Spinners

Grumman E-2K Hawkeye AEW.1 - 849 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, 1982 Skin Credit: pappychksix

For the price of a tiddy oggy Yes, but I'll need to sort out the tail marking as the horiz' stab breaks through the fin at each end causing any fin decals to also show on the underside of the horiz' stab

Grumman E-2K Hawkeye AEW.1 - 849 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, 1982

Bell F-109C - VF-1, US Navy, 1974

'What If' Carrier Ops, 1972

Bell F-109A Airacobra - 154 Gruppo, 6 Stormo, 1970

Before being rolled out it was surrounded by more secrecy than most modern aircraft and had a troubled birth with the Dutch bailing out early (idea!) and real dithering over whether it was to be a single-seater (favoured by Germany) or a two-seater (favoured by the UK). What emerged was an absolute cracker although I'm not so fond of the F3.

BAC Panther FGR.1 - No.54 Squadron, RAF Strike Command, 1971 After a couple of blissful years when it was allowed to proceed in relative peace and quiet, 1963 was not a good year for the TSR.2 programme. At the start of the year both Olympus 22R test engines at BAC's Patchway engine testing facility were playing up with LP shaft problems and turbine disc failures eventually traced to high-frequency oscillations of the LP shaft. With a view to reducing the unit cost per aircraft an export order to Australia was deemed vital to the TSR.2 programme but when technical reports got back to the Australian Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, he publicly stated that Australia couldn't wait for the TSR.2 and that they needed to replace their ageing Canberra's within three years. With the British opposition Labour party openly stating that they "would cancel the TSR.2 when elected" the Australian government felt that they simply dare not rely on an aircraft that might not get built so it was no real surprise when on October 24th, 1963 Menzies signed for 24 F-111C's at a cost of US$ 91million. In early November 1963, whilst still reeling from that blow, BAC were devastated when a prototype Olympus 22R engine blew up under the Vulcan test bed at Filton destroying not only the engine but also the heavily instrumented Vulcan. By this time, Britain had a new Prime Minister after Alec Douglas-Home had succeeded an ailing Harold Macmillan in October 1963. Douglas-Home knew that his Conservative government, still unpopular from the Profumo scandal, would likely lose the forthcoming General Election to a resurgent Labour party under the leadership of Harold Wilson. Therefore, in a bold move, Douglas-Home decided to take away one of Wilson's Tory-bashing weapons by cancelling the TSR.2 programme himself and BAC's recent woes played right into his hands. The assassination of US President John F Kennedy in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963 allowed Douglas-Home to quietly announce the cancellation of the TSR.2 the day following Kennedy's tragic death to a nation and a world focused on just one sad story. British interest in variable-geometry (VG) had stemmed from Dr. Barnes Wallis' 1944 studies on 'polymorphic' aircraft but whilst English Electric had finally settled on a small, highly blown, fixed wing design for the TSR.2 both they and the counterparts at Vickers had sketched many and various VG designs for aircraft ranging in size from small supersonic light-attack aircraft to supersonic airliners. In early 1964, with the RAF still looking for a Hunter replacement, BAC dusted off their private-venture P.45 design for a small VG fighter-bomber powered a single afterburning Spey turbofan and gambled on an eager RAF requiring slightly more range and payload so they designed an overall larger aircraft powered by two turbofan engines in the 16,000lbs thrust category. With engines generally taking longer development time than airframes this could have caused BAC considerable problems but Rolls-Royce and MAN-Turbomotoren had already been running the RB.153 turbofan since November 1963 and were confident of upsizing this advanced three-shaft turbofan "to fit anything up to F-4 size" and BAC confidently settled on the RB.199 engine proposed by Rolls-Royce. With a view to making their new aircraft design as marketable as possible BAC named it the MRCA-70 (Multi-Role Combat Aircraft for 1970) and were soon waving brochures around the Air Ministry and posting copies to senior RAF officials. Having lost the TSR.2 (and feeling sour at the prospect of being forced into adopting Mountbatten's beloved F-4 Phantom) the RAF were desperate to order the MRCA-70 and politics once again played it's part. Labour leader Harold Wilson stated that "only Labour could lead the technological revolution necessary for a modern Britain". So, to counter this, on April 6th, 1964 Alec Douglas-Home announced that Britain was to develop it's own variable-geometry multi-role combat aircraft and that contracts would be placed with the British Aircraft Corporation for 120 MRCA-70 aircraft for delivery in the 1969 to 1970 timeline to replace Hunters and Canberras in the strike/attack role and that further orders were likely to replace Lightnings in the air defence role. In 1966 the aircraft was christened Panther by BAC and development moved swiftly with the first flight of the prototype taking place on April 1st, 1968 as part of the celebrations to mark the RAF's 50th anniversary. Development and testing continued during 1968 and 1969 and in November 1970 No. 228 Operational Conversion Unit at RAF Coningsby became the first squadron to equip with the Panther FGR.1 followed in March 1971 by No.54 Squadron at RAF Coltishall.

Après moi le déluge

Such an old square Seriously - Great work guys!!

Vought A-7B Corsair - 355th Tactical Fighter Squadron, USAF, 1968

Vought A-7B Corsair - 57th Fighter Weapons Wing, Tactical Air Command, USAF, 1966 In early 1961, the United States Navy announced a development study for a replacement for the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk announcing the VAL (Heavier-than-air, Attack, Light) competition stipulating that all proposals had to be based on existing designs and with increased range and payload when compared to the A-4 plus increased accuracy in the delivery of weapons. This coincided with the appointment of Robert McNamara as the new Secretary of Defense for the incoming John F. Kennedy presidency and McNamara wasted no time in directing the Air Force to adopt both the Navy's F-4 Phantom and the Navy's new VAL program. Vought's VAL proposal to the Navy was based on their F-8 Crusader fighter, having a broadly similar configuration but noticeably shorter and without the variable incidence wing feature. To achieve the required range, Vought's proposal was powered by a single Pratt & Whitney TF30-P-6 turbofan producing over 11,000 lbs thrust and growth/export potential was built in thanks to a modular engine bay designed to also accept the promising Rolls-Royce RB.168 (Spey) turbofan. In addition, Vought squeezed in an impressive array of cutting-edge avionics including the AN/APQ-116 radar, the ILAAS digital navigation system, a digital weapons computer, a Marconi-Elliott HUD and an innovative projected map display system. Unsurprisingly, Vought's design was selected as the winner on February 11th,1963 and they soon received a production contract for an initial batch of 400 aircraft designated A-7 and consisting of 200 A-7A's for the Navy and 200 A-7B's for the Air Force. In early 1964, the aircraft received the name Corsair II (after Vought's successful F4U Corsair of World War 2 and Korea fame) and the A-7 had an incredibly fast and smooth development with the YA-7A making it's first flight on October 31st, 1964. Whilst some priorty was given to the production of the A-7A for the Navy, the A-7B first entered service in August 1966 with the 57th Fighter Weapons Wing based at Luke AFB Arizona and they were soon followed by the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing based at Myrtle Beach AFB, South Carolina with the 354th later deploying to Korat Royal Thai AFB, Thailand in April 1967.

Er, this a what if thread. My backstory has already advanced some dates so please don't read too much into it! Anyway, as we now know, the A-1 replacement was met by the British TSR1. Photo Credit: Günther Sterchi

Training Days at Myrtle Beach

Sorted. Thanks mate. i was trying to drill down further than necessary.

I've been away from SF2 for a couple of years now and my brain obviously has some ring rust. I've installed Mue's LOD viewer and can view add-on aircraft LOD's no problem. But I can't view the Third Wire LOD's which I know are locked away nowadays. Mue's 'read me' states; The program can read needed files from the cat files. This option can be enabled in Extras->Settings. The user then must also set the SF2 install directory path. Could someone just expand on that last part please or show where they are pointing to on their install. I'm using Windows 10 if that makes a difference. Thanks!

Deterrent

De Havilland Vulture S.1 - No.17 Squadron, RAF Germany, 1969 De Havilland's submission to GOR.339 came from their Christchurch team under the leadership of W.A. Tamblin who proposed the De Havilland Vulture, a radical design featuring a variable incidence wing with podded Rolls-Royce RB.142R Medway turbofan engines. Tamblin's design was slightly smaller than most of the other submissions to GOR.339 and, apart from the variable incidence wing, it featured supersonic drop tanks and a bulged conformal belly tank to help it achieve the range requirement. In addition, De havilland's experience of 'buddy' refuelling techniques with the Sea Vixen were incorporated into their design from the outset and the company pitched a minimum change version at the Admiralty for carrier-based interception and strike. Air Ministry officials were delighted at De Havilland's claimed 70,000lb all-up-weight and with a general correlation between an aircraft's all-up-weight and cost their design soon became favourite to win the GOR.339 competition and in early 1959 they were awarded a contract for 220 aircraft for the RAF and 80 aircraft for the Royal Navy. Entering service in early 1968 with No.6 Squadron in the UK the aircraft soon spread it's wings to become the backbone of RAF Germany with the Vulture S.1 eventually replacing all remaining Canberra and Hunter squadrons and reaching a peak strength of eleven squadrons in RAF Germany by 1973. Nice One Cocas!

Hawker Siddeley Aviation Sirocco FG.1 - 893 Naval Air Squadron

Outstanding.