Bring your own Fighter.. RAF Style - Valiant with Parasite Fighters - Finished

buzzbomb · October 10, 2010, 04:31:44 AM

The Idea of parasite fighters is an old one.. each try has met with varying degrees of success.... or failure.
Undeterred the RAF decided to try the concept using the the usual.. "we are going to do it different" thoughts.

As the Valiant was being phased out for the Victor/Vulcan V weapons.. the boffins decided to use the older Valiants as mother ships for a couple of lightweight parasite fighters, using the Folland Gnat.

Ok that is my effort as backstory..now to the model.
Using the old Contrail 1/72 Valiant I had in the usual "preloved" model stash, this GB was the perfect excuse to recycle-reuse.

Plonk a Gnat on top you get

I am actually planning for it to carry two Gnats.
The notional bomb load of a Valiant is 21,000 lb. A Gnat max take off weight is 9,040 lb.. that equals (to me) 2 x Gnat = 1 x Valiant bomb load. Less Gnat Undercarriage etc the maths works ( if you don't look too hard)

The plan is to modify the bomb bay to add in a rececessed Gnat and slightly similar to the top mounted Gnat. The Gnats being modified to enable the pilot stations to be "plugged" in to the aircraft from inside the Valiant.

Lets see how how it pans out

Cheers

Hobbes · October 10, 2010, 05:23:38 AM

I like it already!

Martin H · October 10, 2010, 07:08:51 AM

its not as far fetched as it may seem. SARO seriously looked at an all most identical project using a modified SR53, for a "cheap" UK attempt to try a sub orbital lob.

GTX · October 11, 2010, 01:25:12 AM

Quote from: Hobbes on October 10, 2010, 05:23:38 AM
I like it already!

Me too!

Regards,

Greg

Mossie · October 11, 2010, 02:17:14 AM

Me too! There was the real world proposal for three Gnats carrying Target Marker Bombs to be underslung on Vulcans, nothing came of it when they realised they couldn't recover the Gnats.

Taiidantomcat · October 11, 2010, 09:04:09 AM

Sweetness

buzzbomb · November 06, 2010, 03:19:54 AM

Progress !!

I have had a bit of thought around the launching and retrieval of parasite fighters.. generally the fail point of these type of experiments.
I have decided that the Brits went with using electromagnets to secure the fighter to catch and dock it.
In my mind it goes something like this.
The Gnats have a couple of significant plates of steel on their wings, the mothership has a set of extendable electromagnets that it uses to "attract" the fighter into the correct position to capture it. Now this still requires excellent pilot skills to maintain an approximate position to allow the capture, but once the magnets "hook on" the rig could then be retracted back to a home position.
Well it works for me.

Work on the bomb bay fighter station

Electomagnetic capture rig

Dorsal Gnat in position.. it is a preloved Gnat I have used in a Yellowjacks display

so next is finding all the undercart bits and refurbishing them an fitting some weaponry to the Gnats.
Firestreak or Redtop or just go the sidewinders ?

BT

thedarkmaster · November 06, 2010, 04:13:20 AM

Loving it mate, top class work.....can't be sidewinders gotta go British all the way on this one

James · November 21, 2010, 08:30:16 AM

Wonderful!

JayBee · November 21, 2010, 08:42:40 AM

Just found this. Me likee

Question though, would the "Significant Steel Panels" have any adverse effecty as far as weight is concerned?

PR19_Kit · November 21, 2010, 01:27:30 PM

If can do THAT with a Contrail Valiant, the modelling world is your oyster, very, VERY well done!

Love the Gnat parasite idea too, but why not use a trapeze like the GRB-36J/RF-84K combo? It actually worked.

And for AAMs a pair of early Taildogs would look good, and not too diffcult to make either.

sotoolslinger · November 21, 2010, 02:18:24 PM

Neato

Weaver · November 21, 2010, 06:40:32 PM

Excellent project - looking really good so far.

I'd go with the Sidewinders: weight is an issue, and if these Gnats are supposed to be defending V-bombers from Soviet fighters then the lighter Sidewinder is more appropriate. Firestreak and Red Top were primarily anti-bomber weapons with big warheads. Taildog didn't come along until the early 1970s which I guess is too late for this scheme, although if I guess wrong then fair enough. There is a precedent for early British Sidewinders: FAA Scimitars were fitted with them.

PR19_Kit · November 22, 2010, 01:48:07 AM

If we're talking about mounting Gnats on the top of Valiants I'm sure Hawker-Siddley (or de Havilland Guided Weapons) could have come up with the Taildog a year or so early......

Weaver · November 22, 2010, 02:14:18 AM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on November 22, 2010, 01:48:07 AM
If we're talking about mounting Gnats on the top of Valiants I'm sure Hawker-Siddley (or de Havilland Guided Weapons) could have come up with the Taildog a year or so early......

Oh sure, if you whiff one thing, you can whiff another to support it!

Taildog would be a good weapon for a Gnat in some respects because it was tiny (about 6ft long) and light, but on the other hand, it only had a range of about 2000 metres, so a powerful soviet fighter might well be able to get outside the launch envelope of a Taildog-armed subsonic Gnat relatively easily.

Conceptually, Taildog strikes me as being the equivalent to the Soviet R-60 (AA-8 Aphid).

Here's an idea: how about a "British Sidewinder"? There is a precedent for this, in that AIM-9L was essentially a "European Sidewinder" with a German BGT seeker. How about an earlier colaborative weapon that sought to address AIM-9B's limitations by applying the British seeker technology that lead to Taildog?