Spinners

Tupolev Tu-98A 'Backfin' - 109th Squadron, Iraqi Air Force, 1973 The so-called 'Treaty of Friendship' with the USSR brought large numbers of relatively modern combat aircraft into the Iraqi Air Force and in 1972 the 109th Squadron began to re-equip with the Tupolev Tu-98A 'Backfin' supersonic bomber. Even before the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Iraqi Air Force had sent 12 Hawker Hunters to Egypt and in late September 1973 these were followed by the deployment of the 109th Squadron to Syria. On October 6th, 1973 a massive Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal saw the Egyptian Army quickly advance into the Sinai Peninsula. Meanwhile, at the same time, Syria launched a surprise attack on the Golan Heights and initially made significant gains into Israeli-held territory with the Iraqi Air Force intervening on the Syrian front with an armored division and over 100 aircraft including the Tu-98A's of the 109th Squadron flying low-level interdiction missions on October 6th and on the following day. However, the Iraqi Tu-98A's deployed to Syria suffered heavy losses on the first two days primarily due to Israeli fighter aircraft and SAM's but at least three Tu-98A's were also hit by friendly fire from Syrian SAM's. A planned strike mission on October 8th was cancelled due to these heavy losses and eventually all Iraqi Tu-98A's were withdrawn from their bases in Syria. Despite these losses, after the war the Iraqi Air Force ordered 23 more Tupolev Tu-98B's and the enlarged Iraqi Tu-98A force played a major role in the Iran-iraq war by striking airbases, military infrastructure, industrial infrastructure, powerplants and oil facilities as well as the systematic bombing of Iranian cities in the infamous 'War of the Cities'. However, during this long war of attrition the Iraqi Tu-98A force slowly dwindled away and by 1987 the type was withdrawn from service.

Cat's All Folks!

S.I.G.

Grumman Bearcat FB.1 - 778 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, 1946

Nothing is as quick as GIMP for making TGA's especially if you make 256x256 transparency your default screen.

Supermarine Seafire FR.46 - 870 Squadron, Royal Canadian Navy, 1952 Skin Credit: Amariani

Dry Dock

Aussie Canberra B.20's

Convair Velocity B.1 - No.100 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1965

Convair Velocity B.1 - No.100 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1965

Mikoyan MiG-39 'Foxfang-A' - Soviet Air Force, 2022 Anytime Baby! This is the X-02 Wyvern recently submitted by frtn over at SF1.

North American Vigilante S.1 - No.49 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 1968

No, definitely TF30 engines.

McDonnell Douglas F-4DJ Phantom - 501st Hikotai, Japan Air Self-Defense Force, 1986 (TF-30 engines)

Wolfpack One. Departure.

Getting Your Pecker Up

Grumman-Panavia Tomcat FGR.6 - No.17 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 2002

Stealth Cats The very impressive F-14Z by the 1 25 Studio

RAAF Starfighters

Well I claimed my free download and deleted everything (and I mean everything) doing a 'scorched earth' install. Apart from dropping my controls.ini and viewlist.ini back in I've also added Shrikehawk's clouds - that's it. No complaints here - one happy bunny!

Gentile does it