What if... Canada chose the Panavia Tornado instead of the F/A-18?

[HisNibs204]

In the late 1970s, America's Top Hat sought to find a replacement for the CF-101 Voodoo, the CF-104 Starfighter, and the CF-116 Freedom Fighter. The New Fighter Aircraft Project, named by a fellow with quite the imagination, ended up choosing the F/A-18 to be Canada's multirole fighter. The Panavia Tornado was quickly eliminated due to a "high purchase price" but what if it hadn't?

 

Instead, some European sweet talk resulted in the Panavia Tornado being selected. The Defense Minister, having watched far too many Looney Tunes, demanded that all bombs be planted black. This came in quite handy when Canada joined Coalition forces in the First Gulf War and the roadrunner came to assist. There's also quite the change with the NHL's Winnipeg Jet's logo - which now features the Tornado on the logo instead of the CF-18. Obviously the What If includes the new Jets logo in a horrible Photoshop.

 

The kit used is an Italeri Tornado GR.1 (no. 1384) which is remarkly awful and made me order modelling putty with a two month shipping wait.

 

I had tried to go for a subtle two-tone camo scheme but Tamiya was created by a demon who inconveniences me. Turned out quite nicely though and it's a what if so who cares. The decals are a combo of the Italeri decal kit and Leading Edge Model's CF-104 Starfighter decals.

 

 

[junglierating]

I like 👍pretty sure that the pylons rotate in sync with the swing wing so that config wouldnt be possible to 🤔but I'm not an ex Tonka rating ...Shars and rotary wing me 

[RAF4EVER]

31 minutes ago, junglierating said:

I like 👍pretty sure that the pylons rotate in sync with the swing wing so that config wouldnt be possible to 🤔but I'm not an ex Tonka rating ...Shars and rotary wing me 

The pylons remain parallel to the fuselage