Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

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BAC Lightning F.3 - 'The Red Arrows', 1966




One from 2019 that I've been playing around with today. A bonkers idea though.

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CASA-Dornier C-101 'Cernicalo' - Escuadron 113, Ejército del Aire, 1964






Quite a few years ago now, my Portuguese mate Cocas released a little baby delta called the Dassault Epervier 1C. I don't know much about it and it might even be an imagined design and possibly an Etendard with a delta wing? Anyway, this is his Epervier 3D model masquerading as the CASA-Dornier C-101 (or CH-101 depending on which source you look at) which was a late-1950's paper project with a generally similar configuration but with intakes much further forward and powered by the Bristol Siddely Orpheus. I had severe problems actually getting it to take-off even with the Orpheus 12 rated at 6,800lbs dry thrust and 8,250lbs with reheat. I pasted in some data from the Third Wire Mirage IIIC flight model into the Epervier flight model which improved it slightly but it still wouldn't fly properly until I realised that it had way too much fuel in it and also in the drop tanks... no wonder it struggled to take off!

[SPINNERS]

BAC Lightning F.3 - No.111 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1965






When I revisited my 'Red Arrows' Lightning a few days ago (to finally upload it to Combat Ace) I was reminded of the two classic Hawker Hunter equipped display teams of the RAF ('The Blue Diamonds' and 'The Black Arrows') and I had already planned to do the latter. However, for me, this one hasn't quite worked out. The yellow walkway on the wings seemed a good idea but clashes a bit with my new 'Treble One' Lightning flash and I'm not sold on the white outline on the wing roundels either. The very tall finflash is a nod towards that seen on the 'The Black Arrows' Hawker Hunters but I might just have overdone it. Oh, well!

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Revised skin without yellow wing walkway and with the 'Treble One' cross added to fin.

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BAC Lightning F.2 - No.92 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1964






Looking at pictures of the Blue Diamonds Hunters shows a wide variation in the shade of blue so I've gone for a shade that's a bit lighter than roundel blue and I've also put a white outline on the roundels and my tall finflash. The nose 'arrowhead' marking took me bloomin' ages to make and has somehow still managed to look generic when compared to pictures of the real thing - there's more going on with those chevrons than meets the eye!

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Saab Draken F.1 - No.56 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1962










Another one from 2010 as part of my slow re-vamp of my uploads to Combat Ace. I found it hard to whittle down the number of piccies to my usual 5 or 6 and this was not helped by me sticking a pair of No.74 Squadron Drakens in there too (the top planform view).

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SAAB-Fairchild F-13A - 4451st Tactical Squadron, USAF, 1985

During mid-1965 with attrition rates rising as the Vietnam conflict progressed (sic) the USAF's plans for re-equipping the ADC and ANG interceptor squadrons with F-4C's fell apart. Undaunted they launched a quick study into an off-the-shelf purchase of an alternative interceptor to replace the F-102's and supplement the F-106's and looked at the BAC Lightning, the Dassault Mirage IIIC, the Saab Draken J-35F and the homegrown Lockheed Starfighter 'ADC' (an F-104G optimised for air-defense duties). With some considerable weighting given in the detailed analysis to low cost the Saab Draken soon became the front-runner by being the only aircraft with a fly-away price below $1M but, in fact, the USAF study team scored the Draken highly in most areas.

In July 1966 the USAF announced that Saab's outstanding J-35F was the winner of the competition and that Fairchild, who had recently taken over Republic Aviation, were to partner Saab in producing the aircraft by now redesignated F-13 (despite objections from Fairchild to the 'unlucky' number although Saab didn't seem too bothered). Entering service with the Florida Air National Guard in March 1968 the F-13 was initially viewed as the poor relation by the F-106 squadrons, a situation that soon changed with the success of the F-13 in the 1970 William Tell competition. F-13's served until the mid-1980's when they were generally replaced by F-16A's although one squadron remained in service until 1990 at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada in a ruse designed to mask operations of the F-117 Stealth Fighter.

During the flight-testing and the early service years of the F-117A 'Nighthawk' the F-13A Draken was used as a surrogate aircraft to maintain pilot proficiency and to provide part of an eloborate cover story for the existence of the 4450th Tactical Group. Whilst in no way similar to the shape of the F-117A the rakish lines of the Draken did have an unusual planform and was therefore chosen as the 'cover' aircraft for the specially created 4451st Tactical Squadron based at Tonopah. It is believed that 18 F-13A's were given a modest refurbishment to extend their operational lives and initially wore a two-tone grey scheme to give them more of an operational 'front-line' appearance. F-13A's entered service with the 4451st TS at Nellis AFB in May 1981 and wore 'LV' tailcodes due to their proximity to Las Vegas. From about 1983 at least half of the F-13A's were re-painted matt black and operated from Tonopah at times of day to to coincide with the F-117A test programme and it became a deliberate policy to park some of the matt black F-13A's out in the open so as to give the impression that Tonopah was simply a normal operational F-13A base. At least four derelict ex-Florida ANG F-13A's arrived by low-loader and were given an overall coat of matt black paint to help maintain this impression.
 
The F-13A's were extremely popular with the pilots of the 4451st TS and were often used as 'Red' assets in Red Flag exercises and even made the occasional guest appearance in 'Constant Peg' operations when MiG's became unserviceable or simply to provide dissimilar bogeys. As the F-117A gradually moved from 'black' to 'grey' towards the end of the 1980's the 4451st TS's F-13A operations slowly dwindled and the unit was disbanded on April 30th, 1990.








A backstory from 2010 but with a new black skin that I made yesterday by using my (sort of) quick and dirty 'colour invert' method that turns silver or NMF to a sort of sooty black that you have to dampen down with a 60-75% layer of black. There's a bit more to it than that but compared to creating a new template (actually five templates for this particular Draken) it does save on many hours of work. Unfortuantely, the fuel tanks are way too shiny as the 3D model has built-in specular settings for a silver/NMF aircraft (the Sukhoi Su-7).

[SPINNERS]

The Saab-Fairchild F-13A at William Tell 1970

The biennial USAF World Wide Weapons Meet had began in June 1954 with Air Defense Command and Air Training Command being the sole competitors but by 1956 the meet was expanded to include nine teams representing seven major Air Commands and gaining the (then) unofficial nickname of 'William Tell'. William Tell 1965 was the largest in history with 16 teams and four categories but the demands and distractions of the Vietnam War meant that there was a five-year pause until 1970 when William Tell resumed at Tyndall AFB with twelve teams competing in an expanded competition with three teams in each of the four categories of jets competing at William Tell; the McDonnell F-101B, Convair F-102A, Convair F-106A and the new Saab-Fairchild F-13A with the latter being represented by the 125th FIW (Florida ANG), the 177th FIW (New Jersey ANG) and the 52nd FIW (New York ANG).

The competitive flying ran from Monday, October 26th through Friday, October 30, 1970 and the three F-13A teams gained an early lead in the overall competition and the torrential rains in the middle of the competition only seemed to improve their position which ended with the 177th FIW from the New Jersey ANG winning the overall category and the F-13A category whilst the 125th FIW from the Florida ANG scooped the aircrew award and also the aircraft maintenance award with the three F-13A teams filling the top three slots.








Final Drakens for now. I did these back in 2010 but have re-visited them as part of my upload upgrade over at Combat Ace adding in the black 4451st TS skin.

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By now, you must know how much I love the Gloster Meteor  . So imagine how I felt when this hit my inbox!! More piccies tomorrow.

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These are the four skins that come with the Meteor NF.6 (or NF.VI) so there's no input from me other than putting together this profile page and photoshopping the turret so that the guns face to the rear (for some reason, when viewing the 3D model using a 'viewer' all moveable guns face forward but show correctly when seen in game).

Now, if that wasn't enough Meteor fans have been treated to a veritable anthology pack of Meteors that cover virtually all versions from the Meteor F.I to the TT.20 and all with hi-rez skins (4096x4096). It's insane!

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Gloster Meteor NF.VI - No.264 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1944









Screenshots taken at night are almost always terrible so this photoset is taken in daylight and has a 60% opacity dark blue layer so as to look more like twilight or moonlight - hey, it's a compromise.

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Lockheed F-104H Starfighter - 318th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, Aerospace Defense Command, USAF, 1971

On March 15th 1963, two Soviet bombers overflew Alaska and despite a desperate chase the F-102A's of Alaskan Air Command were unable to intercept them. The immediate response to this embarrassing intrusion was to deploy ten F-106A's drawn from various Aerospace Defense Command Fighter-Interceptor Squadrons to Alaska and to recall the remaining F-104A's that had previously been transferred to the Air National Guard back in 1960.

Despite the excellence of the F-106A it did come with a pretty hefty price tag and Aerospace Defense Command realised that in order to replace the earlier F-101's and F-102's a cheaper alternative was required. With Lockheed's multi-role F-104G Starfighter in a high-rate of production the relatively low unit cost attracted the attention of the US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara who authorised production of the F-104H a dedicated interceptor version based on the F-104Gand an initial order for 200 was made.

The F-104H was powered by the uprated General Electric J79-GE-10 engine rated at 11,905 lbf dry thrust and 17,844 lbf thrust with afterburner although initial deliveries were powered by the earlier J79-GE-8B. The F-104H incorporated the advanced Litton LN-3 inertial navigation system and also featured the Autonetics NASARR F-15J-50 radar and fire control system optimised for the air-to-air mode with all ground-mapping, contour-mapping and terrain-avoidance modes deleted. After some debate, the M61 20mm cannon was retained but the main armament for the F-104H was the AIM-7 Sparrow semi-active homing missile, the AIM-9 Sidewinder infra-red heat-seeking missile and the AIR-2 Genie unguided air-to-air rocket with a 1.5 kt nuclear warhead.

Entering service in April 1965 the F-104H eventually served with nine squadrons and was gradually withdrawn from Aerospace Defense Command service from the late 1970's onwards - a relatively short service life.








And a more conventional warload;

[NARSES2]

Anyone know what the blast radius of the Genie would be ? Something about this discussion has got me especially intrigued.

[Rheged]

Anyone know what the blast radius of the Genie would be ? Something about this discussion has got me especially intrigued.

Wikipaedia tells us that the lethal blast radius was about 300 metres........that's about 1000 feet. The missile is said to have a range of 6 miles (10km) which is somewhere near 12 seconds of flying time.  The Genie  was alleged to remain inert until the rocket motor had burned out, as a safety measure, but    I did read somewhere that there was doubt expressed about the reliability of this system.