Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

[Old Wombat]

Another pretty one! 

[NARSES2]

I've always liked that USN 'Blue-Blue-white' scheme (I even painted my dining room in it once.....  ) and it works REALLY well on a Seafire. Supper job Spinners. 

Totally agree with both 

[SPINNERS]

Gloster Gretton Mk.I - 811 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Air Force, 1937











I do like the occasional dip into the inter-war period and I've enjoyed doing this fictional RAF Gloster Gretton from the time before the Royal Navy got the Fleet Air Arm back. This is the Watanabe E9W a Japanese submarine-borne reconnaissance seaplane (given the Allied reporting name of "Slim") a new release by the SFP1 Dev A-Team in Imperial Japanese Navy and Thailand Navy schemes. I've made a version for the Parani Naval Air Arm (pictured below) and making this FAA version was quite simple using insignia applied directly to the skin map and decals for numbers and serials.

[NARSES2]

Suits FAA colours 

[zenrat]

Nice.  I've got an AZ Yoksuka K5Y2 in the stash which I might put tinto that FAA scheme.
 

[SPINNERS]

Bristol-Bloch Breton Mk.I - No.9 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1937

Derived from the earlier Bloch MB.200 bomber the MB.210 bomber was developed as a private venture and was a more modern design featuring a retractable undercarriage. The prototype MB.210 first flew (with a fixed undercarriage) on November 23rd, 1934, and was powered by two 800 hp Gnome-Rhône air-cooled radial engines.

With no immediate production order from the Armée de l'Air, Marcel Bloch looked towards the export market and by June 1935 he had found a willing partner in the Bristol Aeroplane Company who had just became a public limited company. At this time, the Bristol Aeroplane Company employed over 4,000 staff (mainly in the engine factory) and the company was well positioned to take advantage of the huge re-armament ordered by the British Government in May of that year.

In partnership with Bloch, the Bristol Aeroplane Company saw an opportunity to joint manufacture an improved version of the MB.210 but powered by two Bristol Pegasus nine-cylinder, single-row, air-cooled radial engines and fitted with a two-speed supercharger as the Bristol Pegasus XVIII. First flown on December 23rd, 1935, the prototype MB.210A ('Angleterre') was powered by the interim Bristol Pegasus III engines rated at 690 hp (510 kW) and initial flight testing was so encouraging that the newly appointed Air Chief Marshal of RAF Bomber Command, Sir John Steel, convinced Stanley Baldwin (the UK Prime Minister) to order the type in quantity. This was formally announced on February 25th, 1936, amongst a range of measures including the expansion of the Royal Navy, the re-equipment of the British Army and the creation of "shadow factories" to be built by public money and managed by industrial companies with the first to come into operation in 1937.

Allocated the designation Breton Mk.I the aircraft entered service in April 1937 with No.9 Squadron and by September 1939 it equipped 7 squadrons of RAF Command.  However, by the Spring of 1940 it was considered obsolete but saw limited use in the night-bombing missions of Autumn 1940 before being transferred to North Africa by the end of the year.











"So ugly it should be a Blackburn product" 

This MB.210 comes with a SCW Republican skin that was easily overpainted. I had hoped to do a simple decal job but the 3D model has some tear problems so I had to paint most of the markings directly onto the skin.

[Weaver]

Beat me to it with the comment about Blackburn.

The other UK builder that sprang to mind, given the front turret setup, was Boulton-Paul. It's rather remeniscient of the Overstrand.

You could call it the Boulton-Paul Sheringham, since the Sidestrand and Overstrand were named after places on the Norfolk coast near BP's factory in Norwich.

[SPINNERS]

de Havilland Venom FB.54 - 2 Squadron, Belgian Air Force, 1960













I was playing around with the SFP1 Dev A-Team's Venom and misplaced the folder for the wing tip tank (now sorted) and noticed that it has something approaching a missile launch rail built in to the wing tip so tweaked the loadout to give it wing-tip Sidewinders - it's not perfect but passable. For the skin I decided to do a Belgian Venom as I like the 2 Squadron 'Comet' and knocked up some white 'FP' code numbers and also some red letters with a yellow outline.

[Dizzyfugu]

The wing tip rails are a nice addition. 

[NARSES2]

The wing tip rails are a nice addition. 

They are indeed 

[SPINNERS]

de Havilland Venom FB.54 - MFG 1, West German Marineflieger, 1956













Although this Venom FB.4 is quite an elderly 3D model it has been given specular mapping and the specular maps can often be used to help knock-up templates and that's what I've done here to create this Marineflieger FB.54 as a sort of NATO standard fighter-bomber and it fits the 1956 timeline when the post-war Marineflieger was created. In the past I've used a bluey grey for the upper surfaces but sought out the exact colour (RAL 7012 Basalt Grey) and used a light grey (RAL 7047 Tele Grey) for the undersurfaces and think it looks much better. I'm hopeless on post-war West German serials so I used pictures of Marineflieger Sea Hawks as a guide for the VA+2XX codes but went off piste by using a Tornado era MFG 1 tail emblem on the nose instead of the Marineflieger emblem.

[Dizzyfugu]

That's nice!  A German two-seat night fighter, as a complement to the real Seahawk, would also make sense?

[SPINNERS]

de Havilland Sea Venom FAW.51 - MFG 2, West German Marineflieger, 1956











A bit of a rush job this as I'm away for a few days so I've used the SFP1 Dev A-Team's Sea Venom FAW.22 and just carefully overpainted the Royal Navy markings to give me a blank skin albeit in the EDSG over white colours. I've re-used the serial numbers from my Marineflieger Venom FB.54 but changed the unit to MFG 2 (Naval Air Wing 2) now sadly gone.

[Dizzyfugu]

Uh, the Marineflieger Venow NF looks VERY nice! Love it 

[SPINNERS]

Curtiss-Wright P-37B Hurricane - 33rd Pursuit Squadron, United States Army Air Corp, 1938









This radial-enginned Hurricane by 'Raven' makes for a variety of what if's and I think this is my fourth or fifth. I've previously done an American Hurricane but with the Merlin engine and in USN service (Page 71). I've (once again) used the 'spare' P-37 designation but didn't go for the coloured stripes on the wings and fuselage that denote the flight, squadron and group. The Wright R-2600 Twin Cyclone looks to be a good swap with the Hercules radial - virtually the same diameter but a bit heavier.