The Tankmaster is complete, but I am not particularly happy with the result. My return to modeling was premature and I did not have a good place to work. In addition, my determination to work with what I had (and not purchase anything) held me back too. But worst of all, my hands are not as steady as they used to be, and my eyes are definitely not good enough to do good work in 1/72. With all the excuses complete, here's the story...
BAC had had a mild success with their Strikemaster conversion of the Jet Provost trainer, producing nearly 150 for almost a dozen air forces. However, most of the Strikemasters ended up being used only in the training role. Nevertheless, a few customers expressed a desire for a more specialized anti-tank version of the Strikemaster. One of the main points that potential customers wanted was an effective internally-mounted, anti-tank gun: smaller air forces were very susceptible to both budget constraints and the winds of political change, and so did not want to be dependent on the supply of modern anti-tank missiles, preferring the simplicity of the old-school gun. In order to mount an internal gun, BAC removed the right (co-pilot's) seat, using the space to mount a 30mm ADEN gun, with the barrel projected through the upper right portion of the nose, shrouded by a large flash-hider (found to be necessary, especially during low-light operations). Underwing pylons could carry external weapons ("dumb" bombs or unguided rockets).
By the time of its first flight in 1969, the Tankmaster was definitely inadequate against any modern armor, especially those fielded by the US, NATO or USSR. But that was not the intended mission for the Tankmaster. Rather, it was to be used by small, "third world" air forces to counter the World War II-era armor being used by their small, "third world" adversaries. As such, the Tankmaster was an easy-to-operate, easy-to-maintain weapon with reasonable effectiveness. Nevertheless, only a few dozen were built and sold, never recouping the investment in their development.
Our model is one of the 12 Tankmasters sold to Guatemala in 1971 to counter a (mis-)perceived threat from Honduras. Because that threat never materialized, the Tankmasters were never used in anger and were retired by the end of the 1970s, replaced by Cessna A-37B Drangonflies which proved much more useful to the FAG.
