Categories of What Ifs

[tigercat2]

There has been discussion, from time to time, about the various types of What Ifs; how is this for an explanation or summary:

"Regular" What Ifs: aircraft that actually were in service, but have been modified to a non-standard config they never flew in (like the FW-190 Zwilling), or are depicted in a service they were never in (example would be an F-8 Crusader in USAF markings)

"Double" What ifs:  an aicraft that flew but only in protoype form, and was never used operationally by any service - example F-107 Wild Weasel or TSR-2 in RAF, USAF, etc operational service.

"Triple" What Ifs:  An aircraft that was only a paper study or project, or was cancelled before the first one flew - an example might be an F-108 in operational USAF service, or RAF service.   Much of the Luft '46 would be in this category, IMHO.


Can anyone think of what could be a "Quad" What if, or perhaps other/additional categories for the above?  I suppose if you built a "paper design" such as the F-108 and marked it for a service that it was not intended for, such as the RAF, this could add a sub-category.



Wes W.

[JayBee]

Hi Wes,
My SALSA might qualify as a "Quad" as it never existed in real life in any form what so ever

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,25551.0.html

JimB

[Taiidantomcat]

Alvis made a 109 and made it look like a spitfire clone. What if the the battle of Britian had gone Germany's way and they were making a movie about their victory. Hence a Whiff twice removed from reality.

[pyro-manic]

Following that thread, I would say a "Quad" would be something that never existed at all in reality - ie something you made up yourself.

[martinbayer]

I'd suggest to break the 'regular' category into two - one for different paint schemes only and markings and one for design modifications, since to me they are vastly and qualitatively different classes. In most cases (except things like stealth coatings or heat resistant paints for high Mach aircraft) different finishes don't affect the basic design feasibility at all, while on the other hand extreme mods like dual fuselages basically result in a new configuration. Therefore, new paint jobs would be regular whifs, minor mods of existing aircraft would be 'double', the current 'double' would turn to 'triple' and the current 'triple' to 'quadruple' . But I agree with JayBee that completely original designs (including radical undocumented revisions of existing designs as twin or triple fuselages) that nevertheless have a (at least somewhat ) credible and plausible backstory or heritage should be added as a 'quintuple' whif at the other end of the spectrum.

Martin

[The Rat]

I came very close to posting something similar on Whiffpedia a while back. I was dividing them up into First Order, Second Order, and Third Order, tinkering with the idea of a Fourth. Going by your system a Fourth Order Whiff would be something totally off the wall and completely insane. I'm proud to say I've built a few of those myself!     Like, for instance, turning a Boeing 727 into a troop carrying ekranoplan:




Or making a helicopter out of a fishing lure:

[tigercat2]

I like your "really insane" ideas, and also agree with Martin that different paint/decals would be a regular what if, fuselage mods would be a double, and so on to quintuple What Ifs.  That should cover all the possibilities.

Wes W.

[philp]

Think I would go a different way:

Alt Markings - existing kit in markings never flown in.  This would include Luft '46 made from kits as well as sci fi model kits (like a luftwaffe X-wing).

Kitbash - taking existing kits and converting them to a new mod.  Eddie and Bryan are great at this kind of stuff.  Twinning would also fit here.

Scratchbuilt - Rafe's cardboard (yum) creations fit this one as well as BdB's breadclip planes.

HOG Wild - Using found items as your basis for your creation.  Is slightly different than Kitbash or Scratchbuilt.  Named in Gary's honor.

[NARSES2]

In the very first issue of the re-launched UK What If SIG Newsletter I,as editor, mused on this very issue. For those who didn't see it I've repeated it here. Note it definately has a leaning towards the hobby as seen on this side of the pond :

"Wiffery - an Editors View

In this the first issue of the new Newsletter I thought I would exercise my editors prerogative and set in writing my own views on our particular genre of the model making hobby.

Many words have been written about "Wiffery" in the past, and not all of them have been complimentary. However over the past couple of years the genre has become increasingly seen as, if not quite respectable, then at least can be tolerated as one might a slightly dotty relative. Why this has happened is difficult to pinpoint exactly. We have always had our high profile supporters and practitioners, Mike McEvoy being perhaps the best well known and need I say loved. If there ever was a patron saint of Wiffery surely it would be Mike ? There have been others who have spread the word, here I'm thinking in particular of Lee Bagnall in the UK with the now sadly defunct "Padded Cell 46" and there is also the excellent Luft 46 website. There have been many more but these are the ones that have had the most influence on me.

We also have to thank the exposure given the genre by our own SIG. Over the years at many a show the rapidly expanding display has initially drawn looks of scorn and even fear in some modellers eyes especially when espying one of our own dear Radish's more radical works. Over the years though due to the perseverance of people like Rad (Terry Campion) and now our current leader Martin the display whilst still bringing forth cries of heresy from some now brings far more silly smiles, amused laughs and most importantly initiates serious discussion and questions from members of the paying public.

So why has our particular branch of the hobby become more practiced ? In my own view, and it is a personal one, more modellers are beginning to realise that once released from the chains of reality then modelling can once again become as fun as it was when you bought your Spitfire on a Saturday morning and by 3:00pm it was crashing in flames in the back garden after spending all afternoon chasing the Hun. Yes wiffery has it's serious side and fair share of serious practitioners as well but it also in my view encapsulates what modelling is all about, having fun and escaping from the problems that real life throws up at us all the time.

Ok so having paid my dues to the past what in my view are the main strands of What If modelling ?

The "Real WIF World"

It seems strange to use the word "real" when discussing wiffery, but it is the term that best fits in my view, and I think the majority of us fit into this category. So what does it involve ?

One of the greatest joys of the genre is the ability to be able to gaze upon that which might have been. What would a production version of the TSR2 have looked like circa 1990 ? Not only can you produce a prototype or design that never saw service/production in the colour scheme and markings of the air force for which it was intended but you can envisage it in all sorts of alternative air force schemes as well.

Perhaps the easiest form of the genre is to take a real aircraft and put it into markings that it never wore. Maybe the Hunter never wore your favourite squadron markings, well you can put one into the scheme and see how it would have looked. What would a USAAF Spitfire MK XII in the desert scheme have looked like ? A whole new world opens up in your modelling and with the advent of "simple" kits from the likes of Hobby Boss it becomes so much easier to produce a whole line up of alternative Wildcats say.

Even this side of the hobby has two distinct threads. There are those who simply want to see how an aircraft would look in their favourite scheme and there are those who do research and find out that a particular aircraft was intended for a particular service but was never delivered for whatever reason. Take the Wildcat mentioned above for instance, what would have the intended Greek version have looked like. Or maybe the Belgian's had received their ordered Brewster Buffalos ? The art of deciding what long defunct RAF squadrons might have flown in an alternative fiscally strong Great Britain is a speciality all to itself, and one I'm hoping to be able to entice a SIG member to write up.

The second thread whilst similar to the first differs mainly because it will involve scratch building or some heavy conversion at least. There were lots of designs that never saw the light of day for various reasons. Some of these probably deserve to have been built whilst others deservedly did not ! This type of build brings me to a conundrum "when is a wif not a wif ? ", answer "when it's a project ?" I think most of us are aware of the R&D SIG and the enormous display of mostly scratch built real projects on the stand wherever it displays. So when does one of these projects become a WIF ? In my own view it is when you take that project and present it in a version or use for which it was never intended, perhaps a very short range point interceptor version of the Bristol 188, or you take a project/prototype and put it into service with an air force who almost certainly wouldn't have used it, a French F.111 B for instance ?

"Fantastic Plastic"

The second major strand of wiffery, again in my view, is the art of fantasy. What do I mean by fantasy ? Well not your "Lord of the Rings" type of thing to start with, although that has it's place in the genre, but it's those modellers who can look at a collection of parts and design and build their own model from them. This will fairly obviously involve a fair bit of scratch building/kit bashing by its very nature but can and does produce some spectacular builds. I often think that a lot of the modellers who build this type of project are frustrated aircraft/ship/tank designers and think they could have done a far better job given a set of specification requirements to work from, and maybe they could have.

Even this side of the genre has two distinct sides. The first are those aforesaid frustrated designers who will build with a very distinct aim in mind. They may have fully developed their own alternative scenarios into which the model fits or they may have said "if I was asked to produce a WWII strafer for the Soviet AF, what would I have come up with ?"  I think this is a section of the hobby that is seeing increased involvement lately, or maybe they have just been encouraged to come out into the open ?

The second are those who I suppose are the "abstract artists" of modelling. There might be no rhyme or reason for their build, other then it looks good in their own eyes and the most important fact of all, they enjoyed building it. This select group is the rarest of beasts but they are out there and more power to their elbows, if only because they take the flak for the rest of us !

So that's my view on what I feel are the two main streams of our hobby. You may have differing ones, if so then let me know via the editorial address and I'll include them in a future issue.

Finally I think we all realise that Wiffery does not just encompass Aircraft modelling, even if at times it would appear so, but there are whole vistas of armour, ship, Sci Fi, Figures and even architectural wifs out there for your modelling delight. So go to it."

Chris

[tigercat2]

Very well said; above all, Whifing is fun and certainly does allow one to use one's imagination.


Wes W.

[martinbayer]

Great discussion, and lots of food for thought!

I think there is (thankfully) a whole lot of ambiguity in the term 'whif", since it clearly depends on how you continue the question 'what if..." To me, as a point of departure it's obviously much easier to start out by defining what is NOT a whif and extrapolate from there. A whif is clearly not the depiction of a real aircraft or vehicle in a real configuration and livery used in testing or actual operations. Thus, even a model of an actual aircraft in completely accurate markings, but with a specific set of underwing weapons it was originally designed for and theoretically able to carry, but never used operationally or even tested, constitutes a whif in the strictest sense.

In my view, from there the spectrum covered by 'what if...' can range from 'what if the RLM 83 Dark Green used on Heinz Sachsenberg's FW-190 D-9 "Red 1", W.Nr. 600424, of the Platzschutzstaffel of JV 44, as flown from München-Riem in April 1945, had had 7.48% (by volume) RLM 22 Black mixed into it due to dwindling resources and paint shortages (though admittedly not a very exciting whif to me personally)?' to 'what if Burkina Faso were able to advance science and technology to a level that enabled it to actually build Incom T-65 X-Wing Fighters (or, for that matter, anti-gravity based flying saucers)?'.

Personally, I therefore find it hard to even draw a line between sci-fi and whif. It might at first glance be tempting to use time as a discriminator and call anything postulated for the future sci-fi and anything based on or rooted in the past as a whiff, but under closer scrutiny even that distinction breaks down, since at some point any chronological future inevitably becomes the past. The hypothetical design of the Cavorite Sphere from H.G. Wells' classic "The First Men in the Moon" for example is by now over a century old, but clearly still remains science fiction. Similarly '2001' was (and has sadly, rather than turning into fact, remained) one of the best sci-fi movies, even though its expected future became obsolete eight years ago. Also, the Star Wars saga, despite its futuristic theme, is for example supposed to have taken place "a long time ago".

Likewise, a potential borderline between sci-fi as entertainment and aerospace company projects as 'serious' becomes blurred under closer scrutiny. Using once again 2001 as an example, the spacecraft depicted therein were mostly based on realistic design inputs from aerospace companies and consultants, while those very same companies have in turn come up with some rather strange designs and patents on their own, as a look at the secretprojects sister forum shows. The C-1057 'Breadbox' Shuttle proposal by Harry Scott from Rockwell was for example apparently a somewhat tongue in check answer to a management decree to minimize the Shuttle's length without sacrificing cargo space, as outlined in http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1288.0.

No offense meant, but to me the attempt to define whifs too narrowly and draw for example an (IMHO artificial) demarcation line to unbuilt R&D projects (as opposed to actually built test aircraft, X-planes and prototypes) or even sci-fi designs would be treading dangerously close to JMN territory in trying to make everything neatly fit into one box or another. In case of doubt, the whif category should be seen as inclusionary rather than exclusionary.

Personally, I also prefer to define a whif based on the subject it portrays rather than the method used to create it. For example, Andy's truly outstanding EE P.42 he just shared with us was created using a range of materials and techniques including both scratchbuilding and kitbashing. In the distinction proposed by Phil, would that model be classified as scratchbuilt or kitbashed? Is it based on which technique is used predominantly? How is predominance determined? By weight? By volume? By number of parts and subassemblies created using one technique or the other? Or by time spent applying a particular technique? Also, kitbashing and scratchbuilding are widely used to create models of actual aircraft or vehicles for which kits are simply not available yet, so they are not exclusive to or typical for whifs only. To me, the focus should be on the finished creation rather than the means that were used to create it.

As a bottom line, if you're willing to even contemplate a model created in response to a question like "what if dragons were real" as a whif, then sci-fi as well as fantasy subjects simply become subcategories of whif as the overarching theme. I think whifs should only be limited by creativity and imagination as opposed to painstakingly recreating exacting replicas of existing objects, and, with apologies to Scott Kruize of Internetmodeler, "build what you want (except if it's the real thing), the way you want to, and above all have fun!" would in my mind constitute an apt motto for all whif activities .

Martin

[tigercat2]

"build what you want (except if it's the real thing), the way you want to, and above all have fun!" would in my mind constitute an apt motto for all whif activities .


Amen; that is the fun thing about this hobby; F-108s in Zambian markings, Neuports in low-vis Ghost Grey, P-69s in Russian markings, etc.  No Rules, Just Right!!" 


Wes W.