avion de contre-insurrection

[kitbasher]

Moi aussi.
Rush of blood to the head - bought a Heller 1/100 Breguet Alize from the Aviation Hobby Shop for £1.99 this avo.  Will become a 1/72 counter insurgency aircraft used by the Armée de l'Air in Afghanistan.  
No name yet, can't see it as a Dassault, though, too pedestrian.  Therefore something by EADS I think.

[Thorvic]

Given the size of the base kit and the Campaign your setting for it, wouldn't be more suitable to do as a UCAV ?

G

[kitbasher]

Given the size of the base kit and the Campaign your setting for it, wouldn't be more suitable to do as a UCAV ?

Well, the kit is about the same size as a Tucano/PC-9/Texan II would be in 1/72, and what with recent talk about the US developing an AT-6 version of the latter (http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/at-6b-light-attack/), I thought that would be the way to go.

[ysi_maniac]

Scalorama is COOLNESS!

[Jschmus]

The Alize was in part derived from Breguet's work on the Vultur naval strike aircraft, so in essence you'll be devolving the design.  Cool.

[kitbasher]

The Alize was in part derived from Breguet's work on the Vultur naval strike aircraft, so in essence you'll be devolving the design.  Cool.

Didn't know about the Vultur - thanks for the education!
Plan at the moment is to turn it into a single seater - a Matchbox P-51 windscreen/canopy rescued ftom the spares box, a new nose to make it look a bit more like a PT6A engine, and I may extend the wingspan by grafting the kit wings on to sections of merlin Vampire wings.  I've an Aeroclub Tucano white metal set designed for the Premiere Tucano - long since replaced that with an Airfix Tucano so all in all fairly redundant so will come in handy for allsorts .  Will need to work out the munitions load, though.  Will have to be pretty generic 'cos as I done tend to do French stuff I've no specific French stores.  Need to delve into Google!
Never mind.

[kitbasher]

Chopping has begun!
Having removed the rear cockpit fairing and matched up the P-51 canopy, it's almost a perfect fit.  And the good news (as far as I'm concerned) doesn't end there - at 1/72 scale the kit's wingspan is exactly the same as the Tucano's, so no Vampire grafting to be done there.  The aeroclub white metal bits should work a treat, although the bang seats will be saved for my Airfix Tucano.  I'll replace the Alize tailplanes with those from the long-since scrapped Matchbox P-51.
Pics will follow.