Inspirational and Refference Topic

[Pete]

This is where you can post pics of your DS themed models that you have built earlier, share some personal pics or cool stuff you found on the net and share your personal stories if you have any.

Also, I will post some links to some cool/usefull sites about the conflict. If you find any more on the web, please post them in the thread for others to enjoy.

REFERENCE SITES

Jakub Cikhart's (JakubJakepilot here on ARC) website about Desert Storm: Dstorm.eu

Website about US Navy ships, inlcuding cruise overviews, cruisebooks etc: Navysite.de

Flickr album of over 600 Desert Shield/Desert Storm photos, mostly DoD images: Flickr pics

USS John F. Kennedy Desert Shield / Storm Cruisebook

Mike Kopak's website on the 614th TFS "Lucky Devils"

USS Ranger Desert Storm (Foundation 2010 article, PDF)

VIDEOS

Dogfights: Desert Storm (Youtube) Part1 Part2 Part3 Part4 Part5

Wings: F-15, F-117, f-111 (Youtube)

Line of Fire: The Gulf War (Youtube) Part1 Part2 Part3 Part4 Part5

Tornados In The Gulf, 1991 (Youtube tribute video)

Edited August 5, 2010 by Benner

[Pete]

Here are a few of Benner's models,

Qatari Mirage F1

French Air Force Jaguar A

Royal Air Force Jaguar GrMk1

Canadian Air Force CF-188A

French Air Force Mirage 2000C

USMC AV-8B

Royal Air Force Tornado FMK3

USAF Stealth Fighter

[PlasticWeapons]

Here's a nice short read I found on the internet. It led me to more information on my Intruder project, and chatting with the photog and authors involved.

USS Ranger - Operation Desert Storm

[Benner]

My collection of CVW-3, USS John F. Kennedy (2 more squadrons to go):

VF-14

VF-32

VA-46

VA-72

VA-75

VAW-126 to be built

HS-7 to be built

VAQ-130

VS-22

[arkhunter2002]

Some helo's:

Take care,

Austin

[4scourge7]

Iraqi Tu-22 Blinder based at Al-Taqaddum. Italeri/Esci kit in 72nd scale.

Have a good one folks

Cheers, Ian

[Marcin Czarnowicz]

I did it for the 19th anniversary.

[dragan_mig31]

Here are some of my Iraqi AF models.A 1:72 academy mig-23 BN of the Iraqi AF

and here is my KP Iraqi AF MiG-21MF

[LanceR21]

Iraqi MiG-23BN Academy conversion 1/72

And Iraqi MiG-21Bis: (sorry for bad pictures, i built this modes two years ago)

Cheers,

Nenad

Edited August 4, 2010 by LanceR21

[MKopack]

Here are a few of Benner's models,

Qatari Mirage F1

Beautiful, I've always wanted to do a QEAF bird!

Every day from mid-September 1990 through early April 1991, I saw the Qatari Mirage F.1EDA/DDA's doing local training missions, and later flying Combat Air Patrols, launching on Alerts, and flying strike missions into Kuwait in formation with my Squadron's F-16's

On the strike missions they delivered Mk.82's that were 'loaned' to them by our wing. None of the squadron had ever dropped the American 500 lb bombs before, but they assured us that if the weapons would physically fit onto the Mirage's bomb racks, they'd drop them - and they did.

I also was able to spend a couple of days doing inspections and maintenance on the Mirages - and the CF-18's - when things were slow over with our 16's...

Mike

A pilot with the air force of Qatar performs a preflight check on his Mirage F1 aircraft prior to taking off on a mission during Operation Desert Storm. USAF Photo by F. Lee Corkran

[MKopack]

Here are some of my memories, laid out on the scanner a few years ago.

Clockwise from the upper left:

- The deployment patch for the 614th TFS Lucky Devils, our Wing's flying squadron. Our pilots flew 1303 long-range sorties with a total of 28 aircraft, delivering 3.7 millions pounds of weapons during the war, losing three aircraft - with two pilots becoming POW's - in the process. The translation of the Arabic writing is not, as I understand, 'family friendly', so we won't go there.

- A letter home, mailed from the Qatari Post Office downtown. All the mail in the Gulf carried the "Free Kuwait" stamps, which were sold to help raise money for Kuwaiti refugees.

- My Liberation of Kuwait (Kuwait) Medal.

- Arabic-marked Kodak print film. Wish I'd taken way more photos with my trusty Canon A1 than I did.

- Free Kuwait pin, from a shopping trip in Doha. Wore it on my BDU boonie hat every day. Also used a laundry marker to make a 'hash mark' for every day of the deployment. Black for 'Shield', red for 'Storm'. I think it ended up at 198, but I'd have to recount them.

- A partially consumed package of P-Tabs for the pretreatment of the chemical weapons that we fully expected to be used. Most guys stopped taking them pretty early, some with reported side-effects, but as I was on the aircraft decontamination team - and probably among the most likely to be exposed - I continued.

- My 'Magic Carpet'. Would have flown home on it after some of the bad days, if I could have. Actually a carpet 'sample' from the souq. Loved shopping in the souq - always seemed somewhere between Ali Baba and Indiana Jones!

- A couple of Qatari Riyal and Dirham coins. All the stores in Doha would happily take US dollars (or anything else after a call to the bank for the daily exchange rate) but we felt more 'local' to use QR's.

- A Doha Air Base sticker made up by one of our maintainers. It was great to see just how well four different Air Forces, with three different aircraft types, could work together. The US, the Canadians, our Qatari hosts - and even, despite a language, and occasionally some cultural barriers, the French.

- A pad of M8 Chemical Detection Paper. As I said, we were expecting to have to use it. Let's just say I know my way around a chemical suit and a mask. A lot of hours at MOPP 4.

- My Flag. Came out of an "Any Servicemember" package from a First Grade Class back in the States. Stood next to my bunk back in the tent (whenever it wasn't also on my boonie hat) through the deployment.

- Brochure from the Doha Sheraton. Incredible people, just had to sign on a list to go over to the Sheraton for dinner, swimming on the beach, or just relaxing. Just to lay back in the warm Gulf waters and "depressurize"... Also learned with windsurf (not well) in the Persian Gulf. How cool is that?

- Kentucky Fried Chicken menu. Just outside of our Tent City there was a small unused 'stand' that the owner of the local KFC / Hardees franchise was able to get permission to open for us. Once again, a bit of home in a foreign land. Had a friend from Kentucky - told him to show his drivers license to the local cashier - almost caused a riot in the little stand. They didn't know who the Colonel was, and knowing only that it was Kentucky Fried Chicken, they saw 'Kentucky' on his drivers license and thought that he must either be related, of from the corporate office in America. Either way, his chicken was free that night.

-And finally, in the center, my whole reason for being there, one of our Block 30 F-16's in the hangar undergoing a phased inspection. No one knew exactly how the 16's would do in combat, despite all the exercises and training. Qatar was a LONG way for a small single-engined fighter to carry a heavy load of weapons to Kuwait - and even further to downtown Baghdad, with all of its defenses, in broad daylight (don't let anyone tell you that only the 117's went Downtown.) Well, our little jets did well, they carried the load, put it on the target - and despite our Wing's loss of three aircraft - did everything they could to get our pilots home.

Mike

Edited August 5, 2010 by MKopack

[Pete]

Here are some of my memories, laid out on the scanner a few years ago.

Mike

Great stuff, Mike! Thanks a lot for sharing.

[JakubJakepilot]

Camouflage/color charts:

Gents, I updated my color/camouflage charts, they were checked against Paint4Models website and paint callouts added/replaced/updated.

You are all advanced modellers, so there is no need to tell you need to use your brain to think about scale effect, paint weathering and lightning conditions, right ?

[MKopack]

A couple of items collected from our hangar-mates in the Canadian Armed Forces.

These were the two units that comprised the Canadian deployment at Doha, first, the Nighthawks - who I believe deployed in from Europe - and later the Desert Cats

This 20mm shell was actually fired from a CF-18 during the first Canadian offensive combat action since the Korean War - a strike against an Iraqi TCN-45 patrol boat. The boat was strafed several times by two aircraft, and after failing to get a positive AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared lock, a lock was acquired with an AIM-7 Sparrow, which was fired, but narrowly missed. I believe the patrol vessel was considered 'mission killed' and was later finished by Navy A-6's.

I was lucky enough to be on-hand as the Hornets returned and was given a brass shell as the M61 was reloaded. My own little bit of Canadian military aviation history here on my desk in North Carolina.

I never did get a Tilley Hat though...

Mike

[markmarples]

here's Emma that i built last year in 1/48 italeri kit with MA decals

[Antonov]

Inspiration? Well, anyone who was there at the time remembers this:

[C-130CrewChief]

Gulf Killer!

Maybe I'll put this back together. She had a little accident.

Curt

[MKopack]

Inspiration? Well, anyone who was there at the time remembers this:

You know, I've still never seen that game (and being originally from NY that's something...) I got off shift at 6AM from the hangar in Doha, Qatar, having just transferred a Phase Inspection jet back to the line where it would be heading North within a few hours. We didn't have AFRTS (Armed Forces Radio & Television) at our location, and of course it was the days before the internet and e-mail, so just as I walked into our Tent City Rec Center, the 'runner' from the US Embassy downtown ran in with the VHS tape of the game. Just as I sat down to watch before bed, someone walked in and said, "Is that the game? I heard the Giants won at the end, after the Bills missed a field goal. Wide right." So I walked back to the tent and went to bed.

It took a couple of days for the Whitney Houston version of the National Anthem to make it to where we were in the Persian Gulf. I can remember the first time I heard it on the radio - and as I said, it wasn't on American radio, it was played on heavy rotation on the FM service of the Qatar Broadcasting System. We weren't sure whether we were supposed to stand at attention and salute our radios when it came on...

Mike

[Mike J. Idacavage]

Here's a few shots of a Kuwait A-4KU in 1/72. I used the Fujimi kit with Microscale decals.

Have fun modeling!

Mike

B)

[Sig Saur & Son]

Desert Shield/Storm Photo Album added at Airfighters.com

http://www.airfighters.com/photoalbums.php?albumid=458

[jochemp]

Would love to see someone coming up with something like this.

Saudi Eagle

The Dude LAV-AT is a blast too.

Cheers mates.

[Benner]

Would love to see someone coming up with something like this.

Saudi Eagle

I suggest you be the one ... Saudi Arabia isn't represented enough in this GB

[phantom]

Keeping them dirty, here is a HS-3 SH-60H back when they were brand new to the fleet.

This is the Italeri release. Overall a good fit on building except for the front windshield. That and the kit was missing the port sponson, port landing gear support and port sensor thing on the tail boom. I made replacements for all except the sensor out of sprue and card.

Edited September 14, 2010 by Benner

[ALF18]

This is an old build I did of a CF-18. It represents an aircraft that was deployed to Doha Qatar, and is in the typical air to air warload. We found that of the following options, this load was optimal for the air defence role.

Legacy Hornet A/A load options:

6 AIM 9, 2 AIM 7 - good for short-range visual engagements

2 AIM 9, 4 AIM 7 - good for long-range work, but only 6 total missiles

4 AIM 9, 3 AIM 7 - Gulf War load - good for both long range and close-in visual fights, with 7 total missiles

I enjoyed doing this kit, and put a lot of effort into getting the weathering and details right.

Of note in this picture is that I've put my name on the jet. That isn't historically accurate for Desert Storm, but this is all about Inspiration in this thread!

Happy modelling

ALF

Edited October 12, 2010 by ALF18

[TRUSKY1965]

This is my british Tornado GR Mk1 "Armoured Charmer". Is loaded with a termal and laser designator (TIALD) and two LGB's. I hope you enjoy!

Regards, Rafael.