Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

[SPINNERS]

Paektu J-1 - Korean People's Army Air Force, 1977













This is a Sovietised version of the Starfighter by 'Spillone104' - a real Starfighter fan! I've just substituted his Soviet markings for North Korean and added the AA-2NK (my fictional licence-built North Korean Atoll) and Anabs.

[SPINNERS]

Republic P-72A Superbolt - No.134 Squadron, RAF South East Asia Command, 1946





A bit short of time tonight!

[SPINNERS]

Lockheed F-104A Starfighter - Egyptian Air Force, 1967











This 'what if' two-tone grey skin was included in the Soviet I-104Bis by 'Spillone104' and I've simply added some coloured tip tanks and swapped out the Soviet markings for Egyptian. During this mission I was bounced by the Israeli Swifts I did a few weeks back and they ran rings around me!

[SPINNERS]

Lockheed Starfighter S.1 - No.213 Squadron, RAF Germany, 1966









A bit of a follow-on to my recent anti-flash white Starfighter S.1, I was in the process of doing a normal RAF camo for it and forgot to change the roundels but quite like the result! Whilst it makes no sense at all there were a couple of V-Bombers that wore camo with pale roundels for a few brief days in the early 1960's.

[SPINNERS]

Mikoyan I-104Bis 'Foglamp' - Luftstreitkräfte der Nationalen Volksarmee, 1971









Still got the Starfighter bug!

[SPINNERS]

BAC Lightning Mk.51 - 9 Stormo, Aeronautica Militare Italiana, 1969

















I've previously done AMI Lightnings in F.6 form but thought I'd do one using the F.3 version and adding a bit of colour (albeit black) in a similar way to my Swedish F.3 (below) with black fin, spine and wing leading edges. I've used my 'colour invert' technique on these areas with turns silver to black nicely but is a bit too bright on panel lines so I've added a 30% black layer to dampen things back down whilst preserving some detail.

[SPINNERS]

BAC Stiletto F.7 - No.60 Squadron, RAF Far East Air Force, 1973









This one hasn't quite worked out as the fuselage/spine junction is a bit wavy and there's a small panel missing - by which I mean that the panel is there but it's not painted black! If it had worked out better I'd remove the 'Odd Rods' aerials but I'll come back to the MiG-21 at some other time.

[SPINNERS]

Lockheed Starfighter S.1 - No.31 Squadron, RAF Germany, 1973









No.31 are very much an overlooked squadron by me despite them being a Phantom unit - albeit briefly. Note the WE.177A nuke on the centreline. Nasty.

[SPINNERS]

BAC Lightning Mk.51 - Ala 11, Ejército del Aire, 1970







I've done these markings before but on the 'heavy' F.6 and thought I'd use them on a Spanish F.3 and include it in my F.3N (NATO) package.


Now available for download at Combat Ace!

Right, I'm having a week off due to some heavy admin commitments for my other hobby.

[SPINNERS]

I really liked the Lightnings - At some point would you consider doing an Egyptian one, depending on time and "skins" available??

BAC Lightning F.53E - 22 Squadron, Egyptian Air Force, 1973













Good call Geoff!

There is an excellent Lightning F.6 available by 'sundowner' so I used that and some EAF colours from the Third Wire MiG-21PFM and added some stock markings although I can see I'm missing the port underwing roundel. I am going to be short of time tomorrow so will do a simple silver one.

[SPINNERS]

BAC Lightning F.52 - 22 Squadron, Egyptian Air Force, 1967







I love the F.2 and the Saudi F.52 is one of the very few 'real world' aircraft I've uploaded to Combat Ace.

[SPINNERS]

BAC Lightning F.53E - 22 Squadron, Egyptian Air Force, 1973















Lightning's Forever 

I pre-ordered the Haynes manual today from Amazon. Can't wait!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Electric-BAC-Lightning-Manual/dp/0857337688/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462910440&sr=1-3

[SPINNERS]

BAC Lightning F.52A - 45 Squadron, Egyptian Air Force, 1982











Last of the Lightnings for a short while.

[SPINNERS]

Douglas F-74C SkyKnight - 548th Night Fighter Squadron, United States Air Force, 1952

















There was a most welcome revamp on the F3D SkyKnight by the DAT group of modders recently and I thought I'd make an RAF version but became a bit sidetracked and have ended up with a USAF Night Intruder. The USAF did have a good long, hard look at the F3D when the Northrop F-89 was in difficulty but the F3D was hardly a sparkling performer itself, weighing 28,000lbs with (at best) a total of 6,800lbs of thrust. The 'spare' F-74 designation rides again!

[SPINNERS]

Douglas A-46B SkyStrike - United States Army Air Force, 1946















Last F3D for now. Whilst I've made myself a template for the SkyKnight it's just been one of those aircraft that's fought me all the way and unfortunately the 3D model has a couple of issues principally a tear in the port rear fuselage of the 3D model which causes decals to bleed out into other areas. This can normally be overcome by painting the markings directly onto the skin textures (like the invasion stripes) but the SkyKnight has a whopping big airbrake done on a separate mesh on a different area of the skin and lining up the national markings and squadron codes/letters on the two areas (x 2) could literally take days. Never mind, it's been nice getting know this largely unknown aircraft.