I do not want to write a lot about this build itself. The original Paper Trade model has a really bad fit, in my opinion. All pages were printed at the exact same scale but the hull parts differ widely in cross section and are too big one time, too small the next time. The canopy is too small in general and it needed to be enlarged at 102% to become even close to fitting. I redid the model twice. And I almost called it quits.
But the plane was too nice to quit. Look at it. Those straicht stubby wings. That wide canopy. And unique in that it was the first jet trainer not derived from an already exisiting fighter jet. Fokker still had their firsts in those years.
The plane itself was a little hard to sell abroad and the Dutch airforce only bought 21. Demonstrations abroad didn't cause the sales to rise and so it stayed with just those 21 planes.
While building I pondered about the slightly euphemistic name the S.14 got. Machtrainer. And how the plane with those wings never ever could get close to any mach number in general. (781 Km/h) While the Dutch Airforce still used Gloster Meteors and were considering buying Republic Thunderjets with Marshall-plan money, this almost obsolete looking jet trainer was presented on paper in 1949 and for real in 1951. It had the same type of engine as the Meteor and was a sturdy looking thing. But still nowhere near anything Mach-y.
So I thought it would be nice to see how this stove pipe would look with swept wings. I took the wings, empennage and canopy of an F-86 of TSMC and fiddled with the shapes, colours and roundels. I also liked the livery of the prototype S.14, callsign K-1, and recoloured the original model in that livery.
The bad fit was still there but now I knew it and I just worked my way around it. This was just a fun try anyway. Amazingly, the wings not only suited the plane well but they fitted like a glove. I lengthened the Sabre-tail a little with the yellow part of the original tail. I closed the nose wheel well. A skewer was used as a pedestal and a small upside down peanut dish as the plinth.
It looked faster than the original S.14. But the longer I looked at is, the more generic the plane became. It looks exactly the same as The MiG-15, The Ouragan, the Mystere, the F-86, the F-84, the Pulqui, you name them. It immediately lost the charm it had as the straight winged plane it was. Hahaha! So in the end, I prefer the original model. But I still think it was a bad fitting model.
Well, so far for this grumpily built inbetweenie. Next time we speak you will see something space related again.
Greetings, Slava Ukraini and stay safe, people.
--PK
