Baltic Air Forces What-If Thread

[Spinners 15,966]

British Aerospace/McDonnell Douglas Harrier GR.9E - Estonian Air Force, 2014

 

 

 

 

Sadly, the guy hitting the silk is me!

[+JonathanRL 973]

That one was lovely! If they ever get an Air Force, they should get Spinners to make their airplane designs.

 

Btw, do you have a link to the What If Thread on those forums?

[Spinners 15,966]

Look at my signature...

[+JonathanRL 973]

Look at my signature...

 

Doh!

[Spinners 15,966]

Boeing F-18EB - No.1 Squadron, Estonian Air Force, 2014

 

 

 

 

[KeyboardChap 5]

Estonian F/A-18C Hornets

 

 

 

 

 

Damn it Spinners!!!!! Ninja'd!!!!!!!!

[Spinners 15,966]

Sorry mate - great minds think alike as do warped ones!

[KeyboardChap 5]

Of course! Just shows it's obviously such a good idea, it needs to be done twice!

[dsawan 613]

heck, make it a hat trick! Anyway, this is a good concept.

[Spinners 15,966]

 

 

Latvian Air Force F-18E Super Hornet

Edited September 21, 2012 by Spinners

[+daddyairplanes 8,662]

Jonathan, if you are looking for the 2014-2018 timeframe you will probably want to go with a daul role trainer (like the Hawk) or a simpler jet due to their not having an air force and therefore the experience. look at the troubles the Luftwaffe had starting up esp after getting the Starfighters and that was with highly experienced Experten getting back into the cockpit...

 

my two cents Hawk T1.A or Mirage F1's with modest glass cockpit upgrade. or even Isreali upgraded Mig-21s. Use helos for CAS, the jets will be busy holding off the Russians til the rest of NATO gets there.....

[+JonathanRL 973]

I will take liberties with stories set in the future, just as I do with stories set in the past.

 

For all we know, the Baltic Air Patrol could just be a NATO training program... ;-)

Edited September 21, 2012 by JonathanRL

[Spinners 15,966]

SEPECAT Jaguar - No.2 Squadron, Estonian Air Force, 2014

 

 

 

 

Edited September 21, 2012 by Spinners

[Spinners 15,966]

Ex-Kiwi A-4K Skyhawk now entering service with the Estonian Air Force...

 

(From an idea posted at the 'What If' modelers website).

[dsawan 613]

hey, thats a nice skin!

[PraetorH 166]

It is surely closer to what the Estonian AF in reality had on its jet trainer.

 

And the Skyhawk is a damn good call! Remember, we are talking about the Balitc states here. They are small and have suffered more than other states in the Euro-crisis. Think about it: if Switzerland having a GDP six times as large as that of all Baltic states combined is strained to buy 22 Gripen fighter-bombers recently, then what can the Baltic countries to? Sure they are willing to spend more in %, and cut social welfare and stuff, but there is a very tight limit nevertheless. Thus the Skyhawk would do well.

 

For this very reason the newer Corsairs may be a valid option: their 80ies airframes should be still usable, their avionics are well suited for what they do, and they are cheap. Here an older doodle (skin obviously needs improvements!).

[Spinners 15,966]

McDonnell Douglas A-4K Skyhawk - No.1 'White Wagtail' Squadron, Latvian Air Force, 2014

[+JonathanRL 973]

Money will be less of an object. Let us just say recent events in the story lines gave them a slightly larger budget to work with; but no Gripens NG (like Switzerland wanted) or F-35. As of right now, I think its something like Latvian Gripens, Estonian Harriers (I love that idea for some reason) & Lithunaia has L-39s, so I might give them ex-polish MiGs or the like.

 

F-35 might be in it, but if so at a _very_ reduced amount in the Norwegian or Danish inventory.

[PraetorH 166]

Well, that requires more of a greatly larger budget, rather than a 'slightly' larger budget ;)

 

 

Anyway what is far more important is this:

You need to work out national regulations for aircraft camouflages and markings which actually make sense. Sure you can go all-grey and restrict it to decal swapping, but that would be boring would not it? After all, non of these countries has a jet fighter or fighter-bomber force, with the exeption of the Estonian Albatros. So you can develop whole new camos. I suggest at least two per country: one for the air superiority fighters and one for fighter-bombers/attackers/etc.

[+JonathanRL 973]

To be fair, I expect the people in this thread to make that kind of sense for me. I know nothing of skinning or declaring. And no, they will have Swing Role Fighters. No country will purchase more then one type; so that means one type of aircraft for Estonia & Latvia. Lithuania has L-39s and I will bring them in as well, but they will also have a modern fighter.

 

Other then that, what you say makes sense. Lithuania, ofc already have a color scheme in place that I like.

 

[Ngr 105]

First shots of Estonian L-39 and...

 

 

 

Lithuanian L-39

 

 

 

 

[Spinners 15,966]

First class CZARNY900

[+JonathanRL 973]

Indeed. That was really well done!

[+EricJ 3,937]

Indeed, very nice work czarny900!

[+Brain32 265]

Johnatan here's the list of all NATO air force deployments with complete aircraft list(if you didn't have that already).

http://en.wikipedia....ic_Air_Policing

 

Also Baltic states already procure many stuff together so it's actually quite possible(almost certain) that they would get the same aircraft and finance the joint airforce together actually they already got some transports that way, even together with some Scandinavian states.

And since they are not too happy with the cost of policing some rumors on joint procurement of fighter aircrafts have been circulating for years.

 

Some rumors are:

F-35B (wild I know, supposedly 9 of them)

Gripen

and ofcourse F-16

Those are only the rumors however...