What if Schemes

[dan]

Love the 106!

[benzion]

It's not a plane, but a what-if just the same. At least there's a helicopter :-)!

While pending a new corvette/frigate for the Philippine Navy, a refit is done to upgrade the capabilities of the current flagship. (acknowledging the original artist of the pic)

Edited April 25, 2016 by benzion

[benzion]

Old repost:

What-if the Philippine Air Force got hold of old Beriev flying boats and reengined them with PW-150 powerplants for coastal patrol duty

[benzion]

With the A-10 being phased out of the USAF, 2 squadrons are transferred to the Philippine Air Force, to be based in the revitalized Antonio Bautista AFB in Palawan and the Basa AFB in Pampanga

[Robyjet]

"... In the mid-70s, with an operation at the limit of legality, the United States acquired 4 TSR.2 (GR.1) aircraft to be employed as "Special Operations Aircraft". These aircraft were officially registered in the USAF inventory as F-111M in order to favour counterespionage and intelligence activities but, using an already experienced trick, mainly to hide the costs of this acquisition behind a fake new version of the Aardvark.

With a strange coincidence, the transfer to the United States territory was made by 4 American crews coming back from a Squadron Exchange in Boscombe Down, England. After a very short service, mainly during the night in order to complete the training of 4/5 others aircrews, the traces of the aircraft got lost.

The unique existing official document attests the demolition, just 4 years after the official acquisition of the F-111M, of "4 aircraft (type EF-112) due to reached structural limits and airframe’s hours limit".

The EF-112 designation has been commonly accepted as the acronym code for the F-111M program but the sole proof of existence of those airplanes is, essentially, a bunch of pressed bits and pieces still visible today inside the cemetery of Davis Monthan. Experts from everywhere still came today to see the leftovers but, due to the poor condition of the wreckage, are not able to confirm that the scraps actually belong to a TSR.2 (or F-111M or, yet, a EF-112) aircraft.

Beside the official story, eyewitnesses assert that 4 aircraft (reported as being very similar in shape to the English TSR.2) took off from Andrews AFB one evening during the August of 1980. They told also that "nobody saw the crews boarding" and observed that “the security around the aircraft was unusually strengthened and the airplanes seemed to be very heavy during the taxiing and takeoff, probably because they were loaded with a set of 4 tanks but carried no weapons at all.”

No confirmation is available about the markings carried by the aircraft or about the final destination of the mission, but as reported again by the witnesses “… it was like the takeoff of the very long ferry-flight similar to those flied by the actual F-111s departing for Europe…”.

Until now, no photographic documentation of the EF-112I exists, as was for the of A-6s used by the Israelis during the 80' or for the camouflaged B-58s used in Vietnam by USAF during the second half of the 60'. This doesn’t mean that all these aircraft didn’t exist in the reality; it does mean that, sometimes, the secrets behind some military operation is really hard to dissolve even after some decades.

From a technical point of view, the majority of the specific avionic and electronic packages made by UK and US were disembarked and replaced with Israelis-built equipment, specifically designed to cope the strict requirements of the IAF...".

Model by Piero de Santis, history by Fulvio Felicioli

Edited April 25, 2016 by Robyjet

[Paul Boyer]

"... In the mid-70s, with an operation at the limit of legality, the United States acquired 4 TSR.2 (GR.1) aircraft . . .

Love it! What scale?

[Robyjet]

Love it! What scale?

Kit is the 1/48 Airfix with just some "little" scratch upgrading

[Crash Test Dummy]

EF-112I build Thread here on ARC

Finished Pics

[Hajo L.]

Really nice! Looks great in my eyes!

HAJO