Indian Buccaneer

[buzzbomb]

Rather topical  given the launch of the latest Indian Navy Carrier.
My take on an the mighty Bucc in Indian service. As the aircraft was too perhaps too big for the earlier Indian Carriers they may have served in the low level strike and Maritime strike roles.
Based on the S2B model but offered with the S.50 tanks.. HAL tinkered with the tanks to allow both fuel and the carriage of ordanance so as to not "waste" a hardpoint.
Matchbox Buccaneer... it was missing the intakes so doctored up with Apoxysculpt and the modified tanks and few other lumps and bumps


Since it is only a munitions quality build.. slap on some paint.. spares box decals and a few bombs

Added some Soviet FAB bombs as well, since some Soviet muntions are on the Indian inventory.

[Thorvic]

Makes sense the Indians used their canberra's and now use jaguars for land based Maratime Strike.

You could get away with the Indian Navy BTW, just have them buying the HMS Victorious in 1968 and have them relegate Vikrant to a Commando Carrier. Victoruious was sent for scrapping after a minor fire in a mess during a dockyard refit, the deamage was repairable and she had only had 10 years service after a complete rebuild.

Nice model like the dual role fuel tanks and bomb pylon, not often you see a matchbox Buccaneer built these days and it looks like you have done some rather good work on it.

[McColm]

Great work ,
The Germans and India were on the short list to become export customers for the Buc. Losing out to the South Africans.

[Mossie]

Like that, especially what you've done with the tanks too.

[Dizzyfugu]

Nice. Unspectacular, but very plausible, I like that kind of style. 

BTW, Germany's Marineflieger had the Bucc as their top candidate on their list, but were denied. Instead they had to live (or die...) with the Starfighter... 

[NARSES2]

Nice and like the others like what you've done with the tanks 

[silverwindblade]

I really like this - not beyond the bounds of reality, but still with plenty of flair. I love the tanks/bombs too, very well done. Paint scheme is very sharp too!

[Army of One]

I agree with all of the above praise.....would the outer pylons have supported Sea Eagle...?? Bout the only thing I would change really but that's my opinion as I love a maritime strike a/c with a decent anti ship load out.....

[lancer]

Love the Indian Bucc. Very nice

[Weaver]

I agree with all of the above praise.....would the outer pylons have supported Sea Eagle...?? Bout the only thing I would change really but that's my opinion as I love a maritime strike a/c with a decent anti ship load out.....

Yep: standard late-RAF fit was 4 x Sea Eagles. When they went over to the Tornado GR.1B, which could theoretically carry four but usually had to trade two for drop tanks, many of the ex-Bucc guys didn't see it as an improvement....

[PR19_Kit]

Yep: standard late-RAF fit was 4 x Sea Eagles. When they went over to the Tornado GR.1B, which could theoretically carry four but usually had to trade two for drop tanks, many of the ex-Bucc guys didn't see it as an improvement....

It wasn't. The Buccs could fly further at the same speed with internal fuel and 4 x Sea Eagles as the Tonkas could fly with 2! All due to the bomb bay tank on the S2Bs of course.

[rickshaw]

Are there any pictures of a Bucc with four Sea Eagles?

[Mossie]

Yep, they normally carried two, but did heft four on occasion:
http://www.nationalcoldwarexhibition.org/explore/aircraft.cfm?aircraft=Blackburn%20Buccaneer%20S1%20(Nose%20section%20only) (see top middle pic)
http://hushkit.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/which-weapon-has-armed-the-bear-buccaneer-sea-king-and-the-il-38/# (left, second row you can only see one wing but you get the idea)
http://www.fightercontrol.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=38506 (lots of test pics from Holme-on-Spalding Moor)

[PR19_Kit]

For reasons best known to the air flowing over that weird fuselage and wing I suspect, the outer pylons on a Bucc use different ejector cartridges to the inner ones when carrying Sea Eagles. I can't remember which was the most powerful but I suspect the inner ones as the air must flow VERY oddly around there.

The piccies show the pylons are pretty well identical though, very odd.