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Spinners

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Everything posted by Spinners

  1. Republic F-105D-5RE Thunderchief - Jagdbombergeschwader 31
  2. The 3D model is in the SF1 downloads section but it's not finished with some items not mapped.
  3. Chengdu J-14 'Dragón' - Grupo 5, Fuerza Aérea Argentina, 2022 In July 2019 ambassadors from 22 nations of the UN signed a joint letter to the UNHRC condemning China's mistreatment of the Uyghurs and the UK urged the Chinese government to close the Xinjiang 're-education camps'. Relations between the UK and China became further strained when the UK opposed the Hong Kong national security law on the grounds that it was a flagrant breach of the agreement between the UK and China. In July 2020 Liu Xiaoming, China's ambassador to the UK, stated that the UK "will bear the consequences" if it continues to treat China as a hostile country. Despite this, in October 2020, the UK Parliament's Defence Committee strongly recommended that the UK government should remove all Huawei equipment from its 5G networks earlier than planned and this set back relations even further. Almost as a petty act of revenge, the Chinese government immediately gifted 8 Chengdu J-14 'Eagle Dragon' stealth fighters to Argentina with options on a further batch of 12 at a reduced price with a long payback period. During a visit to Argentina in November 2020, Xi Jinping (the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party) wished Argentina every success in it's "struggle against colonial powers lurking in it's backyard". This act was clearly designed to antagonise the UK government but the initial batch of 8 J-14's were eagerly received by a seriously depleted Fuerza Aérea Argentina who had literally a single handful of Lockheed Martin A-4AR Fightinghawk fighter-bombers available at any one time. The first J-14's arrived at the Port of Río Gallegos as deck cargo aboard the Xiang Hua Men (a Panamanian flagged cargo vessel) and were assembled by Chengdu technicians at the nearby Piloto Civil Norberto Fernández International Airport. Entering service in March 2022 with Grupo 5 de Caza at Villa Reynolds Airport near the city of Villa Mercedes in the province of San Luis, the J-14's have transformed the Fuerza Aérea Argentina and the options on the additional batch of 12 have been taken alongside an additional example purchased as an attrition replacement for a J-14 that crashed near Córdoba in October 2022.
  4. A Parani Air Force J-14 Eagle Dragon manoeuvres hard at low level during Exercise Sandy Bottom
  5. Su-21S/P "Flagpole"

    An excellent mod with superb skins that builds upon Cocas' very inventive Condor.
  6. Brewster Buffalo Mk.IA - No.263 Squadron, Royal Air Force, 1940 In the early Spring of 1940 a total of 32 Brewster B-339 aircraft (out of a total Belgian order for 40) were diverted to the RAF and were urgently deployed to Norway during early April. Having only recently exchanged their Gloster Gladiators for Buffalo Mk.1A's, No.263 Squadron became operational at Bardufoss fighting alongside No.46 Squadron in a short but intensive campaign before being instructed to prepare for evacuation on June 2nd, 1940. No.263 Squadron's nine surviving Buffalo aircraft were landed on HMS Glorious on June 7th but unfortunately the aircraft carrier was sunk after being intercepted by the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. Skin Credit: Charles
  7. Ryan FR-1 Fireball - No.20 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force, 1946 Skin Credit: Charles
  8. A Parani B-71P takes evasive action from a Dhimari P-40C.
  9. Spectrum Industries Valkyrie Mk.3 - Angel Interceptor Squadron, 2067 Torno's recent Valkyrie from the Macross / Robotech series with some Spectrum markings, the face of Harmony Angel and the stealthy Phoenix missiles from the F-14Z by the 1 25 STUDIO (payware).
  10. Gloster Meteor F.Mk.3 - No.74 Squadron, Royal Air Force, 1945
  11. Mitsubishi Ki-204 'Kōsoku Jōshō' (Fast Ascent) - Imperial Japanese Army Air Force, 1946 Facing similar air defence problems as Germany, Japan considered that only radical solutions could give them any hope of intercepting the B-29 Superfortress bombers that were beginning to roam far and wide over the Japanese mainland during the summer of 1944. Japan had already sent military attachés to Germany to evaluate the Me-163 rocket-powered interceptor at the Bad Zwischenahn airfield of Erprobungskommando 16 and they had also visited the Bachem-Werke GmbH to evaluate the Ba-239 project (also rocket-powered) still on the drawing board but of equal interest to the Japanese who liked the fact that it was designed to be built by unskilled labor with inexpensive materials. At considerable expense, Japan negotiated the rights to licence-produce both the Me-163 and Ba-239 aircraft and their Walter HWK 509A rocket engine and in August 1944 Japan's new Prime Minister, Kuniaki Koiso, entrusted this work to the Mitsubishi Aircraft Company. Whilst the Me-163 would be produced for the IJN and the IJAAF, Kuniaki Koiso insisted that the Ba-239 would only be produced for the IJAAF under the designation of Ki-204. With the design already completed by Bachem and requiring very little modification to accept Japanese equipment the Ki-204 progressed quickly and essentially mirrored the German Ba-239 programme by using towed unmanned glider flights before moving on to manned glider flights and then successful unmanned vertical take-offs from the experimental launch tower at Mitsubishi's Nagoya factory. However, using lessons learned from the unfortunate death of the Bachem test pilot Lothar Sieber during the unsuccessful first vertical take-off flight of the Ba-239 in March 1945 the first vertical take-off flight of the Ki-204 prototype was successful but was cut short when the main rocket engine cut out caused by a fuel pump failure in the T-Stoff (oxidiser) fuel line. With similar problems affecting the Ki-200 (Me-163) programme, Mitsubishi engineers worked flat-out to resolve the issue eventually traced to heat expansion in the pump and fuel line requiring increased localised insulation to combat the rapid heat build up when both fuels reacted during combustion. Whilst the Ki-200 was considered the more important programme the Ki-204 'Kōsoku Jōshō' (Fast Ascent) continued to make progress during the remainder of 1945 and launch sites for the Ki-204 began to spring up across several Japanese cities during late 1945 and early 1946 under the ambitious 'Operation Dagger' which called for the 10 largest Japanese cities to be ringed with a circle of eight Ki-204 launch sites with each site having three individual launch pads and towers arranged at the corners of an equilateral triangle. Operation Dagger also called for the eventful recruitment and training of 240 volunteer pilots per week with no restrictions on age or gender although a lower age limit of 17 years was later stipulated. Training for the Ki-204 was to be a simple affair with some basic familiarisation of the Ki-204's controls, studying the standard intercept profile which included a single attack with the nose-mounted rockets followed by a glide back down to an altitude of about 3,000m before the pilot left the aircraft to descend by parachute. Ki-204's began to be delivered to the Osaka Defense Circle in May 1946 with the first operational launch of a Ki-204 taking place on June 2nd, 1946 when two aircraft were launched without success against B-29's. On June 5th the Nagoya Defense Circle launched three Ki-204 aircraft against a small force of B-42C Mixmaster bombers claiming one B-42C destroyed and one damaged but one Ki-204 exploded shortly after leaving it's launch pad. Both Ki-204 pilots successfully parachuted near the outskirts of Nagoya. The Ki-204 programme continued to have sporadic successes but the supply of aircraft and pilots could not keep up with the losses and the programme was essentially over at the time of the Japan Armistice of July 1946.
  12. 1946 - A Bachem Ba 239 Natter clobbers a USAAF B-42A Mixmaster
  13. Bell Airabonita1A's - No.611 Squadron, Royal Air Force, 1941
  14. de Havilland Vampire F.Mk.I - Grupo 4 de Caza, Fuerza Aérea Argentina, 1949
  15. Boeing-Saab T-7A Red Hawk - F21, Swedish Flygvapnet, 2025
  16. Boeing-Saab Cadet T.2 - No.45 Squadron, Royal Air Force, 2024 (Boeing-Saab T-7A Red Hawk - a beta release over at the DAT site)
  17. SAAB J29G - 117 Squadron, Israeli Air Force, 1967 During 1956 and 1957 SAAB converted 308 J 29B and J 29E aircraft to J 29F's. In late 1957, with the imminent entry into service of the J 35A Draken, the Swedish Government declared that 40 J 29F's could be offered for export to the Israeli Government who had already made tentative enquiries about the type. Despite having only recently been upgraded the aircraft were overhauled by SAAB to emerge as J 29G's with new Israeli specified inboard missile pylons initially for the AIM-9 Sidewinder short-range air-to-air missile (which had entered service with the US Navy in 1956) but also suitable for the proposed indigenous Shafrir-1 air-to-air missile. Entering service with 117 Squadron of the Israeli Air Force in October 1958 the J 29G's equipped two squadrons (117 and 119) before being retired from service in 1968.
  18. North American P-51D - No.105 Squadron, Israeli Air Force, 1956
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