Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

[SPINNERS]

Handley-Page Proctor T.1 - No.74 Squadron 'The Tigers', RAF Fighter Command, 1966.

The cancellation of the last 22 Victor B.2's hit Handley-Page hard and as a small consolation the UK Air Ministry awarded the Hertfordshire-based company a contract to licence-build the Northrop F-5B to fulfill the RAF's requirement for a supersonic advanced trainer with an initial production order for 66 aircraft as the Proctor T.1.

RAFPROCTORT101 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFPROCTORT102 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFPROCTORT103 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFPROCTORT104 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

A smashing bunch of Northrop two-seaters was released over at Combat Ace recently and this lovely silver skin caught my eye.

[SPINNERS]

Northrop F-5B - No.14 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force, Vung Tau, Vietnam, 1969

RNZAFF-5B01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFF-5B02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFF-5B03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Northrop F-5C's - No.75 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force, Phan Rang, 1971

RNZAFF-5C01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFF-5C02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFF-5C03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFF-5C04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I love the story of the 'Skoshi Tiger' project (a combat evaluation of modified F-5A's, redesignated as the F-5C, in Vietnam during 1965-1967) and thought that perhaps they were handed over to the RNZAF but kept 'in theatre' and attached to RAF SEAC. Nurse, my medicene please! The centreline tank is actually a napalm tank as I just couldn't seem to get the specific F-5A/C fuel tank to appear.

[SPINNERS]

Hawker Hunter FGA.9 - No.14 and No.75 Squadrons, Royal New Zealand Air Force, 1970

RNZAFHUNTERFGA913 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFHUNTERFGA914 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFHUNTERFGA915 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I've previously done the Hunter in RNZAF service but used SEAC markings so here is a few shots of the more traditional three-colour roundels.

[SPINNERS]

Dassault Mirage IIIC - No.1 'Black Velvet' Squadron, Irish Air Corps, 1972

IACMIRAGE3C01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

IACMIRAGE3C02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

IACMIRAGE3C03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

IACMIRAGE3C04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

IACMIRAGE3C05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Greg's idea of seeing an Irish F-5 has mutated into an Irish Mirage IIIC, perhaps purchased at a bargain price following a cancelled export sale - not that Dassault had any difficulty in selling his delta-winged masterpiece to anyone in the late 1960's to mid-1970's era. This is the stock Mirage IIICJ skin and I've knocked up the Irish roundel and fin flash plus a touch of 'genius' for the fin!

[SPINNERS]

Panavia Tornado F.3 - No.111 'Treble-One' Squadron, RAF Leuchars, 2004

RAFTORNADOF310 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTORNADOF311 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTORNADOF312 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Inspired by BadersBusCompany's all-black Tornado F.3!

[SPINNERS]

Westland Warrior FB.2 - No.14 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force, Malaya, 1954

RNZAFWARRIORFB204 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFWARRIORFB201 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFWARRIORFB202 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Soko G-4 Super Galeb - No.75 Squadron, Air Combat Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force, 2011

RNZAFSOKOG401 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFSOKOG402 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFSOKOG403 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RNZAFSOKOG404 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

The Soko G-4 Super Galeb was an unexpected new release today by a small but perfectly formed development team and it is a real beauty. It comes with this cracking Yugoslavian/Serbian Camo scheme and I've just oversprayed the fin markings and added some RNZAF No.75 squadron markings.

[SPINNERS]

HAL/Soko G-4 Supr Galeb - No.6 Squadron, Indian Air Force, 1989

INDIASOKOG401 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

INDIASOKOG402 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

INDIASOKOG403 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

INDIASOKOG404 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Vought A-7B Corsair II - No.8 Escuadrilla, Armada Española Arma Aérea, 1972

'What If' the Spanish had bought HMS Eagle instead of the USS Cabot (which became SNS Dédalo) and operated Corsairs and Crusaders?

AEAAA-7BCORSAIR01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

AEAAA-7BCORSAIR02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

AEAAA-7BCORSAIR03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Vought A-7B Corsair II - 121 Escuadron, Ejército del Aire, 1973

EDAA-7BCORSAIR02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

EDAA-7BCORSAIR03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

EDAA-7BCORSAIR04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

This is the stock skin for the A-7D adapted to fit the A-7B, requiring little more than re-naming and the subtle tweaking of two of the five bitmaps. I do like the Corsair and always used to 'whif' mine into RAF Corsairs! I liked the simplicity of the Matchbox kit but it probably wasn't their finest hour with those chunky pylons and ejector racks!

[SPINNERS]

Westland Whirlwind FB.2 - No.6 Squadron, 'The Flying Can-Openers', RAF Desert Air Force, 1943

RAFWHIRLWINDFB202 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFWHIRLWINDFB203 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I've shown this one before but I've knocked up a quick conversion to SF2 standard and released it for download.

[SPINNERS]

BAC/Vought Corsair GR.1's - No.8 Squadron, RAF South East Asia Command, 1970

The UK General Election of October 1964 saw a new Labour government slip into power with a slender four-seat majority but this did not deter their planned shake-up of the UK Defence Budget. Whilst many observers felt that the TSR.2 programme would survive until at least the 1965 April budget it was not that great a shock when the axe fell earlier than expected in November 1964 with a bland announcement that a three-month study period of the RAF's tactical strike and recconnaisance requirements would be immediately started as part of a much broader Emergency Defence Review.

The Emergency Defence Review of February 1965 concluded that the RAF needed a more flexible force and recommended a mix of aircraft with a small force of sophisticated all-weather tactical strike aircraft, a much larger force of tactical attack machines plus an improved interceptor-fighter force equipped with longer-range aircraft than the totally inadequate Lightning.

Whilst initially ordered as a replacement for the Hunter the Spey-enginned Phantoms already on order (thanks to an order placed by the outgoing Conservative Government in February 1964) were now allocated to air defence duties to replace the Lightnings in the UK and RAF Germany squadrons. For the tactical strike role it was no surprise that the F-111 was ordered but, like the Phantoms, with Spey engines which soon hit many of same problems encountered by the Spey-Phantoms.

For the RAF's tactical attack role almost no one foresaw the purchase of Ling-Temco Vought's VAL contender (later designated A-7 Corsair II) as it had only just been selected, literally days earlier, by the US Navy as their A-4 Skyhawk replacement. The UK Government simply couldn't resist putting the non-afterburning Spey into their version of the Corsair but, thankfully, this was a much happier marriage and LTV had actually already planned their A-7 to use this engine as an insurance policy and to be able to offer an export version of their promising design. As some sort of feeble compensation to BAC for the loss of the TSR.2 the UK Government negotiated with LTV a manufacturing licence for BAC to licence-build all British production aircraft although this was more of a final assembly deal plus partnering on all European and Commonwealth sales which actually became quite lucrative for BAC.

Development moved swiftly and apart from minor delays due to the substitution of the TF-30 for the Rolls-Royce Spey RB.168-2A turbofan engine the only other delay was caused by the substitution of the Colt Mk12 20mm cannon for British 30mm Aden (with reduced round capacity) and progress was certainly helped by having the prototypes built and test-flown in the USA and the British Corsairs simply slotted into the very smooth and highly successful LTV Corsair programme that saw the A-7A move from operational requirement to squadron service in barely more than three years. Entering service as the Corsair GR.1 in early 1968 the aircraft was extremely popular in RAF service and served until 1991 seeing service in Desert Storm.

RAFCORSAIRGR101 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFCORSAIRGR102 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFCORSAIRGR103 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I love the Corsair and this is the stock USAF A-7E skin adapted to fit the A-7B.

[SPINNERS]

North American Shark FGA.1 - No.45 and No.58 Squadrons, RAF Middle East Command, 1960

[Insert backstory about the failure of the Supermarine Swift here!]

RAFSUPERSABREFGA101 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFSUPERSABREFGA102 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFSUPERSABREFGA103 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFSUPERSABREFGA104 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Dassault Mirage 5J - No.113 'The Hornet Squadron', Israeli Air Force, 1969

During 1964 the Israeli Air Force formally asked Dassault for a simplified Mirage III with simpler avionics, more internal fuel and more weapons and effectively became the launch customer for the new Mirage V with their version designated 5J. With Arab-Israeli relations worsening during 1967 things began to boil over and by May 1967 Nasser had evicted the UN Peacekeeping Force and closed the Red Sea to Israeli shipping. Inexplicably, De Gaulle became pro-Arab and ordered an immediate arms embargo against Israel specifically blocking the sale of the 5J's to Israel despite production being in full swing and deliveries of 5J's being made to Bordeaux-Merignac for testing by Israeli pilots.

Israel's stunning success in the six-day war of June 1967 and the important part played by their Mirage III fighter-bombers led to Israel re-doubling their efforts to secure their 5J's and whilst a clandestine operation was briefly considered it was eventually slow and steady diplomatic pressure applied by the United Nations that was ultimately successful and the first of the 5J's reached Israel in February 1969 seeing service in the Yom Kippur war of 1973 although by this time Israel Aircraft Industries had produced the similar Nesher from (clandestinely obtained) blueprints and were well on the way to producing the J79 powered Kfir.

IDFMIRAGE5J01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

IDFMIRAGE5J02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

These IDF Mirage 5J's use the stock Libyan camo.