Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

[SPINNERS]

Sukhoi Su-23 'Flagstone-A' - 177th Fighter Aviation Regiment PVO, Soviet Air Force, 1973

SOVIET Su-23 FLAGSTONE.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

SOVIET Su-23 FLAGSTONE.02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

SOVIET Su-23 FLAGSTONE.03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

SOVIET Su-23 FLAGSTONE.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

SOVIET Su-23 FLAGSTONE.05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

SOVIET Su-23 FLAGSTONE.07 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

SOVIET Su-23 FLAGSTONE.06 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Another Cocas creation - a delta-winged Phantom! I saw this as a contemporary of the Su-15 Flagon so kitted it out with Anabs and Atolls but it's a pity that those Sparrow recesses are unused. I suppose if the Soviets had copied the Phantom then they could have copied the Sparrow too!

[SPINNERS]

BAC Lightning FGA.7 - No.38 Group, RAF Air Support Command, 1967-1971

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.09 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.10 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.11 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.08 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.12 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.13 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.14 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

A lot of piccies in this set, let me explain.

I love making decals and especially for my RAF What Ifs. For many years now, I've had a template that helps me make 'fuselage bars' decals with the RAF roundel flanked by the squadron colours and the RAF roundel can be substituted with the squadron badge/disc to then make 'nose bars' like those seen on the Hawker Hunter. These decals are fine for 95% of all aircraft and work well on Starfighters, Super Sabres and Thunderchiefs, etc but for the Lightning they don't really work well as they are too long. When I scale them down to fit, the roundel ends up too small and is pushed too far forward. This has now started to bug me! In RAF service (before the tactical markings era) the nose roundel on the Lightning was in exactly the same place just touching the front part of the fuselage ducts. I was making a four-squadron wing of Lightning FGA.7's for No.38 Group and started with the colourful nose markings but OCD kicked in so I've switched to a plain roundel in the correct place. However, it's just not the same without the flash of colour so I'll just have to bite the bullet at some time and make a Lightning specific decal template.

[SPINNERS]

BAC Lightning FGA.7 - Air Fighting Development Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1966

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.15 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.16 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.18 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF LIGHTNING FGA7.17 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

First time I've done a AFDU/AFDS 'what if' and for the nose markings I've carefully scaled the proportions off a real photo of XM137 but gone a bit more freestyle on the tail fin.

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BAC Lightning F.Mk.54 - Marinefliegergeschwader 1, 1970

The first rumours of an alleged bribery scandal surrounding the purchase of the Lockheed F-104G Starfighter by the West German Government coincided with the ferociously high attrition rate of the Starfighter in Luftwaffe and Marineflieger service. With the end of Lightning production on the near horizon BAC submitted a brochure to the Bonn Government and Marineflieger Officials for a proposed multi-role Lightning based on the F.53 and this proposal was accepted leading to a modest production order for 60 Lightning F.54's which entered service in late 1968 with MFG1 and MFG2 before being retired in 1987.

MFG LIGHTNING F54.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

MFG LIGHTNING F54.02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

MFG LIGHTNING F54.03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

MFG LIGHTNING F54.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

MFG LIGHTNING F54.05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I have shown this one before (back in 2010) but needed to refresh the upload requiring new screenshots so this is a new photoset.

[SPINNERS]

McDonnell Douglas F-4F Phantom - Marinefliegergeschwader 2, Bundesmarine, 1977

MFG F-4F PHANTOM.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

MFG F-4F PHANTOM.02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

MFG F-4F PHANTOM.03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

MFG F-4F PHANTOM.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

MFG F-4F PHANTOM.06 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

MFG F-4F PHANTOM.05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

i can't think why I've taken so long to do this one! You could use the same backstory for the Marineflieger Lightning (bribery scandal and/or crashes) but there would also be economies of scale when combined to the German Air Force purchase (I'll overlook the twin engine fuel burn and the extra crew costs  ). There's a few hours gone into this one starting with making a hybrid template combining the Third Wire F-4F skins cutting out the parts and leaning heavily on the amazingly detailed 'sundowner' templates - just look at those lines and stencils! The colours proved a bit tricky too - even when using the FS and RAL numbers (FS16473 and RAL7012) as the difference when viewed on Google 'images' are just so variable. The font for 'MARINE' and the white outlined code numbers look OK but are very time-consuming to make so I just made a small batch of four code numbers to get it in game!

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English Electric Lightning F.3 - Air Fighting Development Squadron, English Air Force, 1964

ENGLAND LIGHTNING F3.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

ENGLAND LIGHTNING F3.02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

ENGLAND LIGHTNING F3.03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

ENGLAND LIGHTNING F3.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

ENGLAND LIGHTNING F3.06 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

ENGLAND LIGHTNING F3.05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I hate that flippin' IFR probe!

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Lockheed F-19A 'Sniper' - VMFT-401, United States Marine Corps, 1985

USMC F-19A SNIPER.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USMC F-19A SNIPER.02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USMC F-19A SNIPER.03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USMC F-19A SNIPER.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USMC F-19A SNIPER.05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USMC F-19A SNIPER.06 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USMC F-19A SNIPER.07 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

This is a new photoset of a whif I did back at the end of November 2018 when I was temporarily using the first generation of Strike Fighters (SF1). I wanted to release it in SF2 so re-created it using the stock Egyptian two-tone grey wraparound camo for the Marines F-19A and the stock Syrian camo for the Navy F-19A (seen in piccie 6) with both having a false canopy painted on the undersides.

[SPINNERS]

Gloster Galant FAW.1 - No.92 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1962

During the late summer of 1956 with the English Electric P.1B Lightning programme steadily falling behind schedule, General Alfred Gruenther (the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Air Forces in Europe) expressed his deep concern that it's bases in the UK could not be adequately defended by the "subsonic limeys" so the F-102 Delta Dagger was selected for RAF Fighter Command under the Offshore Procurement Plan with 100 F-102's ordered in November 1956. However with Convair stretched to the max with the F-102, F-106 and B-58 programmes Gloster Aviation were selected to licence build the F-102K as the Gloster Galant FAW.1 with initial deliveries being made to No.19 Squadron and No.92 Squadron at RAF Leconfield in April 1958.

RAF GALANT FAW1.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF GALANT FAW1.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF GALANT FAW1.02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF GALANT FAW1.03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF GALANT FAW1.06 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF GALANT FAW1.05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

This one, including the slightly tweeked backstory, is another one from the archives but does use a different 3D model (payware - from Razbam) and new decals on an ADC Grey skin. I'd liked to have used silver/NMF but there you go. A JASDF version will follow at some time in the future as will a 'close support' version that is mentioned on the F-102 wiki page.

[SPINNERS]

McDonnell F3H-3G Super Demon - 'Blue Angels' Flight Demonstration Squadron, United States Navy, 1961

USN F3H-3G SUPER DEMON.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USN F3H-3G SUPER DEMON.05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USN F3H-3G SUPER DEMON.06 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USN F3H-3G SUPER DEMON.07 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USN F3H-3G SUPER DEMON.12 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USN F3H-3G SUPER DEMON.09 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USN F3H-3G SUPER DEMON.11 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USN F3H-3G SUPER DEMON.10 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

This is the latest creation by my Portuguese amigo 'cocas' - McDonnell's F3H-3G, although he's called his creation the F-110B 'Sprite' and also done C, D and E models! It's a real mix of Voodoo, Demon and Phantom II and, indeed, photo's of the F3H-3G mock-up turn up in many books on the F-4 Phantom. I've gone for a Blue Angels skin and the underwing lettering took me hours to do and is still not anywhere like what it should be. There's a lot going on there and chapeaux to those who designed and painted it on the real Blue Angels (a wing fence would be a doddle in comparison). I tried using the perspective tool but results were poor and I guess the real solution would be to use the perspective tool on every single letter to preserve the character width and give that constant slope. My method was to make a placement grid (for each wing - left wing shown below) but whilst this looks, superficially, good it lacks the constant slope of the real world version. The final four piccies have extra decoration.

USN F3H-3G SUPER DEMON.08 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Bristol Buckley Mk.1 - No. 73 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1938

RAF BUCKLEY.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF BUCKLEY.02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF BUCKLEY.03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF BUCKLEY.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF BUCKLEY.05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

A nice change of pace! This lovely Curtiss Hawk 750 was released by the DAT group of modders and makes a smashing pre-war RAF interceptor and a nice canvas for Gladiator-esque markings!

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Gloster F-73C Meteor - 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing, United States Air Force, 1951

USAF F-73C METEOR.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USAF F-73C METEOR.02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USAF F-73C METEOR.03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USAF F-73C METEOR.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USAF F-73C METEOR.05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I make no apologies for this repeat!

I'm continuing with my on-going programme of slowly updating the what if's I've uploaded to Combat Ace which can sometimes be as little as adding a screenshot to the listing as they had an unfortunate data loss whilst having a reshuffle many year ago now. Anyway, the Meteor is one of my favourite aircraft of all time and the Third Wire 3D model is a cracker! Only thing is - it flies too well and certainly doesn't "wallow like a sick cow above 30,000 feet when doing anything other than a Rate 1 turn" as one RAF pilot memorably stated.

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Dassault Super Etendard - Belgian Marine Component, 2003

BZ SUPER ETENDARD.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

BZ SUPER ETENDARD.02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

BZ SUPER ETENDARD.03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

BZ SUPER ETENDARD.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Just a short photoset for another revised upload.

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British Aerospace Condor Mk.50 - 201 Squadron, Israeli Air Force, 1982

IDF CONDOR.07 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

IDF CONDOR.08 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

IDF CONDOR.09 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Cocas' Condor with a lovely IDF camo scheme by 'Nyghtflyer' and decals by me. Loads of fun!

[SPINNERS]

British Aerospace Condor Mk.50 - 119 Squadron, Israeli Air Force, 1982

IDF CONDOR.01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

IDF CONDOR.05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

IDF CONDOR.06 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

IDF CONDOR.04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Panavia Condor F.1 - No.23 'Red Eagle' Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 1979

On July 25th 1968 a memorandum of understanding was signed by Belgium, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and West Germany expressing their interest and intent on producing a multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA) with a tentative in-service date of 1975. Belgium dropped out very early and before the end of the year Canada had also pulled out with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau claiming that they simply could not afford it but this was, perhaps, a convenient excuse to hide behind whilst Trudeau's liberal goverment re-shaped the entire Canadian armed forces. For a short while the remaining four nations ploughed on but the Dutch became increasingly concerned as their prime mission was for an air superiority fighter and even though they had cranked in severe requirements for long radius of action and maximum performance in air combat at all altitudes they then complained when the resultant design became larger and therefore more expensive. Once the Dutch had left the MRCA project the remaining three nations formed a Joint Working Group firming up on requirements, removing excessive demands and establishing a technically viable baseline solution to their MRCA requirement. Fashionably, this baseline solution was a swing-wing design with afterburing turbofan engines. With all three Governments on board the project was to be delivered by a co-ordinating organisation called NAMMO (NATO MRCA Management Organisation) employing three newly created international contractor companies; Panavia Aircraft GmbH (airframe), Turbo-Union Ltd (engines) and Avionica Systems Engineering GmbH (avionics) that would combine to produce the Panavia Tornado.

Whilst the RAF were fully behind the swing-wing MRCA design for their all-weather interdiction and strike requirements they expressed deep concern over it's suitability to meet their RAF Air Staff Requirement 395 which called for a long-range interceptor to replace the Lightning and Phantom. Influenced by U.S. studies on future air superiority fighter aircraft, and especially by John Boyd's energy–maneuverability theory, the RAF demanded an aircraft with extra power and maneuverability compared to the proposed Tornado ADV. Whilst they conceded that the Tornado ADV might be acceptable as a long-range interceptor it would be totally outclassed as a 'central front' fighter by the expected threats of the next generation of Soviet fighter aircraft (in particular, and before it's limitations became known, the MiG-25 was especially feared). When the UK Government argued that another combat aircraft could not be considered on cost grounds the RAF reminded them that the proposed Tornado ADV was already morphing into a different aircraft with a longer forward fuselage to accommodate semi-recessed Sparrow/Skyflash missiles, more powerful engines to address the low power to weight ratio and a totally different avionics package.

Panavia were already ahead of the curve with several design studies on various advanced air superiority fighter aircraft with the most promising being 'Projekt Condor' from the Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) design team at Ottobrun for a single-seat air superiority fighter powered by a single large afterburning turbofan engine (the RB.250 - itself a paper project by Turbo-Union but based on a scaled-up Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan). Preliminary technical studies demonstrated that Specific Excess Power and manoueverability were off the chart when compared to all current fighter aircraft and a parallel study on the market for such an aircraft in the 1975 to 1990 period revealed a potential market for 600 aircraft in Western Europe and the Middle East alone. Unexpected support for Projekt Condor came from the Italian Government who sought a follow-on fighter aircraft to replace the Aeritalia F-104S on the Turin production line. In the UK, with unemployment at its highest level since 1940, the incoming Conservative Government led by Edward Heath supported the project as one of a raft measures to boost the UK economy. By 1971 all three Governments (Italy, the UK and West Germany) were in agreement and the Panavia Condor programme was allowed to proceed with an initial order for 10 Condor prototype and development aircraft and 465 production aircraft (West Germany 200, UK 165 and Italy 100) to be assembled on final production lines in each country but with workload shared out with the United Kingdom and West Germany each having a 40% share of the workload with the remaining 20% going to Italy.

With inflation running rampant in Western Europe the Condor programme was under the strictest financial scrutiny during the early 1970's but luckily escaped the axe on at least two occassions. Despite the Condor programme being a political football (and seemingly a permanent fixture in the news headlines) development moved swiftly aided by the existing collaborative structures within Panavia recently created for the Tornado programme. With a new airframe and a new engine Panavia were keen to avoid also introducing a completely new avionics package so sensibly opted for an off-the-shelf purchase of the Hughes APG-63 multimode radar system but designed to incorporate a software programmable signal processor allowing the system to be modified to accommodate new modes and weapons through software reprogramming rather than by a more costly and disruptive hardware retrofit. The first prototype (PC-01) was structurally complete by early April 1974 and was trucked from Ottobrun to the Hannover Air Show where it was displayed in the static park attracting considerable interest from Saudi Arabian and Omani officials. DA-01 was then taken to Manching to be mated with the Turbo-Union RB.250 engine for ground-testing and taxying trials that continued during the summer months before MBB's chief test pilot, Nils Meister, took to the air on August 15th 1974. A few short weeks later he dazzled the crowds at the 1974 Farnborough Air Show demonstrating the Condor's remarkable manoueverability. The fleet of development aircraft began to build up during 1975 with the only real mishap occuring when DA-06 (whose main task was armament development) was mysteriously lost over the Irish Sea.

Entering service with No.23 Squadron of the Royal Air Force on April 1st, 1978 the Condor F.1 eventually served with seven squadrons in the UK and another two in RAF Germany. Primary armament was the Skyflash semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile and the AIM-9L 'all-aspect' version of the Sidewinder infra-red air-to-air missile. In addition, the Condor was fitted with two internal Mauser BK-27 cannon (developed for the Panavia Tornado) each with 250 rounds.

RAF CONDOR F1.18 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF CONDOR F1.19 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF CONDOR F1.20 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF CONDOR F1.21 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAF CONDOR F1.22 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

This lovely RAF Camo was made by 'Nyghtflyer' for Cocas' Condor which we've (jointly) decided to make a Panavia product. The backstory has more holes than a Swiss cheese but, hey, it's a what if!!

RAF CONDOR F1.17 by Spinners1961, on Flickr
Bonus shot of a No.29 Squadron machine.