+++ 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:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 11.38 m (37 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 9.39 m (30 ft 10 in)

Height: 4.30 m (14 ft 1 in)

Wing area: 17.66 m2 (190.1 sq ft)

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

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

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

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

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

Powerplant:

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

Performance:

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

Maximum speed: Mach 1.2 (never exceed at altitude)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

G-limits: +8/-3

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

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

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

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

Armament:

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

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

The kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish from Italeri.

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

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

I'm trying to put together atleast one figure to represent each of the major NATO armies, since no one makes CADPAT we'll say this guy is JTF2 or something seen a lot of pictures of my northern friends in Multicam so I figured this would work.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 11.38 m (37 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 9.39 m (30 ft 10 in)

Height: 4.30 m (14 ft 1 in)

Wing area: 17.66 m2 (190.1 sq ft)

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

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

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

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

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

Powerplant:

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

Performance:

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

Maximum speed: Mach 1.2 (never exceed at altitude)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

G-limits: +8/-3

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

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

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

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

Armament:

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

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

The kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish from Italeri.

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The TIE/LN starfighter, or TIE/line starfighter, simply known as the TIE Fighter or T/F, was the standard Imperial starfighter seen in massive numbers throughout most of the Galactic Civil War and onward.

The TIE Fighter was manufactured by Sienar Fleet Systems and led to several upgraded TIE models such as TIE/sa bomber, TIE/IN interceptor, TIE/D Defender, TIE/D automated starfighter, and many more.

The TIE/E played a central role in the Empire's campaign against rogue Grand Admiral Demetrius Zaarin, and mixed Defender and Escort units participated in several other battles, including the Battle of Endor. The TIE Escort continued to see limited use by the Imperial Remnant up to at least 44 ABY, and was involved in numerous conflicts, including the Yuuzhan Vong War..

The kit and its assembly:

Another group build contribution, this time to the Science Fiction GB at whatifmodelers.com during summer 2017. Originally, this one started as an attempt to build a vintage MPC TIE Interceptor kit which I had bought and half-heartedly started to build probably 20 years ago. But I did not have the right mojo (probably, The Force was not strong enough…?), so the kit ended up in a dark corner and some parts were donated to other projects.

The sun collectors were still intact, though, and in the meantime I had the idea of reviving the kit’s remains, and convert it into (what I thought was) a fictional TIE Fighter variant with three solar panels. For this plan I got myself another TIE Interceptor kit, and stashed it away, too. Mojo was still missing, though.

Well, then came the SF GB and I took it as an occasion to finally tackle the build. But when I prepared for the build I found out that my intended design (over the years) more or less actually existed in the Star Wars universe: the TIE/D Defender! I could have built it with the parts and hand and some improvisation, but the design similarity bugged me. Well, instead of a poor copy of something that was more or less clearly defined, I rather decided to create something more individual, yet plausible, from the parts at hand.

The model was to stay a TIE design, though, in order to use as much donor material from the MPC kits as possible. Doing some legwork, I settled for a heavy fighter – bigger than the TIE Interceptor and the TIE/D fighter, a two-seater.

Working out the basic concept and layout took some time and evolved gradually. The creative spark for the TIE/E eventually came through a Revell “Obi Wan’s Jedi Starfighter” snap fit kit in my pile – actually a prize from a former GB participation at phoxim.de (Thanks a lot, Wolfgang!), and rather a toy than a true model kit.

The Jedi Fighter was in so far handy as it carries some TIE Fighter design traits, like the pilot capsule and the characteristic spider web windscreen. Anyway, it’s 1:32, much bigger than the TIE Interceptor’s roundabout 1:50 scale – but knowing that I’d never build the Jedi Starfighter OOB I used it as a donor bank, and from this starting point things started to evolve gradually.

Work started with the cockpit section, taken from the Jedi Starfighter kit. The two TIE Interceptor cockpit tubs were then mounted inside, staggered, and the gaps to the walls filled with putty. A pretty messy task, and once the shapes had been carved out some triangular tiles were added to the surfaces – a detail I found depicted in SW screenshots and some TIE Fighter models.

Another issue became the crew – even though I had two MPC TIE Interceptors and, theorectically, two pilot figures, only one of them could be found and the second crewman had to be improvised. I normally do not build 1:48 scale things, but I was lucky (and happy) to find an SF driver figure, left over from a small Dougram hoovercraft kit (from Takara, as a Revell “Robotech” reboxing). This driver is a tad bigger than the 1:50 TIE pilot, but I went with it because I did not want to invest money and time in alternatives. In order to justify the size difference I decided to paint the Dougram driver as a Chiss, based on the expanded SW universe (with blue skin and hair, and glowing red eyes). Not certain if this makes sense during the Battle of Endor timeframe, but it adds some color to the project – and the cockpit would not be visible in much detail since it would be finished fully closed.

Reason behind the closed canopy is basically the poor fit of the clear part. OOB, this is intended as an action toy – but also the canopy’s considerable size in 1:50 would prevent its original opening mechanism.

Additional braces on the rel. large window panels were created with self-adhesive tape and later painted over.

The rear fuselage section and the solar panel pylons were scratched. The reactor behind the cockpit section is actually a plastic adapter for water hoses, found in a local DIY market. It was slightly modified, attached to the cockpit “egg” and both parts blended with putty. The tail opening was closed with a hatch from the OOB TIE Interceptor – an incidental but perfect match in size and style.

The three pylons are also lucky finds: actually, these are SF wargaming/tabletop props and would normally be low walls or barriers, made from resin. For my build, they were more or less halved and trimmed. Tilted by 90°, they are attached to the hull with iron wire stabilizers, and later blended to the hull with putty, too.

Once the cockpit was done, things moved more swiftly. The surface of the hull was decorated with many small bits and pieces, including thin styrene sheet and profiles, steel and iron wire in various strengths, and there are even 1:72 tank tracks hidden somewhere, as well as protective caps from syringes (main guns and under the rear fuselage). It’s amazing how much stuff you can add to such a model – but IMHO it’s vital in order to create some structure and to emulate the (early) Star Wars look.

Painting and markings:

The less spectacular part of the project, even though still a lot of work because of the sheer size of the model’s surface. Since the whole thing is fictional, I tried to stay true to the Imperial designs from Episode IV-VI and gave the TIE/E a simple, all-light grey livery. All basic painting was done with rattle cans.

Work started with a basic coat of grey primer. On top of that, an initial coat of RAL 7036 Platingrau was added, esp. to the lower surfaces and recesses, for a rough shading effect. Then, the actual overall tone, RAL 7047, called “Telegrau 4”, one of Deutsche Telekom’s corporate tones, was added - mostly sprayed from abone and the sides onto the model. Fuselage and panels were painted separately, overall assembly was one of the final steps.

The solar panels were to stand out from the grey rest of the model, and I painted them with Revell Acrylic “Iron Metallic” (91) first, and later applied a rather rich wash with black ink , making sure the color settled well into the many small cells. The effect is pretty good, and the contrast was slightly enhanced through a dry-brushing treatment.

Only a few legible stencils were added all around the hull (most from the scrap box or from mecha sheets), the Galactic Empire Seal were inkjet-printed at home, as well as some tactical markings on the flanks, puzzled together from single digits in "Aurebash", one of the Imperial SW languages/fonts.

For some variety and color highlights, dozens of small, round and colorful markings were die-punched from silver, yellow, orange, red and blue decal sheet and were placed all over the hull - together with the large panels they blur into the the overall appearance, though. The hatches received thin red linings, also made from generic decals strips.

The cockpit interior was a bit challenging, though. Good TIE Fighter cockpit interior pictures are hard to find, but they suggest a dark grey tone. More confusingly, the MPC instructions call for a “Dark Green” cockpit? Well, I did not like the all-grey option, since the spaceship is already monochrome grey on the outside.

As a compromise I eventually used Tamiya XF-65 "Field Grey". The interior recieved a black ink in and dry-brushing treatment, and some instruments ansd screens were created with black decal material and glossy black paint; some neon paint was used for sci-fi-esque conmtraol lamps everywhere - I did not pay too much intention on the interior, since the cockpit would stay closed, and the thick clear material blurs everything inside.

Following this rationale, the crew was also painted in arather minimal fashion - both wear a dark grey uniform, only the Chiss pilot stands aout with his light blue skin and the flourescent red eyes.

After an overall black ink wash the model received a dry brusing treatment with FS 36492 and FS 36495, for a weathered and battle-worn look. After all, the "Vehement" would not survive the Ballte of Endor, but who knows what became of TIE/E "801"'s mixed crew...?

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish, and some final cosmetic corrections made.

The display is a DIY creation, too, made from a 6x6" piece of wood, it's edges covered with edgebonder, a steel wire as holder, and finally the display was paited with semi-matt black acrylic paint from the rattle can.

A complex build, and the TIE/E more or less evolved along the way, with only the overall layout in mind. Work took a month, but I think it was worth the effort. This fantasy creation looks pretty plausible and blends well into the vast canonical TIE Fighter family - and I am happy that I finally could finish this mummy project, including the surplus Jedi Starfighter kit which now also find a very good use!

An epic one, and far outside my standard comfort zone. But a wothwhile build!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 11.38 m (37 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 9.39 m (30 ft 10 in)

Height: 4.30 m (14 ft 1 in)

Wing area: 17.66 m2 (190.1 sq ft)

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

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

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

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

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

Powerplant:

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

Performance:

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

Maximum speed: Mach 1.2 (never exceed at altitude)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

G-limits: +8/-3

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

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

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

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

Armament:

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

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

The kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish from Italeri.

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics.

Crew: 1

Length: 33 ft 9 in (10.36 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft 4 in (11.7 m)

Height: 13 ft (3.96 m)

Wing area: 248 sq ft (23 m²)

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

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

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

Powerplant:

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

Performance:

Maximum speed: 559 mph (900 km/h)

Range: 500 mi (444 nmi, 805 km)

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

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

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

Thrust/weight: 0.45

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

Armament:

4× Hispano M2 20 mm cannon with 150 rounds

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

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

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

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 8.25 m (27 ft 1 in)

Wingspan: 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)

Height: 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m)

Wing area: 323 ft² (30.0 m²)

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

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

Powerplant

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

Performance

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

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

Range: 780 km (420 nmi, 485 mi)

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

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

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

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

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

Armament

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

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

The kit and its assembly

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

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

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

Basically, the following donation ingredients went into it:

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

● Upper wing from a Matchbox Gloster "Gladiator"

● Lower wings from a Matchbox SBC "Helldiver"

● Wheels from a Matchbox Hs 126 (shortened)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Voilà, and done in just about a week!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II. Designed and built by Lockheed in 1943 and delivered just 143 days from the start of design, production models were flying, and two pre-production models did see very limited service in Italy just before the end of World War II. The XP-80 had a conventional all-metal airframe, with a slim low wing and tricycle landing gear. Like most early jets designed during World War II—and before the Allies captured German research data that confirmed the speed advantages of swept-wings—the XP-80 had straight wings similar to previous propeller-driven fighters, but they were relatively thin to minimize drag at high speed.

For the Luftwaffe the F-80E had become obsolete, and to reduce the number of operational aircraft types, the remaining German aircraft, a total of 34, were in 1965 passed through to the Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (Turkish air force) as part of international NATO military support, where they remained in service until 1974 and were replaced by third generation F-4E Phantom II fighter jets.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 36 ft 9 1/2 in (11.23 m)

Wingspan: 37 ft 6 in (11.44 m) over tip tanks

Height: 13 ft 5 1/4 in (4.10 m)

Wing area: 241.3 sq ft (22,52 m²)

Empty weight: 10,681 lb (4.845 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 18,464 lb (8.375 kg)

Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0134

Frontal area: 32 sq ft (3.0 m²)

Powerplant:

1× Allison J33-A-39 centrifugal compressor turbojet with 4,600 lbf (20 kN) dry thrust

and 27.0 kN (6,070 lbf) thrust with afterburning

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,060 km/h (660 mph, 570 kn)

Cruise speed: 439 mph (707 km/h, 381 kn)

Range: 825 mi (1,328 km, 717 nmi)

Ferry range: 1,380 mi (2,220 km, 1,200 nmi)

Service ceiling: 50,900 ft (15,500 m)

Rate of climb: 7,980 ft/min (40.5 m/s)

Time to altitude: 20,000 ft (6,100 m) in 4 minutes 50 seconds

Lift-to-drag: 17.7

Wing loading: 51.3 lb/sq ft (250 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.249 dry

0.328 with afterburner

Armament:

4× 0.79 in (20 mm) M24 cannon (190 rpg)

2x wing tip auxiliary tanks with 225 US gal (187 imp gal; 850 l) each

Underwing hardpoints for a total ordnance load of 4,800 lb (2.200 kg), including

2× 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs, up to 4× pods with nineteen unguided Mighty Mouse FFARs each,

and/or up to 8× 5” (127 mm) HVAR unguided air-to-ground rockets

The kit and its assembly:

The idea of a swept-wing F-80 had been lingering on my idea list for a while, and I actually tried this stunt before in the form of a heavily modified F-94. The recent “Fifties” group build at whatifmodellers.com and a similar build by fellow forum member mat revived the interest in this topic – and inspired by mat’s creation, based on a T-33 fuselage, I decided to use the opportunity and add my personal interpretation of the idea.

Having suitable donor parts at hand was another decisive factor to start this build: I had a Heller T-33 in store, which had already been (ab)used as a donor bank for other projects, and which could now find a good use. I also had an F-80 canopy left over (from an Airfix kit), and my plan was to use Saab J29 wings (from a Matchbox kit) because of their limited sweep angle that would match the post-WWII era well.

Work started with the fuselage; it required a completely new cockpit interior because these parts had already gone elsewhere. I found a cockpit tub with its dashboard from an Italeri F4U, and with some trimming it could be mounted into the reduced cockpit opening, above the OOB front landing gear well. The T-33’s rear seat was faired of with styrene sheet and later PSRed away. The standard nose cone from the Heller T-33 was used, but I added gun ports for the new/different cannon armament.

For a different look with an afterburner engine I modified the tail section under the stabilizers, which was retained because of its characteristic shape. A generous section from the tail was cut away and replaced with the leftover jet pipe from an Italeri (R)F-84F, slightly longer and wider and decorated with innards from a Matchbox Mystère IV. This change is rather subtle but changes the F-80 profile and appears like a compromise between the F-80 and F-94 arrangements.

The T-33 wings were clipped down to the connection lower fuselage part. This ventral plate with integral main landing gear wells was mounted onto the T-33 hull and then the Saab 29 wings were dry-fitted to check their position along the fuselage and to define the main landing gear wells, which had to be cut into them to match their counterparts from the aircraft’s belly.

Their exact position was eventually fixed when the new swept stabilizers, taken from a Hobby Boss F-86, were mounted to the tail. They match well with the swept wings, and for an odd look I kept their dihedral.

The fin was eventually replaced, too – mat’s build retained the original F-80 fin, but with all other surfaces swept I found that the fin had to reflect this, too. So, I implanted a shortened Italeri (R)F-84F fin onto the original base, blended with some PSR into the rest of the tail.

With all aerodynamic surfaces in place it was time for fine-tuning, and to give the aircraft a simpler look I removed the dog teeth from the late Tunnan's outer wings, even though I retained the small LERXs. The wing tips were cut down a little and tip tanks (probably drop tanks from a Hobby Boss F-5E) added – without them the aircraft looked like a juvenile Saab 32!

The landing gear was mostly taken over from the Heller T-33, I just added small consoles for the main landing gear struts to ensure a proper stance, because the new wings and the respective attachment points were deeper. I also had to scratch some landing gear covers because the T-33 donor kit was missing them. The canopy was PSRed over the new opening and a new ejection seat tailored to fit into the F4U cockpit.

A final addition was a pair of pods with unguided FFARs. AFAIK the Luftwaffe did not use such weapons, but they’d make thematically sense on a Fifties anti-bomber interceptor - and I had a suitable pair left over from a Matchbox Mystère IV kit, complete with small pylons.

Painting and markings:

Since the time frame was defined by the Fifties, early Luftwaffe fighters had to carry a bare metal finish, with relatively few decorations. For the F-80E I gave the model an overall base coat with White Aluminum from a Dupli Color rattle can, a very nice and bright silver tone that comes IMHO close to NMF. Panels were post-shaded with Revell 99 (Aluminum) and 91 (Iron Metallic). An anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen was painted in the Luftwaffe tone RAL 6014, Gelboliv (Revell 42).

For some color highlights I gave the tip tanks bright red (Feuerrot, RAL 3000; Revell 330) outer halves, while the inner halves were painted black to avoid reflections that could distract the pilot (seen on a real Luftwaffe T-33 from the late Fifties). For an even more individual touch I added light blue (Tamiya X-14, Sky Blue) highlights on the nose and the fin, reflecting the squadron’s color code which is also carried within the unit emblem – the Tamiya paint came closest to the respective decal (see below).

The cockpit interior was painted with zinc chromate green primer (I used Humbrol 80, which is brighter than the tone should be, but it adds contrast to the black dials on the dashboard), the landing gear wells were painted with a mix of Humbrol 80 and 81, for a more yellowish hue. The landing gear struts became grey, dry-brushed with silver, while the inside of the ventral air brakes were painted in Feuerrot, too.

Then the model received an overall washing with black ink to emphasize the recessed panel lines, plus additional panel shading with Matt Aluminum Metallizer (Humbrol 27001), plus a light rubbing treatment with grinded graphite that emphasized the (few leftover) raised panel lines and also added a dark metallic shine to the silver base. Some of the lost panel lines were simulated with simple pencil strokes, too.

The decals/markings primarily came from an AirDoc aftermarket sheet for late Fifties Luftwaffe F-84Fs. The tactical code (“BB-xxx” was then assigned to the WaSLw 10 as unit code, but this soon changed to a similar but different format that told about the unit’s task as well as the specific unit and squadron within it; this was replaced once more by a simple xx+yy code that was only connected to a specific aircraft with no unit reference anymore, and this format is still in use today) was puzzled together from single letters/digits from the same decal set. Some additional markings like the red band on the fuselage had to be scratched, but most stencils came from an all-bare-metal Luftwaffe F-84F.

After some more detail painting the model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic paint, just the anti-glare panel and the di-electric fairings on the nose and the fin tip became matt.

A thorough kitbashing build, but the result looks quite plausible, if not elegant? The slightly swept wings suit the F-80 with its organic fuselage shape well, even though they reveal the designs rather baroque shape. There’s a sense of obsolescence about the F-80E, despite its modern features? The Luftwaffe markings work well on the aircraft, too, and with the red and blue highlights the machine looks more attractive despite its simple NMF livery than expected.

+++ 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 North American FJ-4 Fury was a swept-wing carrier-capable fighter-bomber for the United States Navy and Marine Corps. The final development in a lineage that included the Air Force's F-86 Sabre, the FJ-4 shared its general layout and engine with the earlier FJ-3, but, compared to that of the FJ-3, the FJ-4's new wing was much thinner, with a six percent thickness-to-chord ratio, and featured skin panels milled from solid alloy plates. It also had an increased area and tapered more sharply towards the tips. Slight camber behind the leading edge improved low speed characteristics. The main landing gear design had to be considerably modified to fold wheel and strut within the contours of the new wing. The track of the main wheels was increased, and because they were closer to the center of gravity, there was less weight on the nosewheel. Wing folding was limited to the outer wing panels.

A total of 1,196 Furies of all variants were received by the Navy and Marine Corps over the course of its production life, including 152 FJ-4s, 222 FJ-4Bs and 102 FJ-5s.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 40 ft 3 in (12.27 m)

Wingspan: 39 ft 1 in (11.9 m)

Height: 13 ft 11 in (4.2 m)

Wing area: 338.66 ft² (31.46 m²)

Empty weight: 13,518 lb (6,132 kg)

Gross weight: 19,975 lb (9,060 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 25,880 lb (11,750 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Wright J65-W-18 turbojet with 7,400 lbf (32.9 kN) dry thrust

and 10,500 lbf (46.7 kN) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: 708 mph (1,139 km/h, 615 kn) at sea level,

737 mph (1,188 km/h/Mach 0.96) at height

Range: 2,020 mi (3,250 km) with 2× 200 gal (760 l) drop tanks and 2× AIM-9 missiles

Service ceiling: 49,750 ft (15,163 m)

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

Wing loading: 69.9 lb/ft² (341.7 kg/m²)

Armament:

4× 20 mm (0.787 in) Colt Mk 12 cannon (144 RPG, 578 rounds in total)

6× underwing hardpoints for 3,000 lb (1,400 kg) of ordnance, including AIM-9 and AIM-7 missiles

The kit and its assembly:

A project I had on the agenda for a long time. But, due to the major surgeries involved, I have been pushing it away – until the “In the navy” group build at whatifmolders.com came along in early 2020. So I collected my courage, dusted off the donor kits that had already been stashed away for years, and eventually started work.

The original inspiration was the F-8 Crusader’s career: I really like the look of the late RF-8s, which were kept long enough in service to receive the Eighties’ Low-Viz USN “Compass Ghost” livery. This looks cool, but also a little wrong. And what if the FJ-4B had been kept in service long enough to receive a similar treatment…?

In order to justify a career extension, I made up an all-weather development of the FJ-4B with a radar and a more powerful engine, a kind of light alternative to the Vought A-7. A plausible solution was a mix of FJ-4B and F-86D parts – this sounds easy, but both aircraft and their respective model kits actually have only VERY little in common.

At its core, the FJ-5 model is a kitbashing of parts from an Emhar FJ-4B (Revell re-boxing) and an Airfix F-86D. The FJ-4B provided the raised cockpit section with the canopy, spine and fin in the form of a complete transplant, which furthermore had to be extended by about 1cm/0.5” because the F-86D is longer than the Fury. The FJ-4B also provided its wings, stabilizers and the landing gear. The Fury’s ventral arrester hook section, a separate part, was also transferred into the F-86D’s lower rear fuselage, under the openings for the air brakes.

For a more lively look, the (thick!) Fury canopy was sawed into two pieces for open display and the flaps were lowered, too.

The cockpit was taken from the Airfix kit, since it would fit well into the lower fuselage and it looked much better than their respective counterparts from the relatively basic Emhar kit, which just comes with a narrow board with a strange, bulky seat-thing. As an extra, the cockpit received side consoles, a scratched gunsight and a different ejection seat that raised the pilot’s position into the Fury’s higher canopy.

Since the F-1F was supposed to be a fighter, still equipped with the radar set, I retained the OOB pylons from the Fury with its four launch rails. For an aircraft late in the career, I gave it a reduced ordnance, though, just a pair of drop tanks (left over from a Matchbox F3D Skyknight; I wanted something more slender than the stubby OOB drop tanks from the Emhar Fury kit), plus a better Sidewinder training round (hence its blue body) and a single red ACMI data pod on the outer pylons, as an aerial combat training outfit and nice color highlights on the otherwise dull/grey aircraft.

Painting and markings:

As mentioned above, the idea for livery was a vintage aircraft in modern, subdued markings. So I adapted the early USN Compass Ghost scheme, and the F-1F received a two-tone livery in FS 36320 and 36375 (Dark and Light Compass Ghost Grey, Humbrol 128 and 127, respectively) with a high, wavy waterline and a light fin. In front of the cockpit, a slightly darker anti-glare panel in Humbrol 145 (FS 35237) was added, inspired by early USN F-14s in Compass Ghost camouflage.

The radome was painted with Humbrol 156, for a slightly darker/different shade of grey than the aircraft’s upper surfaces – I considered a black or a beige (unpainted glass fiber) radome first, but that would have been a very harsh contrast to the rest.

The landing gear as well as the air intake duct were painted glossy white (Humbrol 22), the cockpit became medium grey (Humbrol 140, Dark Gull Gray). The inside of the air brakes as well es the edges of the flaps, normally concealed when they are retracted, were painted in bright red (Humbrol 174). The same tone was also used to highlight the edges of the land gear covers.

The grey leading edges on the wings the stabilizers were created with decal sheet strips (generic material from TL Modellbau), the gun blast plates were made with silver decal material.

In order to give the model a worn look, I applied a black ink wash, an overall, light treatment with graphite and some post shading. Some extra graphite was applied around the exhaust and the gun nozzles.

The markings were taken for an USMC A-4E/F from a Revell kit (which turned out to be a bit bluish). I wanted a consequent dull/toned-down look, typical for early Compass Ghost aircraft. Later, colored highlights, roundels and squadron markings crept back onto the aircraft, but in the early Eighties many USN/USMC machines were consequently finished in a grey-in-grey livery.

Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri) and the ordnance added.

Well, the end result looks simple, but creating this kitbashed Fury all-weather fighter was pretty demanding. Even though both the Fury and the F-86D are based on the same aircraft, they are completely different, and the same is also true for the model kits. It took major surgeries and body sculpting to weld the parts together. But I am quite happy with the outcome, the fictional F-1F looks pretty conclusive and natural, also in the (for this aircraft) unusual low-viz livery.

I used the razor blade to pry the windows off the wall pieces.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disc area: 4x 297 ft² (27,65 m²)

Wing area: 342.2 ft² (36,72 m²)

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

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

Powerplant:

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

Performance:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Glide ratio: 4.5:1

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

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

Armament:

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VIKING “I’m Still Alive” Policewoman 1:6 scale Head sculpt and Accessory set aka Jill Valentine on a TTL body

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: One

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

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

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

Wing area: 302 ft² (28 m²)

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

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

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

Powerplant:

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

Performance:

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

Range: 740 mi (1,190 km)

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

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

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

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

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

Armament:

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

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

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

plus 6× 3” (76.2 mm) RP-3 rockets

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Space hotel???

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

Jiaou Doll wheat skin big bust figure .

A kitbash using a Phicen body and a Kimi headsculpt .

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:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 (Pilot, weapon system officer)

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

Wingspan:

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

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

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

Wing area: 1008.9 ft² (90.8 m²)

Weight: 88.151 lbs (39.986 kg)

Performance:

Maximum speed:

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

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

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

Range: 3.705 miles (5.955 km) with internal fuel

Service ceiling: 75.000 ft (22.500 m)

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

Engine:

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

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

Armament:

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

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

The kit and its assembly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mighty bird!

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:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 12 m (39 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 14 m (45 ft 11 in)

Height: 4.65 m (15 ft 3 in)

Wing area: 28 m² (301.388 ft²)

Airfoil: Tatsuo Hasegawa airfoil

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

Loaded weight: 6.450 kg (14.220 lb)

Powerplant:

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

Performance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Armament

4× 30 mm (1.18 in) Ho-155-II cannons in the wings

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

or a single 300l drop tank under the fuselage

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

The kit is a bashing of various parts and pieces:

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

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

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

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

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

- Propeller from a Hasegawa J7W Shinden

- Main wheels from a Matchbox F6F Hellcat

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

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

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

The Attacker wings were chosen because of their "modern" laminar profile - the Novo kit is horrible, but acceptable for donations. And the risen panel lines and rivets should later do great work during the weathering process... OOB, the Attacker wings had too little span for the big P-47, so I decided to mount the Thunderbolt's OOB wings and cut them at a suitable point: maybe 0.5", just where the large wheel fairings for the main landing gear ends.

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

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

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

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

Pretty wild mix, but it works surprisingly well!

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

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 historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 (Pilot, weapon system officer)

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

Wingspan:

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

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

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

Wing area: 1008.9 ft² (90.8 m²)

Weight: 88.151 lbs (39.986 kg)

Performance:

Maximum speed:

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

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

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

Range: 3.705 miles (5.955 km) with internal fuel

Service ceiling: 75.000 ft (22.500 m)

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

Engine:

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

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

Armament:

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

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

The kit and its assembly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mighty bird!

Re-bodied and yet he can still fit in them skinny jeans.. yeah!

+++ 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:

Antanas Gustaitis (March 26, 1898 – October 16, 1941) was an officer in the Lithuanian Armed Forces who modernized the Lithuanian Air Force, which at that time was part of the Lithuanian Army. He was the architect or aeronautical engineer who undertook the task to design and construct several military aircraft before WWII broke out.

Following the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, however, the Lithuanian Air Force was formally disbanded on October 23, 1940. Part of Lithuanian Air Force (77 senior officers, 72 junior officers, 59 privates, 20 aircraft) was reorganized into Red Army's 29th Territorial Rifle Corps Aviation, also referred to as National Squadron (Tautinė eskadrilė). Other planes and equipment were taken over by Red Army's Air Force Bases No. 13 and 213. About third of Tautinė eskadrilė's personnel latter suffered repressions by Soviet authorities, significant share joined June uprising, after the start of German invasion into Soviet Union several pilots of Tautinė eskadrilė and fewer than six planes withdrew with the Soviet army.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 7.71 m (25 ft 2¾ in)

Wingspan: 10.22 m (33 ft 5¾ in)

Wing area: 16 m2 (170 sq ft)

Height: 2.62 m (8 ft 7 in)

Empty weight: 2,070 kg (4,564 lb)

Gross weight: 2,520 kg (5,556 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Manfred Weiss WM K.14 (Gnome-Rhône 14Kfrs Mistral-Major) 14-cyinder air-cooled radial

piston engine with 647 kW (900 hp), driving a 3-bladed constant-speed metal propeller

Performance:

Maximum speed: 510 km/h (320 mph, 280 kn)

Minimum control speed: 113 km/h (70 mph, 61 kn)

Range: 730 km (450 mi, 390 nmi) on internal fuel

1.000 km (621 mi, 543 nmi) with 300 l drop tank

Service ceiling: 10.000 m (33,000 ft)

Time to altitude: 4'41" to 5,000 meters

Wing loading: 157,5 kg/m² (32.7 lb/sq ft)

Power/mass: 3.89 kg/kW (6.17 lb/hp)

Take-off run to 8 m (26 ft): 270 m (886 ft)

Landing run from 8 m (26 ft): 340 m (1,115 ft)

Armament:

4x 7.7 mm (0.303 in) fixed forward-firing M1919 Browning machine guns with 500 rpg

in the outer wings

1x ventral hardpoint for a single 250 kg (550 lb) bomb or a 300 l (66 imp gal) drop tank

The kit and its assembly:

This small aircraft model is the result of a spontaneous kitbashing flash, when I dug through the sprue piles and the spares box. It started with a leftover fuselage from a Mistercraft PZL P-7 fighter, and further searches revealed the wings from a PM Model Fokker D.XXI and the sawn-off wings from a Hobby Boss MS.406. The sprue stash came up with other useful parts like small stabilizers and a landing gear – and it turned out to be the rest of the MS.406, which had originally been butchered to be mated with the P-7 wings to become my fictional Polish RWD-24 fighter prototype. So, as a serious recycling project, I decided to accept the challenge and use the remains of the P-7 and the MS.406 to create a “counterpart” to the RWD-24, and it became the fictional ANBO IX.

While the ingredients for a basic airframe were now available, some parts were still missing. Most important: an engine. One option was an early Merlin, left over from a Spitfire, but due to the circular P-7 fuselage I preferred a radial engine. With the cowling from a Japanese Mitsubishi Ha-102 two-row radial (from an Airfix Ki-46 “Dinah”) I found a suitable and very streamlined donor, which received a small three-blade propeller with a scratched spinner on a metal axis inside.

The cockpit and the canopy caused more headaches, because the P-7 has an open cockpit with a rather wide opening. For a fighter with a retractable landing gear this would hardly work anymore and finding a solution as well as a suitable donor piece took a while. I initially wanted to use a kind of bubble canopy (with struts, so that it would not look too modern), but eventually rejected this because the proportions would have looked odd – and the overall style would have been too modern.

So I switched to an early Spitfire canopy, which had a good size for the small aircraft, even though it called for a spinal fairing – the latter became the half from a drop tank (IIRC from an Airfix P-61?).

Lots of PSR was necessary everywhere to blend the disparate parts together. The cockpit opening had to be partly filled and reshaped, blending both canopy and spine into the hull took several layers.

The area in front of the cockpit (originally holding the P-7’s shoulder-mounted wings) had to be re-sculpted and blended into the Ki-46 cowling.

The ventral area between the wings had also to be fully sculpted with putty, and huge gaps along the wing roots on the wings’ upper surfaces had to be filled and formed, too. No wonder that many surface details disappeared along the way… Nevertheless, the effort was worthwhile, because the resulting airframe, esp. the sleek fuselage, looks very aerodynamic, almost like a Thirties air speed record contender?

Painting and markings:

This is where the real trouble came to play. It took a while to find a suitable/authentic paint scheme for a pre-WWII Lithuanian aircraft, and I took inspiration from mid-Thirties Letov S.20 biplane fighters and the real ANBO VIII light bomber prototype. Apparently, a two-tone camouflage in two shades of green were an option, even though the tones appear debatable. The only real-life reference was a b/w picture of an S.20, and it showed a good contrast between the greens, so that my first choice were Humbrol 120 (FS 34227) and 172 (Satin Dark Green). However: 120 turned out to be much too pale, and the 172 had a somewhat grainy consistency. Leaving a horrible finish on the already less-than-perfect PSR mess of the model.

With a heavy heart I eventually decided to remove the initial coat of enamel paint with a two-day bath in foamed oven cleaner, which did the job but also worked on the putty. Disaster struck when one wing came loose while cleaning the model, and the canopy came off, too…

Repairs were possible, but did not improve the model’s surface finish – but I eventually pulled a second coat of paint through, this time with slightly different green tones: a mix of Humbrol 80 (Grass Green) and Revell 360 (fern Green), resulting in a rich but rather yellow-ish tone, and Humbrol 245 (RLM 75, Graugrün), as a subdued contrast. The result, though, reminded a lot of Finnish WWII aircraft, so that I gave the aircraft an NMF cowling (again inspired by the ANBO VIII prototype) and a very light grey (Modelmaster 2077, RLM 63) underside with a low waterline. This gave the model a somewhat Italian touch?

The national markings came from two different Blue Rider decal sheets for modern Lithuanian aircraft, the tactical code and the knight helmet as squadron emblem came from a French Dewoitine D.520 (PrintScale sheet).

After a black ink washing the kit received light panel post-shading to virtually restore some of the missing surface details, some weathering with Tamiya Smoke and silver was done and the model received a final overall coat of matt acrylic varnish.

Well, I am not happy with the outcome – mostly because of the painting mishaps and the resulting collateral damage overall. However, the kitbashed aircraft looks pretty conclusive and plays the role of one of the many European pre-WWII monoplane fighters with modern features like a retractable landing gear and a closed canopy well, it’s a very subtle result.

My finger to show how small N scale is... :D

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: two, pilot and observer

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

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

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

Wing area: 30.2 m² (325 sq ft)

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

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

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

Powerplant:

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

driving a three-bladed variable pitch metal propeller

u>Performance:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Armament:

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

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

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

The OV-10 Bronco was initially conceived in the early 1960s through an informal collaboration between W. H. Beckett and Colonel K. P. Rice, U.S. Marine Corps, who met at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California, and who also happened to live near each other. The original concept was for a rugged, simple, close air support aircraft integrated with forward ground operations. At the time, the U.S. Army was still experimenting with armed helicopters, and the U.S. Air Force was not interested in close air support.

The concept aircraft was to operate from expedient forward air bases using roads as runways. Speed was to be from very slow to medium subsonic, with much longer loiter times than a pure jet. Efficient turboprop engines would give better performance than piston engines. Weapons were to be mounted on the centerline to get efficient aiming. The inventors favored strafing weapons such as self-loading recoilless rifles, which could deliver aimed explosive shells with less recoil than cannons, and a lower per-round weight than rockets. The airframe was to be designed to avoid the back blast.

The MV-10Hs are expected to provide support for these ground units in the form of all-weather reconnaissance and observation, close air support and also forward air control duties for supporting ground units. Precision ground strikes and protection from enemy helicopters and low-flying aircraft were other, secondary missions for the modernized Broncos, which are expected to serve well into the 2040s. Exports or conversions of foreign OV-10s to the Black Pony standard are not planned, though.

General characteristics:

Crew: 2

Length: 42 ft 2½ in (12,88 m) incl. pitot

Wingspan: 45 ft 10½ in(14 m) incl. tip sails

Height: 15 ft 2 in (4.62 m)

Wing area: 290.95 sq ft (27.03 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 64A315

Empty weight: 9,090 lb (4,127 kg)

Gross weight: 13,068 lb (5,931 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 17,318 lb (7,862 kg)

Powerplant:

2× General Electric CT7-9D turboprop engines, 1,305 kW (1,750 hp) each,

driving 8-bladed Hamilton Standard 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) diameter constant-speed,

fully feathering, reversible contra-rotating propellers with metal hub and composite blades

Performance:

Maximum speed: 390 mph (340 kn, 625 km/h)

Combat range: 198 nmi (228 mi, 367 km)

Ferry range: 1,200 nmi (1,400 mi, 2,200 km) with auxiliary fuel

Maximum loiter time: 5.5 h with auxiliary fuel

Service ceiling: 32.750 ft (10,000 m)

13,500 ft (4.210 m) on one engine

Rate of climb: 17.400 ft/min (48 m/s) at sea level

Take-off run: 480 ft (150 m)

740 ft (227 m) to 50 ft (15 m)

1,870 ft (570 m) to 50 ft (15 m) at MTOW

Landing run: 490 ft (150 m)

785 ft (240 m) at MTOW

1,015 ft (310 m) from 50 ft (15 m)

Armament:

1x M197 3-barreled 20 mm Gatling cannon in a chin turret with 750 rounds ammo capacity

7x hardpoints for a total load of 5.000 lb (2,270 kg)

2x wingtip launch rails for AIM-9 Sidewinder AAMs

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional Bronco update/conversion was simply spawned by the idea: could it be possible to replace the original cockpit section with one from an AH-1 Cobra, for a kind of gunship version?

The basis is the Academy OV-10D kit, mated with the cockpit section from a Fujimi AH-1S TOW Cobra (Revell re-boxing, though), chosen because of its “boxy” cockpit section with flat glass panels – I think that it conveys the idea of an armored cockpit section best. Combining these parts was not easy, though, even though the plan sound simple. Initially, the Bronco’s twin booms, wings and stabilizer were built separately, because this made PSR on these sections easier than trying the same on a completed airframe. One of the initial challenges: the different engines. I wanted something uprated, and a different look, and I had a pair of (excellent!) 1:144 resin engines from the Russian company Kompakt Zip for a Tu-95 bomber at hand, which come together with movable(!) eight-blade contraprops that were an almost perfect size match for the original three-blade props. Biggest problem: the Tu-95 nacelles have a perfectly circular diameter, while the OV-10’s booms are square and rectangular. Combining these parts and shapes was already a messy PST affair, but it worked out quite well – even though the result rather reminds of some Chinese upgrade measure (anyone know the Tu-4 copies with turboprops? This here looks similar!). But while not pretty, I think that the beafier look works well and adds to the idea of a “revived” aircraft. And you can hardly beat the menacing look of contraprops on anything...

The exotic, so-called “tip sails” on the wings, mounted on short booms, are a detail borrowed from the Shijiazhuang Y-5B-100, an updated Chinese variant/copy of the Antonov An-2 biplane transporter. The booms are simple pieces of sprue from the Bronco kit, the winglets were cut from 0.5mm styrene sheet.

For the cockpit donor, the AH-1’s front section was roughly built, including the engine section (which is a separate module, so that the basic kit can be sold with different engine sections), and then the helicopter hull was cut and trimmed down to match the original Bronco pod and to fit under the wing. This became more complicated than expected, because a) the AH-1 cockpit and the nose are considerably shorter than the OV-10s, b) the AH-1 fuselage is markedly taller than the Bronco’s and c) the engine section, which would end up in the area of the wing, features major recesses, making the surface very uneven – calling for massive PSR to even this out. PSR was also necessary to hide the openings for the Fujimi AH-1’s stub wings. Other issues: the front landing gear (and its well) had to be added, as well as the OV-10 wing stubs. Furthermore, the new cockpit pod’s rear section needed an aerodynamical end/fairing, but I found a leftover Academy OV-10 section from a build/kitbashing many moons ago. Perfect match!

All these challenges could be tackled, even though the AH-1 cockpit looks surprisingly stout and massive on the Bronco’s airframe - the result looks stockier than expected, but it works well for the "Gunship" theme. Lots of PSR went into the new central fuselage section, though, even before it was mated with the OV-10 wing and the rest of the model.

Once cockpit and wing were finally mated, the seams had to disappear under even more PSR and a spinal extension of the canopy had to be sculpted across the upper wing surface, which would meld with the pod’s tail in a (more or less) harmonious shape. Not an easy task, and the fairing was eventually sculpted with 2C putty, plus even more PSR… Looks quite homogenous, though.

After this massive body work, other hardware challenges appeared like small distractions. The landing gear was another major issue because the deeper AH-1 section lowered the ground clearance, also because of the chin turret. To counter this, I raised the OV-10’s main landing gear by ~2mm – not much, but it was enough to create a credible stance, together with the front landing gear transplant under the cockpit, which received an internal console to match the main landing gear’s length. Due to the chin turret and the shorter nose, the front wheel retracts backwards now. But this looks quite plausible, thanks to the additional space under the cockpit tub, which also made a belt feed for the gun’s ammunition supply believable.

To enhance the menacing look I gave the model a fixed refueling boom, made from 1mm steel wire and a receptor adapter sculpted with white glue. The latter stuff was also used add some antenna fairings around the hull. Some antennae, chaff dispensers and an IR decoy were taken from the Academy kit.

The ordnance came from various sources. The Sidewinders under the wing tips were taken from an Italeri F-16C/D kit, they look better than the missiles from the Academy Bronco kit. Their launch rails came from an Italeri Bae Hawk 200. The quadruple Hellfire launchers on the underwing hardpoints were left over from an Italeri AH-1W, and they are a perfect load for this aircraft and its role. The LAU-10 and -19 missile pods on the stub wings were taken from the OV-10 kit.

Painting and markings:

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

The cockpit tub became Dark Gull Grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140) and the landing gear white (Revell 301).

The model received an overall black ink washing and some post-panel-shading, to liven up the dull all-grey livery. The decals were gathered from various sources, and I settled for black USAF low-viz markings. The “stars and bars” come from a late USAF F-4, the “IP” tail code was tailored from F-16 markings and the shark mouth was taken from an Academy AH-64. Most stencils came from another Academy OV-10 sheet and some other sources.

Decals were also used to create the trim on the propeller blades and markings on the ordnance.

Finally, the model was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Italeri) and some exhaust soot stains were added with graphite along the tail boom flanks.

A successful transplantation – but is this still a modified Bronco or already a kitbashing? The result looks quite plausible and menacing, even though the TOW Cobra front section appears relatively massive. But thanks to the bigger engines and extended wing tips the proportions still work. The large low-pressure tires look a bit goofy under the aircraft, but they are original. The grey livery works IMHO well, too – a more colorful or garish scheme would certainly have distracted from the modified technical basis.

+++ 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. ;-)

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 .

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 .

A Phicen kitbash using a blonde Kimi headsculpt and wearing an outfit by Magic Cube 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 OV-10 Bronco was initially conceived in the early 1960s through an informal collaboration between W. H. Beckett and Colonel K. P. Rice, U.S. Marine Corps, who met at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California, and who also happened to live near each other. The original concept was for a rugged, simple, close air support aircraft integrated with forward ground operations. At the time, the U.S. Army was still experimenting with armed helicopters, and the U.S. Air Force was not interested in close air support.

The concept aircraft was to operate from expedient forward air bases using roads as runways. Speed was to be from very slow to medium subsonic, with much longer loiter times than a pure jet. Efficient turboprop engines would give better performance than piston engines. Weapons were to be mounted on the centerline to get efficient aiming. The inventors favored strafing weapons such as self-loading recoilless rifles, which could deliver aimed explosive shells with less recoil than cannons, and a lower per-round weight than rockets. The airframe was to be designed to avoid the back blast.

The MV-10Hs are expected to provide support for these ground units in the form of all-weather reconnaissance and observation, close air support and also forward air control duties for supporting ground units. Precision ground strikes and protection from enemy helicopters and low-flying aircraft were other, secondary missions for the modernized Broncos, which are expected to serve well into the 2040s. Exports or conversions of foreign OV-10s to the Black Pony standard are not planned, though.

General characteristics:

Crew: 2

Length: 42 ft 2½ in (12,88 m) incl. pitot

Wingspan: 45 ft 10½ in(14 m) incl. tip sails

Height: 15 ft 2 in (4.62 m)

Wing area: 290.95 sq ft (27.03 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 64A315

Empty weight: 9,090 lb (4,127 kg)

Gross weight: 13,068 lb (5,931 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 17,318 lb (7,862 kg)

Powerplant:

2× General Electric CT7-9D turboprop engines, 1,305 kW (1,750 hp) each,

driving 8-bladed Hamilton Standard 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) diameter constant-speed,

fully feathering, reversible contra-rotating propellers with metal hub and composite blades

Performance:

Maximum speed: 390 mph (340 kn, 625 km/h)

Combat range: 198 nmi (228 mi, 367 km)

Ferry range: 1,200 nmi (1,400 mi, 2,200 km) with auxiliary fuel

Maximum loiter time: 5.5 h with auxiliary fuel

Service ceiling: 32.750 ft (10,000 m)

13,500 ft (4.210 m) on one engine

Rate of climb: 17.400 ft/min (48 m/s) at sea level

Take-off run: 480 ft (150 m)

740 ft (227 m) to 50 ft (15 m)

1,870 ft (570 m) to 50 ft (15 m) at MTOW

Landing run: 490 ft (150 m)

785 ft (240 m) at MTOW

1,015 ft (310 m) from 50 ft (15 m)

Armament:

1x M197 3-barreled 20 mm Gatling cannon in a chin turret with 750 rounds ammo capacity

7x hardpoints for a total load of 5.000 lb (2,270 kg)

2x wingtip launch rails for AIM-9 Sidewinder AAMs

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional Bronco update/conversion was simply spawned by the idea: could it be possible to replace the original cockpit section with one from an AH-1 Cobra, for a kind of gunship version?

The basis is the Academy OV-10D kit, mated with the cockpit section from a Fujimi AH-1S TOW Cobra (Revell re-boxing, though), chosen because of its “boxy” cockpit section with flat glass panels – I think that it conveys the idea of an armored cockpit section best. Combining these parts was not easy, though, even though the plan sound simple. Initially, the Bronco’s twin booms, wings and stabilizer were built separately, because this made PSR on these sections easier than trying the same on a completed airframe. One of the initial challenges: the different engines. I wanted something uprated, and a different look, and I had a pair of (excellent!) 1:144 resin engines from the Russian company Kompakt Zip for a Tu-95 bomber at hand, which come together with movable(!) eight-blade contraprops that were an almost perfect size match for the original three-blade props. Biggest problem: the Tu-95 nacelles have a perfectly circular diameter, while the OV-10’s booms are square and rectangular. Combining these parts and shapes was already a messy PST affair, but it worked out quite well – even though the result rather reminds of some Chinese upgrade measure (anyone know the Tu-4 copies with turboprops? This here looks similar!). But while not pretty, I think that the beafier look works well and adds to the idea of a “revived” aircraft. And you can hardly beat the menacing look of contraprops on anything...

The exotic, so-called “tip sails” on the wings, mounted on short booms, are a detail borrowed from the Shijiazhuang Y-5B-100, an updated Chinese variant/copy of the Antonov An-2 biplane transporter. The booms are simple pieces of sprue from the Bronco kit, the winglets were cut from 0.5mm styrene sheet.

For the cockpit donor, the AH-1’s front section was roughly built, including the engine section (which is a separate module, so that the basic kit can be sold with different engine sections), and then the helicopter hull was cut and trimmed down to match the original Bronco pod and to fit under the wing. This became more complicated than expected, because a) the AH-1 cockpit and the nose are considerably shorter than the OV-10s, b) the AH-1 fuselage is markedly taller than the Bronco’s and c) the engine section, which would end up in the area of the wing, features major recesses, making the surface very uneven – calling for massive PSR to even this out. PSR was also necessary to hide the openings for the Fujimi AH-1’s stub wings. Other issues: the front landing gear (and its well) had to be added, as well as the OV-10 wing stubs. Furthermore, the new cockpit pod’s rear section needed an aerodynamical end/fairing, but I found a leftover Academy OV-10 section from a build/kitbashing many moons ago. Perfect match!

All these challenges could be tackled, even though the AH-1 cockpit looks surprisingly stout and massive on the Bronco’s airframe - the result looks stockier than expected, but it works well for the "Gunship" theme. Lots of PSR went into the new central fuselage section, though, even before it was mated with the OV-10 wing and the rest of the model.

Once cockpit and wing were finally mated, the seams had to disappear under even more PSR and a spinal extension of the canopy had to be sculpted across the upper wing surface, which would meld with the pod’s tail in a (more or less) harmonious shape. Not an easy task, and the fairing was eventually sculpted with 2C putty, plus even more PSR… Looks quite homogenous, though.

After this massive body work, other hardware challenges appeared like small distractions. The landing gear was another major issue because the deeper AH-1 section lowered the ground clearance, also because of the chin turret. To counter this, I raised the OV-10’s main landing gear by ~2mm – not much, but it was enough to create a credible stance, together with the front landing gear transplant under the cockpit, which received an internal console to match the main landing gear’s length. Due to the chin turret and the shorter nose, the front wheel retracts backwards now. But this looks quite plausible, thanks to the additional space under the cockpit tub, which also made a belt feed for the gun’s ammunition supply believable.

To enhance the menacing look I gave the model a fixed refueling boom, made from 1mm steel wire and a receptor adapter sculpted with white glue. The latter stuff was also used add some antenna fairings around the hull. Some antennae, chaff dispensers and an IR decoy were taken from the Academy kit.

The ordnance came from various sources. The Sidewinders under the wing tips were taken from an Italeri F-16C/D kit, they look better than the missiles from the Academy Bronco kit. Their launch rails came from an Italeri Bae Hawk 200. The quadruple Hellfire launchers on the underwing hardpoints were left over from an Italeri AH-1W, and they are a perfect load for this aircraft and its role. The LAU-10 and -19 missile pods on the stub wings were taken from the OV-10 kit.

Painting and markings:

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

The cockpit tub became Dark Gull Grey (FS 36231, Humbrol 140) and the landing gear white (Revell 301).

The model received an overall black ink washing and some post-panel-shading, to liven up the dull all-grey livery. The decals were gathered from various sources, and I settled for black USAF low-viz markings. The “stars and bars” come from a late USAF F-4, the “IP” tail code was tailored from F-16 markings and the shark mouth was taken from an Academy AH-64. Most stencils came from another Academy OV-10 sheet and some other sources.

Decals were also used to create the trim on the propeller blades and markings on the ordnance.

Finally, the model was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Italeri) and some exhaust soot stains were added with graphite along the tail boom flanks.

A successful transplantation – but is this still a modified Bronco or already a kitbashing? The result looks quite plausible and menacing, even though the TOW Cobra front section appears relatively massive. But thanks to the bigger engines and extended wing tips the proportions still work. The large low-pressure tires look a bit goofy under the aircraft, but they are original. The grey livery works IMHO well, too – a more colorful or garish scheme would certainly have distracted from the modified technical basis.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: two, pilot and observer

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

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

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

Wing area: 30.2 m² (325 sq ft)

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

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

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

Powerplant:

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

driving a three-bladed variable pitch metal propeller

u>Performance:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Armament:

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

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

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: 2

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

Wingspan: 14.97 m (49 ft)

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

Wing area: 30.30 m2 (326.1 sq ft)

Aspect ratio: 6.9:1

Airfoil: NACA 642A215 at root, NACA641 at tip

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

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

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

Powerplant:

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

Performance:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

g limits: +6/-3 g

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

Armament:

2× 30 mm ADEN cannons in the lower nose

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

In December 1953, NATO Supreme Command issued specifications for a new light tactical support aircraft. European manufacturers were invited to submit their designs for this requested Light Weight Strike Fighter role. The G.91 was one contender and designed to this specification by the Italian engineer Giuseppe Gabrielli, hence the "G" designation.

And does anybody doubt that Spain flew the G.91...?

+++ 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!

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.

A kitbash using a Phicen body and a Kimi headsculpt .

DISCLAIMER

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

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Some background:

The mighty Suchoj SuCh-1 started its life in early March 1943, when the Sukhoi OKB finished work on the design of a high-speed fighter with a unique powerplant arrangement. The aircraft was an all-metal low-wing mono­plane with conventional tail surfaces. The three-section wings had constant dihedral and basically trapezoidal planform; the sta­bilizers had zero dihedral.

All in all only 120 of these powerful machines were built until the end of hostilities, as the feared mass attacks of German long range bombers did not materialize. as the Su-7 was complicated to operate and jet engines promised a far more efficient way of propulsion for high speeds, the type was already retired in 1947 and replaced by 1st generation jet fighters like the Yak-15 and MiG-9, which carried a similar armament, attained a better performance (except for the range) but weighed only half of the large and heavy SuCh-1.

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General characteristics

Crew: One

Length: 11.75 m (38 ft 5 3/4 in)

Wingspan: 13.85 m (45 ft 3 1/4 in)

Height: 5.30 m (17 ft 4 in)

Empty weight: 5.250 kg (11.565 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 8.100 kg (17.840 lb)

Powerplant:

2× Klimov VK-107A liquid-cooled V12 engines with an output of 1.650 hp (1.210 kW) each at sea level and 900 hp (650 kW) at 8.300m (27.220 ft)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 720 km/h (447 mph) at height, clean configuration

Range: 750 km (465 mi)

Service ceiling: 11.700 m (38.400 ft)

Rate of climb: 876 m/mim (2.850 ft/min)

Armament:

1× Nudelman-Richter NR-37 37mm cannon with 60 RPG, firing through the propeller hub

2× Nudelman N-23 23mm cannons with 120 RPG in the wings

Many different cannon and machine gun arrangements coulod be found, though.

*Information about the conceptual Suchoj I-2M107 was primarily gathered from the book 'OKB Suchoj', written by Yefim Gordon & Dmitriy Komissarov; Hersham (UK), 2010.

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The kit and its assembly (a long story!):

This abomination of an aircraft is/was real, even though the I-2M107 was never built – the fictional name Suchoj-Chizhevskiy SuCh-1 was actually chosen because I could not find any plausible Su-X code for a WWII fighter. Vladimir A. Chizhevskiy actually joined the Suchoj OKB in mid WWII, so I deemed this alternative to be plausible.

I had this on the agenda for a long time, but the horrors of kitbashing kept me from building it - until now. The current Anthony P memorial Group Build (for the deceased fellow member at whatifmodelers.com, RIP) was a good motivation to tackle this brute thing. Fortunately, I already had some major ingredients in store, so work could start asap.

From that, anything else was improvised from the scrap box, and with only a three side view of the I-2M107 as guidance. It became a true Frankenstein creation with...

● Fuselage and inner wings from the (horrible) NOVO Attacker

● Wings from an Italeri Fw 190 D-9 attached to them

● Nose is a resin Griffon from an Avro Lincoln conversion set from OzMods

● Tail cone is a radar nose from an F-4J Phantom II

● Tail fin is a horizontal stabilizer from a Matchbox SB2C Helldiver

● Vertical stabilizers come from a Matchbox Me 410

● Oil coolers are modified front landing gear wells from two Revell G.91 kits

● Cockpit hood comes from a Revell P-39 Airacobra

● Landing gear comes from an Italeri Fw 190 D-9, covers were modified/improvised

● Main wheels belong to a MPM Ryan Dark Shark

● Tail wheel belongs to a Matchbox Harrier

● The propeller was scratched, IIRC from a Grumman Hellcat drop tank front and blades from an Airfix A-1 Skyraider. Inside, a metal axis was mounted.

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Work started with the fuselage and the wings as separate segments.

The Attacker fuselage lost its fin and the cockpit and air intakes were simply cut away, just as the tail pipe. The resin Griffon was slightly shortened at the front, but more or less directly attached to the fuselage, after I had cut out openings for the four rows of exhaust nozzles.

Then, the new tail cone was glued onto the end and the original fairings for the Attacker's stabilizer cut away and sanded even - anything had to be made new.

The wings were a bit tricky. I had hoped to use the Attacker's OOB wings, but these were not only much too small and did not have the proper shape, they also lacked landing gear wells!

Finding a solution was not easy, and I had to improvise. After some trials I decided to cut the Attacker wing span at about the width where the guns are located, and then add Fw 190 wings.

The depth would be fine, even though the Fw 190 wings were a bit thicker, and they offered a leading edge kink which was good for the original and characteristic I-2M107's wing root extensions. The latter were sculpted from a 6mm thick core or styrene sheet, added to the Attacker parts' leading edge, and the rest, as well as the lacking Attacker wing's thickness, sculpted with 2C and later NC putty.

Furthermore I cut out and sculpted landing gear wells, another challenging, since these had to cover the Attacker/Fw 190 parts' intersection! LOTS of putty work, sanding and shaving, but as a benefit I was able to use the Attacker kit's original wing/fuselage joints. Effectively, my placement turned out to be a bit far outside, so the track appears too wide - the price to pay when you work on single parts. Anyway, I left it was it turned out, as a major correction at a late working stage would mean to tear anything apart again...

Back to the nose: adding the propeller and the cockpit into the massive nose was the next working station. The propeller had to be huge, and also needed a rather big spinner. A contraprop was ruled out, even though it would have looked great here. But eventually I settled for a scratch-built thing, made from a teardrop-shaped drop tank front onto which the four blades from a A-1 Skyraider were glued. Probably the biggest prop I have ever put onto a 1:72 scale model! Since the resin nose was massive, drilling a hole and adding a metal axis to the propeller was enough.

With that in place I started carving out a cockpit opening - it worked better and easier than expected with a mini drill and a coarse shaving head! The opening is still rather small, a seat and a pilot hardly fit, but it works - I found a rather smallish pilot figure, and added a seat and some other small details from the scrap box, just to have something inside.

For a canopy I found a very old (30 years, I guess...) clear part from a Revell P-39 Airacobra in the scrap box, which was almost perfect in shape and width. It was a bit blind and stained with ancient enamel paint, but some wet sanding and serious polishing almost got it back to translucent status. Since I would not open the cockpit, this was a sufficient solution.

The asymmetrical cockpit opening was, in an initial step, faired with styrene strips, for a rough outline, and then sculpted with 2C and later NC putty, blending it into the rest of the fuselage.

For the tail surfaces, the SB2C stabilizer was cut away at its base - it is not a bad donation piece, its shape and rudder come pretty close to the I-2M107's original design!

The stabilizers I used on my kitbash come from a Me 410, and their leading edge was a cut away so that the sweep angle would be a bit larger. They lack depth, compared to the I-2M107's original design, but since the wings have become more slender, too, I think it's a good compromise, and the best what I had at hand in the spares stash.

Finally, and before detail work could start, the wings were attached to the fuselage. I eventually set them back by ~6mm, so that the new, extended leading edge would match the respective fairing on the fuselage. The resulting gap at the trailing edge was, again, filled with 2C and NC putty.

A personal change was a different oil cooler arrangement. The original location was to be in the wings' leading edge, just in front of the landing gear wells - but that appeared a bit doubtful, as I could not find a plausible solution where the exit for the air would be? Consequently, and in order to avoid even more messy putty sculpting on the wings, I decided to re-locate the oil coolers completely, into shallow, tunnel-like fairings under the wing roots, not unlike the radiator arrangement on a Spitfire or Bf 109.

In order to check the surface quality I decided to add a coat of grey primer, once the fuselage/wing segments had been connected. This showed only minor flaws, but made another turn with NC putty and wet sanding necessary.

Now it was time for finishing touches, e .g. mounting the landing gear, completing the cockpit and adding exhaust stubs - cut individually from HO scale model railroad roof tiles and inserted into the four fuselage fairings.

The canopy was fixed into place with white glue, which also helped closing some small gaps.

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Painting and markings:

While the I-2M107 looks odd, to say the least, I wanted to keep the paint scheme rather simple and quasi-authentic. I went for a pale grey/green camouflage, used e. g. on late war Yakovlev Yak-3 fighters.

Basic colors are Humbrol 31 (Slate Grey, it has a very greenish, even teal, hue), ModelMaster 1740 (Dark Gull Grey, FS 36231) and Humbrol 167 (Barley Grey) for the lower sides with a wavy waterline. Since only marginal surface details were left over, I decided to fake panels and panel lines with paint.

Panels were simulated with lighter shades of the basic tones (RLM 62 from ModelMaster, Humbrol 140 and 127 below), panel lines were painted with highly thinned grey acrylic paint and a special brush - in German it's called a 'Schlepppinsel', it's got very long hairs and is also used to paint scallops on car models, and similar things are used for real car tuning/custom paintwork, too.

Sure, the painted panel lines are a bit rough, but I did not want to risk any damage through manual engraving on the rather delicate mixed-media surface of the kitbashed model. For an overall look or first impression it's very good, though.

As 'highlights' I added a white spinner and half of the fin was painted white, too.

The decals were puzzled together. The flashes and the tactical code number come from a Hobby Boss La-7, the Red Stars, IIRC, belong to a vintage MiG-21F from Hasegawa. The "Rodinu" slogan actually belongs to a 1:35 Soviet Tank decals set.

Finally, after some additional dry painting with light grey, some oil stains around the engines and coolers and soot stains at the exhaust stubs and guns (painted, plus some grinded graphite, as it yields a nice, metallic shimmer that looks like oil or burnt metal), everything was sealed under a coat of matt acrylic varnish.

If it had been built, the Suchoj I-2M107 must have been an impressive aircraft - it was bigger than a P-47 Thunderbolt or an A-1 Skyraider, and one can only wonder how its field performance would have been?

Similar concepts had been underway in UK, too, e. g. for a heavy naval attack aircraft, but the I-2M107 with its asymmetrical cockpit and engine arrangement were unique. A worthy whif, even if some details like the landing gear or the borrowed nose section are not 100% 'correct'.

+++ 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 Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois (Luxembourg National Railway Company, abbreviated CFL) is the national railway company of Luxembourg. The Luxembourg rail system comprises (only) 275 route-kilometres (170 miles), of which 140 kilometres (87 mi) is double track and 135 kilometres (84 mi) single track. Of the total track length of 617 kilometres (383 mi), 576 kilometres (358 mi) are electrified at 25 kV, 50 Hz AC.

Only two 3800s had to be written off during the type’s career: 3804 suffered a major transformer damage and was destroyed by the ensuing fire near Troisvierges in Northern Luxembourg and 3810 was involved in a freight train derailment south of Differdange, where it was damaged beyond repair and had to be broken up on site. A single Class 3800 locomotive (3811) survived the retirement and has been kept as a static exhibition piece at the CFL Dépot at Luxembourg, the rest was scrapped.

General characteristics:

Gauge: 1,435 mm (4 ft 8½ in) standard gauge

UIC axle arrangement: Bo´Bo´

Overall length: 16.49 m (54 ft 1 in)

Pivot distance: 7,9 m (25 ft 10 in)

Bogie distance: 3,4 m (11 ft 1½ in)

Wheel diameter (when new): 1.250 mm (4 ft 1½ in)

Service weight: 83 t

Engine:

Four traction motors with a collective output of 3,700 kW (5,000 hp)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 150 km/h (93 mph), limited to 140 km/h (87 mph) in service

Torque: 275 kN starting tractive effort

164 kN continuous traction effort

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.

Painting and markings:

Finding a suitable operator took some time – I wanted a European company, and the livery had to be rather simple and easy to create with my limited means at hand, so that a presentable finish could be achieved. Belgium was one candidate, but I eventually settled on the small country of Luxembourg after I saw the CFL’s Class 3600s in their all-over wine-red livery with discreet yellow cheatlines.

The overall basic red was, after a coat with grey primer, applied with a rattle can, and I guesstimated the tone with RAL 3005 (Weinrot), based on various pictures of CFL locomotives in different states of maintenance and weathering. Apparently, the fresh paint was pretty bright, while old paint gained a rather brownish/maroon hue. For some contrast, the roof was painted in dark grey (Humbrol 67; RAL 7024), based on the CFL’s Class 3600 design, and the pantographs’ bases were painted and dry-brushed with this tone, too, for a coherent look. The chassis with its bogies and wheels remained basically black, but it was turned matt, and the originally bare metal wheel discs were painted, too. The visible lower areas were thoroughly treated with dry-brushed red-brown and dark grey, simulating rust and dust while emphasizing many delicate details on the bogies at the same time.

The hull was slightly treated with dry-brushed/cloudy wine red, so that the red would look a bit weathered and not so uniform. The grey roof was treated similarly.

The yellow cheatlines were created with yellow (RAL 1003) decal stripes from TL Modellbau in 5 and 2mm width. Generic H0 scale sheets from the same company provided the yellow CFL logos and the serial numbers on the flanks, so that the colors matched well. Stencils and some other small markings were procured from Andreas Nothaft (Modellbahndecals.de).

After securing the decals with some acrylic varnish the model was weathered with watercolors and some dry-brushing, simulating brownish-grey dust and dirt from the overhead contact line that frequently collects on the roof and is then washed down by rain. Finally, the whole body was sealed with matt acrylic varnish from the rattle can – even though it turned out to be rather glossy. But it does not look wrong, so I stuck with this flaw.

Among the last steps was the re-mounting of the clear windows (which had OOB thin silver trim, which was retained) and head- and taillights were created with ClearFix and white and red clear window color.

+++ 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 TIE/LN starfighter, or TIE/line starfighter, simply known as the TIE Fighter or T/F, was the standard Imperial starfighter seen in massive numbers throughout most of the Galactic Civil War and onward.

The TIE Fighter was manufactured by Sienar Fleet Systems and led to several upgraded TIE models such as TIE/sa bomber, TIE/IN interceptor, TIE/D Defender, TIE/D automated starfighter, and many more.

The TIE/E played a central role in the Empire's campaign against rogue Grand Admiral Demetrius Zaarin, and mixed Defender and Escort units participated in several other battles, including the Battle of Endor. The TIE Escort continued to see limited use by the Imperial Remnant up to at least 44 ABY, and was involved in numerous conflicts, including the Yuuzhan Vong War..

The kit and its assembly:

Another group build contribution, this time to the Science Fiction GB at whatifmodelers.com during summer 2017. Originally, this one started as an attempt to build a vintage MPC TIE Interceptor kit which I had bought and half-heartedly started to build probably 20 years ago. But I did not have the right mojo (probably, The Force was not strong enough…?), so the kit ended up in a dark corner and some parts were donated to other projects.

The sun collectors were still intact, though, and in the meantime I had the idea of reviving the kit’s remains, and convert it into (what I thought was) a fictional TIE Fighter variant with three solar panels. For this plan I got myself another TIE Interceptor kit, and stashed it away, too. Mojo was still missing, though.

Well, then came the SF GB and I took it as an occasion to finally tackle the build. But when I prepared for the build I found out that my intended design (over the years) more or less actually existed in the Star Wars universe: the TIE/D Defender! I could have built it with the parts and hand and some improvisation, but the design similarity bugged me. Well, instead of a poor copy of something that was more or less clearly defined, I rather decided to create something more individual, yet plausible, from the parts at hand.

The model was to stay a TIE design, though, in order to use as much donor material from the MPC kits as possible. Doing some legwork, I settled for a heavy fighter – bigger than the TIE Interceptor and the TIE/D fighter, a two-seater.

Working out the basic concept and layout took some time and evolved gradually. The creative spark for the TIE/E eventually came through a Revell “Obi Wan’s Jedi Starfighter” snap fit kit in my pile – actually a prize from a former GB participation at phoxim.de (Thanks a lot, Wolfgang!), and rather a toy than a true model kit.

The Jedi Fighter was in so far handy as it carries some TIE Fighter design traits, like the pilot capsule and the characteristic spider web windscreen. Anyway, it’s 1:32, much bigger than the TIE Interceptor’s roundabout 1:50 scale – but knowing that I’d never build the Jedi Starfighter OOB I used it as a donor bank, and from this starting point things started to evolve gradually.

Work started with the cockpit section, taken from the Jedi Starfighter kit. The two TIE Interceptor cockpit tubs were then mounted inside, staggered, and the gaps to the walls filled with putty. A pretty messy task, and once the shapes had been carved out some triangular tiles were added to the surfaces – a detail I found depicted in SW screenshots and some TIE Fighter models.

Another issue became the crew – even though I had two MPC TIE Interceptors and, theorectically, two pilot figures, only one of them could be found and the second crewman had to be improvised. I normally do not build 1:48 scale things, but I was lucky (and happy) to find an SF driver figure, left over from a small Dougram hoovercraft kit (from Takara, as a Revell “Robotech” reboxing). This driver is a tad bigger than the 1:50 TIE pilot, but I went with it because I did not want to invest money and time in alternatives. In order to justify the size difference I decided to paint the Dougram driver as a Chiss, based on the expanded SW universe (with blue skin and hair, and glowing red eyes). Not certain if this makes sense during the Battle of Endor timeframe, but it adds some color to the project – and the cockpit would not be visible in much detail since it would be finished fully closed.

Reason behind the closed canopy is basically the poor fit of the clear part. OOB, this is intended as an action toy – but also the canopy’s considerable size in 1:50 would prevent its original opening mechanism.

Additional braces on the rel. large window panels were created with self-adhesive tape and later painted over.

The rear fuselage section and the solar panel pylons were scratched. The reactor behind the cockpit section is actually a plastic adapter for water hoses, found in a local DIY market. It was slightly modified, attached to the cockpit “egg” and both parts blended with putty. The tail opening was closed with a hatch from the OOB TIE Interceptor – an incidental but perfect match in size and style.

The three pylons are also lucky finds: actually, these are SF wargaming/tabletop props and would normally be low walls or barriers, made from resin. For my build, they were more or less halved and trimmed. Tilted by 90°, they are attached to the hull with iron wire stabilizers, and later blended to the hull with putty, too.

Once the cockpit was done, things moved more swiftly. The surface of the hull was decorated with many small bits and pieces, including thin styrene sheet and profiles, steel and iron wire in various strengths, and there are even 1:72 tank tracks hidden somewhere, as well as protective caps from syringes (main guns and under the rear fuselage). It’s amazing how much stuff you can add to such a model – but IMHO it’s vital in order to create some structure and to emulate the (early) Star Wars look.

Painting and markings:

The less spectacular part of the project, even though still a lot of work because of the sheer size of the model’s surface. Since the whole thing is fictional, I tried to stay true to the Imperial designs from Episode IV-VI and gave the TIE/E a simple, all-light grey livery. All basic painting was done with rattle cans.

Work started with a basic coat of grey primer. On top of that, an initial coat of RAL 7036 Platingrau was added, esp. to the lower surfaces and recesses, for a rough shading effect. Then, the actual overall tone, RAL 7047, called “Telegrau 4”, one of Deutsche Telekom’s corporate tones, was added - mostly sprayed from abone and the sides onto the model. Fuselage and panels were painted separately, overall assembly was one of the final steps.

The solar panels were to stand out from the grey rest of the model, and I painted them with Revell Acrylic “Iron Metallic” (91) first, and later applied a rather rich wash with black ink , making sure the color settled well into the many small cells. The effect is pretty good, and the contrast was slightly enhanced through a dry-brushing treatment.

Only a few legible stencils were added all around the hull (most from the scrap box or from mecha sheets), the Galactic Empire Seal were inkjet-printed at home, as well as some tactical markings on the flanks, puzzled together from single digits in "Aurebash", one of the Imperial SW languages/fonts.

For some variety and color highlights, dozens of small, round and colorful markings were die-punched from silver, yellow, orange, red and blue decal sheet and were placed all over the hull - together with the large panels they blur into the the overall appearance, though. The hatches received thin red linings, also made from generic decals strips.

The cockpit interior was a bit challenging, though. Good TIE Fighter cockpit interior pictures are hard to find, but they suggest a dark grey tone. More confusingly, the MPC instructions call for a “Dark Green” cockpit? Well, I did not like the all-grey option, since the spaceship is already monochrome grey on the outside.

As a compromise I eventually used Tamiya XF-65 "Field Grey". The interior recieved a black ink in and dry-brushing treatment, and some instruments ansd screens were created with black decal material and glossy black paint; some neon paint was used for sci-fi-esque conmtraol lamps everywhere - I did not pay too much intention on the interior, since the cockpit would stay closed, and the thick clear material blurs everything inside.

Following this rationale, the crew was also painted in arather minimal fashion - both wear a dark grey uniform, only the Chiss pilot stands aout with his light blue skin and the flourescent red eyes.

After an overall black ink wash the model received a dry brusing treatment with FS 36492 and FS 36495, for a weathered and battle-worn look. After all, the "Vehement" would not survive the Ballte of Endor, but who knows what became of TIE/E "801"'s mixed crew...?

Finally, the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish, and some final cosmetic corrections made.

The display is a DIY creation, too, made from a 6x6" piece of wood, it's edges covered with edgebonder, a steel wire as holder, and finally the display was paited with semi-matt black acrylic paint from the rattle can.

A complex build, and the TIE/E more or less evolved along the way, with only the overall layout in mind. Work took a month, but I think it was worth the effort. This fantasy creation looks pretty plausible and blends well into the vast canonical TIE Fighter family - and I am happy that I finally could finish this mummy project, including the surplus Jedi Starfighter kit which now also find a very good use!

An epic one, and far outside my standard comfort zone. But a wothwhile build!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

Some background:

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

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

General characteristics:

Crew: two, pilot and observer

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

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

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

Wing area: 30.2 m² (325 sq ft)

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

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

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

Powerplant:

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

driving a three-bladed variable pitch metal propeller

u>Performance:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Armament:

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

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

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

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

The kit and its assembly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting and markings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jiaou Doll wheat skin big bust figure .