Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

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When looking at the Vampire Wiki recently I noticed this sentence - "Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the U.S. were the only major Western powers not to use the aircraft." Well, let's put that right!

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de Havilland Vampire FB.5 - No.350 Squadron, Belgian Air Force, 1953







I hadn't realised that some Belgian squadrons used their old RAF squadron codes when they reformed and this was the case with No.350 Squadron who used 'MN' on their Meteor F.8's in the 1950's. For the serial numbers, I could see that 'V' was unused so used 'VA' for these Vampires to allow Vampire two-seaters (or Venoms) to use 'VB' and/or 'VC' etc.

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de Havilland Vampire FB.5 - No.349 Squadron, Belgian Air Force, 1949







I'm not too sure how long the 'Type C' Belgian roundels and finflash went on for but I wanted to use them on this Vampire with a standard RAF Camo scheme. Perhaps Belgium and the Netherlands were supplied with Vampires as part of the very short-lived 'Western Union' alliance (between the UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) which ran from 1948 to 1954 but for most of that time it ran alongside NATO. There's a little bit of 'what if' potential there and perhaps Luxembourg should have a fighter squadron!

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Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IXc - No.348 (Luxembourg) Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1943



Before getting to a 'Western Union' era Luxembourg jet fighter squadron I thought I'd give it some background by being formed as a wartime RAF squadron just like the Dutch and Belgian RAF squadrons that moved over but kept their wartime RAF squadron number. I'd noticed that No.348 Squadron were never formed (but had codes allocated) and the squadron number lies alongside the Belgian squadrons shown above. With the squadron codes being 'FR' then there was an obvious candidate for my choice of the aircraft letter...

Flies right off the ground!

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Supermarine Spitfire Mk.XIVe - No.348 Squadron, Luxembourg Air Force, 1947





Just an interim step with Luxembourg creating their own independent air force in 1946 and operating the Spitfire XIV's that they ended the war with but with modified Type C markings using the colours from the Luxembourg flag - a bit too bright for my tastes but it has a different look that somehow works. This uses the Third Wire Spitfire Mk.XVIII as a stand-in for a Mk.XIVe.

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de Havilland Vampire F.Mk.3 - No.348 Squadron, Luxembourg Air Force, 1948





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For this Luxembourg Vampire I've switched to the earlier F.Mk.3 which is more appropriate for a (pre-NATO) 'Western Union' timeline and given them a yellow bordered roundel but I've also made a black bordered roundel for future use on NMF/Silver aircraft.

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This is, of course, the gorgeous Dassault Super Mystère masquerading as the Aero L.23 Žralok (Shark) with the NATO reporting name of 'Furball'. First, let's get rid of the elephant in the room. I've cocked up the designation haven't I? I think 'L' designations are for trainers and 'S' is for fighters such as the licence-built  MiG-15, MiG-17, MiG-19, etc. Actually, there are no gaps in the S-100 series of designations and it should really go either side of the S-105 (MiG-19) but there's no gaps. Anyway, I made the L.23 way back in 2010 and I've picked it up again today and made the green skin seen above using the same shade of green as seen on the Avia S-199. I've kept things pretty generic by using serial numbers generated by the game/sim and just adding some made up squadron markings although the top profile's red bolt emblem is seen on real world Czech MiG's. Not that you can see them, I've installed the Tumansky R-11F-300 engine (dry thrust 8,600 lbf and 12,680 lbf with reheat) into the L.23 and added two NR-30 cannons.

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Grumman A-6A Intruder - Flotille 12 & Flotille 17, Aéronavale, 1966








A revised repeat! I'm revisiting some of the 'what ifs' I've uploaded to Combat Ace and this one cropped up today but dating back to 2010.

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Hawker Harrier Mk.51 - Escuadrón Aéreo 113, Fuerza Aérea del Perú, 1973






I've done a Peruvian Harrier before but this one uses a slightly different skin using a lighter grey, new drop tanks with green upper surfaces and has markings for a new ficticious Peruvian squadron.

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Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19S "Farmer-C" - HävLLv 11, Suomen Ilmavoimat, 1962






Another one from 2010 but a new photoset. I've never found the MiG-19 to be a particularly good-looking aeroplane but, from what I've read, it was highly regarded.

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Gloster Meteor F.Mk.8 - Esquadron 20, Força Aérea Portuguesa, 1955








Still one of my all-time favourite aircraft!

Despite using an excellent stock silver skin, two elements of this took up a lot of my time yesterday - the anti-glare panel and the 20 Esquadron unit marking. The anti-glare was a nightmare as it crosses across three segments (imagine a peeled banana skin) and I completely screwed-up on the shape anyway. I'm happier with the 20 Esquadron unit marking which is based on a real-world marking which has the '20' tangled around a F-84G Thunderjet silhouette. Replacing the Thunderjet with the Meteor was easy enough but trying to get the '20' tangled around the Meteor silhouette was trickier and in the end I gave up on the '2'. Anyway, are these Portuguese Meteors over Angola or defending their homeland against MiG-15's flown off one of the Soviet Navy's Stalin-class aircraft carriers? Nurse, my medicene please!

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Anti-glare panel improved 

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Gloster Meteor F.Mk.8 - Ejercito del Aire,1956





Photo-bombed by my Portuguese Meteor!

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