Spinners

Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer S.2H - No.300 Squadron, Indian Naval Air Service, 1970

Ah! HMS Hermes - what a warrior!

Somebody's been watching 'Tora Tora Tora' on Film 4 this afternoon ; )

I'm pretty sure that they are the skins that came with it.

K for (United) Kingdom

North American Warblade FGA.3 - No.31 Squadron, RAF Near East Air Force, 1991

RDAF F-107D 'Ultra Sabre'

Unless it was released during my 18-month sabbatical, I don't think we have this.

BAC Thunderstrike S.1 - No.617 Squadron, RAF Far East Air Force, 1970

Vickers Valiant B.1 - No.35 Squadron, RAF Far East Air Force, 1955

It's the DAT CAC CA-15 'Kangaroo' !

Sukhoi Su-5 - Soviet Air Force, 1946

(Nurse! My medicene please)

That was exactly my thoughts. Incoming Labour Government in 1964 going for the lowest cost non-British solution whilst still buying something 'supersonic'.

^ 1. I can't see the RAF using a two-word name like 'Freedom Fighter'. 2. The 'Tiger' name had not yet been allocated to the later F-5E. 3. It's an ex-Northrop name. 4. I didn't fancy 'Fang'.

Sud-Aviation Vautour IIA - No.24 Squadron, Indian Air Force, 1965

Mikoyan MiG-22 'Fishpan-A' - Soviet Air Force, 1966 Skin Credit: Sony Tuckson

Grumman F11F-1F Super Tiger - MFG2, Marineflieger, 1963 Skin Credit: 'ravenclaw_007' (but with different tail markings, added weathering and a re-coloured radome).

I'm well aware of that but there are simply no gaps in the MiG designations!

Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighter - MFG2, Marineflieger, 1973

Northrop F-5AP Freedom Fighter - Combat Commander's School, Pakistan Air Force, 1971 Skin Credit: 'ravenclaw_007'

Gloster Garrison B.I - 101 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1937 In 1932, the Air Ministry issued Specification B.9/32 for a twin-engined day bomber with a challenging demand for "higher performance than any preceding bomber aircraft" and, among others, the Gloster Aviation Company responded with a mid-wing cantilever monoplane featuring all-metal stressed-skin construction, retractable landing gear, flaps, a powered dorsal gun turret, a ventral bomb bay and variable-pitch propellers. Like most of the companies tendering to B.9/32, Gloster's design featured the politically-favoured Rolls-Royce Goshawk 'evaporative' (steam cooled) engine but by the end of 1933 Gloster could see that the Goshawk engine would seriously degrade flight performance due to the larger then expected size of the condensors required to turn the steam vapour back into liquid. Gloster's chief designer, Henry Folland, turned to his long-time friends at the Bristol Engine Company who were planning a new 14-cylinder twin-row sleeve valve radial engine as a development of their existing single-row Aquila engine by adding another row of cylinders and transforming it into the Bristol Taurus twin-row radial engine. With an anticipated power output of 1,000 hp and with very low weight, Folland quickly redesigned his bomber around two of the proposed Bristol Taurus engines and boldly reduced the crew from four to two by removing the defensive armanent and the bombardier's station. Folland briefed RAF and Air Ministry officials on his unarmed fast bomber and mainly due to the support of Edward Ellington, the Chief of the Air Staff, Folland was rewarded with a new Specification B.40/34 to cover his new design soon officially named as the Gloster Garrison. Ellington soon followed up this support with a production contract for 250 Gloster Garrison aircraft as part of 'Scheme F' an ambitious plan to increase the size of the Royal Air Force to 187 squadrons within three years to counter the threat from Hitler's Germany. Such was the dominance of "the bomber will always get through" strategy at the time that Ellington demanded five bomber squadrons for every two fighter squadrons and he saw that this unarmed fast bomber could play an important role in his expansion plans. With development of the airframe running slightly ahead of the Taurus engine, all Garrison prototypes were powered by two 840 hp Bristol Mercury VIII radial piston engines and these were good enough to demonstrate the aircraft's performance and handling and also that the design was a good bombing platform. With continued delays in the development of Taurus engine the first production aircraft retained the Bristol Mercury VIII engines and following the completion of handling trials, conducted at the Central Flying School at Upavon in Wiltshire, the Garrison B.I entered RAF squadron service with No.49 Squadron at Scampton in August 1937 and No.101 Squadron at Bircham Newton in October 1937.

Gloster Garrison B.II - 101 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1937

Rockwell F-31K Mustang II - Grupo 6 de Caza, Fuerza Aerea Argentina, 2018 The X-31 experimental jet fighter was designed and built by Rockwell and Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm as part of a joint US/Germany 'Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability' programme to test thrust vectoring technology in both pitch and yaw allied to an advanced flight control system to provide controlled flight at very high angles of attack. Whilst being a radical new design the X-31 used a wide variety of parts from previous production aircraft including the F/A-18 Hornet front fuselage (including the cockpit, ejection seat and canopy) and the F-16 Fighting Falcon's landing gear plus the Cessna Citation's main landing gear wheels and brakes. This dramatically reduced the development time and risk by using flight-qualified components and enabled the first of just two X-31's to take to the air on October 11th, 1990 and over 500 test flights were flown between 1990 and 1995. With a huge fall in defence spending from the 'peace dividend' Rockwell began to look at ways of using many of the X-31's technologies in a low-cost fighter aircraft and in 1992 they proposed an 'F-31' version powered by a non-afterburning version of the General Electric F110 turbofan rated at 16,000lbs dry thrust. Deleting the thrust-vectoring and afterburner reduced a considerable amount of weight from the rear fuselage and Rockwell calculated that the lack of an afterburner would give the small and light F-31 such an increase in range that most missions could be flown without external drop tanks. On the home-front Rockwell proposed an A-31 version to supplement and eventually replace the A-10 Thunderbolt claiming that the A-31 would be about one-half of the cost of the proposed A-16 Fighting Falcon. But Rockwell's main efforts were on the export market and especially the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia and it was interest from the latter and also South Korea that encouraged Rockell to proceed with development at the end of 1993. Marketing their new fighter as the 'F-31 Mustang II' orders were placed by South Korea (72) and Saudi Arabia (59) followed by a home order of 30 aircraft for the US Navy to supplement their F-5E Aggressor Force and then 100 A-31C's for the US Air Force. In December 1998, the Royal New Zealand Air Force became the third export customer when they placed an order for 34 F-31K's to replace it's ageing Skyhawks but the acquisition was cancelled by the new Labour government in March 2000 in a controversial move as "an air combat force is not a priority in the current benign security environment". With most of the F-31K's having already rolled off the production line Rockwell did not take the cancellation lightly and, faced with huge cancellation charges, the New Zealand government breathed a sigh of relief when the Argentinian Government, led by Fernando de la Rúa, negotiated the purchase of the 34 F-34K's for the Fuerza Aerea Argentina at a reduced price. Entering service with Grupo 6 de Caza in August 2001 the F-31K's continue in service based at the Tandil Military Air Base in the Buenos Aires Province. Skin Credit: Gepard

Sukhoi Su-61 'Bullfrog-C'