Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

[SPINNERS]

North American Nomad GA.2 - No.45 Squadron, RAF South East Asia Command, 1958











A few varieties of the Trojan/Fennec/Nomad family were released recently and I've used the AT-28D version to make an RAF COIN version - perhaps for 'Operation Firedog'.

[SPINNERS]

Sud-Aviation Vautour IIN - 350 Smaldeel, Belgian Air Force, 1961











The single-seat Vautour IIA is a stock (non-flyable) aircraft in the superb 'Strike Fighters 2:Israel' but the two-seat interceptor version was created by Veltro2K a while ago and has just been revamped to include an excellent silver skin which I've used here to create a Belgian machine.

[SPINNERS]

Lockheed F-80C Shooting Star - No.119 Squadron, Israeli Air Force, 1952













The third-party F-80C  is a superb 3D model and comes with a good 'blank' silver skin and I'm not really sure why I went for an Israeli machine but I'm glad I did.

[SPINNERS]

FMA-Mikoyan E-8 'Super Fishbed' - Grupo Aéreo 6 de Caza, Fuerza Aérea Argentina, 1996













This is the superb MiG-E8 by 'drakkodj' with a pretty basic Fuerza Aérea Argentina decal set by me although I did want to use the lo-viz version of the Eagle head motif and knocked up a dozen serial numbers as well.

[SPINNERS]

Hawker Siddeley Aviation Hawk GR.2 - No.33 Squadron, RAF South East Asia Command, 1976











A very nice Hawk Mk.60 (Zimbabwe) was released recently and the upper surface camo lends itself to an RAF SEAC machine. I've deliberately bent the Hawk timeline slightly mainly to keep the manufacturer as HSA!

[SPINNERS]

Arado Ar.431 'Schnellbomber' - KG76, Luftwaffe, 1947















I really like this one myself! This is, of course, the Sud-Aviation Vautour masquerading as a fictional Arado Ar.431 'Schnellbomber' created by using the stock silver Vautour skin with a mottled layer added to the uppersurfaces and some fairly generic WW2 Luftwaffe markings based on those seen on KG76's Arado Ar.234's. I'm not that clued up on WW2 Luftwaffe camo and markings but it looks the part. I've used a WW2 Luftwaffe pilot but without a large bulky ejection seat.

[SPINNERS]

Mikoyan-IAI MiG-29 'Panther' - No.69 Sqd, Heyl Ha'Avir, 1994









Drakkodj has passed on to me this MiG-29 with a camo scheme that reminded me of IDF camo so I've added some basic IDF markings and it looks pretty good, especially with some Python 3 missiles added. Unfortunately, the 3D model has a few tears in it which causes some decals to bleed out into unwanted areas so I've had to take screenshots from certain angles so as to hide these areas.

[SPINNERS]

Dassault Mirage FGR.4 - No.6 Squadron, Royal Air Force, 1991











A very nice Kuwaiti Mirage F-1CK was released recently by the aptly named Mirage F.1 Team and the Kuwaiti camo scheme by 'Ludo.m54' lends itself to make an RAF Mirage FGR.4 with 'Flying Canopener' markings.

[SPINNERS]

McDonnell Douglas AT-45C Tigerhawk - 'Skoshi Tigerhawk', 469th TFS, 388 TFW, Pacific Air Forces, USAF, 1981













A very nice Indonesian Hawk Mk.53 was released recently and the skinner (the prolific Paulopanz) very kindly made me a blank SEA skin to form the basis of this 'Skoshi Tigerhawk'.

[SPINNERS]

Dassault Mirage F.1 - No.5 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 1972
















This one was trickier and more time-consuming than expected as I've done one of my 'cut and shut' jobs on the five separate bitmaps with the undersides of a plain grey scheme grafted onto a wrap around camo skin to give (for me) the classic RAF camo of my 1970's youth. Markings are a combination of decals placed straight onto the bitmaps and my usual preferred method of assigning co-ordinates to place my decals exactly where I want.

Anyway, the big question is would it be Spey engined?

[SPINNERS]

BAe Hawk Mk.54 - Belgian Air Force, 1982











The Indonesian Hawk Mk.53 skin makes a good USAF SEA skin which makes a good Belgian skin! As you've probably noticed, the USAF SEA scheme on any aircraft does seem to trigger a Pavlov's dog response from me to do a Belgian version! Whilst not seen here should the underwing Belgian roundels also have the blue outline?

[SPINNERS]

Convair F-103C Delta Demon - United States Air Force, 1964









A bit of a speed build this as time is a bit tight during the weekday evenings. Anyway, this was a suggestion by my Spanish friend 'Stratos' over at Combat Ace who wanted to see a USAF Fishpot and specifically with AIM-4 Falcons. I prefer to use my own decals and had a few 'FM' buzz numbers from my USAF F-8 Crusader so used them. Given more time I would remove the 'Odd Rods' and add some unit markings but it doesn't look too shabby.

[SPINNERS]

North American F-100D Super Sabre - Vietnam Air Force, 1972











I like the F-100 a lot more now than I used to so it's become a bit of a regular feature in this thread (my Israeli and Swedish Splinter Hun's are my favourites) and I can't quite believe I didn't hit upon this idea earlier especially as I've done a VPAF Hun (in fact the fin number is a left over from that). The checkered sash isn't quite right due to the curvature of the fuselage especially getting closer to the spine but it's passable.

[SPINNERS]

Mikoyan MiG-29A - Vietnam People's Air Force, 1989









A very nice MiG-29 template exists so I've imported my VPAF camo (created from a Vietnam terrain tile!) and added some bluey-grey undersides to make a Vietnamese Fulcrum.

[SPINNERS]

Boeing A-15C Shadow - 53rd Tactical Fighter Squadron, USAFE, 2007

In 1992 the McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works Division (for special projects and located at Area 51) began the development of what was intended to be a stealth technology demonstator. The project soon became known as the 'Bird of Prey' (a reference to the Klingon warship from the Star Trek television series) and progressed smoothly and efficiently leading to a successful first flight in September 1996. Costs were substantially reduced by using an off-the-shelf Pratt & Whitney JT15D turbofan engine and manual hydraulic controls instead of fly-by-wire controls and initial testing soon demonstrated that the design had considerable operational potential.

In 1997, immediately after the Boeing–McDonnell Douglas merger, Boeing Integrated Defence Systems was asked to produce a short production run of 60 operational 'Bird of Prey' aircraft. This was planned as a larger machine optimised for the tactical attack mission and using computerised controls with off-the-shelf avionics. The chosen powerplant was the General Elecric F414 non-afterburning turbofan engine developed from the F404 and originally intended for the cancelled McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger.

The project was still officially a 'Black Project' and continued to be known as the 'Bird of Prey' until it was finally announced to the world in August 1999 as the A-15C 'Shadow' with no official reasons given as to what (or where) the A-15A and A-15B were. Entering service with the 410th Flight Test Squadron in Mojave in May 2002 the A-15C eventually equipped a three-squadron wing based at Spangdahlem from 2004 until the present day.













I found this very entertaining machine languishing in the Combat Ace archives in a slightly unfinished state and have given it a 'Lizard Splinter' camo with a gold canopy and some pretty basic markings.