- Objection : far from love towards History, some fun in modellism comes from do-it-yourself quiet activity, with pleasant « aerodynamic » objects as results. So there is no need to copy what is in airfields or museums : a further pleasure may come from creation, invention.
- What-if modellism (unrealistic modellism) step 1 : "What-if France bought F-16 instead of Mirage? What if the B-36 was a water bomber ?" - it may be pleasant, funny, to change the colours, to be better (in efficiency or aesthetics for instance) or to be voluntarily absurd (or pacifist).
- What-if modellism step 2 : it may be pleasant to build un-built machines, cancelled before completion or rejected before any order.
- What-if modellism step 3 : it may be pleasant to build personally-modified famous aircraft, playing as a joke the role of designer/improver or fan inventing possible new versions (for instance : uncommon from classical or unarmed from highly gunned).
- What-if modellism step 4 : it may be pleasant to invent completely craft that do not exist at all, using for source either raw materials or existing kits made for realists.
- What-if modellism step 5 : it may be pleasant to turn airplane reproductions into non-flying objects, just for aesthetics or absurdity.
- Personal way : I was a dreamy free what-ifer, step 1, when I started modellism as a child, then I turned realist as a teenager, thinking this was required by responsibility and respect. I stopped modelism after a nervous breakdown, aged 15. I came back to modellism in a self-cure process, aged 20 to 35, balancing between full dream and material world. I prefered then the unrealistic way, steps 1-3-5, then step 2 – with the help of new model kit companies like Unicraft (greatly enriching the source of beautiful available models). Aged 35, I fell down far deeper and after 2 years in hospital, I came back in the World. Igor of Unicraft made me discover the word « what-if » about fake aircraft pictures as virtual models, this way being not a heresy related to mental illness but an unusual (and not famous) way of joking. I played creating such what-if (step 3) virtual computer models/drawings, while enjoying on the Web what-if modellers’ creations (mostly Canadian), recently discovered. In 2005, a Belgian friend offered me a kit to build and I did it, going back to modellism, fully what-if, step 1-2-3-5 (I am not talented enough for step 4).
- Unicraft for realists : what-ifers are a tiny minority among modellers, and most modellers may appreciate kits for their looking like Real machines (or Real industrial projects). I do not pretend at all my way is better than another, this is a pathologic way maybe, and I take everyday psychiatric pills (for other reasons). I am just here saying thanks to Igor. My models are imperfectly built and painted, and I am very bad for handling thermoformed transparent canopies (I prefer painting them black, as an eye for the bird-aircraft of mine – unable to fly as they are just esthetical decorative objects for me, not flying things at all). To see what can be done realistically with Unicraft kits, a great Photo gallery is featured on Unicraft Web site.
- I am a rather bad modeller, having very imperfect skills, and my models are not credible aircraft (with wheels, cockpits, weight balance, engines). I know, but what-ifers scorned by Realists (“Joyless Modelling Nazis”) should know that it may be pleasant to have simply personal fun, even while being insulted and criticized by other people. Adult JMNs are even insulted themselves as having a childish (stupid? guilty?) hobby, but is it worse than crushing sportive opponents or killing hunted animals? I don’t think so, this is not important, this is simply one way (among others) for self providing a smile in this cruel world…
I liked this uncommon twin-boomer with no link between booms, I simply turned it canard (exchanging front side and rear side) and asymmetric (with both fins in the same oblique direction). To make it easily, I did not turn the wing opposite so this cannot fly (sharp wing leading edge and big trailing edge), but so this "fighter" (of the evil nazi side) cannot fly, fight, harm anyone. I discarded guns, being a naive pacifist rather than a warfare lover. I discarded the undercarriage and wheels: this is more solid for transportation and dust removal…
I turned the high wing (and medium tailplane) into a low wing (and low tailplane) to get balance not requiring wheels, and leaving room for a “cockpit”/big-eye providing personality (turning this 1/72 unmanned model into something as a 1/144 manned model). I discarded the propeller: this would be a (short-span) glider rather than a propelled machine - or an aerodynamic object rather than a flying craft.
Discarding any propeller, I made a canard twin-glider from this double-propeller tail-sitter aircraft. I discarded tail-wheels, the model standing properly by itself.
PROTWINUS (from SCALED PROTEUS), 2005, see http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,7217.0.html
To reduce span and length of the huge Proteus, I turned the large wing into biplane wings, and the foreplane into a tailplane, with fuselage truncating. I discarded jet engines: no need (to fly). And to make a pleasant family with the Kit-11, I turned it as tail-sitter.
[The truncated part of the 1/72 Proteus fuselage was used as rocket pipe for my old 1/32 realist Messerschmitt Me-262, where I sawed away the swastika tail (Me-262R). The tailplanes of this 262 were then used on my old 1/32 realist Messerschmitt Bf-109, where I sawed away (guns and) swastika fin (Bf-109U). No need anymore of opponents for my 1/32 Spitfire and Mustang.]
I love twin-boom aircraft but I have not enough room on my shelves for aircraft span. So, after turning an Airfix Lockheed P-38 into something as a pedal-boat catamaran (without engines, external wings, tailplane, undercarriage), I treated similarly a G-38 to get a nice family.
Still lacking room for span, I made very-short-span derivatives of these planes. I mixed their parts freely to create 2 completely new aircraft, as different as possible from the original ones, and I replaced the tiny windows of the 1/72 models by panoramic 1/48 canopies. The remaining parts made a Twin-Knight 2, 1/72 or 1/144 due to narrow "fuselages".
A weird little plane, doubled into an improbable half-canard asymmetric twin-plane (or object - with no propeller, gun, wheel, roundel, flight-balance).
Without Me-262 to modify, this conversion kit has been turned into a biplane tail-less glider (with external wings of Borovkov-Florov and Grokhovsky). Clean nose without guns (replaced by putty), and of course painted civilian, swastika-less.
With external wings removed, the rear fins have been turned as canard foreplanes (booms turned 180° on vertical axis, 90° on longitudinal axis). The tailplane is no more high but low, and there is no engine at all. Nor guns nor military colours (this is a short-span civilian glider).
The AS.31 source, weird twin-boomer with a pilot-less nose/fuselage and a rear/remote cockpit/pod, was perhaps not odd enough... To improve visibility, it has been turned opposite, into a canard pusher (AS-31C). The propeller has now 2 blades only, to land safely with this device locked horizontally (there is no ground clearance, and the departure comes in flight from a mother-plane). The wing has a reduced span to have the right dimension for elevators (the most secret bases are underground). There is a little asymmetry as there is only one main wheel, on starboard (one wheel is enough to reduce weight - and there is a skid under the nose pod)...
This flying gun has been transformed into a civilian glider, biplane to reduce span, and with spats becoming interplane struts (without tyres but some secret devices to produce lift or to chase away ghosts). The booms and fins are strongly asymmetrical, as the pod and spats, even the upper wing angle (not horizontal) – this way, the ghosts will fail into eating it classically.
This model has been turned 90° to become asymmetric, with a single half-wing. This is not exactly a 1/144 glider built from a 1/72 kit, this is a fake airplane in a merry-go-round for chidren, thus asymmetric to be raised from the center...
This model has been turned 90° to become laterally asymmetric, with a starboard jet. What-if modeller friends suggested wisely that I replaced the swept wing by an asymmetric oblique wing, and one of the tailplanes may be canard. Of course this model of mine is swastika-less, gun-less.
This giant flying wing, 1/144, has been transformed into a short-span biplane glider 1/100, slightly asymmetric.
- P-823 Asymmetric Mustang (from Mustang FTB + Matchbox P-51D): 2-tail twin-plane with a front cockpit and a central cockpit
- XT-5A (from RQ-5A Hunter): biplane asymmetric manned glider (as cousin of XT-2A) turned twin-fuselage
