Thank Emperor...it's over.
It was one of the worst models I've ever made. Nothing was made to fit, nothing at all. Mechanism for synchronizing pylon's pivot broken just after I've glued top to bottom side of fuselage. Front fuselage part was too high, rear too low. There were scratches everywhere, It had to be polished. Panel lines were dissapearing...and more, more, more...
But it was finished and it won't be my last F-111...
Painting as usual, Tamiya and Mr. Hobby with little help of Vallejo, AK Interactive and Ammo Mig. Stupid backstory is:
In 2002, in Swidwin, 1st Tactical Wing there were classified excercises under codename "Eastern Surprise 2002". After NATO accepted Poland to it's structures, eastern polish border become also eastern border of NATO. It became clear that forces of fast response are more than needed, as soon as posssible. So polish Su-22's trained with british, american, australian, french and german airplanes in order to work out a way to cooperate in case of possible conflict. Su-22 in 2002 was already obsolete so it was important to know it's eventual strenghts in combat.
After whole maneouvers all planes got bact to home bases...except two australian F-111's. Probably their pilots flew home onboard C-17. Why they forgotten their "Pigs" , is unknown.
It's possible that airplanes were lost during evening bridge game. Someone had bet too much...
When crew of 1st TW found that they had two airplanes more, they tried to return them. Why this offer wasn't accepted is also unknown. F-111 were fully operational. Airplanes have been repainted and put into service with Su-22.
One of them was named "Wizard of Oz" to emhasize it's performance and combat capability and to give a little light on it's origin. The "Wizard of Oz" was later given an 302nd Polish Squadron badge when visited 3rd Tactical Air Wing based in Poznan.
