Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

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Grumman Duck Mk.I - 724 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, 1945






An odd-looking bird the Duck! But Americans probably say the same about the Walrus! I've just pasted BPF markings directly over the USN starbars and knocked up some serial numbers but I think some white three-digit numbers are required as well. The short-lived 724 NAS were based near Sydney as a naval air communications unit making daily flights between Sydney and Melbourne but had a much more lengthy service life when the squadron reformed as part of the Royal Australian Navy in 1955.

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Grumman Duck Mk.I - 724 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, 1945




Bump map edited and some three-digit fuselage numbers added.

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Murphy's War



Just a bit of fun! It's not possible to show the engine uncowled but, overall, it looks the part especially with the patched upper wing painted over. By chance, I had the film at home as one of those freebies they used to give away with the Sunday newspaper. I quite enjoyed it.

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Fairey Barracuda Mk.II - 5th Torpedo Aviation Division, Soviet Naval Aviation, 1945

As the war in Europe entered it's final phase, the thoughts of the Allied nations turned towards the defeat of Japan. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin eventually agreed to Allied pleas to join them in the war against Japan within three months of the end of the war in Europe. As this deadline approached, the US and the UK (along with China) made the Potsdam Declaration - an ultimatum to Japan calling for complete Japanese surrender and that, if ignored by Japan, this would lead to the "prompt and utter destruction" of Japan.

On the eve of the three-month deadline the Soviets declared war on Japan on August 7th, 1945 and at one minute past midnight on August 9th, the Soviets commenced their invasion on a broad front that included the east, west and north of Manchuria. Stalin realised that this would give him licence to win back the disputed Kuril Islands including the southern half of Sakhalin Island previously lost in the Sino-Japanese war of 1904-1905. With the invasion of Manchuria underway the Soviets commenced the 'Kuril Islands Landing Operation' or the invasion of the Kuril Islands. This was mainly a Red Army operation but was supported by the Soviet Pacific Fleet and Soviet Naval Aviation who supplied an aviation regiment equipped with 60 Fairey Barracuda torpedo-bombers. Supplied by the UK as part of lend-lease the Barracuda's were transferred to Soviet Naval Aviation from the Red Air Force who much preferred the IL-2.

With little or no Japanese fighter aircraft operating in the area the Barracuda's were surprisingly effective in sinking Japanese ships in Kuril Islands area. On September 1st, 1945 the Barracuda's were used to cover the assault landing made by elements of the 87th Rifle Corps who were landed by torpedo boats, mine trawlers and transports on Kunashir and Shikotan in the southern Kuril Islands. By September 4th, Soviet forces had completely occupied the rest of the Kuril Islands thus ending further resistance. The fate of the Soviet Fairey Barracuda's is unclear but some may have been passed onto the North Korean People's Air Force as several unconfirmed sightings were made by US/USN pilots in the early days of the Korean War in the summer of 1950.









A pretty rough quick and dirty skin by me derived from the mainly white specular maps but it's a lovely 3D model that flies as well as it should 

Perhaps in the future, I might inflict it on the US Navy or perhaps Argentina.

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Hawker Hurricane Mk.I - 114 Eskadron, Polish Air Force, 1939










Hawker Hurricane fans are spoilt for choice in 'Strike Fighters' with every main variant covered and this is an early Mk.I by 'Raven' who has 3D modelled every variant and even made a 'what if' based around the Mk.V with the four-bladed prop something I did in plastic decades ago using a Matchbox IIC and IIRC a spare Mustang prop. There's a lovely template for Raven's Hurricane so this Polish Mk.I was a doddle and I've knocked-up some white 'outline only' numbers out of me own 'ed.

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Hawker Hurricane Mk.III - F 9 Säve, Flygvapnet, 1941

The Hawker Hurricane entered service with the Royal Air Force at the end of 1937 when No.111 Squadron re-equipped with the type at RAF Northolt. By late 1938 the production capacity for Hurricanes at the Hawker Siddeley Aircraft group of companies was sufficient not only to meet the needs of the RAF's ambitious expansion scheme but also to allow exports to Yugoslavia, South Africa, Romania, Persia, Belgium, Poland and Turkey. Belgium and Yugoslavia had already negotiated production licences and with war clouds looming Sweden soon followed suit selecting the Hurricane as a replacement for the obsolete Gloster Gladiator biplane fighters used by the Flygvapnet for air defence. In August 1939 the Swedish government obtained a production licence for 120 Hurricanes but with Saab running at full capacity building Saab 17 and Saab 18 bombers, a new firm and factory was commissioned to licence-build Hurricane airframes powered by Merlin engines supplied by the British government under a seperate contract. The new company was called Flygförvaltningens Flygverkstad i Stockholm (FFVS) and was headed up by the talented Bo Lundberg.

However, there was an urgent demand for Rolls-Royce Merlin engines for the RAF's day fighters and also for the Boulton & Paul Defiant and Bristol Beaufighter night fighters. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was keen to block the sale of Merlin engines outright but Sydney Camm at Hawker considered that the Hurricane airframe could be adapted to take a different engine and, with one eye on export sales, Camm had previously schemed the Hurricane Mk.III using the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp 14-cylinder radial piston engine rated at 1,050 hp. Camm sent a small team over to FFVS at Stockholm to effect the changes and the new company performed miracles in keeping to their original schedule of a first flight before the end of 1940. There was no Hurricane Mk.III prototype as such and the first two production aircraft off the Stockholm production line were thoroughly tested by Bill Humble of Hawker's and Gloster's chief test pilot Gerry Sayer who both praised it's flying characteristics noting that "the aircraft is simple and easy to fly and has no apparent vices" although the stalling speed was 8 knots higher than a standard Merlin-engined Hurricane.

Entering service with F 9 Säve (located at Säve airport near Gothenburg) in the Autumn of 1941, the Hurricane's were popular with Flygvapnet pilots although they were increasingly short on speed when compared to aircraft from other nations that had inadvertently strayed into Swedish skies. The Hurricane Mk.III continued in low-rate production well into 1943 and was finally retired in 1947.






Another what if Hurricane from 'Raven' - his radial-engined Hurricane. I've previously shown it in Portuguese service and some of that backstory is used here - waste not want not! Very sensibly, my mate Raven went for the Bristol Hercules engine. The skin was easy enough due to a simple template but specific to this engine/airframe and I knocked up some yellow bordered blue numbers - all based on a profile of the indigenous FVSS J 22 Swedish fighter.

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AIDC F-CK-1B Halcón - Grupo 6 de Caza, Fuerza Aérea Argentina, 2013








This is a 'beta' being developed at the moment and whilst it's still a work in progress it's really close to perfection IMO and flies really nicely. The test download comes with this basic grey skin which seemed to be begging me for Argentinian markings and, I guess, they would have been happy to have received them. I've not really kept up with the modern military aviation scene and I'm therefore gob-smacked to learn that the F-CK-1 has been in service since 1994 and has actually been out of production since 2000! I can't say I find the two-seat F-CK-1B in any way attractive and the single-seat F-CK-1A is only slightly better.

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Hawker Hurricane Mk.III - HävLLv 31, Ilmavoimat, 1944







It's always quite jarring to see Finnish aircraft with the 'crooked cross' on them and, as a young teenager, I remember getting the Putnam Gloster book out of the library and my shock at seeing them in 'German' markings. Anyway, this Finnish Hurricane with the radial engine uses decals made for my VL Myrsky (one of the few real world aircraft I've skinned) with some 'HC-xx' serial numbers but it still needs a bit more work on the black camo extending onto the engine cowling and especially the cowl flaps which are all mapped seperately making it a bit of a pain... so I think I'll call it quits!

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Also, you can't tease us with a profile of the mk.V without even showing us one.... preferably with I.D. or invasion stripes 
 

A little bit compromised this in that the invasion stripes are a bit narrow and too far back. To explain, the 3D modeller had made his Mk.V with invasion stripes but on a blue skin so I thought I could cut and paste them onto a standard RAF Camo skin (a bit more involved than it sounds) rather than have to start from scratch and I couldn't just move them forward as they were covering a fuselage band in the wrong colour! Anyway, I chose No.1 Squadron as I know they operated Hurricanes in a more offensive role. The 3D model includes a Vokes filter which the Mk.V had presumably because it was meant for overseas use.

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Fiat G.81 Veleno - 14°Gruppo, 2°Stormo, Aeronautica Militare, 1958








A Kiwi Venom FB.4 was released recently and the RAF camo instantly had me thinking of going Dutch or Italian and I plumped for the latter. When checking on Wiki I was surprised to learn that the Italians actually had received two Venom FB.50s and there was a plan for Fiat to license-build the aircraft as the G.81 but that this was abandoned. It's worth mentioning that the same Wiki page refers to the Italian Venom as being the G.80 but then also as being the G.81 but I think the former is a mistake as the G.80 was a jet trainer that flew but did not see a proper production order. Anyway, I've just painted on some Italian roundels (these always look good on standard RAF Camo) and made the 2°Stormo fin emblem in left and right versions (as seen on a G.91 'Gina') and knocked up a small batch of nose numbers - not a lot of time but I'm well satisfied with it.

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de Havilland Sea Venom FB.6 - 806 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, 1959








A single-seat Sea Venom seems a pretty logical choice for the Senior Service and it's performance really compares well to the contemporary Hawker Sea Hawk which flew first but entered service later than the RAF's Venom FB.1. Anyway, this is quite an elderly 3D model (it might even be 20 years old) with a few issues but it looks quite smart dressed up in Fleet Air Arm colours on my very crude quick skin but I've just noticed that I've missed a bit of the upper wing. It's the little things that slow you down like having to make white and black serial numbers and I also wanted to make the Ace of Diamonds with rounded corners and a black outline because part of it is on the white undersides. There's no hook on the 3D model but, as I've mentioned before, you can create a 'fake hook' that is not visible but works just fine.

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de Havilland Sea Venom FB.6 - 810 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, 1956
















When I did my Sea Venom with EDSG over white I instantly regretted not doing an earlier Fleet Air Arm scheme so I found an excellent Sea Hawk profile for a 810NAS machine aboard HMS Bulwark to use as my starter for this Suez era Sea Venom FB.6. The stripes are easy enough to make as decals but the stripes on the booms with ROYAL NAVY on them took some figuring out until I realised that the sim doesn't allow you to place two decals in the same place so I just had to amalgamate the two together.

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Handley Page Hunter Mk.II - No.43 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1938







Sorry Hawkers... but I'm having that name! I've previously done Belgium and Portuguese Fokker D.XXI's but I thought it might look good in RAF service at about the time of the Munich Crisis. The HP.49 was an unused Handley Page designation from around the time of the Hampden/Heyford so I'm using that designation for this. I did try to do the full black and white wing thing but some parts of the 3D model share the same mesh on the skin and the wing root fillet at the trailing edge is one such area so I've had to leave it in the light grey of the fuselage undersides.

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Aeritalia Firecrest GR.1 - No.112 Squadron, RAF Germany, 1971







I've always liked the Fiat G.91 family and I might have shown this before as the Folland Firecrest but the search function doesn't want to play ball in trying to find it. Anyway, this lovely AMI skin with sharkmouth just needed some RAF roundels painted over the AMI roundels and a finflash added. I had some suitable serial numbers from a previous 'what if' ready made but I really should add them under the wings. There's two missions cobbled together here so that explains the different weapon loadouts.