Fred's Whiffery Spitfire *** FINISHED***

[Saxon]

Wow never expected it to be rigged up for Air to Air missions, will look very different and can't wait to see the Sundowners decal on the fin.

[fredk]

I have a wee silly story to go with it, but thats for later.

[fredk]

Right, here it is with some of the stickers on it;










Na, those are just the intended decals printed on ordinary paper, printed out, cut out and stuck on with pritt type glue to check for their sizing. Some were adjusted after this.
Here is the sheet of decals I printed out. It has a load of different things on it for a number of models. The numbers at the bottom are for my MiGs in this build, and new national markings for the F5;

[Ian]

Looking good, Fred.
What's with the NHS decals?

[ShaunW]

Excellent work with those decals Fred. Yes, I'm also intrigued by the NHS decals and reg numbers. Are you building a model of a modern ambulance?

[fredk]

The NHS and registration decals are for someone else. I just added them onto this print out for handiness.

[fredk]

The story;
One of the Executive Officers, a Michael Ball, aboard USS Coral Sea was a WW2 Vet[eran]. He had flown Spitfires quite successfully during that service time. After the war he bought an old Mark 1, which had been SOC by the RAF in '45.
Whilst serving aboard USS Coral Sea off Vietnam he was forbidden to fly fast jets, even though he was fully qualified. As he was a popular officer the service crews got hold of his old Mk1 Spitfire,[which had fallen into a bad state], they painted it in US Navy gray and white to get it aboard. Then they set-to to alter it. They took out the fittings for the eight machine guns, put in mountings and installed two 20mm cannon. They clipped the wing tips, re-enforced them then added rails for AIM9 Sidewinders, but regular ones were too large and heavy. With guidance from the manufacturers the service crew shortened the AIM9s and lightened them by removing some propellant and explosive. This meant they were limited to line-of-sight use only, but also that each was less weight than 3 machineguns which would have been fitted. The crew got the engine 'blue printed' by the mechanics. Who, found a Spitfire conta-rotaing prop in Japan, left behind from the Korean War.
Hard points were added under the wings for small self-protection missiles.
This exec officer occasionally used his Spitfire on protection patrols when the fast jets were returning after a long mission over North Vietnam.
On one occassion he engaged and shot down a propellor driven aircraft which came within 1 mile of the fleet during a fast jet return. The intruder failed to respond to messages to indentify itself. The exec was vectored to the intruder as he was on patrol and was the most suitable aircraft to engage the slow moving target. A short dog-fight took place, which the exec won, using cannon to shoot the intruder down. It went into the sea, no parachute was seen. The exec indentified the intruder as a Lavochkin 7 wearing red stars, carrying either bombs or AS missiles.
You wont find this shoot down in any history book. The US authorities were worried about the intruder having 'red stars' so it was kept quiet. No official 'kill' confirmation was allowed to the exec officer but the ship's crew knew better so a red prop 'plane sihouette was painted on 'Lucy VI'.
'Lucy' was named after the Exec's daughter Lucille.

Don't ya just love............a good story?








Theres a chap in my model club who is quite vocal in his antagonism towards What-ifs. He just hates them.... shouldn't be allowed etc. Not even Luft 46. Those projects should be done in RLM 02...
oh, how he will hate this one!

[TobyC]

Lovely story and an even lovelier build. I can only assume said antagonist has no imagination. I'm glad you have one to produce this fantastic what if. I like what ifs although I have yet to build mine which is Westland Whirlwind with Gloster Meteor wings and engines. One day one day.

[fredk]

Oh, go on Toby, do it, you know you want to. Dive into the sea of sillyness.

[Ian]

Nice back story to a lovely build. Great work, Fred. It displays the thing about a good Whiff that I love - it 'could' be real.

[ShaunW]

That is excellent Fred and looks very believable together with a great background story. Modelling doesn't have to be all serious with in depth consideration of markings and colour charts. Personally, I lack the imagination to really pull something like this off, but you obviously have a very active imagination and this is a great whiff. Please, take it down the model club just to cheese that JMN off

[Saxon]

Nicely done, looks different in USN scheme.

[Dazzled]

Utterly ridiculous.

But strangely good looking

Nice build.

[TimJ]

Great build and story Fred.

[despondman]

I am a big fan of Whatifs and especially Spitfire Whatifs and really like what you have done there.