Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

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BAC Thunderstrike S.2 - No.45 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 1974









On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the cancellation of the TSR.2 I'll be doing some 'in service' shots with RAF squadrons in a variety of schemes starting with this No.45 squadron machine with markings immediately familiar to anyone whose built the Matchbox Hunter!

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BAC Thunderstrike S.2 - No.58 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 1975











Lol - Matchbox memories! Just had to do the sister squadron!

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BAC Thunderstrike S.2 - No.12 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 1971









I like 3-colour RAF roundels on classic post-war RAF Camo and, to my eyes, the TSR.2 looks especially good.

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British Aerospace Thunderstrike GR.4 - No.XV Squadron, RAF Germany, 1985















This is a much revised 3D model with fuselage pylons, internal guns and Tornado style chin pods. It also has wing-tip missile pylons, stub missile pylons on the inner wing pylons and additional wing pylons but none of these are shown here as I like a simpler, more classic, TSR.2. Besides, even before cancellation, the 'men from the ministry' were cost-cutting on the weapons pylons so would have been apoplectic when asked to sign off these additional mods. In game, the JP233 is awesome!

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British Aerospace Thunderstrike GR.4 - No.31 Squadron, Royal Air Force, 1991















I was going to do some Tornado style Gulf War nose art and googled 'The Fat Slags' just as the wife walked in with a cup of tea... 

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British Aerospace Thunderstrike GR.4 - No.13 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 2002















I'm not too current on modern RAF squadrons and heraldry but once I'd seen a No.13 Squadron Tornado GR.4 with that cool nose marking I knew I'd have to use it on the TSR.2!

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BAC TSR.2 - XR220 (Second Prototype), First Flight, April 6th, 1965











Well, if you're going to have a chase plane I suppose XR219 is adequate...

This brings to an end my TSR.2 burst but I will come back to it in the near future. I've got a 'what if' skinning job to do on the Avia S-92 (Me-262) in Ilmavoimat service so there'll be no updates for a few days but at least I'll have Me-262 templates to play with.

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Avia S-92 Stormbird - HävLLv 31,Ilmavoimat, 1948











Creating templates for the S-92 has taken a fair few hours but I'm quite pleased with the result. I've used the same colours as the VL Myrsky II skin I created a few months ago and the S-92 will see service with Finno-Soviet forces in a fictional campaign being created by a Swedish guy over at Combat Ace. The piccie below is just to show the markings he'll be using on an early version of the skin.

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Avia S-92 Stormbird - No.117 'First Jet' Squadron, Israeli Air Force, 1948















When making templates for the S-92 this wasn't far from my mind! OK, this camo scheme was from a few years later but I think it looks cool on the S-92.

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Avia S-92 Stormbird - 101 Squadron, Israeli Air Force, 1948









Very little time tonight so I've just used the slightly pale green colour seen on Czech and IDF Avia S-99/S-199's.

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Hawker Sea Fury FB.52 - 300 Indian Naval Air Squadron, 1956

















There's been a superb Sea Fury released recently and a blank skin makes an INAS Sea Fury a doddle although I have cheated by using some generic 3-digit codes with higher numbers than the later Sea Hawks. I haven't got any 'straight deck' aircraft carriers in my install at the moment so the Vikrant has entered service a bit earlier and with an angled flight deck! The Sea Fury looks like the thoroughbred she is!

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Hawker F-87C Nighthawk - United States Air Force, Korea, 1953















Another Hawker thoroughbred!

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Vought F-8E Crusader - No.300 Indian Naval Air Squadron, 1971













Very restricted time at the moment so a quickie INAS Crusader.

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Republic F-84M Thunderstreak - No.1 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, 1964

The swept-wing Republic F-84F Thunderstreak was an important fighter-bomber for the United States and her NATO allies and after a troubled development and delays in production the Thunderstreak programme soon recovered and, with massive orders to fulfill, the Farmingdale production line was supplemented by a second production line outsourced to General Motors at Kansas City. When the last straight-winged F-84G Thunderjet rolled off the Farmingdale production line on July 27th, 1953 production of the newer aircraft stepped up sharply and was boosted by the employment of several subcontractors including Kaiser Metal Products, Servel and Goodyear Aircraft.

Republic Aviation then started a self-financed project to replace the F-84F and RF-84F family and Alexander Kartveli's design team settled on a large, single-engined fighter-bomber initially known as the AP-63FBX (Advanced Project 63 Fighter Bomber, Experimental) but later to become the legendary F-105. Designed primarily for supersonic, low altitude penetration the F-105 was capable of delivering a single nuclear bomb carried in a small internal weapons bay and an enthusiastic United States Air Force soon rewarded Republic with a production order contract for 199 aircraft in September 1952. However, the expected end of the Korean War forced the United States Air Force to reduce their order to just 46 aircraft before cancelling the entire programme at the end of 1953 but then reinstating the programme in June 1954 with a small order for 15 F-105 aircraft (two YF-105A's, four YF-105B's, six F-105B's and three RF-105B's).

Faced with such uncertainty, Republic Aviation looked at ways of keeping the F-84F in production and focused on tackling the F-84F's mediocre flight performance and especially the poor takeoff performance with a more powerful engine. Kartveli quickly dusted down a previous study of fitting the Rolls-Royce Avon engine into the F-84F and with this fine engine being of a similar size as the Sapphire/J65 but now rated at 10,000lbs of dry thrust Kartveli looked no further than an F-84F modified to accept the Avon engine. The new version also incorporated several refinements learned from service experience such as stainless steel control rods and an improved all-flying tail that almost removed the vicious stall characteristics of the F-84F. Designated by Republic Aviation as the F-84M the new aircraft was marketed aggressively as a dedicated tactical fighter-bomber and soon picked up orders from Canada and Australia with the latter operating their F-84M's in action over Vietnam in 1964 and 1965.















The F-84F has had some attention with a few new skins and this 'Greek' skin immediately suggested, at least to me, an Aussie Thunderstreak over Vietnam and I've worked the Avon into the backstory as an affectionate nod to their use of the Avon-Sabre and their deep consideration of an Avon-Mirage! RAAF serial geeks will notice that the 'A86' serials were allocated to the gorgeous Hawker P.1081 which I'd certainly love to see in 'Strike Fighters'.

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Republic Aviation F-84M Thunderstreak - No.76 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, 1961











I liked the Aussie Thunderstreak so much I decided to go back in time to an earlier scheme and chose No.76 Squadron who'd be more than a bit miffed at missing out on the Avon Sabre and would be best advised not to try aerobatics in the F-84M!


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