved version of the earlier design, mounting the same gun on the Panzer IV chassis with greatly improved armour protection.

Total production numbers of the SdKfz. 184/1 are uncertain but, being an emergency product and based on a limited chassis supply, the number of vehicles that left the Nibelungenwerke in Austria was no more than ten – also because the tank hunter conversion had top priority and the exotic RW 61 launcher was in very limited supply. As a consequence, only a total of 18 Sturmtiger had been finished by December 1945 and put into service, too. However, the 380 mm Raketen-Werfer 61 remained in production and was in early 1946 adapted to the new Einheitspanzer E-50/75 chassis.

Specifications:

Crew: Six (driver, radio operator/machine gunner in the front cabin,

commander, gunner, 2× loader in the casemate section)

Weight: 75 tons

Length: 7,05 m (23 ft 1½ in)

Width: 3,38 m (11 ft 1 in)

Height w/o crane: 3,02 m (9 ft 10¾ in)

Ground clearance: 1ft 6¾ in (48 cm)

Climbing: 2 ft 6½ in (78 cm)

Fording depth: 3 ft 3¼ (1m)

Trench crossing: 8 ft 7 ¾ in (2,64 m)

Suspension: Longitudinal torsion-bar

Fuel capacity: 1.050 liters

Armour:

62 to 200 mm (2.44 to 7.87 in)

Performance:

30 km/h (19 mph) on road

15 km/h (10 miles per hour () off road

Operational range: 150 km (93 mi) on road

90 km (56 mi) cross-country

Power/weight: 8 hp/ton

Engine:

2× Maybach HL120 TRM petrol engines with 300 PS (246 hp, 221 kW) each, powering…

2× Siemens-Schuckert D1495a 500 Volt electric engines with 320 PS (316 hp, 230 kW) each

Transmission:

Electric

Armament:

1x 380 mm RW 61 rocket launcher L/5.4 with 14 rounds

1x 7.92 mm (0.312 in) MG 34 machine gun with 600 rounds

1x 100 mm grenade launcher (firing anti-personnel mines, smoke grenades or signal flares)

The kit and its assembly:.

This fictional tank model is not my own idea, it is rather based on a picture of a similar kitbashing of an Elefant with a Sturmtiger casemate and its massive missile launcher – even though it was a rather crude model, with a casemate created from cardboard. However, I found the idea charming, even more so because the Ferdinand/Elefant was rather a rolling bunker than an agile tank hunter, despite its powerful weapon. Why not use the same chassis as a carrier for the Sturmtiger’s huge mortar as an assault SPG?

The resulting Sturmelefant was created as a kitbashing: the chassis is an early boxing of the Trumpeter Elefant, which comes not only with IP track segments but also alternative vinyl tracks (later boxing do not feature them), and casemate parts come from a Trumpeter Sturmtiger.

While one would think that switching the casemate would be straightforward affair, the conversion turned out to be more complex than expected. Both Elefant and Sturmtiger come with separate casemate pieces, but they are not compatible. The Sturmtiger casemate is 2mm wider than the Elefant’s hull, and its glacis plate is deeper than the Elefant’s, leaving 4mm wide gaps at the sides and the rear. One option could have been to trim down the glacis plate, but I found the roofline to become much too low – and the casemate’s length would have been reduced.

So, I used the Sturmtiger casemate “as is” and filled the gaps with styrene sheet strips. This worked, but the casemate’s width created now inward-bent sections that looked unplausible. Nobody, even grazed German engineers, would not have neglected the laws of structural integrity. What to do? Tailoring the casemate’s sides down would have been one route, but this would have had created a strange shape. The alternative I chose was to widen the flanks of the Elefant’s hull underneath the casemate, which was achieved with tailored 0.5 mm styrene sheet panels and some PSR – possible through the Elefant’s simple shape and the mudguards that run along the vehicle’s flanks.

Some more PSR was necessary to blend the rear into a coherent shape and to fill a small gap at the glacis plate’s base. Putty was also used to fill/hide almost all openings on the glacis plate, since no driver sight or ball mount for a machine gun was necessary anymore. New bolts between hull and casemate were created with small drops of white glue. The rest of the surface details were taken from the respective donor kits.

Painting and markings:

This was not an easy choice. A classic Hinterhalt scheme would have been a natural choice, but since the Sturmelefant would have been converted from existing hulls with new parts, I decided to emphasize this heritage through a simple, uniform livery: all Ferdinand elements would be painted/left in a uniform Dunkelgelb (RAL, 7028, Humbrol 83), while the new casemate as well as the bolted-on front armor were left in a red primer livery, in two different shades (Humbrol 70 and 113). This looked a little too simple for my taste, so that I eventually added snaky lines in Dunkelgelb onto the primer-painted sections, blurring the contrast between the two tones.

Markings remained minimal, just three German crosses on the flanks and at the rear and a tactical code on the casemate – the latter in black and in a hand-written style, as if the vehicle had been rushed into frontline service.

After the decals had been secured under sone varnish the model received an overall washing with dark brown, highly thinned acrylic paint, some dry-brushing with light grey and some rust traces, before it was sealed overall with matt acrylic varnish and received some dirt stains with mixed watercolors and finally, after the tracks had been mounted, some artist pigments as physical dust on the lower areas.

Again a project that appeared simple but turned out to be more demanding because the parts would not fit as well as expected. The resulting bunker breaker looks plausible, less massive than the real Sturmtiger but still a menacing sight.

+++ 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 origins of the Henschel Hs 165 date back to early 1937, when the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM, German Ministry of Aviation) issued a specification for a carrier-based torpedo bomber to operate from Germany's first aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin construction of which had started at the end of 1936. The specification was originally issued to two aircraft producers, Fieseler and Arado, and demanded an all-metal biplane with a maximum speed of at least 300 km/h (186 mph), a range of at least 1,000 km and capable both of torpedo and dive-bombing. By the summer of 1938 the Fieseler design proved to be superior to the Arado design, the Ar 195.

Anyway, by the time the Fi 167 prototype was ready for tests and proved its excellent handling, the biplane layout was already outdated and did not promise much development potential. Therefore, the RLM's request was repeated in late 1938 and a monoplane requested. Since the Graf Zeppelin was not expected to be completed before the end of 1940, the RLM did not put much pressure behind the project.

In service, they were gradually replaced by Ju 88 torpedo bombers and the Fw 190 A-5a/U14, which was able to carry a single torpedo, too, but offered a much better performance than the heavy and large Hs 165.

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 (pilot and observer/gunner)

Length: 11.08 m (36 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 13.95 m (45 ft 9 in)

Height: 4.18 m (13 ft 8 in)

Wing area: 26.8 m² (288 ft²)

Empty weight: 9,725 lb (4,411 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 14,300 lb (6,486 kg)

Powerplant:

1 × BMW 801A air-cooled 14 cylinder two row radial engine, 1,700 hp (1,250 kW)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 302 mph (262 kn, 486 km/h) at 11,000 ft (3,350 m)

Cruise speed: 235 mph (204 kn, 378 km/h)

Range: 1,400 miles (1,220 nmi, 2,253 km)

Service ceiling: 22,500 ft (6,860 m)

Wing loading: 43.1 lb/ft² (210 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.12 hp/lb (0.19 kW/kg)

Armament:

2× 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon in the wings

2 × 13 mm MG 131 machine gun above the engine

1 × 7.92 mm MG 81Z, firing backwards

1× 1000 kg (2,200 lb) bomb, or

1× 765 kg (1,685 lb) torpedo, or

1 × 500 kg (1,100 lb) bomb plus 4 × 50 kg (110 lb) bombs, or

4 × 250 kg (551 lb) ventrally

The kit and its assembly:

Another entry for the 2016 "In the Navy" Group Build at whatfimodelers.com, and in this case a complete kitbash for a fictional aircraft. Originally, this idea started as a Hs 126 on floats, which then turned into a low wing aircraft (in the Ju 87 class) and finally evolved into a carrier-capable torpedo bomber. Pretty dramatic evolution, but once the plan was settled, things quickly turned into hardware.

Ingredients include:

- Fuselage, cockpit and stabilizers (though mounted differently) from an Italeri Hs 126

- Wings from a Mastercraft (ex ZTM Plastyk) PZL 23 Karas, with the ventral gondala removed

- Landing gear from a Matchbox He 70, wheels from a Mastercraft Su-22;

- Engine/cowling from an Academy Fw 190, plus various donation parts and a putty plug

- Canopy from a Matchbox Brewster Buffalo

- German torpedo from the spares box (IIRC from an Italeri He 111)

Even though this is a kitbash, work was rather easy and straightforward, because most of the parts come from OOB donation kits. First, the Hs 126 fuselage was finished without an interior and the Fw 190 nose section transplanted. Inside, a styrene tube was added in order to hold the propeller and let it spin freely. In parallel, the landing gear wells were cut into the wings and the flaps separated/opened. Then the canopy was integrated into the fuselage, using styrene strips and putty.

For the wings, a wide opening had to be cut into the Hs 126’s lower fuselage, and the parts took some putty work to blend together.

Once the wings were in place, the landing gear was mounted as well as the scratched torpedo hardpoint. The cockpit interior followed suit with new seats and two figures, then the Buffalo canopy was modified for the rear machine gun mount and glued into place.

Painting and markings:

I wanted a rather "dry", typical German livery, and settled for a simple splinter scheme with a low waterline in the naval colors RLM 72 (a kind of very dark olive drab) and 73 (a bluish, very dark green) with light blue (RLM 65) undersides.

In this case I used enamels from the Modelmaster Authentic range, treated with a light black ink wash and with serious panel shading (with Humbrol 66 and a mix of Humbrol 30 + 77, respectively), because some color pictures I got hands on from early German naval aircraft (e. g. He 115 or Ar 196) suggest that the two murky, green tones weathered and bleached easily, and the enhanced contrast between the very similar colors was IMHO helpful, anyway.

The interior and the landing gearw as painted in contemporary RLM 02, the torpedo is simple black with a gun metal tip and a brass propeller.

The markings had to be puzzled together; I originally wanted the kit to be part of one of the Küstenfliegergruppen, in particular KüFliGr 106. But in mid 1943, these were partly integrated into the Kampffliegergruppen, and offensive parts of KüFliGr 106 were added to KG 6. It took some time to figure out where KG 6 was operating in the time frame I wanted to place the Hs 165, and eventually found 8./KG 6 from the third group that was based in Belgium at that time and flew Ju 88 torpedo bombers - so I added the Hs 165 to that squadron.

As a side effect, the aircraft would not carry any of the fuselage bands or other bright ID markings - the only color highlights are the red wing tip and the individual code "K" letter, and I used a grey decal for the 8th squadron's code letter "S" for better contrast with the dark green livery. Another "highlight" is a KG 6 emblem behind the engine, which I found on a Peddinghaus Decals sheet in the stash. Anyway, this minimal and very conservative livery does not look bad at all, though?

A complex kitbashing,done in about a week, and despite some trouble and major body work the result looks IMHO very good - especially the flight scenes, with the retracted (retouched...) landing gear show the sleek lines of the Hs 126, the fictional Hs 165 looks pretty fast and purposeful. And with a different engine, this could also carry some Hinomaru - the thing reminds me a lot of Japanese torpedo bombers (e. g. the B5N?) and carrier-borne reconnaissance aircraft?

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The 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…?

finished back of the building...

+++ 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

The model and its assembly:

My second attempt to create a functional H0 scale what-if locomotive – and after I “only” did a color variant with some cosmetic changes on the basis of a Märklin V160/BR 216 diesel locomotive, I wanted something more special and challenging. However, kitbashing model locomotives with a metal chassis that includes a functional motor, respective drivetrain/gearing and electronics is not as easy as gluing some plastic parts together. And finding “matching” donor parts for such a stunt is also not as easy as it may seem. But what would life be without attempts to widen its boundaries?

This time I wanted an electric locomotive. Inspiration (and occasion) somewhat struck when I stumbled upon a running/functional chassis of a Märklin E 10/BR 110 (#3039), just without light and naturally missing the whole upper hull. Due to its incompleteness, I got it for a reasonable price, though. With this basis I started to watch out for eventual (and affordable) donor parts for a new superstructure, and remembered the collectible, non-powered all-plastic locomotive models from Atlas/IXO.

The good thing about the Märklin 3039 chassis was that it was just a solid and flat piece of metal without integrated outer hull elements, headstock or side skirts, so that a new hull could (theoretically) be simply tailored to fit over this motorized platform. Finding something with the exact length would be impossible, so I settled upon an Atlas H0 scale Nederlands Spoorwegen Series 1200 locomotive model, which is markedly longer than the German BR 110, due to its six axles vs. the E 10/BR 110’s four. Another selling point: the NS 1200’s body is virtually blank in its middle section, ideal for shortening it to match the different chassis. Detail of the Atlas plastic models is also quite good, so there was the potential for something quite convincing.

Work started with the disassembly of the static Atlas NS Class 1200 model. It's all-styrene, just with a metal plate as a chassis. Against my expectations the model's hull was only held on the chassis by two tiny screws under the "noses", so that I did not have to use force to separate it. The body's walls were also relatively thin, good for the upcoming modifications. The model also featured two nice driver's stations, which could be removed easily, too. Unfortunately; they had to go to make enough room for the electronics of the Märklin 3039 all-metal chassis.

Dry-fitting the chassis under the Class 1200 hull revealed that the stunt would basically work - the chassis turned out to be only marginally too wide. I just had to grind a little of the chassis' front edges away to reduce pressure on the styrene body, and I had to bend the end sections of the chassis’ stabilizing side walls.

To make the Class 1200 hull fit over the shorter BR 110 chassis a section of about 3 cm had to be taken out of the body’s middle section. The Class 1200 lent itself to this measure because the body is rather bare and uniform along its mid-section, so that re-combining two shortened halves should not pose too many problems.

To make the hull sit properly on the chassis I added styrene profiles inside of it - easy to glue them into place, thanks to the material. At this time, the original fixed pantographs and some wiring on the roof had gone, brake hoses on the nose were removed to make space for the BR 110 couplers, and the clear windows were removed after a little fight (they were glued into their places, but thankfully each side has three separate parts instead of just one that would easily break). PSR on the seam between the hull halves followed, plus some grey primer to check the surface quality.

Even though the new body now had a proper position on the metal chassis, a solution had to be found to securely hold it in place. My solution: an adapter for a screw in the chassis’ underside, scratched. I found a small area next to the central direction switch where I could place a screw and a respective receiver that could attached to the body’s roof. A 3 mm hole was drilled into the chassis’ floor and a long Spax screw with a small diameter was mated with a hollow square styrene profile, roughly trimmed down in length to almost reach the roof internally. Then a big lump of 2C putty was put into the hull, and the styrene adapter pressed into it, so that it would held well in place. Fiddly, but it worked!

Unfortunately, the pantographs of the Atlas/IXO model were static and not flexible at all. One was displayed raised while the other one was retracted. Due to the raised pantograph’s stiffness the model might lose contact to or even damage the model railroad catenary, even when not pulling power through it – not a satisfactory condition. Since the chassis could be powered either from below or through the pantographs (the Märklin 3039 chassis offers an analogue switch underneath to change between power sources) I decided to pimp my build further and improve looks and functionality. I organized a pair of aftermarket diamond pantographs, made from metal, fully functional and held in place on the model’s roof with (very short and) small screws from the inside.

I was not certain if the screws were conductive, and I had to somehow connect them with the switch in the chassis. I eventually soldered thin wire to the pantographs’ bases, led them through additional small holes in the roof inside and soldered them to the switch input, with an insulating screw joint in-between to allow a later detachment/disassembly without damage to the body. There might have been more elegant solutions, but my limited resources and skills did not allow more. It works, though, and I am happy with it, since the cables won’t be visible from the outside. This layout allows to draw power through them, I just had to create a flexible and detachable connection internally. Some plugs, wire and soldering created a solution – rough (electronics is not my strength!), but it worked! Another investment of money, time and effort into this project, but I think that the new pantographs significantly improve the overall look and the functionality of this model.

Internally, the missing light bulbs were retrofitted with OEM parts. A late external addition were PE brass ladders for the shunting platforms and under the doors for the driver’s cabins. They were rather delicate, but the model would not see much handling or railroading action, anyway, and the improve the overall impression IMHO a lot. On the roof, some details like cooling fans and tailored conduits (from the Atlas Series 1200) were added, they partly obscure the seam all around the body.

Unfortunately, due to the necessary space for the chassis, its motor and the electronics, the driver stations’ interiors could not be re-mounted – but this is not too obvious, despite the clear windows.

Some background:

The idea for a heavy infantry support vehicle capable of demolishing heavily defended buildings or fortified areas with a single shot came out of the experiences of the heavy urban fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. At the time, the Wehrmacht had only the Sturm-Infanteriegeschütz 33B available for destroying buildings, a Sturmgeschütz III variant armed with a 15 cm sIG 33 heavy infantry gun. Twelve of them were lost in the fighting at Stalingrad. Its successor, the Sturmpanzer IV, also known by Allies as Brummbär, was in production from early 1943. This was essentially an improved version of the earlier design, mounting the same gun on the Panzer IV chassis with greatly improved armour protection.

Total production numbers of the SdKfz. 184/1 are uncertain but, being an emergency product and based on a limited chassis supply, the number of vehicles that left the Nibelungenwerke in Austria was no more than ten – also because the tank hunter conversion had top priority and the exotic RW 61 launcher was in very limited supply. As a consequence, only a total of 18 Sturmtiger had been finished by December 1945 and put into service, too. However, the 380 mm Raketen-Werfer 61 remained in production and was in early 1946 adapted to the new Einheitspanzer E-50/75 chassis.

Specifications:

Crew: Six (driver, radio operator/machine gunner in the front cabin,

commander, gunner, 2× loader in the casemate section)

Weight: 75 tons

Length: 7,05 m (23 ft 1½ in)

Width: 3,38 m (11 ft 1 in)

Height w/o crane: 3,02 m (9 ft 10¾ in)

Ground clearance: 1ft 6¾ in (48 cm)

Climbing: 2 ft 6½ in (78 cm)

Fording depth: 3 ft 3¼ (1m)

Trench crossing: 8 ft 7 ¾ in (2,64 m)

Suspension: Longitudinal torsion-bar

Fuel capacity: 1.050 liters

Armour:

62 to 200 mm (2.44 to 7.87 in)

Performance:

30 km/h (19 mph) on road

15 km/h (10 miles per hour () off road

Operational range: 150 km (93 mi) on road

90 km (56 mi) cross-country

Power/weight: 8 hp/ton

Engine:

2× Maybach HL120 TRM petrol engines with 300 PS (246 hp, 221 kW) each, powering…

2× Siemens-Schuckert D1495a 500 Volt electric engines with 320 PS (316 hp, 230 kW) each

Transmission:

Electric

Armament:

1x 380 mm RW 61 rocket launcher L/5.4 with 14 rounds

1x 7.92 mm (0.312 in) MG 34 machine gun with 600 rounds

1x 100 mm grenade launcher (firing anti-personnel mines, smoke grenades or signal flares)

The kit and its assembly:.

This fictional tank model is not my own idea, it is rather based on a picture of a similar kitbashing of an Elefant with a Sturmtiger casemate and its massive missile launcher – even though it was a rather crude model, with a casemate created from cardboard. However, I found the idea charming, even more so because the Ferdinand/Elefant was rather a rolling bunker than an agile tank hunter, despite its powerful weapon. Why not use the same chassis as a carrier for the Sturmtiger’s huge mortar as an assault SPG?

The resulting Sturmelefant was created as a kitbashing: the chassis is an early boxing of the Trumpeter Elefant, which comes not only with IP track segments but also alternative vinyl tracks (later boxing do not feature them), and casemate parts come from a Trumpeter Sturmtiger.

While one would think that switching the casemate would be straightforward affair, the conversion turned out to be more complex than expected. Both Elefant and Sturmtiger come with separate casemate pieces, but they are not compatible. The Sturmtiger casemate is 2mm wider than the Elefant’s hull, and its glacis plate is deeper than the Elefant’s, leaving 4mm wide gaps at the sides and the rear. One option could have been to trim down the glacis plate, but I found the roofline to become much too low – and the casemate’s length would have been reduced.

So, I used the Sturmtiger casemate “as is” and filled the gaps with styrene sheet strips. This worked, but the casemate’s width created now inward-bent sections that looked unplausible. Nobody, even grazed German engineers, would not have neglected the laws of structural integrity. What to do? Tailoring the casemate’s sides down would have been one route, but this would have had created a strange shape. The alternative I chose was to widen the flanks of the Elefant’s hull underneath the casemate, which was achieved with tailored 0.5 mm styrene sheet panels and some PSR – possible through the Elefant’s simple shape and the mudguards that run along the vehicle’s flanks.

Some more PSR was necessary to blend the rear into a coherent shape and to fill a small gap at the glacis plate’s base. Putty was also used to fill/hide almost all openings on the glacis plate, since no driver sight or ball mount for a machine gun was necessary anymore. New bolts between hull and casemate were created with small drops of white glue. The rest of the surface details were taken from the respective donor kits.

Painting and markings:

This was not an easy choice. A classic Hinterhalt scheme would have been a natural choice, but since the Sturmelefant would have been converted from existing hulls with new parts, I decided to emphasize this heritage through a simple, uniform livery: all Ferdinand elements would be painted/left in a uniform Dunkelgelb (RAL, 7028, Humbrol 83), while the new casemate as well as the bolted-on front armor were left in a red primer livery, in two different shades (Humbrol 70 and 113). This looked a little too simple for my taste, so that I eventually added snaky lines in Dunkelgelb onto the primer-painted sections, blurring the contrast between the two tones.

Markings remained minimal, just three German crosses on the flanks and at the rear and a tactical code on the casemate – the latter in black and in a hand-written style, as if the vehicle had been rushed into frontline service.

After the decals had been secured under sone varnish the model received an overall washing with dark brown, highly thinned acrylic paint, some dry-brushing with light grey and some rust traces, before it was sealed overall with matt acrylic varnish and received some dirt stains with mixed watercolors and finally, after the tracks had been mounted, some artist pigments as physical dust on the lower areas.

Again a project that appeared simple but turned out to be more demanding because the parts would not fit as well as expected. The resulting bunker breaker looks plausible, less massive than the real Sturmtiger but still a menacing sight.

Some background:

The idea for a heavy infantry support vehicle capable of demolishing heavily defended buildings or fortified areas with a single shot came out of the experiences of the heavy urban fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. At the time, the Wehrmacht had only the Sturm-Infanteriegeschütz 33B available for destroying buildings, a Sturmgeschütz III variant armed with a 15 cm sIG 33 heavy infantry gun. Twelve of them were lost in the fighting at Stalingrad. Its successor, the Sturmpanzer IV, also known by Allies as Brummbär, was in production from early 1943. This was essentially an improved version of the earlier design, mounting the same gun on the Panzer IV chassis with greatly improved armour protection.

Total production numbers of the SdKfz. 184/1 are uncertain but, being an emergency product and based on a limited chassis supply, the number of vehicles that left the Nibelungenwerke in Austria was no more than ten – also because the tank hunter conversion had top priority and the exotic RW 61 launcher was in very limited supply. As a consequence, only a total of 18 Sturmtiger had been finished by December 1945 and put into service, too. However, the 380 mm Raketen-Werfer 61 remained in production and was in early 1946 adapted to the new Einheitspanzer E-50/75 chassis.

Specifications:

Crew: Six (driver, radio operator/machine gunner in the front cabin,

commander, gunner, 2× loader in the casemate section)

Weight: 75 tons

Length: 7,05 m (23 ft 1½ in)

Width: 3,38 m (11 ft 1 in)

Height w/o crane: 3,02 m (9 ft 10¾ in)

Ground clearance: 1ft 6¾ in (48 cm)

Climbing: 2 ft 6½ in (78 cm)

Fording depth: 3 ft 3¼ (1m)

Trench crossing: 8 ft 7 ¾ in (2,64 m)

Suspension: Longitudinal torsion-bar

Fuel capacity: 1.050 liters

Armour:

62 to 200 mm (2.44 to 7.87 in)

Performance:

30 km/h (19 mph) on road

15 km/h (10 miles per hour () off road

Operational range: 150 km (93 mi) on road

90 km (56 mi) cross-country

Power/weight: 8 hp/ton

Engine:

2× Maybach HL120 TRM petrol engines with 300 PS (246 hp, 221 kW) each, powering…

2× Siemens-Schuckert D1495a 500 Volt electric engines with 320 PS (316 hp, 230 kW) each

Transmission:

Electric

Armament:

1x 380 mm RW 61 rocket launcher L/5.4 with 14 rounds

1x 7.92 mm (0.312 in) MG 34 machine gun with 600 rounds

1x 100 mm grenade launcher (firing anti-personnel mines, smoke grenades or signal flares)

The kit and its assembly:.

This fictional tank model is not my own idea, it is rather based on a picture of a similar kitbashing of an Elefant with a Sturmtiger casemate and its massive missile launcher – even though it was a rather crude model, with a casemate created from cardboard. However, I found the idea charming, even more so because the Ferdinand/Elefant was rather a rolling bunker than an agile tank hunter, despite its powerful weapon. Why not use the same chassis as a carrier for the Sturmtiger’s huge mortar as an assault SPG?

The resulting Sturmelefant was created as a kitbashing: the chassis is an early boxing of the Trumpeter Elefant, which comes not only with IP track segments but also alternative vinyl tracks (later boxing do not feature them), and casemate parts come from a Trumpeter Sturmtiger.

While one would think that switching the casemate would be straightforward affair, the conversion turned out to be more complex than expected. Both Elefant and Sturmtiger come with separate casemate pieces, but they are not compatible. The Sturmtiger casemate is 2mm wider than the Elefant’s hull, and its glacis plate is deeper than the Elefant’s, leaving 4mm wide gaps at the sides and the rear. One option could have been to trim down the glacis plate, but I found the roofline to become much too low – and the casemate’s length would have been reduced.

So, I used the Sturmtiger casemate “as is” and filled the gaps with styrene sheet strips. This worked, but the casemate’s width created now inward-bent sections that looked unplausible. Nobody, even grazed German engineers, would not have neglected the laws of structural integrity. What to do? Tailoring the casemate’s sides down would have been one route, but this would have had created a strange shape. The alternative I chose was to widen the flanks of the Elefant’s hull underneath the casemate, which was achieved with tailored 0.5 mm styrene sheet panels and some PSR – possible through the Elefant’s simple shape and the mudguards that run along the vehicle’s flanks.

Some more PSR was necessary to blend the rear into a coherent shape and to fill a small gap at the glacis plate’s base. Putty was also used to fill/hide almost all openings on the glacis plate, since no driver sight or ball mount for a machine gun was necessary anymore. New bolts between hull and casemate were created with small drops of white glue. The rest of the surface details were taken from the respective donor kits.

Painting and markings:

This was not an easy choice. A classic Hinterhalt scheme would have been a natural choice, but since the Sturmelefant would have been converted from existing hulls with new parts, I decided to emphasize this heritage through a simple, uniform livery: all Ferdinand elements would be painted/left in a uniform Dunkelgelb (RAL, 7028, Humbrol 83), while the new casemate as well as the bolted-on front armor were left in a red primer livery, in two different shades (Humbrol 70 and 113). This looked a little too simple for my taste, so that I eventually added snaky lines in Dunkelgelb onto the primer-painted sections, blurring the contrast between the two tones.

Markings remained minimal, just three German crosses on the flanks and at the rear and a tactical code on the casemate – the latter in black and in a hand-written style, as if the vehicle had been rushed into frontline service.

After the decals had been secured under sone varnish the model received an overall washing with dark brown, highly thinned acrylic paint, some dry-brushing with light grey and some rust traces, before it was sealed overall with matt acrylic varnish and received some dirt stains with mixed watercolors and finally, after the tracks had been mounted, some artist pigments as physical dust on the lower areas.

Again a project that appeared simple but turned out to be more demanding because the parts would not fit as well as expected. The resulting bunker breaker looks plausible, less massive than the real Sturmtiger but still a menacing sight.

I dremelled a re-ment and stuck it on a coomodels body. Now I have a crazy Tv headed guy named CRT.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: One

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

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

Height: 13 ft (3.96 m)

Wing area: 190 sq ft (17.71 m²)

Empty weight: 4.900lb (2.225 kg)

Loaded weight: 6.530 lb (2.965 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 7.709 lb (3.500 kg)

Powerplant:

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

driving a four-blade pusehr propeller

Performance:

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

Range: 635 mi (1,020 km)

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

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

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

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

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

Armament:

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

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

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

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

HVAR missiles.

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

What went into the thing:

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

● Wings from a revell Me 262

● Horizontal stabilizers from an Italeri Fw 190

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

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

● Landing gear was scratched from the spares box

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

The only colorful highlight is a yellow nose.

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

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

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

+++ 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 origins of the Henschel Hs 165 date back to early 1937, when the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM, German Ministry of Aviation) issued a specification for a carrier-based torpedo bomber to operate from Germany's first aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin construction of which had started at the end of 1936. The specification was originally issued to two aircraft producers, Fieseler and Arado, and demanded an all-metal biplane with a maximum speed of at least 300 km/h (186 mph), a range of at least 1,000 km and capable both of torpedo and dive-bombing. By the summer of 1938 the Fieseler design proved to be superior to the Arado design, the Ar 195.

Anyway, by the time the Fi 167 prototype was ready for tests and proved its excellent handling, the biplane layout was already outdated and did not promise much development potential. Therefore, the RLM's request was repeated in late 1938 and a monoplane requested. Since the Graf Zeppelin was not expected to be completed before the end of 1940, the RLM did not put much pressure behind the project.

In service, they were gradually replaced by Ju 88 torpedo bombers and the Fw 190 A-5a/U14, which was able to carry a single torpedo, too, but offered a much better performance than the heavy and large Hs 165.

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 (pilot and observer/gunner)

Length: 11.08 m (36 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 13.95 m (45 ft 9 in)

Height: 4.18 m (13 ft 8 in)

Wing area: 26.8 m² (288 ft²)

Empty weight: 9,725 lb (4,411 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 14,300 lb (6,486 kg)

Powerplant:

1 × BMW 801A air-cooled 14 cylinder two row radial engine, 1,700 hp (1,250 kW)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 302 mph (262 kn, 486 km/h) at 11,000 ft (3,350 m)

Cruise speed: 235 mph (204 kn, 378 km/h)

Range: 1,400 miles (1,220 nmi, 2,253 km)

Service ceiling: 22,500 ft (6,860 m)

Wing loading: 43.1 lb/ft² (210 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.12 hp/lb (0.19 kW/kg)

Armament:

2× 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon in the wings

2 × 13 mm MG 131 machine gun above the engine

1 × 7.92 mm MG 81Z, firing backwards

1× 1000 kg (2,200 lb) bomb, or

1× 765 kg (1,685 lb) torpedo, or

1 × 500 kg (1,100 lb) bomb plus 4 × 50 kg (110 lb) bombs, or

4 × 250 kg (551 lb) ventrally

The kit and its assembly:

Another entry for the 2016 "In the Navy" Group Build at whatfimodelers.com, and in this case a complete kitbash for a fictional aircraft. Originally, this idea started as a Hs 126 on floats, which then turned into a low wing aircraft (in the Ju 87 class) and finally evolved into a carrier-capable torpedo bomber. Pretty dramatic evolution, but once the plan was settled, things quickly turned into hardware.

Ingredients include:

- Fuselage, cockpit and stabilizers (though mounted differently) from an Italeri Hs 126

- Wings from a Mastercraft (ex ZTM Plastyk) PZL 23 Karas, with the ventral gondala removed

- Landing gear from a Matchbox He 70, wheels from a Mastercraft Su-22;

- Engine/cowling from an Academy Fw 190, plus various donation parts and a putty plug

- Canopy from a Matchbox Brewster Buffalo

- German torpedo from the spares box (IIRC from an Italeri He 111)

Even though this is a kitbash, work was rather easy and straightforward, because most of the parts come from OOB donation kits. First, the Hs 126 fuselage was finished without an interior and the Fw 190 nose section transplanted. Inside, a styrene tube was added in order to hold the propeller and let it spin freely. In parallel, the landing gear wells were cut into the wings and the flaps separated/opened. Then the canopy was integrated into the fuselage, using styrene strips and putty.

For the wings, a wide opening had to be cut into the Hs 126’s lower fuselage, and the parts took some putty work to blend together.

Once the wings were in place, the landing gear was mounted as well as the scratched torpedo hardpoint. The cockpit interior followed suit with new seats and two figures, then the Buffalo canopy was modified for the rear machine gun mount and glued into place.

Painting and markings:

I wanted a rather "dry", typical German livery, and settled for a simple splinter scheme with a low waterline in the naval colors RLM 72 (a kind of very dark olive drab) and 73 (a bluish, very dark green) with light blue (RLM 65) undersides.

In this case I used enamels from the Modelmaster Authentic range, treated with a light black ink wash and with serious panel shading (with Humbrol 66 and a mix of Humbrol 30 + 77, respectively), because some color pictures I got hands on from early German naval aircraft (e. g. He 115 or Ar 196) suggest that the two murky, green tones weathered and bleached easily, and the enhanced contrast between the very similar colors was IMHO helpful, anyway.

The interior and the landing gearw as painted in contemporary RLM 02, the torpedo is simple black with a gun metal tip and a brass propeller.

The markings had to be puzzled together; I originally wanted the kit to be part of one of the Küstenfliegergruppen, in particular KüFliGr 106. But in mid 1943, these were partly integrated into the Kampffliegergruppen, and offensive parts of KüFliGr 106 were added to KG 6. It took some time to figure out where KG 6 was operating in the time frame I wanted to place the Hs 165, and eventually found 8./KG 6 from the third group that was based in Belgium at that time and flew Ju 88 torpedo bombers - so I added the Hs 165 to that squadron.

As a side effect, the aircraft would not carry any of the fuselage bands or other bright ID markings - the only color highlights are the red wing tip and the individual code "K" letter, and I used a grey decal for the 8th squadron's code letter "S" for better contrast with the dark green livery. Another "highlight" is a KG 6 emblem behind the engine, which I found on a Peddinghaus Decals sheet in the stash. Anyway, this minimal and very conservative livery does not look bad at all, though?

A complex kitbashing,done in about a week, and despite some trouble and major body work the result looks IMHO very good - especially the flight scenes, with the retracted (retouched...) landing gear show the sleek lines of the Hs 126, the fictional Hs 165 looks pretty fast and purposeful. And with a different engine, this could also carry some Hinomaru - the thing reminds me a lot of Japanese torpedo bombers (e. g. the B5N?) and carrier-borne reconnaissance aircraft?

I sanded the brick section off the walls where they were going to be glued together.

+++ 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 Ukrainian independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Air Force (Повітряні Сили України, Povitryani Syly Ukrayiny) was established on March 17, 1992, in accordance with a Directive of the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, many aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory, including a wide range of fighters and attack aircraft, helicopters and even strategic bombers, and these became the initial equipment. Ever since, the Ukrainian air force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces, but for many years the main inventory still consisted of Soviet-made aircraft.

Since their introduction, the Ukrainian F-16s have been fulfilling QRA duties and airspace patrol, and the corresponding maintenance infrastructure has been gradually built up, so that F-16 operations became independent from Poland in 2019. With the worsening relationship to Russia, more military hardware of Western origin is expected to enter Ukrainian service. If the tight Ukrainian defense budget allows it, twenty more 2nd hand F-16s are to be delivered in 2021 to replace more Soviet fighter types (primarily the rest of the Ukrainian MiG-29 “Fulcrum” single and two seater fleet), and the procurement of LANTIRN pods to expand the type’s capabilities is under consideration and negotiations, too.

General characteristics:

Length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)

Wingspan: 32 ft 8 in (9.96 m)

Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)

Wing area: 300 sq ft (28 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 64A204

Empty weight: 18,900 lb (8,573 kg)

Gross weight: 26,500 lb (12,020 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 42,300 lb (19,187 kg)

Internal fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg)

Powerplant:

1× General Electric F110-GE-100 afterburning turbofan

with 17,155 lbf (76.31 kN) dry and 28,600 lbf (127 kN) thrust with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: Mach 2.05 at altitude in clean configuration

Mach 1.2, 800 kn (921 mph; 1,482 km/h) at sea level

Combat range: 295 nmi (339 mi, 546 km) on a hi-lo-hi mission with 4x 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs

Ferry range: 2,277 nmi (2,620 mi, 4,217 km) with drop tanks

Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,000 m) plus

g limits: +9.0 (limited by flight control system)

Rate of climb: +50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)

Wing loading: 88.3 lb/sq ft (431 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 1.095 (1.24 with loaded weight & 50% internal fuel)

Armament:

1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon with 511 rounds

2× wing-tip air-to-air missile launch rails plus 6× under-wing

and 3× under-fuselage pylon (2 of these for sensors) stations

with a capacity of up to 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) of a wide range of stores

The kit and its assembly:

I am not a big F-16 fan, but in some cases it’s an unavoidable canvas – just like in this case here. This fictional aircraft model (or better: this model of a [yet] fictional F-16 operator) was spawned by two ideas. One was the simple question: what if the Ukraine had after the USSR’s dissolution chosen a stronger attachment to (old) Western forces after the dissolution of the USSSR? And/or: what if the Ukraine had started to procure non-Russian equipment, esp. aircraft? So, what would an Ukrainian F-16 might have looked like, in general but esp. after the Crimea annexation in 2014 when such a scenario had become even more possible?

The other source of inspiration was a picture of an Ukrainian Su-24 with grey digital camouflage, a scheme that was/is also worn by some Su-25s. When I stumbled upon an Authentic Decals sheet for this unique paint scheme that allows to apply the complex and delicate pattern through water-slide transfers, I thought that the relatively “flat” F-16 surface would be an ideal basis to try this stunt?

What sounded like a very simple livery whif on an OOB model turned into a construction nightmare. Originally, this project provided me with a purpose for a dubious Trumpeter F-16 kit that I had bought some years ago – dead cheap, but righteously so. This kit is cruel, the model even has no concrete variant specification and is apparently the re-boxing of a kit from an obscure Chinese company called “Income”. Effectively, the Trumpeter F-16 is a rip-off of Italeri’s quite nice F-16C/D kit – but the Income/Trumpeter clone comes with MUCH deeper engravings esp. on the fuselage that remind a lot of the dreaded Matchbox “trenches”. Everything is rather “soft” and toylike, the clear parts are poor and the (few) decals look like toy stickers (!!!). I’d call it crude, even the instructions are apparently poor scans or photocopies from the Italeri kit, including hints for detail painting with no corresponding reference what colors should be used at all… All that could have been overlooked, but after starting with the kit I could not commit myself to use it any further. It’s rare that I give up because of a kit’s basis!

Next idea to “save” the project’s idea of an Ukrainian F-16 was to dig out a surplus Intech F-16 from the pile, also bought long ago because it was cheap, as conversion fodder. This kit has also been re-released in infinite variations under the Mister-/Mastercraft label. Upon closer inspection this kit turned out to have massive flaws, too, but in different areas from the Trumpeter thing. For instance, the Intech kit’s wings are utterly thick, certainly 1mm thicker than the Trumpeter model’s parts. This does not sound much, but on the really thin F-16 wings and stabilizers this looks really awful! Furthermore, the clear parts had not been fully molded, so I’d have needed a replacement canopy, anyway. Again, I gave up on building…

…until I decided to make the best of this mess and combine the “best” parts from both gimp models, trying to mend the worst flaws to an acceptable level. This led to the glorious kitbashing that this model eventually became! From the Intech kit I took the acceptable fuselage, including cockpit interior, air intake and landing gear, as well as the fin and the weapon pylons. The Trumpeter kit donated its thinner wings and the stabilizers, as well as the much better open exhaust nozzle (there’s an optional closed one, too; the Intech kit only offers an open nozzle, without ANY surface detail at all, it’s just a blank pipe!).

Beyond these basic ingredients, some more donors became necessary: All clear parts from both Intech and Trumpeter kit turned out to be rubbish for various reasons. The decision to build an F-16D two-seater was dictated by the fact that I had a leftover canopy from an Italeri F-16 kit in the donor bank – luckily it fitted well to the Intech kit’s body. Two crewmen from the spares box populate the cockpit and hide the rather basic interior, which was not improved at all. Furthermore, the ordnance came from external sources, too. The characteristic drop tanks with their cut-off tails were also leftover parts from the Italeri F-16, all AAMs come from a Hasegawa weapon set.

Some PSR was necessary to blend the parts from different kits together – thankfully, almost all F-16 kits are constructed in a similar fashion, even though there are small detail differences. In this case, the wings had to be slightly modified to fit onto the Intech fuselage. However, even those parts from the original kit(s) that are supposed to fit, e.g. the fin or the alternative cockpit opening frames for the optional single- and two-seater canopies, do hardly match at all. Horrible.

I rather focused on the model’s exterior, and a personal addition to improve the overall look of the otherwise rather basic/poor model, I added some small blade antennae that were totally missing on either model. Another extra detail are the small static dischargers on the trailing edges, created with thin, heated sprue material. Only small details, but they improve IMHO the model’s look considerably.

Painting and markings:

Until today, I never dared to apply decal camouflage to a model, but I expected that the flat/smooth F-16 surface would make this stunt relatively easy. This application method would also make painting the model easy, since only a single, uniform color had to be laid down from above and below.

To my surprise, the painting instructions of the Authentic Decals sheet for a number of Ukrainian Su-25 (which all carry the same standardized pixel camouflage) indicated RAL tones – a little surprising, but: why not? Since no other authentic color references were available, I cross-checked the paint suggestions with real life pictures of Su-24s and -25s in this striking paint scheme, and the indicated tones appear very plausible.

The problem: not every RAL tone is available as a model paint, so I had to make guesstimates. This eventually led to Modelmaster 2133 (Fulcrum Grey) as a light grey overall basis (suggested: RAL 7030 Achatgrau/Agate Grey, a tone with a brownish hue) from above and Humbrol 47 (Sea Blue Gloss) for a pale blue underside. The recommendation for the belly is RAL 7001 (Silbergrau/Silver Grey, very close to FS 36375), and this appears plausible, too, even though real-life pictures suggest a more bluish tone. But for a more dramatic look and some color contrast to the upper side’s all-grey I deliberately settled upon the Humbrol color, and this looks IMHO good.

The other suggested grey tones that make up the pixel patterns are RAL 7040 (Fenstergrau/Window Grey), RAL 7037 (Staubgrau/Dust Grey) and RAL 7043 (Verkehrsgrau B/Traffic Grey).

The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140), the air intake and the landing gear in white (Humbrol 22). The exhaust nozzle was painted externally with individual Metallizer mixes (with blue and gold added), while the inside was painted with Burnt Steel Metallizer towards the afterburner section while the ceramic nozzle petals were painted in a pale, almost white grey with darker lines, applied wet-in-wet. This looks pretty good – but does not withstand a closer inspection, just like the rest of this Franken-bashed F-16 thing.

Applying the digital camouflage pattern went better than expected. The decals turned out to be very thin and delicate, though, with almost no excessive clear film outside of the printed areas, so that application had to be executed swiftly and with lots of water to slide them into place. Nothing for modelers who are faint at heart! Because the single pixel clouds partly follow the Su-25 outlines, the decals had partly to be tailored to the rather different F-16 shape, and due to the different proportions I also had to improvise with the material at hand – fortunately the Su-25 sheet offered enough material to cover the F-16! Some small areas lacked decal material and had to be filled through painting, though, with replacement model paints for the aforementioned darker RAL greys, namely Humbrol 246 (RLM 75) and a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 125 and 67. The lightest grey on the prints turned out to be very close to the Fulcrum Grey, so there’s unfortunately very little contrast, and this only became clear after the decals had already dried. However, I left it that way, because lightening the Fulcrum Grey up further would have been a quite messy affair, ending in a rather dirty look that I wanted to avoid, and it had called for an almost white tone.

Another challenge became the weathering process, since I normally apply a black ink wash and some post-panel shading to the finished and painted model before I add the decals to a model. Fearing that the ink might creep under the decals’ clear sections, I left that step out completely. The delicate static dischargers were another complicating factor. So, I decided to finish the upper camouflage with the light grey base and the decals cammo first. This made trimming down excess decal material easier. After that had been roughly finished, the dischargers were added and the underside was painted blue. On top of that came the “normal” decals with national markings, codes and stencils. The latter were mostly taken from a vintage Microscale F-16 sheet, the tactical code came from a Begemot Ka-27 sheet. Since the bort number on the air intake was not well visible frame every angle, I added a white 77 to the fin, too. Thereafter I added some panel lines with the help of thinned black ink and a soft pencil. This way the model appears pretty clean, and I think that’s fine since many recent Ukrainian aircraft I know from pictures look well-tended. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish overall.

A simple F-16 in alternative markings – that’s what this model was supposed to be. I did not expect that the building phase would become such a challenge, and I’d sincerely recommend to any modeler who wants to build a “serious” F-16 in 1:72 to stay away from the Trumpeter and the Intech/Mister-/Mastercraft kits. They might be cheap, but that does not outweigh their flaws and building troubles.

Beyond these technical issues, I like the look of this “Ukrainized” Viper, the digital camouflage looks very special and works well on the aircraft. The light grey base could have been lighter, though. In fact, the F-16 now looks like an exaggerated U.S. Aggressor on first sight, but with the Ukrainian markings the whole thing looks pretty different and conclusive - a “what if” in the best sense. 😉

A Phicen kitbash using a Phicen body with a headsculpt by GAC Toys

+++ 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 Supermarine Jetfire was a stopgap solution in order to introduce a jet-powered interceptor agains German V-1 missiles that threatened the London region from June 1944 on. At that time, the only aircraft with the low-altitude speed to be effective against it was the Hawker Tempest, but fewer than 30 Tempests were available. They were assigned to No. 150 Wing RAF, and early attempts to intercept and destroy V-1s often failed.

Despite many shortcomings (sluggish acceleration, poor climb and agility except for a very good roll rate), the still rather experimental and primitive Jetfire was able to fulfill its intended V-1 interception role, and two V-1 interceptions were achieved during the following weeks. In the front line units they were quickly replaced by more effective types like the Gloster Meteor, the Hawker Tempest or the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. Anyway, the Jetfire was still helpful to path the RAF’s way for operational jet fighters and helped discover new high speed problems, including compressibility buffeting at higher speeds, causing increased drag, and it showed clearly the limits of traditional fighter aircraft designs.

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 31 ft 8 in (9.66 m)

Wingspan: 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m)

Height: 10 ft 0 in (3.05 m)

Wing area: 242.1 sq ft (22.49 m2)

Airfoil: NACA 2213 (root), NACA 2209.4 (tip)

Empty weight: 8,434 lb (3,826 kg)

Gross weight: 12,211 lb (5,539 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce B.37 Derwent turbojet, 2,000 lbf (8.9 kN) static thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 748 km/h (468 mph)

Range: 395 km (247 miles) with internal fuel only

Service ceiling: 12,750 m (41,820 ft)

Rate of climb: 12 m/s (2362 ft/min)

Thrust/weight: 0.45

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

Armament:

2× 20 mm British Hispano MkV cannons (120 RPG) and

2× 12,7 mm (0.5") machine guns (250 RPG) in the outer wings

Provision for up to six "60lb" 3" rockets under the outer wings,

or two 500 lb (227 kg) bombs, or a pair of drop tanks

The kit and its assembly:

The first entry for the "Old Kit" group build at whatifmodelers.com in late 2016 - anything goes, the kit's mould just has to date back to 1985 and further. For this one I settled on the FROG Spitfire Mk. XIV, which, AFAIK, dates back to 1969, and an engine donor from a KP Yak-23, which is supposed to have hit the markets behind the Iron Curtain in 1981.

Originally, the background story pretty much sums up the idea behind this kitbash: How could the - already fast - Spitfire be further augmented with one of the new jet engines around 1944, when V1 attacks started against the British main land and the Meteor was still in development? A simple engine swap with as much airframe of the piston-engine ancestor would be the answer. Similar ideas had been undertaken in Germany, with re-engined versions of the Bf 109 and the Fw 190, and after WWII, when German jet technology had become available to the Soviet Union, the Yak-15/17/23 family followed a similar pattern.

The Yak-23 came as a natural donation aircraft for the Derwent nose. After careful measures and strategic cuts the Spitfire lost its Griffon engine (already earmarked for another kitbash...) and the Yak-23 its nose and exhaust pipe: the original plan had been to use a central, ventral exhaust pipe under the cockpit, even though this would create issues with the tail wheel (just as on the Yak-15 - it received in service an all-metal tail wheel! Imagine the sparks on the runway...).

Anyway, while dry-fitting the parts it turned out that pretty little of the Yak-23 exhaust section could be mounted with clean lines: I'd either have had to create a semi-recessed exhaust with lots of body work (and pretty implausible), or switch to a totally different solution.

That came with a bifurcated exhaust pipe, running along the wing roots and ending at the wings' trailing edge. While this sounds weird, too, the Hawker SeaHawk actually had such an arrangement - on a service aircraft!

As a side effect, the fairings for the jet pipes now offered a good basis for the necessary intersection between the round and bulky Derwent nose fairing and the narrow, oval Spitfire fuselage.

The new jet pipes were created with styrene tubes and lots of putty, and the result does not look bad at all. Actually, with the deleted radiators and the Griffon carburetor intake gone, the aircraft has a very sleek profile, even though the top view reveals the innate "pod and boom" layout of the nose-mounted centrifugal jet engine.

The latter received a new intake interior with some fine mesh and a central bullet fairing (the Yak-23's vertical splitter would not make any sense, since there'd be no nose wheel anymore). The landing gear was taken more or less OOB, I just added some struts and extra wheel covers. The tail wheel comes from an Airfix Hawker Hurricane and changed into a fully retractable arrangement. The cockpit was taken OOB, too, just a tank dummy was added behind the pilot's seat and the canopy sliced into three pieces for an optional open display.

The "E wing" armament was taken over from the Spitfire Mk. XIV, I just added the elegant drop/slipper tanks from the Yak-23 kit. This breaks up the clean lines of the "Jetfire", but I think that the thirsty Derwent might have needed some extra fuel for a decent approach range and some loiter time while intercepting incoming V-1s?

The V-1 from the FROG kit was built for the flight scenes, too. It’s a very simple model consisting only of four parts with rather mediocre fir, esp. the pulse engine halves, but a fairly good representation. Maybe the propeller for the fuse timer is missing, but that can be scratched easily.

Only personal additions are a grate in the air intake, and a hidden adapter for a display, for the pics. Maybe this flying bomb ends up later as ordnance under a German bomber build?

Painting and markings:

Very conservative, late war RAF Dark Green/Ocean Grey/Medium Sea Grey with typical ID markings and codes. 616 Squadron was chosen because it was one of the units that introduced the Meteor for V-1 interception.

Paints are basically enamels from the ModelMaster Authentic range. The Sky fuselage band was improvised with a decal from a vintage Matchbox Brewster Buffalo (matching the the Sky code letters from Xtradecal pretty well), while the codes and serial numbers themselves were created from single letter digits (the "/G" addition to the serial number signaled that the aircraft was to be guarded at any time while on the ground).

The cockpit interior was painted in very dark grey while the landing gear became aluminum. As a highlight, the air intake edge was painted with silver, more for a dramatic effect than for realism.

The yellow wing leading edge markings were created with generic decal sheet material. The only special markings on the aircraft are the white stripes on tail and wings, which I also used to underlay the serial code.

Only little panel-shading and weathering was done, some panel lines were manually created with a fine pencil since a lot of surface details on the fuselage were lost during the extensive PSR process around the wing/jet pipes area.

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

The V-1 has painted with no special paradigm in mind, with RLM81 upper surfaces and RLM 76 undersides, with a very wavy waterline and some grey patches on the wings. The engine was painted with aluminum first and then a thin coat of red primer added.

The resulting aircraft of this kitbash looks better than expected, even though the change of the exhaust arrangement came unexpected – even though I think the Jetfire became more appealing through the side pipes, despite the overall tadpole proportions.

As a side note, the story is not over yet, because there’s an engine-less Yak-23 left over, and I wonder what it might look like with a piston engine grafted to the empty nose?

+++ 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 Ukrainian independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Air Force (Повітряні Сили України, Povitryani Syly Ukrayiny) was established on March 17, 1992, in accordance with a Directive of the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, many aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory, including a wide range of fighters and attack aircraft, helicopters and even strategic bombers, and these became the initial equipment. Ever since, the Ukrainian air force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces, but for many years the main inventory still consisted of Soviet-made aircraft.

Since their introduction, the Ukrainian F-16s have been fulfilling QRA duties and airspace patrol, and the corresponding maintenance infrastructure has been gradually built up, so that F-16 operations became independent from Poland in 2019. With the worsening relationship to Russia, more military hardware of Western origin is expected to enter Ukrainian service. If the tight Ukrainian defense budget allows it, twenty more 2nd hand F-16s are to be delivered in 2021 to replace more Soviet fighter types (primarily the rest of the Ukrainian MiG-29 “Fulcrum” single and two seater fleet), and the procurement of LANTIRN pods to expand the type’s capabilities is under consideration and negotiations, too.

General characteristics:

Length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)

Wingspan: 32 ft 8 in (9.96 m)

Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)

Wing area: 300 sq ft (28 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 64A204

Empty weight: 18,900 lb (8,573 kg)

Gross weight: 26,500 lb (12,020 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 42,300 lb (19,187 kg)

Internal fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg)

Powerplant:

1× General Electric F110-GE-100 afterburning turbofan

with 17,155 lbf (76.31 kN) dry and 28,600 lbf (127 kN) thrust with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: Mach 2.05 at altitude in clean configuration

Mach 1.2, 800 kn (921 mph; 1,482 km/h) at sea level

Combat range: 295 nmi (339 mi, 546 km) on a hi-lo-hi mission with 4x 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs

Ferry range: 2,277 nmi (2,620 mi, 4,217 km) with drop tanks

Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,000 m) plus

g limits: +9.0 (limited by flight control system)

Rate of climb: +50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)

Wing loading: 88.3 lb/sq ft (431 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 1.095 (1.24 with loaded weight & 50% internal fuel)

Armament:

1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon with 511 rounds

2× wing-tip air-to-air missile launch rails plus 6× under-wing

and 3× under-fuselage pylon (2 of these for sensors) stations

with a capacity of up to 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) of a wide range of stores

The kit and its assembly:

I am not a big F-16 fan, but in some cases it’s an unavoidable canvas – just like in this case here. This fictional aircraft model (or better: this model of a [yet] fictional F-16 operator) was spawned by two ideas. One was the simple question: what if the Ukraine had after the USSR’s dissolution chosen a stronger attachment to (old) Western forces after the dissolution of the USSSR? And/or: what if the Ukraine had started to procure non-Russian equipment, esp. aircraft? So, what would an Ukrainian F-16 might have looked like, in general but esp. after the Crimea annexation in 2014 when such a scenario had become even more possible?

The other source of inspiration was a picture of an Ukrainian Su-24 with grey digital camouflage, a scheme that was/is also worn by some Su-25s. When I stumbled upon an Authentic Decals sheet for this unique paint scheme that allows to apply the complex and delicate pattern through water-slide transfers, I thought that the relatively “flat” F-16 surface would be an ideal basis to try this stunt?

What sounded like a very simple livery whif on an OOB model turned into a construction nightmare. Originally, this project provided me with a purpose for a dubious Trumpeter F-16 kit that I had bought some years ago – dead cheap, but righteously so. This kit is cruel, the model even has no concrete variant specification and is apparently the re-boxing of a kit from an obscure Chinese company called “Income”. Effectively, the Trumpeter F-16 is a rip-off of Italeri’s quite nice F-16C/D kit – but the Income/Trumpeter clone comes with MUCH deeper engravings esp. on the fuselage that remind a lot of the dreaded Matchbox “trenches”. Everything is rather “soft” and toylike, the clear parts are poor and the (few) decals look like toy stickers (!!!). I’d call it crude, even the instructions are apparently poor scans or photocopies from the Italeri kit, including hints for detail painting with no corresponding reference what colors should be used at all… All that could have been overlooked, but after starting with the kit I could not commit myself to use it any further. It’s rare that I give up because of a kit’s basis!

Next idea to “save” the project’s idea of an Ukrainian F-16 was to dig out a surplus Intech F-16 from the pile, also bought long ago because it was cheap, as conversion fodder. This kit has also been re-released in infinite variations under the Mister-/Mastercraft label. Upon closer inspection this kit turned out to have massive flaws, too, but in different areas from the Trumpeter thing. For instance, the Intech kit’s wings are utterly thick, certainly 1mm thicker than the Trumpeter model’s parts. This does not sound much, but on the really thin F-16 wings and stabilizers this looks really awful! Furthermore, the clear parts had not been fully molded, so I’d have needed a replacement canopy, anyway. Again, I gave up on building…

…until I decided to make the best of this mess and combine the “best” parts from both gimp models, trying to mend the worst flaws to an acceptable level. This led to the glorious kitbashing that this model eventually became! From the Intech kit I took the acceptable fuselage, including cockpit interior, air intake and landing gear, as well as the fin and the weapon pylons. The Trumpeter kit donated its thinner wings and the stabilizers, as well as the much better open exhaust nozzle (there’s an optional closed one, too; the Intech kit only offers an open nozzle, without ANY surface detail at all, it’s just a blank pipe!).

Beyond these basic ingredients, some more donors became necessary: All clear parts from both Intech and Trumpeter kit turned out to be rubbish for various reasons. The decision to build an F-16D two-seater was dictated by the fact that I had a leftover canopy from an Italeri F-16 kit in the donor bank – luckily it fitted well to the Intech kit’s body. Two crewmen from the spares box populate the cockpit and hide the rather basic interior, which was not improved at all. Furthermore, the ordnance came from external sources, too. The characteristic drop tanks with their cut-off tails were also leftover parts from the Italeri F-16, all AAMs come from a Hasegawa weapon set.

Some PSR was necessary to blend the parts from different kits together – thankfully, almost all F-16 kits are constructed in a similar fashion, even though there are small detail differences. In this case, the wings had to be slightly modified to fit onto the Intech fuselage. However, even those parts from the original kit(s) that are supposed to fit, e.g. the fin or the alternative cockpit opening frames for the optional single- and two-seater canopies, do hardly match at all. Horrible.

I rather focused on the model’s exterior, and a personal addition to improve the overall look of the otherwise rather basic/poor model, I added some small blade antennae that were totally missing on either model. Another extra detail are the small static dischargers on the trailing edges, created with thin, heated sprue material. Only small details, but they improve IMHO the model’s look considerably.

Painting and markings:

Until today, I never dared to apply decal camouflage to a model, but I expected that the flat/smooth F-16 surface would make this stunt relatively easy. This application method would also make painting the model easy, since only a single, uniform color had to be laid down from above and below.

To my surprise, the painting instructions of the Authentic Decals sheet for a number of Ukrainian Su-25 (which all carry the same standardized pixel camouflage) indicated RAL tones – a little surprising, but: why not? Since no other authentic color references were available, I cross-checked the paint suggestions with real life pictures of Su-24s and -25s in this striking paint scheme, and the indicated tones appear very plausible.

The problem: not every RAL tone is available as a model paint, so I had to make guesstimates. This eventually led to Modelmaster 2133 (Fulcrum Grey) as a light grey overall basis (suggested: RAL 7030 Achatgrau/Agate Grey, a tone with a brownish hue) from above and Humbrol 47 (Sea Blue Gloss) for a pale blue underside. The recommendation for the belly is RAL 7001 (Silbergrau/Silver Grey, very close to FS 36375), and this appears plausible, too, even though real-life pictures suggest a more bluish tone. But for a more dramatic look and some color contrast to the upper side’s all-grey I deliberately settled upon the Humbrol color, and this looks IMHO good.

The other suggested grey tones that make up the pixel patterns are RAL 7040 (Fenstergrau/Window Grey), RAL 7037 (Staubgrau/Dust Grey) and RAL 7043 (Verkehrsgrau B/Traffic Grey).

The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140), the air intake and the landing gear in white (Humbrol 22). The exhaust nozzle was painted externally with individual Metallizer mixes (with blue and gold added), while the inside was painted with Burnt Steel Metallizer towards the afterburner section while the ceramic nozzle petals were painted in a pale, almost white grey with darker lines, applied wet-in-wet. This looks pretty good – but does not withstand a closer inspection, just like the rest of this Franken-bashed F-16 thing.

Applying the digital camouflage pattern went better than expected. The decals turned out to be very thin and delicate, though, with almost no excessive clear film outside of the printed areas, so that application had to be executed swiftly and with lots of water to slide them into place. Nothing for modelers who are faint at heart! Because the single pixel clouds partly follow the Su-25 outlines, the decals had partly to be tailored to the rather different F-16 shape, and due to the different proportions I also had to improvise with the material at hand – fortunately the Su-25 sheet offered enough material to cover the F-16! Some small areas lacked decal material and had to be filled through painting, though, with replacement model paints for the aforementioned darker RAL greys, namely Humbrol 246 (RLM 75) and a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 125 and 67. The lightest grey on the prints turned out to be very close to the Fulcrum Grey, so there’s unfortunately very little contrast, and this only became clear after the decals had already dried. However, I left it that way, because lightening the Fulcrum Grey up further would have been a quite messy affair, ending in a rather dirty look that I wanted to avoid, and it had called for an almost white tone.

Another challenge became the weathering process, since I normally apply a black ink wash and some post-panel shading to the finished and painted model before I add the decals to a model. Fearing that the ink might creep under the decals’ clear sections, I left that step out completely. The delicate static dischargers were another complicating factor. So, I decided to finish the upper camouflage with the light grey base and the decals cammo first. This made trimming down excess decal material easier. After that had been roughly finished, the dischargers were added and the underside was painted blue. On top of that came the “normal” decals with national markings, codes and stencils. The latter were mostly taken from a vintage Microscale F-16 sheet, the tactical code came from a Begemot Ka-27 sheet. Since the bort number on the air intake was not well visible frame every angle, I added a white 77 to the fin, too. Thereafter I added some panel lines with the help of thinned black ink and a soft pencil. This way the model appears pretty clean, and I think that’s fine since many recent Ukrainian aircraft I know from pictures look well-tended. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish overall.

A simple F-16 in alternative markings – that’s what this model was supposed to be. I did not expect that the building phase would become such a challenge, and I’d sincerely recommend to any modeler who wants to build a “serious” F-16 in 1:72 to stay away from the Trumpeter and the Intech/Mister-/Mastercraft kits. They might be cheap, but that does not outweigh their flaws and building troubles.

Beyond these technical issues, I like the look of this “Ukrainized” Viper, the digital camouflage looks very special and works well on the aircraft. The light grey base could have been lighter, though. In fact, the F-16 now looks like an exaggerated U.S. Aggressor on first sight, but with the Ukrainian markings the whole thing looks pretty different and conclusive - a “what if” in the best sense. 😉

+++ 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 aftermath of the Second World War, Britain identified a threat posed by the jet-powered strategic bomber and atomic weaponry and thus placed a great emphasis on developing aerial supremacy through continuing to advance its fighter technology, even following the end of conflict. Blackburn Aircraft responded to a 1947 Air Ministry requirement for a high-performance night fighter under Air Ministry specification F.44/46. The specification called for a two-seat night fighter that would intercept enemy aircraft at heights of up to at least 40,000 feet. It would also have to reach a maximum speed of no less than 525 kn at this height, be able to perform rapid ascents and attain an altitude of 45,000 feet within ten minutes of engine ignition.

However, the experience gathered from the Barghest's early development was successfully used by Blackburn during the Buccaneer development process for the Royal Navy in the mid-Fifties.

General characteristics:

Crew: two

Length: 54 ft in (16,49 m)

Wingspan: 40 ft 7 in (12.38 m)

Wing area: 514.7 ft² (47.82 m²)

Height: 14 ft 9 in (4,50 m)

Empty weight: 19,295 lb (8,760 kg)

Gross weight: 29,017 lb (13,174 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 34,257 lb (15,553 kg)

Powerplant:

2× Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Sa.6 engines with 8,000 lbf (35.6 kN) thrust each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 606 kn (697 mph; 1,122 km/h) at sea level

Range: 954 mi (1,530 km)

Service ceiling: 52,800 ft (15,865 m)

Rate of climb: 7,000 ft/min (35.6 m/s)

Wing loading: 66 lb/ft² (325 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.56

Armament:

Ventral weapon bay, typically carrying 4× 30 mm (0.79 in) ADEN revolver cannon with 180 RPG;

alternatively, three retractable packs with a total of 70 unguided Microcell 2 in (51mm) missiles

could be carried;

Six underwing hardpoints (The outer pair of pylons could only carry Firestreak AAMs) for a total

ordnance of 4.000 lb (1.814 kg), including up to 4× Firestreak IR-guided AAMs, drop tanks on the

inner pair of pylons, or unguided bombs and SNEB missile pods.

The kit and its assembly:

This kitbash model originally started as an early Fifties all-weather fighter for the Royal Navy, and the idea was a Gloster Meteor night fighter fuselage mated with the engines and swept wings from a Blackburn Buccaneer. However, things change and evolve as ideas turn into hardware (for another submission to the 2018 “RAF Centenary” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com), and so this project gradually transformed into an all-weather fighter for the Royal Air Force, as a rival to the Gloster Javelin, and some other fundamental changes to the original plan as things evolved on the work bench.

Work started with a Matchbox Gloster Meteor, from which the fuselage (incl. the NF.14 cockpit with its bubble canopy) and tail cone (w/o fin, though) were taken OOB. Then a Matchbox Buccaneer donated its nose cone and the engine pods, together with the inner wing sections. An initial attempt to use the Buccaneer’s fin and stabilizer was made, but it did not work at all (looked horrible and totally unbalanced!). Instead, I used a leftover fin from a Revell 1:200 Concorde because of its retro shape and depth, and waited for the stabilizers until the wings were mounted, so that size, position and proportions would become clearer.

The nose cone had to be squashed, because its OOB oval diameter would not go onto the circular Meteor front end without problems and major PSR. With some force from a vice and internal stabilization through 2C putty the shape could be successfully modified, though, and blended into the fuselage contours. Looks pretty good and fast!

Once the engine nacelles were in place, I initially tried the Buccaneer’s OOB outer wings, but I was not really happy with the look. Their shape did not look “right”, they were a bit too large and just very Buccaneer-esque. After a donor bank safari I found a leftover sprue with wings and stabilizers from a Matchbox Hawker Hunter, and after some measurements and trials I found that they could be quite easily adapted to the Buccaneer’s inner wing stubs, even though this called for more serious surgery and PSR work. The latter was also necessary in order to blend the engine nacelles into the slender Meteor fuselage – messy, but feasible.

Alas, one challenge leads to the next one: Once in place, the massive engines created a ventral gap, due to the Meteor’s slender tail section. This was eventually filled with the Matchbox Buccaneer’s extra fuel bomb bay door, simply cut away from the kit, trimmed down and transplanted between the engine nacelles. As a side benefit, its bulged shape would now simulate a fairing for a ventral gun pack, somewhat similar to the CF-100’s arrangement. More PSR ensued, though, and between and around the jet exhausts the fuselage had to be fully re-sculpted.

The stabilizers also caused some headaches. With the new Hunter swept wings tips, I also needed new, matching stabilizers. I eventually used the Hunter stabilizers from the surplus Matchbox kit sprue. At first I tried to mate them with a shortened central fairing from the Buccaneer, but this did work even less than the whole Bucc tail, and so I scratched a more slender central fairing for the T-tail on top of the Concorde fin from a piece of sprue. Even though the Hunter stabilizers turned out to look a bit diminutive, I stuck with them since they complement the wing shape so well.

The benefit of the Buccaneer engine nacelles is that they come with proper landing gear wells, so that only the landing gear had to be improvises and adapted to the new aircraft and its proportions. I wanted to use the Meteor landing gear, but this turned out to be much too short! So I replaced the front wheel with a respective part from a Matchbox Buccaneer. The main wheels from the Meteor kit were retained, but they had to be extended - with a 5mm styrene tube “plug”, which is, thankfully, well hidden behind the covers.

Others small changes/additions are ejection seats in the cockpit instead of the Meteor bucket seats, the jet exhausts were drilled open and an interior was added, and some antennae were placed on the aircraft’s hull.

The ordnance was to reflect a typical late Fifties RAF fighter, and so the Barghest received a pair of drop tanks (from a Heller SEPECAT Jaguar, with simplified fins) and a pair of Firestreak AAMs (from a Matchbox BAC Lightning) on a pair of launch rails from an Academy MiG-23.

Colors and markings:

As per usual, I rather keep complicated whiffs visually simple, so I used the standard RAF scheme of Dark Green/Dark Sea Grey/Light Aircraft Grey on the Barghest, with the Buccaneer’s typical pattern as benchmark. Humbrol enamels (163, 164 and 166) were used for basic painting.

The cockpit interior became Tar Black (Revell 06), while the landing gear and its respective wells were painted in Aluminum (Humbrol 56). The kit received a light black ink washing and mild post-shading – more for a dramatic than a weathering effect, since RAF machines in the Fifties looked very tidy and clean.

The drop tanks received camouflage and the Firestreaks became white, while their clear seeker cones were painted with a mix of silver and translucent blue. The IR sensors were created with thin decal stripes.

The decals come primarily from an Xtradecal BAC Lightning sheet (roundels and 19 Sq. markings – the squadron badges are unfortunately quite large, since they belong to a NMF aircraft), most stencils and the tactical code come from an Airfix Venom trainer and an Italeri Tornado.

Finally, the kit was sealed with a matt acrylic varnish, a mix of matt and little semi-gloss Italeri varnish, for a sheen finish.

A true kitbashing, made from many well-known RAF ingredients and a disturbing look between odd and familiar! A Buccaneer? No, it’s too scrawny. A Javelin? No, it does not have delta wings, and it’s got a tail sting. A de-navalized Sea Vixen? Well, no twin tail, and anything else does not match either... Despite the puzzling details (or because of them?), the Barghest looks disturbingly British and Fifties, as if it had been created from a profound RAF DNA pool – and it actually is! And with lots of putty. ;-)

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

The A-14 program originally started in 2005 as a private venture, initiated by Northrop-Grumman together with the Elbit Group as a joint venture through Elbit’s Texas-based aircraft division M7 Aerosystems, an approved supplier to major aerospace clients. The aircraft was intended to replace the USAF’s A-10 attack aircraft as well as early F-16s in the strike role from 2010 onwards. The time slot for the project turned out to be advantageous, because at that time the USAF was contemplating to replace the simple and sturdy A-10 with the much more complex F-35, eventually even with its VTOL variant, and the highly specialized F-117 was retired, too.

The A-14 revived conceptual elements of Grumman’s stillborn A-12 stealth program for the US Navy, which had also been part of the USAF’s plans to replace the supersonic F-111 tactical bomber, but on a less ambitious and expensive level concerning technology, aiming for a more effective compromise between complexity, survivability and costs. The basic idea was an updated LTV A-7D (the A-10’s predecessor from the Vietnam War era), which had far more sophisticated sensor and navigation equipment than the rather simple but sturdy A-10, but with pragmatic stealth features and a high level of survivability in a modern frontline theatre or operations.

Since the A-14’s technology was considered to be too critical to be marketed to export customers (Israel showed early interest in the aircraft, as well as South Korea), the program was cancelled in 2016.

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 (pilot, WSO)

Length: 54 ft 11 1/2 in (16.78 m)

Wingspan: 62 ft 11 1/2 in (19.22 m)

Height: 11 ft 3 3/4 in (3.45 m)

Wing area: 374.9 ft² (117.5 m²)

Empty weight: 24,959 lb (11,321 kg)

Loaded weight: 30,384 lb (13,782 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 50,000 lb (22,700 kg)

Internal fuel capacity: 11,000 lb (4,990 kg)

Powerplant:

2× General Electric Whitney F412-GE-114 non-afterburning turbofans

with 12,000 lbf (53 kN) thrust each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 630 mph (1,010 km/h, 550 kn) at 40,000 ft altitude /

Mach 0.95 at sea level

Cruise speed: 560 mph (900 km/h, 487 kn) at 40,000 ft altitude

Range: 1,089 nmi (1,253 mi, 2,017 km)

Ferry range: 1,800 nmi (2,100 mi, 3,300 km)

Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,200 m)

Rate of climb: 50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)

Wing loading: 133 lb/ft² (193 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.48 (full internal fuel, no stores)

Take-off run: 1,200 m (3,930 ft) at 42,000 lb (19,000 kg) over a 15 m (30 ft) obstacle

Armament:

1× General Dynamics GAU-12/U Equalizer 25 mm (0.984 in) 5-barreled rotary cannon

with 1,200 rounds (max. capacity 1,350 rounds)

4x internal weapon bays plus 4x external optional hardpoints with a total capacity of

15,000 lb (6,800 kg) and provisions to carry/deploy a wide range of ordnance

The kit and its assembly:

A major kitbashing project which I had on my idea list for a long time and its main ingredients/body donors already stashed away – but, as with many rather intimidating builds, it takes some external motivation to finally tackle the idea and bring it into hardware form. This came in August 2020 with the “Prototypes” group build at whatifmodellers.com, even though is still took some time to find the courage and mojo to start.

The original inspiration was the idea of a stealthy successor for the A-10, or a kind of more modern A-7 as an alternative to the omnipresent (and rather boring, IMHO) F-35. An early “ingredient” became the fuselage of a Zvezda Ka-58 stealth helicopter kit – I liked the edgy shape, the crocodile-like silhouette and the spacious side-by-side cockpit. Adding wings, however, was more challenging, and I remembered a 1:200 B-2A which I had turned into a light Swedish 1:72 attack stealth aircraft. Why not use another B-2 for the wings and the engines, but this time a bigger 1:144 model that would better match the quite bulbous Ka-58 fuselage? This donor became an Italeri kit.

Work started with the fuselage: the Ka-58’s engine and gearbox hump had to go first and a generous, new dorsal section had to be scratched with 1mm styrene sheet and some PSR. The cockpit and its glazing could be retained and were taken OOB. Under the nose, the Ka-58’s gun turret was omitted and a scratched front landing gear well was implanted instead.

The wings consist of the B-2 model; the lower “fuselage half” had its front end cut away, then the upper fuselage half of the Ka-58 was used as benchmark to cut the B-2’s upper wing/body part in two outer wing panels. Once these elements had been glued together, the Ka-58’s lower nose and tail section were tailored to match the B-2 parts. The B-2 engine bays were taken OOB and mounted next, so that the A-14’s basic hull was complete and the first major PSR session could start. Blending the parts into each other turned out to be a tedious process, since some 2-3 mm wide gaps had to be filled.

Once the basic BWP pack had been finished, I added the fins. These were taken from an 1:72 F-117 kit (IIRC from Italeri), which I had bought in a lot many moons ago. The fins were just adapted at their base to match the tail sting slope, and they were mounted in a 45° angle. This looks very F-117ish but was IMHO the most plausible solution.

Now that the overall length of the aircraft was defined, I could work on the final major assembly part: the wing tips. The 1:144 B-2 came with separate wing tip sections, but they proved to be much too long for the Squatina. After some trials I reduced their length by more than half, so that the B-2’s jagged wing trailing edge was kept. The result looks quite natural, even though blending the cut wing tips to the BWB turned out to be a PSR nightmare because their thickness reduces gently towards the tip – since I took out a good part of the inner section, the resulting step had to be sanded away and hidden with more PSR.

Detail work started next, including the cockpit glazing, the bomb bay (the B-2 kit comes with one of its bays open, and I kept this detail and modified the interior) and the landing gear, the latter was taken from the F-117 donor bank and fitted surprisingly well.

Some sensors were added, too, including a flat glass panel on the nose tip and a triangular IRST fairing under the nose, next to the landing gear well.

Painting and markings:

For a stealth aircraft and a prototype I wanted something subdued or murky, but not an all-black or -grey livery. I eventually settled for the rather dark paint scheme that the USAF applied to its late B-52Gs and the B-1Bs, which consists of two tones from above, FS 36081 (Dark Grey, a.k.a. Dark Gunship Grey) and 34086 (Green Drab), and underneath (FS 36081 and 36118 (Gunship Grey). The irregular pattern was adapted (in a rather liberal fashion) from the USAF’s early B-1Bs, using Humbrol 32, 108 and 125 as basic colors. The 108 turned out to be too bright, so I toned it down with an additional coat of thinned Humbrol 66. While this considerably reduced the contrast between the green and the grey, the combination looks much better and B-1B-esque.

The wings’ leading edges were painted for more contrast with a greyish black (Tar Black, Revell 09), while the landing gear, the interior of the air intakes and the open bomb bay became glossy white. The cockpit was painted in medium grey (Humbrol 140) and the clear parts received a thinned inner coating with a mix of transparent yellow and brown, simulating an anti-radar coating – even though the effect turned out to be minimal, now it looks as of the plastic parts had just yellowed from age…

After the initial livery had been finished the model received a black ink washing and some post-panel shading with slightly brightened variations of the basic tones (using Humbrol 79, 144 and 224). Decals were added next, an individual mix from various sources. The “Stars-and-Bars” come from a PrintScale A-7 sheet, most stencils come from an F-16 sheet.

After some more detail painting and a treatment with graphite on the metal areas (exhausts, gun port), the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

Batman’s next Batwing? Maybe, there’s certainly something fictional about this creation. But the “Squatina” turned out much more conclusive (and even pretty!) than I expected, even though it became a bigger aircraft than intended. And I am positively surprised how good the bodywork became – after all, lots of putty had to be used to fill all the gaps between parts that no one ever expected to be grafted together.

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

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 12 m (39 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 14 m (45 ft 11 in)

Height: 4.65 m (15 ft 3 in)

Wing area: 28 m² (301.388 ft²)

Airfoil:

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

Loaded weight: 6.450 kg (14.220 lb)

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

Powerplant:

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

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

Performance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Armament

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

The kit is a bashing of various parts and pieces:

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

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

· Tail fin comes from a Heller F-84G

· The stabilizers were taken from an Airfix Ki-46

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The Supermarine Jetfire was a stopgap solution in order to introduce a jet-powered interceptor agains German V-1 missiles that threatened the London region from June 1944 on. At that time, the only aircraft with the low-altitude speed to be effective against it was the Hawker Tempest, but fewer than 30 Tempests were available. They were assigned to No. 150 Wing RAF, and early attempts to intercept and destroy V-1s often failed.

Despite many shortcomings (sluggish acceleration, poor climb and agility except for a very good roll rate), the still rather experimental and primitive Jetfire was able to fulfill its intended V-1 interception role, and two V-1 interceptions were achieved during the following weeks. In the front line units they were quickly replaced by more effective types like the Gloster Meteor, the Hawker Tempest or the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. Anyway, the Jetfire was still helpful to path the RAF’s way for operational jet fighters and helped discover new high speed problems, including compressibility buffeting at higher speeds, causing increased drag, and it showed clearly the limits of traditional fighter aircraft designs.

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 31 ft 8 in (9.66 m)

Wingspan: 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m)

Height: 10 ft 0 in (3.05 m)

Wing area: 242.1 sq ft (22.49 m2)

Airfoil: NACA 2213 (root), NACA 2209.4 (tip)

Empty weight: 8,434 lb (3,826 kg)

Gross weight: 12,211 lb (5,539 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce B.37 Derwent turbojet, 2,000 lbf (8.9 kN) static thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 748 km/h (468 mph)

Range: 395 km (247 miles) with internal fuel only

Service ceiling: 12,750 m (41,820 ft)

Rate of climb: 12 m/s (2362 ft/min)

Thrust/weight: 0.45

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

Armament:

2× 20 mm British Hispano MkV cannons (120 RPG) and

2× 12,7 mm (0.5") machine guns (250 RPG) in the outer wings

Provision for up to six "60lb" 3" rockets under the outer wings,

or two 500 lb (227 kg) bombs, or a pair of drop tanks

The kit and its assembly:

The first entry for the "Old Kit" group build at whatifmodelers.com in late 2016 - anything goes, the kit's mould just has to date back to 1985 and further. For this one I settled on the FROG Spitfire Mk. XIV, which, AFAIK, dates back to 1969, and an engine donor from a KP Yak-23, which is supposed to have hit the markets behind the Iron Curtain in 1981.

Originally, the background story pretty much sums up the idea behind this kitbash: How could the - already fast - Spitfire be further augmented with one of the new jet engines around 1944, when V1 attacks started against the British main land and the Meteor was still in development? A simple engine swap with as much airframe of the piston-engine ancestor would be the answer. Similar ideas had been undertaken in Germany, with re-engined versions of the Bf 109 and the Fw 190, and after WWII, when German jet technology had become available to the Soviet Union, the Yak-15/17/23 family followed a similar pattern.

The Yak-23 came as a natural donation aircraft for the Derwent nose. After careful measures and strategic cuts the Spitfire lost its Griffon engine (already earmarked for another kitbash...) and the Yak-23 its nose and exhaust pipe: the original plan had been to use a central, ventral exhaust pipe under the cockpit, even though this would create issues with the tail wheel (just as on the Yak-15 - it received in service an all-metal tail wheel! Imagine the sparks on the runway...).

Anyway, while dry-fitting the parts it turned out that pretty little of the Yak-23 exhaust section could be mounted with clean lines: I'd either have had to create a semi-recessed exhaust with lots of body work (and pretty implausible), or switch to a totally different solution.

That came with a bifurcated exhaust pipe, running along the wing roots and ending at the wings' trailing edge. While this sounds weird, too, the Hawker SeaHawk actually had such an arrangement - on a service aircraft!

As a side effect, the fairings for the jet pipes now offered a good basis for the necessary intersection between the round and bulky Derwent nose fairing and the narrow, oval Spitfire fuselage.

The new jet pipes were created with styrene tubes and lots of putty, and the result does not look bad at all. Actually, with the deleted radiators and the Griffon carburetor intake gone, the aircraft has a very sleek profile, even though the top view reveals the innate "pod and boom" layout of the nose-mounted centrifugal jet engine.

The latter received a new intake interior with some fine mesh and a central bullet fairing (the Yak-23's vertical splitter would not make any sense, since there'd be no nose wheel anymore). The landing gear was taken more or less OOB, I just added some struts and extra wheel covers. The tail wheel comes from an Airfix Hawker Hurricane and changed into a fully retractable arrangement. The cockpit was taken OOB, too, just a tank dummy was added behind the pilot's seat and the canopy sliced into three pieces for an optional open display.

The "E wing" armament was taken over from the Spitfire Mk. XIV, I just added the elegant drop/slipper tanks from the Yak-23 kit. This breaks up the clean lines of the "Jetfire", but I think that the thirsty Derwent might have needed some extra fuel for a decent approach range and some loiter time while intercepting incoming V-1s?

The V-1 from the FROG kit was built for the flight scenes, too. It’s a very simple model consisting only of four parts with rather mediocre fir, esp. the pulse engine halves, but a fairly good representation. Maybe the propeller for the fuse timer is missing, but that can be scratched easily.

Only personal additions are a grate in the air intake, and a hidden adapter for a display, for the pics. Maybe this flying bomb ends up later as ordnance under a German bomber build?

Painting and markings:

Very conservative, late war RAF Dark Green/Ocean Grey/Medium Sea Grey with typical ID markings and codes. 616 Squadron was chosen because it was one of the units that introduced the Meteor for V-1 interception.

Paints are basically enamels from the ModelMaster Authentic range. The Sky fuselage band was improvised with a decal from a vintage Matchbox Brewster Buffalo (matching the the Sky code letters from Xtradecal pretty well), while the codes and serial numbers themselves were created from single letter digits (the "/G" addition to the serial number signaled that the aircraft was to be guarded at any time while on the ground).

The cockpit interior was painted in very dark grey while the landing gear became aluminum. As a highlight, the air intake edge was painted with silver, more for a dramatic effect than for realism.

The yellow wing leading edge markings were created with generic decal sheet material. The only special markings on the aircraft are the white stripes on tail and wings, which I also used to underlay the serial code.

Only little panel-shading and weathering was done, some panel lines were manually created with a fine pencil since a lot of surface details on the fuselage were lost during the extensive PSR process around the wing/jet pipes area.

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

The V-1 has painted with no special paradigm in mind, with RLM81 upper surfaces and RLM 76 undersides, with a very wavy waterline and some grey patches on the wings. The engine was painted with aluminum first and then a thin coat of red primer added.

The resulting aircraft of this kitbash looks better than expected, even though the change of the exhaust arrangement came unexpected – even though I think the Jetfire became more appealing through the side pipes, despite the overall tadpole proportions.

As a side note, the story is not over yet, because there’s an engine-less Yak-23 left over, and I wonder what it might look like with a piston engine grafted to the empty nose?

Jiaou Doll wheat skin big bust figure .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ben kingsley (?) unofficial headsculpt

fake fur

paint

barbie hat

russian jacket

star trek tea

+++ 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 Supermarine Jetfire was a stopgap solution in order to introduce a jet-powered interceptor agains German V-1 missiles that threatened the London region from June 1944 on. At that time, the only aircraft with the low-altitude speed to be effective against it was the Hawker Tempest, but fewer than 30 Tempests were available. They were assigned to No. 150 Wing RAF, and early attempts to intercept and destroy V-1s often failed.

Despite many shortcomings (sluggish acceleration, poor climb and agility except for a very good roll rate), the still rather experimental and primitive Jetfire was able to fulfill its intended V-1 interception role, and two V-1 interceptions were achieved during the following weeks. In the front line units they were quickly replaced by more effective types like the Gloster Meteor, the Hawker Tempest or the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. Anyway, the Jetfire was still helpful to path the RAF’s way for operational jet fighters and helped discover new high speed problems, including compressibility buffeting at higher speeds, causing increased drag, and it showed clearly the limits of traditional fighter aircraft designs.

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 31 ft 8 in (9.66 m)

Wingspan: 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m)

Height: 10 ft 0 in (3.05 m)

Wing area: 242.1 sq ft (22.49 m2)

Airfoil: NACA 2213 (root), NACA 2209.4 (tip)

Empty weight: 8,434 lb (3,826 kg)

Gross weight: 12,211 lb (5,539 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce B.37 Derwent turbojet, 2,000 lbf (8.9 kN) static thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 748 km/h (468 mph)

Range: 395 km (247 miles) with internal fuel only

Service ceiling: 12,750 m (41,820 ft)

Rate of climb: 12 m/s (2362 ft/min)

Thrust/weight: 0.45

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

Armament:

2× 20 mm British Hispano MkV cannons (120 RPG) and

2× 12,7 mm (0.5") machine guns (250 RPG) in the outer wings

Provision for up to six "60lb" 3" rockets under the outer wings,

or two 500 lb (227 kg) bombs, or a pair of drop tanks

The kit and its assembly:

The first entry for the "Old Kit" group build at whatifmodelers.com in late 2016 - anything goes, the kit's mould just has to date back to 1985 and further. For this one I settled on the FROG Spitfire Mk. XIV, which, AFAIK, dates back to 1969, and an engine donor from a KP Yak-23, which is supposed to have hit the markets behind the Iron Curtain in 1981.

Originally, the background story pretty much sums up the idea behind this kitbash: How could the - already fast - Spitfire be further augmented with one of the new jet engines around 1944, when V1 attacks started against the British main land and the Meteor was still in development? A simple engine swap with as much airframe of the piston-engine ancestor would be the answer. Similar ideas had been undertaken in Germany, with re-engined versions of the Bf 109 and the Fw 190, and after WWII, when German jet technology had become available to the Soviet Union, the Yak-15/17/23 family followed a similar pattern.

The Yak-23 came as a natural donation aircraft for the Derwent nose. After careful measures and strategic cuts the Spitfire lost its Griffon engine (already earmarked for another kitbash...) and the Yak-23 its nose and exhaust pipe: the original plan had been to use a central, ventral exhaust pipe under the cockpit, even though this would create issues with the tail wheel (just as on the Yak-15 - it received in service an all-metal tail wheel! Imagine the sparks on the runway...).

Anyway, while dry-fitting the parts it turned out that pretty little of the Yak-23 exhaust section could be mounted with clean lines: I'd either have had to create a semi-recessed exhaust with lots of body work (and pretty implausible), or switch to a totally different solution.

That came with a bifurcated exhaust pipe, running along the wing roots and ending at the wings' trailing edge. While this sounds weird, too, the Hawker SeaHawk actually had such an arrangement - on a service aircraft!

As a side effect, the fairings for the jet pipes now offered a good basis for the necessary intersection between the round and bulky Derwent nose fairing and the narrow, oval Spitfire fuselage.

The new jet pipes were created with styrene tubes and lots of putty, and the result does not look bad at all. Actually, with the deleted radiators and the Griffon carburetor intake gone, the aircraft has a very sleek profile, even though the top view reveals the innate "pod and boom" layout of the nose-mounted centrifugal jet engine.

The latter received a new intake interior with some fine mesh and a central bullet fairing (the Yak-23's vertical splitter would not make any sense, since there'd be no nose wheel anymore). The landing gear was taken more or less OOB, I just added some struts and extra wheel covers. The tail wheel comes from an Airfix Hawker Hurricane and changed into a fully retractable arrangement. The cockpit was taken OOB, too, just a tank dummy was added behind the pilot's seat and the canopy sliced into three pieces for an optional open display.

The "E wing" armament was taken over from the Spitfire Mk. XIV, I just added the elegant drop/slipper tanks from the Yak-23 kit. This breaks up the clean lines of the "Jetfire", but I think that the thirsty Derwent might have needed some extra fuel for a decent approach range and some loiter time while intercepting incoming V-1s?

The V-1 from the FROG kit was built for the flight scenes, too. It’s a very simple model consisting only of four parts with rather mediocre fir, esp. the pulse engine halves, but a fairly good representation. Maybe the propeller for the fuse timer is missing, but that can be scratched easily.

Only personal additions are a grate in the air intake, and a hidden adapter for a display, for the pics. Maybe this flying bomb ends up later as ordnance under a German bomber build?

Painting and markings:

Very conservative, late war RAF Dark Green/Ocean Grey/Medium Sea Grey with typical ID markings and codes. 616 Squadron was chosen because it was one of the units that introduced the Meteor for V-1 interception.

Paints are basically enamels from the ModelMaster Authentic range. The Sky fuselage band was improvised with a decal from a vintage Matchbox Brewster Buffalo (matching the the Sky code letters from Xtradecal pretty well), while the codes and serial numbers themselves were created from single letter digits (the "/G" addition to the serial number signaled that the aircraft was to be guarded at any time while on the ground).

The cockpit interior was painted in very dark grey while the landing gear became aluminum. As a highlight, the air intake edge was painted with silver, more for a dramatic effect than for realism.

The yellow wing leading edge markings were created with generic decal sheet material. The only special markings on the aircraft are the white stripes on tail and wings, which I also used to underlay the serial code.

Only little panel-shading and weathering was done, some panel lines were manually created with a fine pencil since a lot of surface details on the fuselage were lost during the extensive PSR process around the wing/jet pipes area.

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

The V-1 has painted with no special paradigm in mind, with RLM81 upper surfaces and RLM 76 undersides, with a very wavy waterline and some grey patches on the wings. The engine was painted with aluminum first and then a thin coat of red primer added.

The resulting aircraft of this kitbash looks better than expected, even though the change of the exhaust arrangement came unexpected – even though I think the Jetfire became more appealing through the side pipes, despite the overall tadpole proportions.

As a side note, the story is not over yet, because there’s an engine-less Yak-23 left over, and I wonder what it might look like with a piston engine grafted to the empty nose?

+++ 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 aftermath of the Second World War, Britain identified a threat posed by the jet-powered strategic bomber and atomic weaponry and thus placed a great emphasis on developing aerial supremacy through continuing to advance its fighter technology, even following the end of conflict. Blackburn Aircraft responded to a 1947 Air Ministry requirement for a high-performance night fighter under Air Ministry specification F.44/46. The specification called for a two-seat night fighter that would intercept enemy aircraft at heights of up to at least 40,000 feet. It would also have to reach a maximum speed of no less than 525 kn at this height, be able to perform rapid ascents and attain an altitude of 45,000 feet within ten minutes of engine ignition.

However, the experience gathered from the Barghest's early development was successfully used by Blackburn during the Buccaneer development process for the Royal Navy in the mid-Fifties.

General characteristics:

Crew: two

Length: 54 ft in (16,49 m)

Wingspan: 40 ft 7 in (12.38 m)

Wing area: 514.7 ft² (47.82 m²)

Height: 14 ft 9 in (4,50 m)

Empty weight: 19,295 lb (8,760 kg)

Gross weight: 29,017 lb (13,174 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 34,257 lb (15,553 kg)

Powerplant:

2× Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire Sa.6 engines with 8,000 lbf (35.6 kN) thrust each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 606 kn (697 mph; 1,122 km/h) at sea level

Range: 954 mi (1,530 km)

Service ceiling: 52,800 ft (15,865 m)

Rate of climb: 7,000 ft/min (35.6 m/s)

Wing loading: 66 lb/ft² (325 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.56

Armament:

Ventral weapon bay, typically carrying 4× 30 mm (0.79 in) ADEN revolver cannon with 180 RPG;

alternatively, three retractable packs with a total of 70 unguided Microcell 2 in (51mm) missiles

could be carried;

Six underwing hardpoints (The outer pair of pylons could only carry Firestreak AAMs) for a total

ordnance of 4.000 lb (1.814 kg), including up to 4× Firestreak IR-guided AAMs, drop tanks on the

inner pair of pylons, or unguided bombs and SNEB missile pods.

The kit and its assembly:

This kitbash model originally started as an early Fifties all-weather fighter for the Royal Navy, and the idea was a Gloster Meteor night fighter fuselage mated with the engines and swept wings from a Blackburn Buccaneer. However, things change and evolve as ideas turn into hardware (for another submission to the 2018 “RAF Centenary” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com), and so this project gradually transformed into an all-weather fighter for the Royal Air Force, as a rival to the Gloster Javelin, and some other fundamental changes to the original plan as things evolved on the work bench.

Work started with a Matchbox Gloster Meteor, from which the fuselage (incl. the NF.14 cockpit with its bubble canopy) and tail cone (w/o fin, though) were taken OOB. Then a Matchbox Buccaneer donated its nose cone and the engine pods, together with the inner wing sections. An initial attempt to use the Buccaneer’s fin and stabilizer was made, but it did not work at all (looked horrible and totally unbalanced!). Instead, I used a leftover fin from a Revell 1:200 Concorde because of its retro shape and depth, and waited for the stabilizers until the wings were mounted, so that size, position and proportions would become clearer.

The nose cone had to be squashed, because its OOB oval diameter would not go onto the circular Meteor front end without problems and major PSR. With some force from a vice and internal stabilization through 2C putty the shape could be successfully modified, though, and blended into the fuselage contours. Looks pretty good and fast!

Once the engine nacelles were in place, I initially tried the Buccaneer’s OOB outer wings, but I was not really happy with the look. Their shape did not look “right”, they were a bit too large and just very Buccaneer-esque. After a donor bank safari I found a leftover sprue with wings and stabilizers from a Matchbox Hawker Hunter, and after some measurements and trials I found that they could be quite easily adapted to the Buccaneer’s inner wing stubs, even though this called for more serious surgery and PSR work. The latter was also necessary in order to blend the engine nacelles into the slender Meteor fuselage – messy, but feasible.

Alas, one challenge leads to the next one: Once in place, the massive engines created a ventral gap, due to the Meteor’s slender tail section. This was eventually filled with the Matchbox Buccaneer’s extra fuel bomb bay door, simply cut away from the kit, trimmed down and transplanted between the engine nacelles. As a side benefit, its bulged shape would now simulate a fairing for a ventral gun pack, somewhat similar to the CF-100’s arrangement. More PSR ensued, though, and between and around the jet exhausts the fuselage had to be fully re-sculpted.

The stabilizers also caused some headaches. With the new Hunter swept wings tips, I also needed new, matching stabilizers. I eventually used the Hunter stabilizers from the surplus Matchbox kit sprue. At first I tried to mate them with a shortened central fairing from the Buccaneer, but this did work even less than the whole Bucc tail, and so I scratched a more slender central fairing for the T-tail on top of the Concorde fin from a piece of sprue. Even though the Hunter stabilizers turned out to look a bit diminutive, I stuck with them since they complement the wing shape so well.

The benefit of the Buccaneer engine nacelles is that they come with proper landing gear wells, so that only the landing gear had to be improvises and adapted to the new aircraft and its proportions. I wanted to use the Meteor landing gear, but this turned out to be much too short! So I replaced the front wheel with a respective part from a Matchbox Buccaneer. The main wheels from the Meteor kit were retained, but they had to be extended - with a 5mm styrene tube “plug”, which is, thankfully, well hidden behind the covers.

Others small changes/additions are ejection seats in the cockpit instead of the Meteor bucket seats, the jet exhausts were drilled open and an interior was added, and some antennae were placed on the aircraft’s hull.

The ordnance was to reflect a typical late Fifties RAF fighter, and so the Barghest received a pair of drop tanks (from a Heller SEPECAT Jaguar, with simplified fins) and a pair of Firestreak AAMs (from a Matchbox BAC Lightning) on a pair of launch rails from an Academy MiG-23.

Colors and markings:

As per usual, I rather keep complicated whiffs visually simple, so I used the standard RAF scheme of Dark Green/Dark Sea Grey/Light Aircraft Grey on the Barghest, with the Buccaneer’s typical pattern as benchmark. Humbrol enamels (163, 164 and 166) were used for basic painting.

The cockpit interior became Tar Black (Revell 06), while the landing gear and its respective wells were painted in Aluminum (Humbrol 56). The kit received a light black ink washing and mild post-shading – more for a dramatic than a weathering effect, since RAF machines in the Fifties looked very tidy and clean.

The drop tanks received camouflage and the Firestreaks became white, while their clear seeker cones were painted with a mix of silver and translucent blue. The IR sensors were created with thin decal stripes.

The decals come primarily from an Xtradecal BAC Lightning sheet (roundels and 19 Sq. markings – the squadron badges are unfortunately quite large, since they belong to a NMF aircraft), most stencils and the tactical code come from an Airfix Venom trainer and an Italeri Tornado.

Finally, the kit was sealed with a matt acrylic varnish, a mix of matt and little semi-gloss Italeri varnish, for a sheen finish.

A true kitbashing, made from many well-known RAF ingredients and a disturbing look between odd and familiar! A Buccaneer? No, it’s too scrawny. A Javelin? No, it does not have delta wings, and it’s got a tail sting. A de-navalized Sea Vixen? Well, no twin tail, and anything else does not match either... Despite the puzzling details (or because of them?), the Barghest looks disturbingly British and Fifties, as if it had been created from a profound RAF DNA pool – and it actually is! And with lots of putty. ;-)

Some background:

The idea for a heavy infantry support vehicle capable of demolishing heavily defended buildings or fortified areas with a single shot came out of the experiences of the heavy urban fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. At the time, the Wehrmacht had only the Sturm-Infanteriegeschütz 33B available for destroying buildings, a Sturmgeschütz III variant armed with a 15 cm sIG 33 heavy infantry gun. Twelve of them were lost in the fighting at Stalingrad. Its successor, the Sturmpanzer IV, also known by Allies as Brummbär, was in production from early 1943. This was essentially an improved version of the earlier design, mounting the same gun on the Panzer IV chassis with greatly improved armour protection.

Total production numbers of the SdKfz. 184/1 are uncertain but, being an emergency product and based on a limited chassis supply, the number of vehicles that left the Nibelungenwerke in Austria was no more than ten – also because the tank hunter conversion had top priority and the exotic RW 61 launcher was in very limited supply. As a consequence, only a total of 18 Sturmtiger had been finished by December 1945 and put into service, too. However, the 380 mm Raketen-Werfer 61 remained in production and was in early 1946 adapted to the new Einheitspanzer E-50/75 chassis.

Specifications:

Crew: Six (driver, radio operator/machine gunner in the front cabin,

commander, gunner, 2× loader in the casemate section)

Weight: 75 tons

Length: 7,05 m (23 ft 1½ in)

Width: 3,38 m (11 ft 1 in)

Height w/o crane: 3,02 m (9 ft 10¾ in)

Ground clearance: 1ft 6¾ in (48 cm)

Climbing: 2 ft 6½ in (78 cm)

Fording depth: 3 ft 3¼ (1m)

Trench crossing: 8 ft 7 ¾ in (2,64 m)

Suspension: Longitudinal torsion-bar

Fuel capacity: 1.050 liters

Armour:

62 to 200 mm (2.44 to 7.87 in)

Performance:

30 km/h (19 mph) on road

15 km/h (10 miles per hour () off road

Operational range: 150 km (93 mi) on road

90 km (56 mi) cross-country

Power/weight: 8 hp/ton

Engine:

2× Maybach HL120 TRM petrol engines with 300 PS (246 hp, 221 kW) each, powering…

2× Siemens-Schuckert D1495a 500 Volt electric engines with 320 PS (316 hp, 230 kW) each

Transmission:

Electric

Armament:

1x 380 mm RW 61 rocket launcher L/5.4 with 14 rounds

1x 7.92 mm (0.312 in) MG 34 machine gun with 600 rounds

1x 100 mm grenade launcher (firing anti-personnel mines, smoke grenades or signal flares)

The kit and its assembly:.

This fictional tank model is not my own idea, it is rather based on a picture of a similar kitbashing of an Elefant with a Sturmtiger casemate and its massive missile launcher – even though it was a rather crude model, with a casemate created from cardboard. However, I found the idea charming, even more so because the Ferdinand/Elefant was rather a rolling bunker than an agile tank hunter, despite its powerful weapon. Why not use the same chassis as a carrier for the Sturmtiger’s huge mortar as an assault SPG?

The resulting Sturmelefant was created as a kitbashing: the chassis is an early boxing of the Trumpeter Elefant, which comes not only with IP track segments but also alternative vinyl tracks (later boxing do not feature them), and casemate parts come from a Trumpeter Sturmtiger.

While one would think that switching the casemate would be straightforward affair, the conversion turned out to be more complex than expected. Both Elefant and Sturmtiger come with separate casemate pieces, but they are not compatible. The Sturmtiger casemate is 2mm wider than the Elefant’s hull, and its glacis plate is deeper than the Elefant’s, leaving 4mm wide gaps at the sides and the rear. One option could have been to trim down the glacis plate, but I found the roofline to become much too low – and the casemate’s length would have been reduced.

So, I used the Sturmtiger casemate “as is” and filled the gaps with styrene sheet strips. This worked, but the casemate’s width created now inward-bent sections that looked unplausible. Nobody, even grazed German engineers, would not have neglected the laws of structural integrity. What to do? Tailoring the casemate’s sides down would have been one route, but this would have had created a strange shape. The alternative I chose was to widen the flanks of the Elefant’s hull underneath the casemate, which was achieved with tailored 0.5 mm styrene sheet panels and some PSR – possible through the Elefant’s simple shape and the mudguards that run along the vehicle’s flanks.

Some more PSR was necessary to blend the rear into a coherent shape and to fill a small gap at the glacis plate’s base. Putty was also used to fill/hide almost all openings on the glacis plate, since no driver sight or ball mount for a machine gun was necessary anymore. New bolts between hull and casemate were created with small drops of white glue. The rest of the surface details were taken from the respective donor kits.

Painting and markings:

This was not an easy choice. A classic Hinterhalt scheme would have been a natural choice, but since the Sturmelefant would have been converted from existing hulls with new parts, I decided to emphasize this heritage through a simple, uniform livery: all Ferdinand elements would be painted/left in a uniform Dunkelgelb (RAL, 7028, Humbrol 83), while the new casemate as well as the bolted-on front armor were left in a red primer livery, in two different shades (Humbrol 70 and 113). This looked a little too simple for my taste, so that I eventually added snaky lines in Dunkelgelb onto the primer-painted sections, blurring the contrast between the two tones.

Markings remained minimal, just three German crosses on the flanks and at the rear and a tactical code on the casemate – the latter in black and in a hand-written style, as if the vehicle had been rushed into frontline service.

After the decals had been secured under sone varnish the model received an overall washing with dark brown, highly thinned acrylic paint, some dry-brushing with light grey and some rust traces, before it was sealed overall with matt acrylic varnish and received some dirt stains with mixed watercolors and finally, after the tracks had been mounted, some artist pigments as physical dust on the lower areas.

Again a project that appeared simple but turned out to be more demanding because the parts would not fit as well as expected. The resulting bunker breaker looks plausible, less massive than the real Sturmtiger but still a menacing sight.

+++ 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 Parder was a successor of the Tiger I & II tanks, combining the latter's thick armor with the armor sloping used on the Panther medium tank (which was, in fact, inspired by Soviet designs, most of all by the T-34). While several Entwicklungspanzer designs were under development, the Parder was a short-term attempt to overcome the Tiger II's main shortcoming: its weight of almost seventy metric tons (it was protected by up to 180 mm/7.1" of front armor!), the resulting lack of mobility and an overburdened drivetrain originally intended for a lighter vehicle. Leaking seals and gaskets also took their toll on reliability.

The Parder was issued to heavy tank battalions of the Army (Schwere Heerespanzerabteilung – abbreviated s.H.Pz.Abt) where it replaced the Tiger I & II.

Specifications:

Crew Four (commander, gunner, loader, driver)

Weight 54 tonnes (60 short tons)

Length 7.02 metres (23 ft in) (hull only)

10.64 metres (34 ft 10 1/3 in) with gun forward

Width 3.88 metres (12 ft 9 in)

4.14 metres (13 ft 6 3/4 in) with optional Thoma shields

Height 2.84 metres (9 ft 4 in) w/o AA machine gun

Suspension torsion-bar

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

Fuel capacity: 820 l (180 imp gal; 220 US gal)

Armor:

30–120 mm (1.2 – 4.7 in)

Performance:

Speed

- Maximum, road: 41.5 km/h (25.8 mph)

- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)

- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)

Operational range: 240 km (150 mi)

Power/weight: 12,96 PS/tonne (11,5 hp/ton)

Engine:

V-12 Maybach HL 230 P30 gasoline with 700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW)

Transmission:

Maybach OLVAR EG 40 12 16 B (8 forward and 4 reverse)

Armament:

1× 8.8 cm KwK 43 L/71 with 80 rounds

1× co-axial 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 34 with 3.000 rounds

The kit and its assembly:

Something different… a whif tank! This was spawned from curiosity and the “wish” to build a German vehicle that would fit right into the E-25… E-100 range of experimental tanks.

It was to become a battle tank, and while browsing options and donation kits, I settled upon a replacement for the formidable but heavy and cumbersome Tiger B, also known as Tiger II, Königstiger or (wrongfully translated) King Tiger.

Anyway, creating a tank that would look (late war) German and still be whiffy was trickier than expected, and finally easier than expected, too. My solution would be a kit bashing: using many Tiger B parts (including the stylish Porsche tower and the running gear) and combining it with a hull that would offer better armor angles and look less “boxy”.

I effectively bashed two kits: one is the excellent 1:72 early Tiger B from Dragon, the other is Roden’s Soviet IS-3 tank – also very nice, even though the styrene is somewhat brittle.

My biggest fear was the running gear – combining the IS-3 hull with the Tiger B’s totally different legs scared me a lot – until I found that the parts from both kits (the Tiger B’s lower hull with all the suspension and the IS-3’s upper hull) could be combined rather easily combined. Just some cuts and improvised intersections, and the “new” tank hull was done!

As a side effect, the huge turret moved forward, and this considerably changes the silhouette. The IS-3’s opening had only to be widened slightly in order to accept the Porsche turret. Things matched up pretty well, also concerning size and proportions.

Otherwise, not much was changed. All wheels and tracks come from the Trumpeter Tiger B, the turret was also borrowed wholesale. I just changed some details (e. g. moving the spare track elements to the hull front), added some handles and also a heavy AA machine gun on the commander’s cupola, which is OOB, too.

Too simple? Well, for me it was not enough. For a more personal edge to the kit I decided to add Thoma skirts! Not the massive 5mm plates you frequently see on late Panzer IV tanks and its derivatives, rather the mesh type – lighter, less material-consuming, and a very special detail.

These were scratched. There are PE sets available, but that was too expensive and I was not certain if such items would fit in shape and size? So I made a cardboard template for the flanks and built a pair of skirts from styrene strips and a fine PET mesh that I had salvaged from a wallet long time ago.

The stuff is hard to glue onto something, so the styrene frame had to carry the mesh parts – and it works! The attachments to the hull were also scratched from styrene.

The Thoma shields add more width to the flat tank, but I think that they set the kit even more apart than just the borrowed IS-3 hull?

Painting and markings:

Hmmm, not totally happy with the finish. This was supposed to become a simple Hinterhalt (Ambush) paint scheme in Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown, but I did so much weathering that not much from the scheme can be recognized…

Painting was straightforward, though – I used Humbrol 94 and 173 as well as Modelmaster’s RAL 6003 as basic colors. The scheme’s benchmark is the official Tiger B scheme.

The basic colors received mottles in green on the yellow and yellow on the green and brown, and then the thing was thoroughly weathered with a black ink wash, dry-brushing, some aquarelle paint to simulate dust, and finally some pigments that simulate mud.

The tracks are made from soft vinyl, and also received a paint treatment in order to get rid of that shiny vinyl look: at first, with a mix of black and silver, which was immediately wiped off again, and later with a second, similar turn with silver and dark brown.

The mud was added just before the whole running gear was mounted as one of the final assembly stages, and final retouches were made with acrylic umbra paint.

Alas, I think I overdid it – much of the formidable and very attractive paint scheme was lost, even though the yucky, brownish finish now also works fine and looks like rough duty?

So, an experiment with good and bad results. Certainly not the last whif tank (at least one more on the agenda), and after so many aircraft a new kind of challenge. ^^

+++ 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 origins of the Henschel Hs 165 date back to early 1937, when the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM, German Ministry of Aviation) issued a specification for a carrier-based torpedo bomber to operate from Germany's first aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin construction of which had started at the end of 1936. The specification was originally issued to two aircraft producers, Fieseler and Arado, and demanded an all-metal biplane with a maximum speed of at least 300 km/h (186 mph), a range of at least 1,000 km and capable both of torpedo and dive-bombing. By the summer of 1938 the Fieseler design proved to be superior to the Arado design, the Ar 195.

Anyway, by the time the Fi 167 prototype was ready for tests and proved its excellent handling, the biplane layout was already outdated and did not promise much development potential. Therefore, the RLM's request was repeated in late 1938 and a monoplane requested. Since the Graf Zeppelin was not expected to be completed before the end of 1940, the RLM did not put much pressure behind the project.

In service, they were gradually replaced by Ju 88 torpedo bombers and the Fw 190 A-5a/U14, which was able to carry a single torpedo, too, but offered a much better performance than the heavy and large Hs 165.

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 (pilot and observer/gunner)

Length: 11.08 m (36 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 13.95 m (45 ft 9 in)

Height: 4.18 m (13 ft 8 in)

Wing area: 26.8 m² (288 ft²)

Empty weight: 9,725 lb (4,411 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 14,300 lb (6,486 kg)

Powerplant:

1 × BMW 801A air-cooled 14 cylinder two row radial engine, 1,700 hp (1,250 kW)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 302 mph (262 kn, 486 km/h) at 11,000 ft (3,350 m)

Cruise speed: 235 mph (204 kn, 378 km/h)

Range: 1,400 miles (1,220 nmi, 2,253 km)

Service ceiling: 22,500 ft (6,860 m)

Wing loading: 43.1 lb/ft² (210 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.12 hp/lb (0.19 kW/kg)

Armament:

2× 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon in the wings

2 × 13 mm MG 131 machine gun above the engine

1 × 7.92 mm MG 81Z, firing backwards

1× 1000 kg (2,200 lb) bomb, or

1× 765 kg (1,685 lb) torpedo, or

1 × 500 kg (1,100 lb) bomb plus 4 × 50 kg (110 lb) bombs, or

4 × 250 kg (551 lb) ventrally

The kit and its assembly:

Another entry for the 2016 "In the Navy" Group Build at whatfimodelers.com, and in this case a complete kitbash for a fictional aircraft. Originally, this idea started as a Hs 126 on floats, which then turned into a low wing aircraft (in the Ju 87 class) and finally evolved into a carrier-capable torpedo bomber. Pretty dramatic evolution, but once the plan was settled, things quickly turned into hardware.

Ingredients include:

- Fuselage, cockpit and stabilizers (though mounted differently) from an Italeri Hs 126

- Wings from a Mastercraft (ex ZTM Plastyk) PZL 23 Karas, with the ventral gondala removed

- Landing gear from a Matchbox He 70, wheels from a Mastercraft Su-22;

- Engine/cowling from an Academy Fw 190, plus various donation parts and a putty plug

- Canopy from a Matchbox Brewster Buffalo

- German torpedo from the spares box (IIRC from an Italeri He 111)

Even though this is a kitbash, work was rather easy and straightforward, because most of the parts come from OOB donation kits. First, the Hs 126 fuselage was finished without an interior and the Fw 190 nose section transplanted. Inside, a styrene tube was added in order to hold the propeller and let it spin freely. In parallel, the landing gear wells were cut into the wings and the flaps separated/opened. Then the canopy was integrated into the fuselage, using styrene strips and putty.

For the wings, a wide opening had to be cut into the Hs 126’s lower fuselage, and the parts took some putty work to blend together.

Once the wings were in place, the landing gear was mounted as well as the scratched torpedo hardpoint. The cockpit interior followed suit with new seats and two figures, then the Buffalo canopy was modified for the rear machine gun mount and glued into place.

Painting and markings:

I wanted a rather "dry", typical German livery, and settled for a simple splinter scheme with a low waterline in the naval colors RLM 72 (a kind of very dark olive drab) and 73 (a bluish, very dark green) with light blue (RLM 65) undersides.

In this case I used enamels from the Modelmaster Authentic range, treated with a light black ink wash and with serious panel shading (with Humbrol 66 and a mix of Humbrol 30 + 77, respectively), because some color pictures I got hands on from early German naval aircraft (e. g. He 115 or Ar 196) suggest that the two murky, green tones weathered and bleached easily, and the enhanced contrast between the very similar colors was IMHO helpful, anyway.

The interior and the landing gearw as painted in contemporary RLM 02, the torpedo is simple black with a gun metal tip and a brass propeller.

The markings had to be puzzled together; I originally wanted the kit to be part of one of the Küstenfliegergruppen, in particular KüFliGr 106. But in mid 1943, these were partly integrated into the Kampffliegergruppen, and offensive parts of KüFliGr 106 were added to KG 6. It took some time to figure out where KG 6 was operating in the time frame I wanted to place the Hs 165, and eventually found 8./KG 6 from the third group that was based in Belgium at that time and flew Ju 88 torpedo bombers - so I added the Hs 165 to that squadron.

As a side effect, the aircraft would not carry any of the fuselage bands or other bright ID markings - the only color highlights are the red wing tip and the individual code "K" letter, and I used a grey decal for the 8th squadron's code letter "S" for better contrast with the dark green livery. Another "highlight" is a KG 6 emblem behind the engine, which I found on a Peddinghaus Decals sheet in the stash. Anyway, this minimal and very conservative livery does not look bad at all, though?

A complex kitbashing,done in about a week, and despite some trouble and major body work the result looks IMHO very good - especially the flight scenes, with the retracted (retouched...) landing gear show the sleek lines of the Hs 126, the fictional Hs 165 looks pretty fast and purposeful. And with a different engine, this could also carry some Hinomaru - the thing reminds me a lot of Japanese torpedo bombers (e. g. the B5N?) and carrier-borne reconnaissance aircraft?

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 Supermarine Jetfire was a stopgap solution in order to introduce a jet-powered interceptor agains German V-1 missiles that threatened the London region from June 1944 on. At that time, the only aircraft with the low-altitude speed to be effective against it was the Hawker Tempest, but fewer than 30 Tempests were available. They were assigned to No. 150 Wing RAF, and early attempts to intercept and destroy V-1s often failed.

Despite many shortcomings (sluggish acceleration, poor climb and agility except for a very good roll rate), the still rather experimental and primitive Jetfire was able to fulfill its intended V-1 interception role, and two V-1 interceptions were achieved during the following weeks. In the front line units they were quickly replaced by more effective types like the Gloster Meteor, the Hawker Tempest or the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. Anyway, the Jetfire was still helpful to path the RAF’s way for operational jet fighters and helped discover new high speed problems, including compressibility buffeting at higher speeds, causing increased drag, and it showed clearly the limits of traditional fighter aircraft designs.

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 31 ft 8 in (9.66 m)

Wingspan: 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m)

Height: 10 ft 0 in (3.05 m)

Wing area: 242.1 sq ft (22.49 m2)

Airfoil: NACA 2213 (root), NACA 2209.4 (tip)

Empty weight: 8,434 lb (3,826 kg)

Gross weight: 12,211 lb (5,539 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce B.37 Derwent turbojet, 2,000 lbf (8.9 kN) static thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 748 km/h (468 mph)

Range: 395 km (247 miles) with internal fuel only

Service ceiling: 12,750 m (41,820 ft)

Rate of climb: 12 m/s (2362 ft/min)

Thrust/weight: 0.45

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

Armament:

2× 20 mm British Hispano MkV cannons (120 RPG) and

2× 12,7 mm (0.5") machine guns (250 RPG) in the outer wings

Provision for up to six "60lb" 3" rockets under the outer wings,

or two 500 lb (227 kg) bombs, or a pair of drop tanks

The kit and its assembly:

The first entry for the "Old Kit" group build at whatifmodelers.com in late 2016 - anything goes, the kit's mould just has to date back to 1985 and further. For this one I settled on the FROG Spitfire Mk. XIV, which, AFAIK, dates back to 1969, and an engine donor from a KP Yak-23, which is supposed to have hit the markets behind the Iron Curtain in 1981.

Originally, the background story pretty much sums up the idea behind this kitbash: How could the - already fast - Spitfire be further augmented with one of the new jet engines around 1944, when V1 attacks started against the British main land and the Meteor was still in development? A simple engine swap with as much airframe of the piston-engine ancestor would be the answer. Similar ideas had been undertaken in Germany, with re-engined versions of the Bf 109 and the Fw 190, and after WWII, when German jet technology had become available to the Soviet Union, the Yak-15/17/23 family followed a similar pattern.

The Yak-23 came as a natural donation aircraft for the Derwent nose. After careful measures and strategic cuts the Spitfire lost its Griffon engine (already earmarked for another kitbash...) and the Yak-23 its nose and exhaust pipe: the original plan had been to use a central, ventral exhaust pipe under the cockpit, even though this would create issues with the tail wheel (just as on the Yak-15 - it received in service an all-metal tail wheel! Imagine the sparks on the runway...).

Anyway, while dry-fitting the parts it turned out that pretty little of the Yak-23 exhaust section could be mounted with clean lines: I'd either have had to create a semi-recessed exhaust with lots of body work (and pretty implausible), or switch to a totally different solution.

That came with a bifurcated exhaust pipe, running along the wing roots and ending at the wings' trailing edge. While this sounds weird, too, the Hawker SeaHawk actually had such an arrangement - on a service aircraft!

As a side effect, the fairings for the jet pipes now offered a good basis for the necessary intersection between the round and bulky Derwent nose fairing and the narrow, oval Spitfire fuselage.

The new jet pipes were created with styrene tubes and lots of putty, and the result does not look bad at all. Actually, with the deleted radiators and the Griffon carburetor intake gone, the aircraft has a very sleek profile, even though the top view reveals the innate "pod and boom" layout of the nose-mounted centrifugal jet engine.

The latter received a new intake interior with some fine mesh and a central bullet fairing (the Yak-23's vertical splitter would not make any sense, since there'd be no nose wheel anymore). The landing gear was taken more or less OOB, I just added some struts and extra wheel covers. The tail wheel comes from an Airfix Hawker Hurricane and changed into a fully retractable arrangement. The cockpit was taken OOB, too, just a tank dummy was added behind the pilot's seat and the canopy sliced into three pieces for an optional open display.

The "E wing" armament was taken over from the Spitfire Mk. XIV, I just added the elegant drop/slipper tanks from the Yak-23 kit. This breaks up the clean lines of the "Jetfire", but I think that the thirsty Derwent might have needed some extra fuel for a decent approach range and some loiter time while intercepting incoming V-1s?

The V-1 from the FROG kit was built for the flight scenes, too. It’s a very simple model consisting only of four parts with rather mediocre fir, esp. the pulse engine halves, but a fairly good representation. Maybe the propeller for the fuse timer is missing, but that can be scratched easily.

Only personal additions are a grate in the air intake, and a hidden adapter for a display, for the pics. Maybe this flying bomb ends up later as ordnance under a German bomber build?

Painting and markings:

Very conservative, late war RAF Dark Green/Ocean Grey/Medium Sea Grey with typical ID markings and codes. 616 Squadron was chosen because it was one of the units that introduced the Meteor for V-1 interception.

Paints are basically enamels from the ModelMaster Authentic range. The Sky fuselage band was improvised with a decal from a vintage Matchbox Brewster Buffalo (matching the the Sky code letters from Xtradecal pretty well), while the codes and serial numbers themselves were created from single letter digits (the "/G" addition to the serial number signaled that the aircraft was to be guarded at any time while on the ground).

The cockpit interior was painted in very dark grey while the landing gear became aluminum. As a highlight, the air intake edge was painted with silver, more for a dramatic effect than for realism.

The yellow wing leading edge markings were created with generic decal sheet material. The only special markings on the aircraft are the white stripes on tail and wings, which I also used to underlay the serial code.

Only little panel-shading and weathering was done, some panel lines were manually created with a fine pencil since a lot of surface details on the fuselage were lost during the extensive PSR process around the wing/jet pipes area.

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

The V-1 has painted with no special paradigm in mind, with RLM81 upper surfaces and RLM 76 undersides, with a very wavy waterline and some grey patches on the wings. The engine was painted with aluminum first and then a thin coat of red primer added.

The resulting aircraft of this kitbash looks better than expected, even though the change of the exhaust arrangement came unexpected – even though I think the Jetfire became more appealing through the side pipes, despite the overall tadpole proportions.

As a side note, the story is not over yet, because there’s an engine-less Yak-23 left over, and I wonder what it might look like with a piston engine grafted to the empty nose?

+++ 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 Supermarine Jetfire was a stopgap solution in order to introduce a jet-powered interceptor agains German V-1 missiles that threatened the London region from June 1944 on. At that time, the only aircraft with the low-altitude speed to be effective against it was the Hawker Tempest, but fewer than 30 Tempests were available. They were assigned to No. 150 Wing RAF, and early attempts to intercept and destroy V-1s often failed.

Despite many shortcomings (sluggish acceleration, poor climb and agility except for a very good roll rate), the still rather experimental and primitive Jetfire was able to fulfill its intended V-1 interception role, and two V-1 interceptions were achieved during the following weeks. In the front line units they were quickly replaced by more effective types like the Gloster Meteor, the Hawker Tempest or the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. Anyway, the Jetfire was still helpful to path the RAF’s way for operational jet fighters and helped discover new high speed problems, including compressibility buffeting at higher speeds, causing increased drag, and it showed clearly the limits of traditional fighter aircraft designs.

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 31 ft 8 in (9.66 m)

Wingspan: 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m)

Height: 10 ft 0 in (3.05 m)

Wing area: 242.1 sq ft (22.49 m2)

Airfoil: NACA 2213 (root), NACA 2209.4 (tip)

Empty weight: 8,434 lb (3,826 kg)

Gross weight: 12,211 lb (5,539 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce B.37 Derwent turbojet, 2,000 lbf (8.9 kN) static thrust

Performance:

Maximum speed: 748 km/h (468 mph)

Range: 395 km (247 miles) with internal fuel only

Service ceiling: 12,750 m (41,820 ft)

Rate of climb: 12 m/s (2362 ft/min)

Thrust/weight: 0.45

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

Armament:

2× 20 mm British Hispano MkV cannons (120 RPG) and

2× 12,7 mm (0.5") machine guns (250 RPG) in the outer wings

Provision for up to six "60lb" 3" rockets under the outer wings,

or two 500 lb (227 kg) bombs, or a pair of drop tanks

The kit and its assembly:

The first entry for the "Old Kit" group build at whatifmodelers.com in late 2016 - anything goes, the kit's mould just has to date back to 1985 and further. For this one I settled on the FROG Spitfire Mk. XIV, which, AFAIK, dates back to 1969, and an engine donor from a KP Yak-23, which is supposed to have hit the markets behind the Iron Curtain in 1981.

Originally, the background story pretty much sums up the idea behind this kitbash: How could the - already fast - Spitfire be further augmented with one of the new jet engines around 1944, when V1 attacks started against the British main land and the Meteor was still in development? A simple engine swap with as much airframe of the piston-engine ancestor would be the answer. Similar ideas had been undertaken in Germany, with re-engined versions of the Bf 109 and the Fw 190, and after WWII, when German jet technology had become available to the Soviet Union, the Yak-15/17/23 family followed a similar pattern.

The Yak-23 came as a natural donation aircraft for the Derwent nose. After careful measures and strategic cuts the Spitfire lost its Griffon engine (already earmarked for another kitbash...) and the Yak-23 its nose and exhaust pipe: the original plan had been to use a central, ventral exhaust pipe under the cockpit, even though this would create issues with the tail wheel (just as on the Yak-15 - it received in service an all-metal tail wheel! Imagine the sparks on the runway...).

Anyway, while dry-fitting the parts it turned out that pretty little of the Yak-23 exhaust section could be mounted with clean lines: I'd either have had to create a semi-recessed exhaust with lots of body work (and pretty implausible), or switch to a totally different solution.

That came with a bifurcated exhaust pipe, running along the wing roots and ending at the wings' trailing edge. While this sounds weird, too, the Hawker SeaHawk actually had such an arrangement - on a service aircraft!

As a side effect, the fairings for the jet pipes now offered a good basis for the necessary intersection between the round and bulky Derwent nose fairing and the narrow, oval Spitfire fuselage.

The new jet pipes were created with styrene tubes and lots of putty, and the result does not look bad at all. Actually, with the deleted radiators and the Griffon carburetor intake gone, the aircraft has a very sleek profile, even though the top view reveals the innate "pod and boom" layout of the nose-mounted centrifugal jet engine.

The latter received a new intake interior with some fine mesh and a central bullet fairing (the Yak-23's vertical splitter would not make any sense, since there'd be no nose wheel anymore). The landing gear was taken more or less OOB, I just added some struts and extra wheel covers. The tail wheel comes from an Airfix Hawker Hurricane and changed into a fully retractable arrangement. The cockpit was taken OOB, too, just a tank dummy was added behind the pilot's seat and the canopy sliced into three pieces for an optional open display.

The "E wing" armament was taken over from the Spitfire Mk. XIV, I just added the elegant drop/slipper tanks from the Yak-23 kit. This breaks up the clean lines of the "Jetfire", but I think that the thirsty Derwent might have needed some extra fuel for a decent approach range and some loiter time while intercepting incoming V-1s?

The V-1 from the FROG kit was built for the flight scenes, too. It’s a very simple model consisting only of four parts with rather mediocre fir, esp. the pulse engine halves, but a fairly good representation. Maybe the propeller for the fuse timer is missing, but that can be scratched easily.

Only personal additions are a grate in the air intake, and a hidden adapter for a display, for the pics. Maybe this flying bomb ends up later as ordnance under a German bomber build?

Painting and markings:

Very conservative, late war RAF Dark Green/Ocean Grey/Medium Sea Grey with typical ID markings and codes. 616 Squadron was chosen because it was one of the units that introduced the Meteor for V-1 interception.

Paints are basically enamels from the ModelMaster Authentic range. The Sky fuselage band was improvised with a decal from a vintage Matchbox Brewster Buffalo (matching the the Sky code letters from Xtradecal pretty well), while the codes and serial numbers themselves were created from single letter digits (the "/G" addition to the serial number signaled that the aircraft was to be guarded at any time while on the ground).

The cockpit interior was painted in very dark grey while the landing gear became aluminum. As a highlight, the air intake edge was painted with silver, more for a dramatic effect than for realism.

The yellow wing leading edge markings were created with generic decal sheet material. The only special markings on the aircraft are the white stripes on tail and wings, which I also used to underlay the serial code.

Only little panel-shading and weathering was done, some panel lines were manually created with a fine pencil since a lot of surface details on the fuselage were lost during the extensive PSR process around the wing/jet pipes area.

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

The V-1 has painted with no special paradigm in mind, with RLM81 upper surfaces and RLM 76 undersides, with a very wavy waterline and some grey patches on the wings. The engine was painted with aluminum first and then a thin coat of red primer added.

The resulting aircraft of this kitbash looks better than expected, even though the change of the exhaust arrangement came unexpected – even though I think the Jetfire became more appealing through the side pipes, despite the overall tadpole proportions.

As a side note, the story is not over yet, because there’s an engine-less Yak-23 left over, and I wonder what it might look like with a piston engine grafted to the empty nose?

+++ 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 Ukrainian independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Air Force (Повітряні Сили України, Povitryani Syly Ukrayiny) was established on March 17, 1992, in accordance with a Directive of the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, many aircraft were left on Ukrainian territory, including a wide range of fighters and attack aircraft, helicopters and even strategic bombers, and these became the initial equipment. Ever since, the Ukrainian air force has been downsizing and upgrading its forces, but for many years the main inventory still consisted of Soviet-made aircraft.

Since their introduction, the Ukrainian F-16s have been fulfilling QRA duties and airspace patrol, and the corresponding maintenance infrastructure has been gradually built up, so that F-16 operations became independent from Poland in 2019. With the worsening relationship to Russia, more military hardware of Western origin is expected to enter Ukrainian service. If the tight Ukrainian defense budget allows it, twenty more 2nd hand F-16s are to be delivered in 2021 to replace more Soviet fighter types (primarily the rest of the Ukrainian MiG-29 “Fulcrum” single and two seater fleet), and the procurement of LANTIRN pods to expand the type’s capabilities is under consideration and negotiations, too.

General characteristics:

Length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)

Wingspan: 32 ft 8 in (9.96 m)

Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)

Wing area: 300 sq ft (28 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 64A204

Empty weight: 18,900 lb (8,573 kg)

Gross weight: 26,500 lb (12,020 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 42,300 lb (19,187 kg)

Internal fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg)

Powerplant:

1× General Electric F110-GE-100 afterburning turbofan

with 17,155 lbf (76.31 kN) dry and 28,600 lbf (127 kN) thrust with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: Mach 2.05 at altitude in clean configuration

Mach 1.2, 800 kn (921 mph; 1,482 km/h) at sea level

Combat range: 295 nmi (339 mi, 546 km) on a hi-lo-hi mission with 4x 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs

Ferry range: 2,277 nmi (2,620 mi, 4,217 km) with drop tanks

Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (15,000 m) plus

g limits: +9.0 (limited by flight control system)

Rate of climb: +50,000 ft/min (250 m/s)

Wing loading: 88.3 lb/sq ft (431 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 1.095 (1.24 with loaded weight & 50% internal fuel)

Armament:

1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon with 511 rounds

2× wing-tip air-to-air missile launch rails plus 6× under-wing

and 3× under-fuselage pylon (2 of these for sensors) stations

with a capacity of up to 17,000 lb (7,700 kg) of a wide range of stores

The kit and its assembly:

I am not a big F-16 fan, but in some cases it’s an unavoidable canvas – just like in this case here. This fictional aircraft model (or better: this model of a [yet] fictional F-16 operator) was spawned by two ideas. One was the simple question: what if the Ukraine had after the USSR’s dissolution chosen a stronger attachment to (old) Western forces after the dissolution of the USSSR? And/or: what if the Ukraine had started to procure non-Russian equipment, esp. aircraft? So, what would an Ukrainian F-16 might have looked like, in general but esp. after the Crimea annexation in 2014 when such a scenario had become even more possible?

The other source of inspiration was a picture of an Ukrainian Su-24 with grey digital camouflage, a scheme that was/is also worn by some Su-25s. When I stumbled upon an Authentic Decals sheet for this unique paint scheme that allows to apply the complex and delicate pattern through water-slide transfers, I thought that the relatively “flat” F-16 surface would be an ideal basis to try this stunt?

What sounded like a very simple livery whif on an OOB model turned into a construction nightmare. Originally, this project provided me with a purpose for a dubious Trumpeter F-16 kit that I had bought some years ago – dead cheap, but righteously so. This kit is cruel, the model even has no concrete variant specification and is apparently the re-boxing of a kit from an obscure Chinese company called “Income”. Effectively, the Trumpeter F-16 is a rip-off of Italeri’s quite nice F-16C/D kit – but the Income/Trumpeter clone comes with MUCH deeper engravings esp. on the fuselage that remind a lot of the dreaded Matchbox “trenches”. Everything is rather “soft” and toylike, the clear parts are poor and the (few) decals look like toy stickers (!!!). I’d call it crude, even the instructions are apparently poor scans or photocopies from the Italeri kit, including hints for detail painting with no corresponding reference what colors should be used at all… All that could have been overlooked, but after starting with the kit I could not commit myself to use it any further. It’s rare that I give up because of a kit’s basis!

Next idea to “save” the project’s idea of an Ukrainian F-16 was to dig out a surplus Intech F-16 from the pile, also bought long ago because it was cheap, as conversion fodder. This kit has also been re-released in infinite variations under the Mister-/Mastercraft label. Upon closer inspection this kit turned out to have massive flaws, too, but in different areas from the Trumpeter thing. For instance, the Intech kit’s wings are utterly thick, certainly 1mm thicker than the Trumpeter model’s parts. This does not sound much, but on the really thin F-16 wings and stabilizers this looks really awful! Furthermore, the clear parts had not been fully molded, so I’d have needed a replacement canopy, anyway. Again, I gave up on building…

…until I decided to make the best of this mess and combine the “best” parts from both gimp models, trying to mend the worst flaws to an acceptable level. This led to the glorious kitbashing that this model eventually became! From the Intech kit I took the acceptable fuselage, including cockpit interior, air intake and landing gear, as well as the fin and the weapon pylons. The Trumpeter kit donated its thinner wings and the stabilizers, as well as the much better open exhaust nozzle (there’s an optional closed one, too; the Intech kit only offers an open nozzle, without ANY surface detail at all, it’s just a blank pipe!).

Beyond these basic ingredients, some more donors became necessary: All clear parts from both Intech and Trumpeter kit turned out to be rubbish for various reasons. The decision to build an F-16D two-seater was dictated by the fact that I had a leftover canopy from an Italeri F-16 kit in the donor bank – luckily it fitted well to the Intech kit’s body. Two crewmen from the spares box populate the cockpit and hide the rather basic interior, which was not improved at all. Furthermore, the ordnance came from external sources, too. The characteristic drop tanks with their cut-off tails were also leftover parts from the Italeri F-16, all AAMs come from a Hasegawa weapon set.

Some PSR was necessary to blend the parts from different kits together – thankfully, almost all F-16 kits are constructed in a similar fashion, even though there are small detail differences. In this case, the wings had to be slightly modified to fit onto the Intech fuselage. However, even those parts from the original kit(s) that are supposed to fit, e.g. the fin or the alternative cockpit opening frames for the optional single- and two-seater canopies, do hardly match at all. Horrible.

I rather focused on the model’s exterior, and a personal addition to improve the overall look of the otherwise rather basic/poor model, I added some small blade antennae that were totally missing on either model. Another extra detail are the small static dischargers on the trailing edges, created with thin, heated sprue material. Only small details, but they improve IMHO the model’s look considerably.

Painting and markings:

Until today, I never dared to apply decal camouflage to a model, but I expected that the flat/smooth F-16 surface would make this stunt relatively easy. This application method would also make painting the model easy, since only a single, uniform color had to be laid down from above and below.

To my surprise, the painting instructions of the Authentic Decals sheet for a number of Ukrainian Su-25 (which all carry the same standardized pixel camouflage) indicated RAL tones – a little surprising, but: why not? Since no other authentic color references were available, I cross-checked the paint suggestions with real life pictures of Su-24s and -25s in this striking paint scheme, and the indicated tones appear very plausible.

The problem: not every RAL tone is available as a model paint, so I had to make guesstimates. This eventually led to Modelmaster 2133 (Fulcrum Grey) as a light grey overall basis (suggested: RAL 7030 Achatgrau/Agate Grey, a tone with a brownish hue) from above and Humbrol 47 (Sea Blue Gloss) for a pale blue underside. The recommendation for the belly is RAL 7001 (Silbergrau/Silver Grey, very close to FS 36375), and this appears plausible, too, even though real-life pictures suggest a more bluish tone. But for a more dramatic look and some color contrast to the upper side’s all-grey I deliberately settled upon the Humbrol color, and this looks IMHO good.

The other suggested grey tones that make up the pixel patterns are RAL 7040 (Fenstergrau/Window Grey), RAL 7037 (Staubgrau/Dust Grey) and RAL 7043 (Verkehrsgrau B/Traffic Grey).

The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140), the air intake and the landing gear in white (Humbrol 22). The exhaust nozzle was painted externally with individual Metallizer mixes (with blue and gold added), while the inside was painted with Burnt Steel Metallizer towards the afterburner section while the ceramic nozzle petals were painted in a pale, almost white grey with darker lines, applied wet-in-wet. This looks pretty good – but does not withstand a closer inspection, just like the rest of this Franken-bashed F-16 thing.

Applying the digital camouflage pattern went better than expected. The decals turned out to be very thin and delicate, though, with almost no excessive clear film outside of the printed areas, so that application had to be executed swiftly and with lots of water to slide them into place. Nothing for modelers who are faint at heart! Because the single pixel clouds partly follow the Su-25 outlines, the decals had partly to be tailored to the rather different F-16 shape, and due to the different proportions I also had to improvise with the material at hand – fortunately the Su-25 sheet offered enough material to cover the F-16! Some small areas lacked decal material and had to be filled through painting, though, with replacement model paints for the aforementioned darker RAL greys, namely Humbrol 246 (RLM 75) and a 2:1 mix of Humbrol 125 and 67. The lightest grey on the prints turned out to be very close to the Fulcrum Grey, so there’s unfortunately very little contrast, and this only became clear after the decals had already dried. However, I left it that way, because lightening the Fulcrum Grey up further would have been a quite messy affair, ending in a rather dirty look that I wanted to avoid, and it had called for an almost white tone.

Another challenge became the weathering process, since I normally apply a black ink wash and some post-panel shading to the finished and painted model before I add the decals to a model. Fearing that the ink might creep under the decals’ clear sections, I left that step out completely. The delicate static dischargers were another complicating factor. So, I decided to finish the upper camouflage with the light grey base and the decals cammo first. This made trimming down excess decal material easier. After that had been roughly finished, the dischargers were added and the underside was painted blue. On top of that came the “normal” decals with national markings, codes and stencils. The latter were mostly taken from a vintage Microscale F-16 sheet, the tactical code came from a Begemot Ka-27 sheet. Since the bort number on the air intake was not well visible frame every angle, I added a white 77 to the fin, too. Thereafter I added some panel lines with the help of thinned black ink and a soft pencil. This way the model appears pretty clean, and I think that’s fine since many recent Ukrainian aircraft I know from pictures look well-tended. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish overall.

A simple F-16 in alternative markings – that’s what this model was supposed to be. I did not expect that the building phase would become such a challenge, and I’d sincerely recommend to any modeler who wants to build a “serious” F-16 in 1:72 to stay away from the Trumpeter and the Intech/Mister-/Mastercraft kits. They might be cheap, but that does not outweigh their flaws and building troubles.

Beyond these technical issues, I like the look of this “Ukrainized” Viper, the digital camouflage looks very special and works well on the aircraft. The light grey base could have been lighter, though. In fact, the F-16 now looks like an exaggerated U.S. Aggressor on first sight, but with the Ukrainian markings the whole thing looks pretty different and conclusive - a “what if” in the best sense. 😉