BAE/LM ShadowHawk - A little Stealth surprise

[Rafael]

ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE

The East of the West Bank

After one month of open war, the invaders had started to retreat. Weeks of bloody street fighting had passed, and the population, frightened, had taken refuge in the mediterranean coast, along which the Israeli Defenses stablished an impenetrable fortress, amassig their land and air forces to repel the attackers.

Arrived from everywhere around the world, financed by an extensive network of businesses masquerading as industry, the Jihadis secretly concentrated along the borders of Israel and launched their traitorous attack.

Compelled to act, the UN designated a force of Aeronaval and Land armies to help Israel in this time of trouble. Under the protest of the hostile countries and organizations taking part of this war, the massive combined fleets of NATO sailed towards the Mediterranean, to stablish a beachhead from which disembark the needed troops and equipments to blunt this savagery.

At the last moment, Iran dispatched its Army to bolster its surrogates, and claiming that they would rather turn Israel into a Radioactive wasteland than lose it to their original owners, also sent a nuclear missile-armed artillery battalion to the front.

The night was covered by a blacker overcast, and the Shadowhawks of 502 Sqn., 12 in total, launched from the decks of HMS Glorious, using their VTOL capability.

The flight of three four-ship stealth little planes were tasked to bomb the concentration of artillery rockets, safely stationed on the eastern border of the West Bank.

After negotiating the intervening geography, some of them were jumped on by Flankers and Fulcrums of the IRIAF, and, assisted by Israely Eagles and German Eurofighters, were able to resume their attack profile.......towards another, less important target, in order to confuse and distract the bad guys.

The real attack, carried by the last group, found the artillery rocket Battallion napping, and after delivering a precision blow, disengaged and went back to base, to rearm, and take part in the follow-up campaign to throw the invaders out.

THE BAE/LM ShadowHawk:
After the success of the F-35 Program, European nations found that their fleet of "lesser" light attack and training aircraft was also nearing their useful lives. Something in the order of the F-35 was needed to replace these, but the pricetag for the Lightning II was to high to purchase the great quantity of airframes needed.

Enter the ShadowHawk. In a daring move, BAE and LM, developed a small, stealth response to the requirement, and using technology and experience gleaned from the JSF project, started the biggest aircraft construction program since the NATO F-16.

Most NATO Nations took part in the construction effort, or simply ordered airframes. The ShadowHawk was quickly dubbed "a poor man's JSF", but really was much more than that.

Able to deploy from every new Aircraft Carrier of the European Alliance, and equipped with the same VTOL capability of the F-35, the ShadowHawk had a couple of spacious weapons bays along with two underwing hardpoints and two estra wingtip stations.

Its small size belied the power of its RR engine, a diminutive derivative of the JSF's capable of not only propel the plane through Mach 1.5 on Supercruise regime, but also capable to operate the Lift-Fan on board. Also, its size helped reduce its already microscopic Radar Cross Section.

The ShadowHawk will serve in the skies of Europe for years to come.


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This was a Seahawk I had gathering dust, having donated its wings for another project. I took the fuselage and a lightbulb went off in my head. I took Cardboard (Carboard, Yum), and made the boxy fuselage form around the plastic body, , and made the wings and vertical surfaces from plastic card. A quick project, and a very fun one.

Hope you like it

Rafa

[BlackOps]

Nice one Rafa!  You always get great shapes for your aircraft, also nice to see some cardboard in action again!

[sotoolslinger]

Rafa your skills are no longer surprising yet still stunning. What a beauty

[John Howling Mouse]

Love the intakes, Rafa!

[Brian da Basher]

Outstanding work, Rafa! You certainly nailed the stealthy shape and I really like your camo pattern too! It's great to see you having fun at the workbench and making magic with cardboard!

Brian da Basher

[Rafael]

A few photos of the building "process".

The laterals on the airframe are cardboard. More Cardboard for the doors to the lift-fan and auxiliary intakes on top


The rear. I made a grilled exhaust, trying to depict a supposedly vectoring system


The bottom. Showing the exhaust of the lift-fan, and landing gear under the wings


Short build. Lots o'fun

Rafa

[Spey_Phantom]

now thats a really cool fighter there 
all hail the cardboard king 

[B777LR]

Heil Rafa! Heil Rafa! Heil karton führer!

[Maverick]

Bueno Mi Pana,

I couldn't believe it started out as a Seahawk!  But then, we can expect little less from our Carboard (Yum!) God.

Saludos,

Mav

[sotoolslinger]

Rafa thanks for the in progress shots It is always a pleasure to learn from such a talented artist

[Taiidantomcat]

Rafa thanks for the in progress shots It is always a pleasure to learn from such a talented artist

No joke, talk about improvising! very well executed!

Ben

[Brian da Basher]

Rafa thanks for the in progress shots It is always a pleasure to learn from such a talented artist

Rafa is What-If's Alexander Calder of Cardboard.

Brian da Basher

[B777LR]

Rafa, how did the spitfire casting project go?

[Rafael]

Thank you, thank you, thank you (with blushed cheeks)

I wish I was one quarter the size of Mr. Calder in artistic terms.....

I always like to post some build-up photos to share the joy of modeling something.

Thomas, the hurricane casting project (http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,18745.0.html) is a go. I only have a few issues to solve first, but I can tell you that it can be done

Thanks

Rafa

[ysi_maniac]

 
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