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Luftwaffe Alpha Jet


Jabba

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This is my 2nd entry for this GB. On Jan 6 91 15 Alpha Jets from JaboG 43 took off from Oldenburg air base for Erhac air base in Turkey as part of the NATO ACE reinforcement for protection of Turkey in case of Iraqi advances to the north. This deployment "Op ACE guard 91" was slightly controversial and on Jan 12 a vote in the German government allowed the continued training of the aircraft.

        I will be using the Airfix 1/72 kit with some decals from Hahen so that one of these aircraft can be built.

 

The kit.

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Hahen decals.

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Some info.

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2 hours ago, Jabba said:

This deployment "Op ACE guard 91" was slightly controversial and on Jan 12 a vote in the German government allowed the continued training of the aircraft.

That's British understatement at its best... 😁  I remember the (from my perspective quite embarrassing) frenzy in parts of the German media, parliament and public when it was to decide whether or not to fulfill Germanys pledge to NATO by a relatively small contribution in the form of the Alpha Jets.

 

Interesting subject though. I don’t quite remember if the Alpha Jets combat range was sufficient to reach the Turkey-Iraqi border from Erhac AB. Probably with additional fuel tanks, but limiting the weapons load.

 

Cheers

Stefan

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Nice!

Did not know about the Alphajets deployment! Definitely not the most fearsome deterrent, but important for message and coalition. 

 

And if things got really out of hand.....

 

 

Similar stuff was done by the Spanish aircraft carrier Dedalo and its Harriers, or Belgian Mirages  also deployed to Turkey.

Some Starfighters as well?

 

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17 hours ago, exdraken said:

Nice!

Did not know about the Alphajets deployment! Definitely not the most fearsome deterrent, but important for message and coalition. 

 

And if things got really out of hand.....

 

 

Similar stuff was done by the Spanish aircraft carrier Dedalo and its Harriers, or Belgian Mirages  also deployed to Turkey.

Some Starfighters as well?

 

Any more info about that Spanish part ? Thanks !!

 

Here is more info on those German Alpha Jets - https://www.dstorm.eu/pages/en/germany/alphajet.html

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2 hours ago, Jakub Cikhart said:

Any more info about that Spanish part ? Thanks !!

 

there is not a lot info out there, and the topic seems to have been quite polemic back in the day in Spain....

it was the Dedalos successor already, the aircraft carrier  Príncipe de Asturias (R-11), equipped with AV-8S Matadors and helicopters which were having an exercise ("Southern Guard" - Cadex '91-1) in the Mediterranean.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Príncipe_de_Asturias_(R-11)

"Durante la primera guerra del Golfo, en 1991, participó en un operativo naval junto a unidades británicas, francesas, italianas y alemanas en el mediterráneo denominado Cadex '91-1."

 

and here:

https://www.abc.es/espana/20130206/abci-despedida-honor-rota-portaaviones-201302041258.html

"Su estreno en una gran misión internacional se produce durante la guerra del Golfo (1991): «En el marco de la Operación "Southern Guard" con motivo del conflicto del Golfo Pérsico, los grupos de combate británico, francés, español, italiano y alemán cubrieron el Mediterráneo, junto con aviación basada en tierra, en una operación aeronaval denominada "Cadex '91-1", que tuvo su punto culminante del 26 al 28 de febrero de 1991, coincidiendo con el contraataque terrestre de la Coalición en Kuwait e Irak. Por parte española participó el Grupo Alfa de la Flota, que terminó las operaciones en Nápoles el 4 de marzo».

 

I am sure some English language stuff is out there as well..

if you need help with the translation, let me know!

cheers!

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Yes a different choice to build. I have started to build this on starting with the cockpit. I did not realise when I bought the kit from eBay it was part started, mainly with the cockpit. I did have a resin cockpit from a broken down E version of this aircraft and was going to use the instrument panels from this for this build. So I removed the instrument panels from both parts and fitted the resin ones to this. Although not brilliant they are better than what Airfix supply. I have also fitted a small piece of plasti card to each fuselage half as it covers up a hole that appears even when the cockpit is fitted. Sorry for the first photo I will endeavor to get a more in focus one for later. 

 

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The fuselage is altogether now. I had to put a small piece of plasti-card in the fuselage to support the front of the underside panel. Also proves that it is not a modern thing to have the U/C added at the start of a build rather than at the end.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/3/2021 at 11:10 AM, Jabba said:

A question, what is the correct ejection seat for a Luftwaffe aircraft?

Luftwaffe Alpha Jets used the Stencil SIIIS-3 zero-zero seat. 

 

Best references I have are on p. 59/60 of AirDoc's Dassault-Breguet-Dornier Alpha Jet A Pt. 1.

 

When flying in a combat capacity, the aft seat could be replaced by an ECM rack containing the EL70/73 radar jammers / countermeasures ECM pack - good pics on p.24 of the companion Pt. 2 AirDoc volume. 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre 

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Thanks you for the information on the ejection seat, I will have to see if I can try and find one. Mind you the gap for the seat in the kit cockpit is quite small and the seat sides will have to be parred down a  fair bit.

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  • 2 weeks later...

After 3 or 4 days I have got all the decals on. There were not that many it is just that the decal sheet has one coat of varnish ( or whatever the covering is) and each decal has to be cut out individually, so a bit of a pain when it comes to doing the Ser No and the wing stencils.

 

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Having sprayed a coat or two of matt varnish I am now a little disappointed with the decals. This is because I can see a lot of decal film. The instructions tell you not to use a strong decal setting solution (normally use Micro Set and Sol), so I did not use these. It also says to cut 0.5mm around the decal, perhaps I did not cut close enough. It is really obvious around the nose area. I will continue with this, but will have to revisit some time in the future.

 

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