What Inspired You to Whiff?

[GTX]

You mean it was a choice???


Seriously, I don't really know - maybe it was simply because I like concept aircraft and designs that never made it...kind of snow-balled from there.

Regards,

Greg

[elmayerle]

Well, I'll admit that "odds and mods", as well as concept aircraft have always been an interest.  I'm still kicking myself, 30+ years later, that I didn't copy some of the more interesting studied concepts from the Cessna-Pawnee Engineering Library while I was there.

[Gary]

MANY years ago when I was a teen I had been doing well at competitions and such and got a contract for my first WIFF. Canada was debating what aircraft to buy and the local recruiting office for the CAF asked me to do Canadian versions of the F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18 Tornado and a Mirage delta (can't remember which one but it was canned early and never built). But doing contract modelling spoiled the fun. Then I got married and that really spoiled modeling for me.

I took up writing science and speculative fiction while working in advertising. I dreamt of working for Boeing making their prototype models and imaging and wrote endlessly about thing on drawing boards as if they were real. Then one day a guy came along and asked if I could take a set of drawings for a building and make a model for photographic purposes.(pre CGI) Never one to turn down money I jumped and for a while I did a lot of architectural models. Paid for a lot of my current tools. I was back to modeling.

Then I got back into aircraft modeling but the world had changed and the JMNs were taking over. I posted a Gripen on Diaperscale and received a physical threat to me and my family for my stupidity about how the canopy was hinged. I refused to ever show my models again.

However my interest in prototypes continued and in my readings I found references to the XP-67 Moonbat. I did a search for more information and discovered a model of the thing built by a member here. For months I followed the site as a guest, always afraid of joining and posting but I eventually was won over by the kindness and encouraging posts. The humour and refusal to tale one's self too seriously was very important to me and I finally geared up the courage and joined another modeling site.

The kindness and support was overwhelming. I love prototype and speculative work and the mastery  of the medium here is truly inspiring. Two guys in particular I want to credit for taking me under their wings and making me feel welcome, Leigh Eaton and Todd AKA 'Captain Canada'. These two made up for a lot of the foul stench I have witnessed on other sites and the ringleaders here who manage this site are fantastic.

[sequoiaranger]

From out-of-the-box to conversions (kitbashing) was a big step, but when I discovered that there was no He-113 (He-100) model made, I made one myself, from other kits (c. 1965).

That first "whif" was the simplest:  that of taking a "real", experimental/prototype aircraft with no real alterations, and presenting it in markings as if it were an operational aircraft. In this case, the German Navy (land-based). A couple years later, I made an improved version, called the He-113T that had better wings, prop, engine, canopy and armament, and was carrier-capable (presumably). I made up a backstory, and ENJOYED THE HELL OUT OF IT. I got some good feedback from the local model group, and...

...then it just snowballed from there. Some are more elaborate than others. Now I RARELY do anything but whifs--too much fun to quit!!

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Guilty as charged m'lud.

Me?  I had been back into modelling for a few years and was reading a WAPJ article about the F-15, and how McDD tried a couple of times to sell them to the RAF.  I had an F-15D in the stash,  and the seed of an idea was born.

Almost immediately afterwards, I found the old, old (old?) website - the kitmaker one - via a post on the old rec.models.scale, who just happened to be running the "Britorama" group build, built the F-15K,  and have been hooked ever since. 

The forum in those days was MUCH smaller, old timers like Meece, Ollie and Joeisamonkey are no longer here.  Guys who I do seem to remember from my first days include Toad (Captain Canada to you young 'uns), JeffryFontaine, Supertom, JoeP and the late lamented Wooksta.

I don't remember the first show I met up with the gang, but I'm glad I did and its been a real priviledge to have the likes of Thorvic, NARSES & IHG as friends.

Nev,

I feel honored to be recognized as on of the original members, makes me feel old now.  The forums have been through at least three moves since starting and at least two crashes from hacker attacks since that time.  We are fortunate to have a very tight group or community if you want to call it that of model builders that are proud to deviate continually from the kit instructions. 

Of the names you mentioned.  Joeisamonkey is still with us.  Ollie unfortunately decided to seek other forums for reasons known only to him. 



Since this appears to be the oft mentioned "support group" I will add in my own confessions on when I became a WHIF modeler. 

I think it was around 1967 or thereabouts that I built my first WHIF model.  It was due to my infatuation with the comic book series Nick Fury and his Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that caused me to kit-bash parts from a Revell box scale C-130 with a 1/25th scale AMT Lincoln Continental to create a flying car with the inspiration for this coming from one of the aforementioined Nick Fury comic books that had a shed load of really neat flying cars and other secret agent things for combating their enemies.  The result of the kit-bashing was a rather horrible looking air vehicle that was sporting the bulk of the Lincoln Continental body with some C-130 fins added on.  Not one of my better creations but it certainly deviated from the kit instructions.  I was thirteen years old at the time.  There may have been other deviations from the kit instructions prior to that such as a paint scheme that was not correct but this was the first actual kit-bashing WHIF I remember building. 

[Tojo633]

All
I got top know TSR joe (and his late father) through the Glasgow model club many years ago. Was this a good thing or a bad thing, mmmmm 12+ Yak 15 in assorted fictional colours, assorted started but incomplete projects.................. I'll finish them one day etc LOL

Cheers
Sandy

[kitbasher]

In the past I'd built one or two 'whifs' without really thinking about what they probably represented.  Simple things really, just paint jobs: an Airfix F-5A in RAuxAF colours around the time that 'Winder-armed Hawk T.1As formed part of the RAF's Mixed Fighter Force imediately springs to mind, as does an old Airfix Mig-15 in Luft' 46 colours (neither of which are still with us). 

When I was in the RAF I was a member of the RAF Aviation Society and competed in 'The President's Cup' - a modelling competition that was held at the Nationals (as RAFAS always had a stand at the Nats).  2 guys - Chris McKee and Rod Ulrich, both excellent modellers and winners of numerous prizes at the Nats - tended to share the Cup year in, year out, which was a little off-putting (they certainly deserved the accolade, believe me, definately no sour grapes from me on that score!).  So I thought I'd try and stand out from the crowd in a slightly different way by means of the occasional whif.  I think my first for the President's Cup was a tandem 2-seat Hunter; this used a suitably elongated Matchbox FGA.9 with a Matchbox Meteor NF.14 canopy worked into the Hunter windscreen and predated the Maintrack kit of the tandem Hunter t-bird. 

Again, no longer with us althought the wings are now part my 'dH Viper' and the canopy and tailplane are part of the more recent 'AW Manta'.

A few more whifs emerged during my RAFAS time, including the 'Corsair V' (originally in Korean War FAA colours - which threw some as they
thought it was a Sea Fury!) and a canard, twin fin 'F-32' version of the F-16.  The latter eventually became the basis of my 'Firecracker' UCAV.
This really got me into the whiffing bug, and I haven't looked back since. 

I love the freedom whiffing brings, and at a time when I felt like giving up the hobby because I was frustrated by not really feeeling as though I was improving in any way I once again felt inspired and began to enjoy my hobby again.  Because that's what any hobby is about, surely?  Enjoyment not purgatory??

I think whiffing takes many forms, and it's down to what an individual modeller wants out of it.  Not for me the more fantastical creations of some; I prefer to come up with an idea that to me has some plausibility, and to build on this through the application of what could be considered 'authentic' camouflage and markings, plus a believable backstory.  Not everyone's cup of tea, I know, but I enjoy the research (and have recently delved deep into various historical threads for a whif currently under development).  So again, it's what you want to get out of it, enjoy it and appreciate the whifs of others as you never know when someone else's whif will provide the necessary inspiration! 

[Eddie M.]

The 1st time I logged on to FSM in'04" and saw the what if A-10 GB. I've been hooked ever since.

[monkeyhanger]

My first whiff was a single seat Boulton Paul Defiant (Airfix) with four wing guns, no turret. I've been considering other Defiant whiffs such as underwing bombs and someone on this site suggested 40mm cannon..........

I went on to do two RAF Vigilantes, one in anti flash white, the other in contemporary camoflage, green,/grey wrap around.

I think that there is so much in whiffing to keep the imagination going.

[sandiego89]

My main what if inspriation was the idea of using aircraft from submarines and other smaller ships- an affliction that lasts to this day.  My main inspiration was a book and later a model I had of the french aircaft carrying submarine SURCOUF which had a big turret (very cool) and seaplane hanger and the later Japanese subs, mainly the I-300 class.  I thought this concept held great untapped potential for more modern applications. This really blossomed with the Harrier/Sea Harrier post Falklands (and as a teen in the early 1980's it thought the Harrier/Sea Harriers were the answer for everything, I didn't appreciate the limitations like lack of payload with a VTO). 

My early WHIFs' were mostly down this road.  Scratch 1/700 COVAIR POGO's on a LST, Various aircraft on a SSBN with a hanger scabbed to the deck, and various ships supporting Convair Sea Darts/Seamasters, and a whole series of scratchbulit ships all carrying lots of Harriers.  Even put an angled dack on the popular 1:600 HMS FEARLESS for Harrier launches!     

[Geoff]

It's all Radish's fault! I saw his Roman Starfighter complete with backstory at the Nats one year and was hooked.

[Leigh]

In the days when my limited stash consisted of three kits I thought an F-89 Scorpion would look cool in gloss black and the people at A.R.C. told me to take my tomfoolery somewhere else, namely here! Still haven't built it, and at this rate never will.

[jcf]

In the days when my limited stash consisted of three kits I thought an F-89 Scorpion would look cool in gloss black

Indeed it does.