THE EMPIRES TWILIGHT

[thedarkmaster]

Bristol Belvadere H6

Instead of going out of service in 1969 as in our timeline in the New Commonwealth timeline the Belvadere sodiered on into various new marques and went into service with Canads, Australia and South Africa.

The aircraft is in Canadian service during the continuing confrontation with Indonesia in 1978.
































This is an old Aifix kit of my late fathers, it's been with me through marrige, divorce and many house moves. not all the original parts were there when i came to build it, hence the slightly differant landing gear and tail etc.

[JayBee]

DM, your Skyvan and Belvedere are brilliant. 

[thedarkmaster]

For those who spotted it the Belverdere's fin flash is the wrong way round because the Canadian crew came from Qubec..........honest it was supposed to be that way and i didn't have a blonde moment at all     

[Weaver]

More superb builds DM - I bet you were glad of your opaque cockpit technique when it came to that Belvedere, eh? 

I may not have time to comment on each one of your builds individually, but I regularly review the thread: it's an excellent (and prodigious) body of work and you can be very proud of it. 

[NARSES2]

That's a fantastic build of a real veteran of a kit. I haven't seen one built in ages. Every time I see the real Belvedere at Hendon I want one, just have to wait for the promised Czechmaster kit

[sideshowbob9]

Great Belvedere 

[thedarkmaster]

Yak 17UTI Sphinx t1

During the 1956 Suez Crisis paratrooper landings upon the El Gamil airbase captured almost a full regiment of Egyption Yak 17UTI trainers intact.

The Aircraft were dismantled and crated up for shipment during the ceasfire and negotiation period and then duely sent home to the UK.

Once there they were reassembled and put into second line service as squadron hacks at various RAF stations throughout the UK and occupied Germany.

Officially named the Sphinx in RAF service it remained in limted service in this way for around the next 8 years until the lack of spares forced the grounding of all  airframes and their reassigning to ground frame instruction roles.























I have no idea on the history of this kit, I found it unpainted in a box in the loft last night, it is some sort of vacform but i don't remember ever making it or buying one either so who knows     

[sotoolslinger]

Those are beauties

[thedarkmaster]

MIL 2 Ladybird H2

During the ongoing confrontation with Indonesia the New commonwealth forces, in particular the British army which was naturally shouldering the majority of the burden, found themselves with a accute helicopter shortage. This manifested itself mainly in the observation and utility roles and a solution was urgently sort .

At the Paris airshow of 1972 the Polish firm of WSK-Świdnik was showing off it's new Mi-2URN Żmija ('Viper'), an armed reconosance version of it's Mi-2. The aircraft suited the British army needs and was the right price, cheap.
After a short negotiation period the British army ordered 24 of these Viper aircraft though without the S-5 unguided rocket capability and with the 23mm cannon replaced with a 20mm defa cannon.

The first aircraft was delivered in April 1975 and was deployed imediatly to the Indonesian theatre of operations where it aquitted itself well. It spent most of it's carear in the far east but a flight of 4 aircraft are known to have operated in Northern Ireland during 79-82.

[Hman]

Love the Belverdere

I like the way you do the canopies - how do you do it, what colour do you use for the 'glass'?

[bobbo]

Any update for The Story?  I bet some of us are getting a bit antsy . . .

Bobbo

[thedarkmaster]

Did have a story about a surviver from USS Nassau in the Pacific but it disa pered from my haed drive, haven't had the urge to rewrite it as yet but i will do something shortley.

[thedarkmaster]

I paint the canopies ( i hate the cockpit detail so never bother ) in a mixture of Revell Aqua Colour Ultramarine ( 51 ) and Leaf green ( 364 ) in a 50/50 mix.

[sideshowbob9]

Love the Sphinx 

[thedarkmaster]

British Aircraft Corporation Concorde F12/Conqueror FR2.

During the design and build process of the Concorde bomber varient a feasability study was made of a possible fighter escort version of the aircraft. The study recommended a smaller design but one that used around an 80% commonality in airframe parts and an urgraded engine capable of pushing the new design to Mach3.

As no money was at the time available BAC decided to syphon off some of the Concorde bomber development money to make two pre-production airframes under the Concorde F12 designation to cover it's existance from the Whitehall money counters.

Rolled out at Boscombe down in August 1975 and now renamed the Conqueror the aircraft entered a stringent regime of testing and operational evaluation. However it was decided that at the end of this testing that no requirement for this type of aircraft existed within the RAF, nore within any Commonwealth or allied airforce.

Apart from the two airframes completed at that time two others had been delivered during the testing to make up a total of 3 flying and one ground airfame, these flew for a number of years in the service of various "shadow" squadrons of the RAF and it is believed that they were used to provide high speed targets for interception and radar calibration purposes.

At this time only one airframe exsists and it iscurrently on display next to the concorde and Eagle at the RAF museum Cosford.





















































Model is an A-Model Sukhoi T4 which i picked up in bits at a carboot sale on Sunday for 20p. had to put on a new front and undercarrige, Stripped back the old paint job and added the bits.

New cockpit is from my spares box, I believe it is a Tupolev of some sort?

Paint is as always wilco's  appliance white and decals from the spare box.

The last Photo is with a Phantom to give it a sense of scale, though it's still only around 2/3 size of a Concorde.

Enjoy.     
TIM