BAe-SAAB JAS-49 Loki

[MerlinJones]

And...

[MerlinJones]

And...

[MerlinJones]

And;

[MerlinJones]

Designed to be a flexible and hard-hitting response package, the Loki is ideally suited to waiting hidden, near known intercept points, to leap up and to obliterate and unauthorised traffic.
(The Human Rights Act had been revised in 2009, linking Rights with Responsiblity. Someone, armed, being where they shouldn't be, was deemed "irresponsible" and given that, usually, such individuals tended to fire first, negotiation was rarely a tactic used to effect).
Loki is designed equipped to take on anything from a single gunman, to a fully-armed warship upto Corvette Class.

[MerlinJones]

Main armament being a pair of under-belly gunpods, each one capable of single, precision-shot or full-on mayhem. Former Warthog Pilot, Max Bull described them as making the gun in the A-10 "look like a cranky old blunderbus."
Two underwing hardpoints for the usual NATO complement of weapons, plus an overwing hardpoint, usually for aam's or, when long distances need to be traversed, ferry tanks.
Under the rear of the plane is a multi-chute ejector sysytem, capable of dispensing chaff, decoys and mdc's (micro depth charges), these being sent to any submerged target, identified by the powerful sensor suite.
A powerful radar fills the nose cone, augmented by a state-of-the-art MSOSTD, (Multi-Spectrum Optical Site and Target Designator), which is linked to the pilots visor-sighting system. A development of earlier helmet-mounted sights, this allows the pilot to see exactly what his MSOSTD sees and he is able to understand the complex multispectrum images received. He can then select a weapon by voice command, sight it by eye and then launch by a wink. Once launched, weapons are fire-and-forget. However, following the loss of the Vigin A380, such fire-and-forget missiles have two other features built in;
The first is a button- or voice-activated self-destruct.
The second is a return-to-plane and is Top Secret. Essentially, at a given command, any missiles will return to within 10m of their Point of Origin and will lock onto anything else in the vicinity. Should Loki be in trouble, he has the option of bringing down up his attackers, from a direction not expected, all manner of fiery doom.

Obviously, Loki is eqipped with full ecm and eccm suites and is capable of live-time communications with ground and air resources.

Performance is fast. Although based on older Harrier II GR7 airframes, there is a completely new engine beneath the manifold, putting out more available power than the craft is ever likely to need. Air is also jetted over control surfaces and from various extreme points on the airframe. This allows the pilot to exceed the earlier "viffing" capabilities, demonstrated to good effect by RAF pilots in the 1982 Falklands Conflict, as it is computer-augmented and the pilot needs only to look at where he wants to be and the plane will take him there. This puts extreme g-forces on the pilot, but he is protected by a gel-filled suit. (Recent experiments have been to fill the whole cockpit with gel). Pilot-plane-computer interface is near-perfect.

Another point of note is that Loki can opeate as co-ordinated units, even in complete darkness. They are equipped with Darklight emitters, which can be set to emit at any given spectrum and are, effectively, only visible to other Loki and Loki pilots. This allows for extreme co-ordination, independant of friendly AWACS services. So, for example, on discovering a renegade warship, Loki can call in local support and within a very short period of time, the ship will be overwhelmed by many attackers, each making a precision hit before leaving.  

[MerlinJones]

'Course, some of you might be saying that too much is too much and, I agree, the model so far looks like it's come from the psychotics who worked for Matchbox in the 80's...all multi-coloured plastics.
However, slapping a coat of grey primer blends everything in rather nicely, as well as highlight all the glue smears and such like.

[MerlinJones]

So...

[MerlinJones]

Underneath;

[MerlinJones]

Side profile;

[MerlinJones]

Oblique

[John Howling Mouse]

The conversion is very wonderful and all but, just for a moment----going back to the original Harrier model, for which you pointed out alledged flaws....ahhh, if that was one of the lesser fruits of your labours, what would a "good" one be?  

Okay, mild panic attack is over.

This IS going to be phenomenal when you hit it with the primer.

Can we see that now?

Can we, huh, can we?

Starting to hyperventilate again....      

Where are me meds?

   

[MerlinJones]

Next job was to apply a splinter-style camo. I won't bore you with the process, but it involved a lot of bits of cut masking tape masks and several coats of paint, which formed nasty ridges;

[MerlinJones]

Ooops...forgot the Kick-Bottom Gun pods.
The originals seemed a little on the wussy side, so, with plastic tubing, I adapted them to be ship sinkers!

[MerlinJones]

The details. Obviously, if I wanted, I could paint it using the wifes nail varnish...but I want some semblence of plausability, so I've mirrored current colours in my Loki details.

Using Humbrol colours...

The front exhausts, therefore, are H191 Chrome Silver. The rear ones, including the "blast sheilds" are now H71 Antique Bronze.
On the original GR7, there were buff coloured ecm bumps on the wing tips. These have been replicated on the Loki and painted H148 Matt Radome Tan. I've also painted some other details, not found on the GR7, but representing similar ecm/eccm bumps, the same colour.
Blade aerials are now all H85 Coal Black, (I must get some H33) and I've painted the port and starboard navigation lights H19 Bright Red and H2 Emerald respectively. That large dorsal central light also got the H19 treatment.
Gun Barrels got the traditional H53 Gun Metal coating, as did the ejection chutes.

I then discovered a perfect piece of clear sprue for my optical sensor, under the nose. The ends of the sprue were nicely curved, in a "D" cross-section. One end of the sprue was cut off and, with very little trimming, was fitted to the front of the sensor housing.

The radome got a coat of H67 Matt Tank Grey. By painting the tail "stinger" the same colour, it now looks as if it has front and rear radomes.

Externals are now as I want them...time for several coats of Klear and work on the cockpit/pilot.

[MerlinJones]

Decals?
Well, given that No1 Squadron seems to be always preserved whilst others fade away, I envisaged a merger of Squadrons.
The GR7 kit came with some nice flashes and decals for No.1 Squadron. There was also an awesome shark moth from Operation "Telic" that I just had to have.