Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

[SPINNERS]

Focke-Wulf Ta199 - JG53, Luftwaffe, 1946

LUFTWAFFETUNNAN01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

LUFTWAFFETUNNAN02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

LUFTWAFFETUNNAN03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

LUFTWAFFETUNNAN04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

This is, of course, the portly Saab J-29F Tunnen - a lovely aircraft and an aircraft of which our Swedish friends can be very proud! To be fair, they can be proud of all of their post-war combat aircraft - a stunning series of successful designs. Anyway, the J-29F comes with this Swedish camo scheme and I've added fuselage bands and a few decals to give it a Luftwaffe flavour but must confess that it's not my area of expertise.

[SPINNERS]

Heinkel He.444 'Viktor' - KG40, Luftwaffe, 1947

During the Spring of 1945 Dipl-Ing Siegfried Gunter, head of Heinkel's Project and Design department, pushed ahead with his He.444 bomber project. Briefly flirting with an all-wing design he soon focused upon a four engined design with engines buried into the wing-roots of a two-stage swept wing having 45 degrees of sweep on the inboard portion and 35 degrees of sweep outboard of the wing-roots. However, Gunter's design soon developed a crescent-winged design with a longer and more traditional fuselage and tail although the tailplane was highly swept and mounted right on top of the swept-back fin. With four Heinkel HeS 114 three-stage axial flow engines of 5,250lbs thrust the He.444 had an appalling thrust-to-weight ratio and a correspondingly high field length.

Development moved swiftly and the He.444 entered service in December 1946 with KG40 based on the Eastern front but it proved impossible to fully utilise the potential of the aircraft as it simply couldn't carry the planned bombload over the planned range. As the war drew to a close in 1948 KG40 switched to long-range reconnaisance missions flying some of the longest-range missions of World War 2 before becoming grounded due to a lack of engines and spares.

LUFTWAFFEVIKTOR01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

LUFTWAFFEVIKTOR02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

LUFTWAFFEVIKTOR03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

LUFTWAFFEVIKTOR04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Midland's epic 'Luftwaffe Secret Projects - Strategic Bombers' gives a short account and some artwork of a Heinkel project referred to simply as the Heinkel 'Four-Jet Long-Range Bomber' design. This illustrates a design with more than a hint of Victor so I thought I'd use the Victor B.1 to create the fictional He.444 and I've used the 'hemp' scheme of the Victor K2 with some German green camo added plus my decals.

[SPINNERS]

Supermarine Spitfire IIIA - No.19 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, September 1940

'What If'^TM the two-stage Merlin 60/70 series had emerged much earlier and allowed RAF Fighter Command to field a 400mph fighter in 1940??

RAFSPITFIRE9A01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFSPITFIRE9A02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFSPITFIRE9A03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFSPITFIRE9A04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFSPITFIRE9A05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFSPITFIRE9A06 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

There's a classic Roland Beamont quote in 'Typhoon and Tempest at War' where he's testing the brand-new Tempest and flinging it about the sky and enjoying the bubble-top and Beamont writes, "What a fighter this would have made for the Battle of Britain but what a fighter it was going to make for the invasion"! Well, over at Combat Ace, ndicki has released a Spitfire 1A 'stand-in' using the stock Spitfire IXC with some details removed (actually they are hidden) and given a very nice BoB style skin and markings for No.19 Squadron and it allows you to fly a long-nose Spitfire in 1940! Delightful!

[SPINNERS]

McDonnell Douglas A-4FP 'Falcão' - Esquadra 301 "Jaguares", Portuguese Air Force, 1997

PoAFA-4F01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PoAFA-4F02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PoAFA-4F03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

A lovely 'Euro' skin by a Kiwi skinner called James Fox, who has done several RNZAF 'what if's' is the basis for this Portugese Skyhawk.

[SPINNERS]

Supermarine Spitfire IIIA - No.610 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1940

RAFSPITFIRE9A09 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFSPITFIRE9A08 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFSPITFIRE9A07 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I'm still enjoying the Spitfire IX in 1940! I've put the classic Luftwaffe bombers (Do-17, He-111, Ju-87 and Ju-88) into my install and it's huge fun trying to clobber them with 8 x .303 Brownings. Of course, the 'IIIA' designation is fictional and refers to an alternate timeline where the two-stage Merlin came along a lot earlier!

[SPINNERS]

Curtiss Tomahawk Mk.1 - No.54 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, December 1940

The postponement of Operation Sea Lion and the dispersal of the invasion barges was merely an extended pause between battles and the second Battle Of Britain (November 1940 to March 1941) became a gruelling war of attrition. Heavy RAF losses during the early phases of the battle saw the introduction of the Curtiss Tomahawk into RAF Fighter Command commencing with No.54 squadron who re-equipped with the type in November 1940.

RAFTOMAHAWKF101 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTOMAHAWKF102 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTOMAHAWKF103 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTOMAHAWKF104 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

This is an off the shelf 'what if' created by 'Wrench' one of the stalwarts over at Combat Ace who created this 'Battle of Britain' skin for the USAAC P-40.

[SPINNERS]

Curtiss Mohawk Mk.1 - No.121 (Eagle) Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, August 1940

RAFMOHAWKF101 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFMOHAWKF102 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Really enjoying the props at the moment!

[SPINNERS]

Macchi M.C.250 'Athena' - 6º Stormo, Aeronautica Militare, 1949

AMIMB502 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

AMIMB503 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

AMIMB504 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

AMIMB501 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Blatant Mustang copy? Who cares! I've always liked the Martin-Baker MB.5 (and the earlier MB.2 and MB.3) since reading an article about them (probably in Air International) in the 1970's and thought that an early post-war Aeronautica Militare version would look good.

[SPINNERS]

Republic Aviation Thunderstreak FB.4 - No.263 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1957

RAFTHUNDERSTREAKFB425 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTHUNDERSTREAKFB426 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTHUNDERSTREAKFB427 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTHUNDERSTREAKFB427 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTHUNDERSTREAKFB429 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I previously done silver and 'normal' RAF camo versions of the Thunderstreak FB.4 (the current Page 20) but a recent FREE patch for Strike Fighters 2 has a few nice surprises (skins, decals, new features, etc) and this new Dutch Thunderstreak skin with PRU Blue undersides is a cracker. There's also a Meteor skin with PRU Blue undersides too.

[SPINNERS]

Breda Ba.65 - No.1 Attack Regiment, Parani Air Force, 1944

PARANIBREDABa6501 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PARANIBREDABa6502 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PARANIBREDABa6503 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

PARANIBREDABa6504 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I love the rugged charm of this Italian attack aircraft and have revised my Parani version. Looking at the Breda Ba.65 on wiki led to a link to the Anglo-Iraqi war of 1941 - fascinating stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breda_Ba.65

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Iraqi_War

[SPINNERS]

Fairey Heron B.1 - No.10 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1936

RAFHERONB101 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFHERONB102 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFHERONB103 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

I'm really enjoying the Regia Aeronautica aircraft that are available as add-ons and thought I'd try the Fiat BR.20 in the RAF Nivo Green scheme (always thought that the Vickers Wellington would have looked ace in that scheme).

[SPINNERS]

Boulton-Paul Trident II - No.27 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1937

RAFTRIDENTB101 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTRIDENTB102 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFTRIDENTB103 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

This is, of course, the delightful Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero and the shots have been taken at dusk to partially hide my crude skins that have no panel lines or detail (the original Regia Aeronautica skins are outstanding btw) but I hope it gives an impression of what a 'Sparrowhawk' might have looked like in Nivo Green.

[SPINNERS]

Republic RF-84S Thunderstreak - F21, Flygvapnet, 1973

The last member of the successful Republic F-84 family was the RF-84S an export version of the RF-84F Thunderflash for Sweden. Unique amongst the F-84 family the RF-84S was powered by the Svenska Flygmotor RM4 (essentially an Avon 200) and the extra thrust made the RF-84S the fastest of the F-84 family. Deliveries commenced in 1958 and the RF-84S served until 1975 when F21 transitioned to updated Draken S35E's.

FLYGVAPNETRF-84S01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

FLYGVAPNETRF-84S02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

FLYGVAPNETRF-84S03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

Created by the German Modder Group the RF-84F is a cracker and comes with a good template so I've used a 'Forest' scheme that seems to work well with Swedish markings.

[SPINNERS]

Gloster Meteor F.8A - No.71 (Eagle) Squadron, RAF South East Asia Command, 1955

RAFMETEORF8A03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFMETEORF8A04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFMETEORF8A05 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Boeing B-52K Stratofortress B.1 - No. 467 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1959

RAFB-52K01 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFB-52K02 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFB-52K03 by Spinners1961, on Flickr

RAFB-52K04 by Spinners1961, on Flickr