Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

[SPINNERS]

Juche K-1 'Gadeu' - Air Fighter Wing 3, Korean Peoples's Army Air Force, 1947







This is the Seversky P-35 Guardsman masquerading as the Juche ('Self-Reliance') K-1 - North Korea's first indigenous fighter aircraft. It's a more interesting way of populating my install with some some adversaries for the 1945 to 1949 era!

[SPINNERS]

Curtiss-Wright P-55B - 1st American Volunteer Group ('Flying Tigers') China, 1944









I'm a bit short of time tonight so I've cut a few corners here (no aircraft numbers and no panel lines on the vertical tails) but overall it's a pretty good attempt at an AVG Ascender.

[SPINNERS]

Hispano Aviación HA1155 'Centauro - Ala 36, Ejército del Aire, 1949











A very nice Fiat G.55 Centauro was released recently and a nice blank 'silver' texture has been kindly given to me to play with so I thought I'd do a post-war licence-built version for the Spanish Air Force (neglected by me recently) and it looks quite nice even over the original Desert terrain.

[SPINNERS]

Messerschmitt 'Libelle' - Luft'46







No input from me on these apart from taking the screenshots but this is the Messerschmitt 'Libelle' the latest release from the SFP1 Development A-Team. An interesting shape!

[SPINNERS]

Supermarine Spitfire F.24 - Air Wing of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, 1952







I meant to show these Fijian Spitfires on Thursday as an affectionate nod towards Wales' opponents in the 2015 RWC on that night. A new air force for me so I've designed a roundel and finflash on their behalf. One really nice aspect of 'Strike Fighters' is that you can create your own air force, give it a name and with a couple of simple edits it will show up. You do have to align it though as 'Friendly' or 'Enemy' along Cold War lines. This also allows you to have an 'enemy' Germany for WW2 gameplay and a 'Friendly' Germany for post-war and the reverse with the Soviet Union. I never used to bother but my recent flirtation with the Regia Aeronautica twisted my arm into doing it.

[SPINNERS]

Gōngyè Hángkōng 'Qīngtíng' - 1st Fighter Regiment, Vietnam Peoples' Air Force, 1953











This is the Messerschmitt Libelle transformed into the fictional Chinese 'Dragonfly' export fighter! I just knocked up a simple template with the barest number of panel lines and added my VPAF camo with grey undersides. I don't like the shape of the Libelle but it is huge fun to fly and actually needs to be de-tuned as it's a bit too sprightly in game.

[SPINNERS]

Messerschmitt P.1101 Jaguar - Regia Aeronautica, 1946











The Messerschmitt P.1101 was released recently, again by the SFP1 Development A-Team, with a basic Luftwaffe skin so I decided to invest a few hours in making a fairly simple template and using a Regia Aeronautica type skin and decals. I'm not too happy with the fin cross and might try a raked version. BTW the Jaguar name was chosen by me in recognition of the Bell X-5 / Grumman XF10F Jaguar

[SPINNERS]

Gloster F-73B Meteor - 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing, USAF, 1954











The single-seat F-73C is one from a while back but I now have a F-73B two-seat trainer thanks to the release of a Meteor 'T7.5' by 'Veltro2K' basically a T.7 with an F.8 tail.

[SPINNERS]

Republic F-7C Thunderstorm - No.6 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, 1969

During late 1958 the Langley Laboratory made the breakthrough that led to the realisation of a valid variable-sweep wing and by early 1959 Tactical Air Command (TAC) could see that this massive technological breakthrough could be the key to help them in their search for a tactical strike fighter to replace both the F-100 Super Sabre and the F-105 Thunderchief. Pretty soon however the numerical values for unrefuelled range and payload that TAC had attached to their mission requirements had the effect of turning all the paper studies from F-105 sized machines to much larger tactical bombers with a corresponding increase in cost and price and this reduced affordability was of great concern to TAC.

In the Autumn of 1959 TAC wisely decided to split their requirement into a smaller tactical fighter to replace the F-100 and a larger tactical bomber to replace the F-105, B-57 and B-66. The larger aircraft would evolve into Specific Operational Requirement No.183 that would launch the important TFX (tactical fighter experimental) programme and eventually lead (via a tortuous route) to the outstanding but highly compromised F-111 family whilst the smaller aircraft would lead to Specific Operational Requirement No.182 or TAX (tactical aircraft experimental).

Issued in March 1960 SOR182 called for a single-seat tactical fighter aircraft with "reduced dependence of paved runways" and with "the ability to carry a nuclear bomb at supersonic speed at tree-top height". Requests for Proposals were immediately sent out to industry and Republic Aviation's proposal soon gained the support of TAC by virtue of its use of a variable-sweep wing but also by the use of the existing J75 turbojet and F-105 avionics. With the end of F-105 production on the horizon Republic Aviation pushed hard for SOR182/TAX and in February 1961 they were rewarded with a contract for 24 prototype and pre-production YF-110 aircraft and 400 production F-110A machines and Republic wasted no time in bestowing the name of 'Thunderstorm' to the latest of their long line of fighter aircraft.

Republic Aviation were fortunate in being awarded the contract before Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara had got into his stride and the programme largely escaped McNamara and his whiz-kids. Development moved swiftly and during 1962 the programme was re-designated F-7 under the new tri-service designation scheme and the first prototype took to the air on December 22nd 1962 a full year ahead of the F-111A. Entering service in June 1965 the F-7A was followed by the F-7B two-seat trainer version and the more advanced F-7C version that first deployed to Vietnam in March 1968 when a two-squadron wing transferred to Takhli Royal Thia AFB, Thailand in a deployment called 'Combat Lancer'. In May 1968 Australia became the first export customer for the Thunderstorm purchasing 8 F-7B and 32 F-7C aircraft to equip No.1 Squadron and No.6 Squadron with the latter deploying to Phan Rang Air Base on South Vietnam's southern coast serving alongside the USAF's 35th Tactical Fighter Wing until June 1971.













The Thunderstorm created from the 'Flogger' is one of my favourite 'what ifs' and if you search 'Thunderstorm' within this thread you'll see the original USAF version (with the same backstory given above apart from the Aussie export) plus the USMC version based on the duck-nose MiG-27, the USN's F-7J and the Belgian export version.

[SPINNERS]

Mikoyan MiG-27MA 'Flogger-J' - Grupo 6, Fuerza Aérea Argentina, 1991













I was tempted to make this an export version of the Republic F-7M Thunderstorm but decided to keep it 'real' (ha!) by making it a Mikoyan product. Perhaps the Soviets, in the immediate aftermath of the Falklands War, decided to interfere by gifting Argentina with Floggers (Fighter and Attack versions) and Argentina cunningly timed their attack to coincide with the UK's commitment to 'Desert Storm'. Food for thought. Anyway, this is the stock Soviet Grey skin meant for the MiG-23P adapted to fit the MiG-27 - you'll note that I've chosen to use roundels on both wings, just personal choice really. Today's Argentine Mirages are so devoid of markings!

[SPINNERS]

Mikoyan MiG-37 'Ferret-B' - Russian Air Force, 2019















This is an alternate F-32 design masquerading as the MiG-37 'Ferret' which we all know was designed by Testors/Italeri!!

[SPINNERS]

McDonnell Douglas Phantom FG.3 - No.4 Squadron, RAF Germany, 1983







An exciting new release today - a single seat Spey Phantom! This was created by 'Sundowner' who, apart from being a superb skinner, has also done a Spey F-4E and a Spey RF-4. No input from me here - just the screenshots. Note the parked Merlin ADV's 

[SPINNERS]

Nakajima Ki-8 - 101st Sentai, Imperial Japanese Army Air Force, 1938







A Finnish Gauntlet was released today by the SFP1 Dev A-Team with three camo schemes and the green skin has been adapted by me to make a Japanese Gauntlet using the markings I created for my IJAAF Spitfire a few years ago. I've not had time to make numbers for it because today is RWC Final Day. The winning country will be used as tomorrow's 'Whif' nation!

[SPINNERS]

Republic F-84M Thunderstreak - No.14 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force, 1966

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. New Zealand and Australia with the latter operating their F-84M's in action over Vietnam in 1964 and 1965.











Well played New Zealand and hard luck to the Aussies who fought back during the second half. A fitting end to the 2015 RWC Final.

I've repeated my backstory with a little update to include New Zealand.

[SPINNERS]

Panavia Tornado - No.14 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force, 1984

















There are two Tornado IDS and also a nice Tornado F3 available and this IDS is by a German modder (Florian) who, quite naturally, did the German version including this lovely camo to which I've simply added RNZAF markings but including a new raked fin flash and a tail stripe which takes a bit longer than you might imagine to get the diamonds to fit exactly!


Panavia Tornado - Royal New Zealand Air Force