Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

[SPINNERS]

Douglas A-1H Skyraider - No.2 Squadron, Rhodesian Air Force, 1971



I think I prefer this later scheme even though I'm itching to stick wing roundels on it!

[SPINNERS]

Douglas Skyraider FB.3 - No.112 Squadron, RAF Near East Air Force, 1967




Last Skyraider for now. With their desert heritage I felt a bit guilty about not doing a No.112 Squadron machine so I decided I had to do one and, of course, it had to have a sharkmouth!

[PR19_Kit]

Of COURSE it did!   

[Doug K]

I do like the Skyraiders, though I have a hankering for these paint jobs on a Wyvern or 4 😊

[SPINNERS]

Vought F-8E Crusader - 808 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Australian Navy, 1970

[Old Wombat]

    

[zenrat]

Good job.   

Vought F8E Crusader RAN FAA4 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

[SPINNERS]

Good job.   

Vought F8E Crusader RAN FAA4 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

Thank you and compliments to you sir on your excellent Roo-sader!

[zenrat]

Great minds think alike.   

[chrisonord]

This is how far one of my fleet air arm crusaders has got until it went into storage. I am itching to get the hobby room sorted, but I am sleeping in it at the moment.

[SPINNERS]

Sud-Ouest Farandole II - EC1/5 Vendée, Armée de l'Air, 1957

When the straight-wing Sud-Ouest Farandole I lost out to the Dassault Ouragan for a production order they quickly schemed an improved swept-wing version known as the Farandole II utilising the same Hispano-Suiza Nene 104B engine. Working at speed the Sud-Ouest team flew the first prototype in October 1950 and the scintillating performance soon attracted the Armee de l'Air who ordered 150 production aircraft almost immediately leading to the cancellation of the Dassault Mystere IIC. Entering service in November 1952 the Farandole II was considered to be an interim type but served until 1960 with the Armee de l'Air and until 1974 with the Israeli Air Force who were the only export customer.








For this revision I've switched to EC1/5 Vendée after seeing a profile of one of their Super Mystere's with the slanting white band on the port side (Joan of Arc) and slanting blue band on the starboard side (stork) and managed to place these directly on the skin. The game actually generates the serial numbers (they are meant for the Mystere) and whilst I did consider the distinctive red lightning stripe seen on Mystere's and Super Mystere's, the gaps required for the serials and insignia mean that it just doesn't work on what is quite a short (in length) aircraft. Not the most aesthetic aeroplane to ever fly but I quite enjoyed doing this one.

[NARSES2]

Now that works    Got me thinking about an Armee de l'Air Mig 17 now

[chrisonord]

Cool 

[SPINNERS]

BAC Thunderstrike Miscellany

In the House of Commons on April 6th 1965, when Chancellor James Callaghan stood to deliver his budget day speech most of the British aviation industry were prepared for the worst but nothing about the TSR.2 was mentioned and a collective sigh of relief was heard. On April 9th, Prime Minister Wilson made an unannounced visit to BAC Warton and, after raised voices were heard coming from the boardroom, Wilson was given a tour of the TSR.2 front office by an enthusiastic and passionate Roland Beaumont. Playing to the assembled crowd of BAC workers and the Press corps, Wilson announced that whilst some economies were needed this important aircraft was "an amazing example of British engineering and will form the backbone of a modern Royal Air Force" adding that a production order for 30 examples would be immediately placed plus another four pre-production aircraft. Astounded BAC officials looked at each in disbelief, swallowed hard and smiled for the cameras.

In the months that followed, everything seemed to fall into place. The undercarriage retraction problems disappeared, the new Olympus 321 engines ran faultlessly both at Filton (and soon after in the newly flown XR222) whilst various highly classified black boxes arrived at Warton, were fitted and worked like a charm. Testing continued into 1966 and on April 6th, 1966 Mary Wilson (the wife of Prime Minister, Harold Wilson) smashed a bottle of champagne across the nose of XR225 in a naming ceremony christening the aircraft 'Thunderstrike'. In August 1966, the Air Ministry announced that to ease the aircraft into squadron service a Thunderstrike Test and Evaluation Squadron (TTES) would be formed during 1967 at RAF Coningsby operating the last four prototypes (XR223 to XR226) and the four pre-production aircraft (XR556 to XR559).

During the Spring of 1967 the excellent results coming from the Thunderstrike Test and Evaluation Squadron allowed the RAF to begin to plan the introduction into service of the BAC Thunderstrike S.1 and it was hoped
to initially re-equip No.617 'Dambuster' squadron at RAF Scampton first and hopefully by April 1st, 1968 (the RAF's 50th birthbday). However, during August 1967 the RAF top brass became aware of the onset of fatigue
problems with the two Victor B.2 squadrons at RAF Wittering and, fearful of another Valiant style mass grounding, it was decided to move the Victor B.2's away from the arduous low-level role as a matter of urgency and re-equip them with the Thunderstrike.

Deliveries to No.100 and No.139 squadrons commenced in February 1968 but by April 1st only seven aircraft had been received and these early production machines had varying standards of both engines and nav/attack
systems but the photo-shoot held on April 1st at least gave the impression that the aircraft had entered service but it was not until February 1969 that both squadrons were declared operational and available to NATO Sacuer.
By this time, No.617 squadron at Scampton had also began to re-equip with the Thunderstrike S.1 and had moved to Wittering at the end of March 1969. During April 1969 all three squadrons took part in Exercise Clansman, a NATO exercise based on mock-attacks on several Scottish hydro-electric facilities, with all three squadrons returning exceptionally high scores for serviceability, penetration and bombing accuracy.

Following this solid entry into service the Thunderstrike programme never looked back with orders placed for 60 Thunderstrike S.2's for RAF Germany plus 90 S.3's for RAF Strike Command as Vulcan replacements and a hugely successful export campaign saw the aircraft sold to Australia, Canada, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia and West Germany.










These are the earliest versions that were released way back and the only change I've made this time around is to put tactical or 'Type B' (obviously not the WW2 versions) roundels and finflashes on the S.2 version shown in No.213 Squadron markings.

[Steel Penguin]

the gold screens are lovely     just translucent