Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

[SPINNERS]

Republic Thunderwarrior F.2 - No.34 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 1996

RAFTHUNDERWARRIORF201 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTHUNDERWARRIORF202 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTHUNDERWARRIORF203 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Republic Thunderwarrior F.1A - No.111 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1964

RAFTHUNDERWARRIORF101 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTHUNDERWARRIORF102 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTHUNDERWARRIORF103 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTHUNDERWARRIORF104 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTHUNDERWARRIORF105 by Spinners1961, on Flickr
The view (sic) from the cockpit! And, yes, I am wildly overshooting!

[SPINNERS]

Yorkshire Aircraft Corporation Raven - Royal Yorkshire Air Force, 1967

YORKSHIREBUCCANEER01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

YORKSHIREBUCCANEER02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

YORKSHIREBUCCANEER03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

The recent DAT Buccaneer has an associated skinpack that includes the all-black scheme for the 'Thunder City' Buccaneer so doing an all-black Yorkshire Air Force Buccaneer for James was quite an easy task with just some markings to overspray on the bitmaps and then add my YAF decals. Edit: I've just realised I've forgotten to add '4' to the fin - sorry James.

[SPINNERS]

Lancashire Electric Lightning F.1 - No.1 Squadron, Lancashire Air Force, 1962

LANCASHIRELIGHTNING01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

LANCASHIRELIGHTNING02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

LANCASHIRELIGHTNING03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa - Vietnam Peoples Air Force, 1950

VPAFKI-4301 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

VPAFKI-4302 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

VPAFKI-4303 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

VPAFKI-4304 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

VPAFKI-4305 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Don't look too close because it's a rubbish skin but I'm trying to populate my install with suitable early post-war adversaries and an 'Oscar' in VPAF markings seemed a good place to start!

[SPINNERS]

Mitsubishi A6M2 'Zero' - Vietnamese Peoples Air Force, 1949

VPAFA6M201 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

VPAFA6M202 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

VPAFA6M203 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

SABCA ATF90 'Aurore' - 27 smaldeel, Belgische Luchtmacht / Force Aerienne Belge, 1998

In late 1974, due to severe budgetary constraints, Belgium pulled out of the proposed four-nation purchase of an F-104G replacement (in a competition eventually won by the F-16A) and opted for a modest 10-year life extension programme for it's Starfighters and bravely decided to go it alone with the production and procurement of a new advanced tactical fighter - the ATF90 (Advanced Tactical Fighter 1990). With a planned in-service date of 1990 the Belgium government hoped to defer costs with a slow and steady development and production programme and they were helped with the adoption of the Rolls-Royce RB.600 30,000lb thrust class turbofan engine jointly produced with SABCA as the 'Meuse' (thus preserving the Rolls-Royce tradition of river names). Entering service in March 1990 the Aurore continues in service and has been exported to several European and Middle-East air forces.

BAFATF90AURORE01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

BAFATF90AURORE02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

BAFATF90AURORE03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

BAFATF90AURORE04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

This is, of course, the Chinese J-10 masquerading as a fictional Belgian superfighter and is done as a request from schepper911.

[SPINNERS]

SABCA ATF90 'Aurore' - 31 smaldeel, Belgische Luchtmacht / Force Aerienne Belge, 2001

BAFATF90AURORE05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

BAFATF90AURORE07 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

BAFATF90AURORE08 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Shenyang J-1 'Fènghuáng' - People's Liberation Army Air Force, 1951

Even before they had claimed victory over the Chinese Nationalist Party the Mao Tse-Tung led Communist Party of China had launched China's first jet fighter programme - the Shenyang J-1 'Fènghuáng' (Phoenix) and with Soviet help this very simple straight-wing design was quickly developed and first flew in 1949. Powered by a Hongdu Xuanpu axial-flow turbojet with a crude afterburner developing a lusty 9,000lbs of thrust the Xuanpu jet engine was initially thought to be a scaled-up Jumo 004 engine but is now known to have been derived from the Metropolitan-Vickers F.2 engine although, strangely, this engine was never formally exported to either the Soviet Union or to China. Armament consisted of two Type 23-1 23mm cannon mounted in the wing roots.

Entering service in late 1950 the aircraft had a good rate of climb and was rugged and tough but notoriously short-legged and quite unforgiving in combat. Several examples were encountered over Korea but it was no match for the contempory UN straight-wing jet fighters and was totally out-classed by the swept-wing Sabres and Thunderstreaks. A swept-wing derivitive known as the J-2 was flown but it did not enter service and Shenyang soon switched to the licence-production of Soviet designs.

PLAAFJ-101 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PLAAFJ-102 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PLAAFJ-103 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PLAAFJ-104 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

To give me another early post-war adversary this is the Douglas Skystreak D-558-1 dressed up as an early PLAAF interceptor-fighter!

[SPINNERS]

Harbin H-3 - People's Liberation Army Air Force, 1950

PLAAFEF-13201 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PLAAFEF-13202 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PLAAFEF-13203 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PLAAFEF-13204 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PLAAFEF-13205 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

This is the Junkers EF-132 bomber dressed up as an early PLAAF jet bomber. Probably because of the 'British' wing root intakes I was very tempted to make it an RAF V-Bomber machine in anti-flash white but decided to use it as another adversary type. I knocked up a simple template with redrawn panel lines so might do a 'night attack' version of it.

[SPINNERS]

USNCANBERRA05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USNCANBERRA06 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USNCANBERRA07 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

USNCANBERRA08 by Spinners1961, on Flickr
Bolter!

[SPINNERS]

Lockheed Blackbird SR.1 - No.543 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 1976

RAFBLACKBIRDSR101 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFBLACKBIRDSR102 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFBLACKBIRDSR103 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFBLACKBIRDSR104 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFBLACKBIRDSR105 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Not a brilliant skin this but enough to give an impression of what a PRU Blue Blackbird (Bluebird??) would look like. I can definitely recall seeing this modelled somewhere - possibly on display at Telford?

[SPINNERS]

Yakovlev Yak-9U - Vietnamese People's Air Force, 1948

VPAFYAK-9U01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

VPAFYAK-9U02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

VPAFYAK-9U04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

VPAFYAK-9U03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Two different Yak-9's exist as add-on aircraft for Strike Fighters. This is the Yak-9U by 'Pasko' and the Soviet skin makes conversion to a VPAF adversary very easy.

[SPINNERS]

Boulton-Paul Defiant Mk.III - 1º Grupo de Aviação de Caça, Força Aérea Brasileira, 1946

After the early withdrawl of the Defiant from the RAF Fighter Command's day fighter squadrons in 1940 Boulton-Paul hastily redesigned the wings to house four forward-firing Browning machines (two in each wing) and installed the Rolls-Royce Merlin XX engine rated at 1280hp to form the basis of the Defiant Mark III. Whilst the Defiant Mark II continued in service with the night fighter squadrons of RAF Fighter Command the Mark III's were all sent overseas and saw service with the Desert Air Force and the Far East Air Force. In the early post-war period 36 surplus Defiant Mark III's were exported to Brazil seeing service with the Força Aérea Brasileira from 1946 to 1951.

FABDEFIANTMK302 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

FABDEFIANTMK303 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

FABDEFIANTMK304 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Boulton-Paul Defiant Mk.III - Skadron Udara 7, Tentara Nasional Indonesia Angkatan Udara, 1952

AURIDEFIANT01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

AURIDEFIANT02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

AURIDEFIANT03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

AURIDEFIANT04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

AURIDEFIANT05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr