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Description
Very often, I see so many models that others make and so often they are of the same airplane, car, sci-fi subject etc as so many others have built and this is dictated by what there are available as mass-marketed kits. I like to go outside of these and use kits only as sources of shapes and combine with raw plastic sheeting, rods and strips. With this freedom, think up something that never flew - maybe never even was a wild brain-fart of an aero designer. The sci-fi kit builder has more license to do this, but I push to bring that to aviation and apply it to past time periods and create what are labelled as "what-if's" by the rest of that community. It is an acquired idea that had history gone a bit differently, the shapes we think of as so iconic like the Mustang, Spitfire and the Zero might have been a completely different appearance, even assuming a war took place at all and just sport planes were the normal of that era. The tail-less or flying wing design was tried now and again and occasionally surfaces in the development of flight but never quite catches on, even the modern B-2 exists only as two dozen machines. In an alternate time line, maybe the design would predominate.
Ok, the model pictured. I wanted to show what it might have looked like if WW2 japan had attempted an all-wing design along the lines of the USA with its actually built and flown XB-35 and the German Horten designs. So figured that engineers at either Mitsubishi or Nakajima would try this, and since their last design name was the G10N, I would call this the G15N I-8. A lot of designs for tail-less put the engines in the pusher position at the trailing edge of the wing, but the more conservative Nippon engineers would put half of them in the more traditional tractor position, or on the front of the wing, pulling the airflow along. Went with a swept, partial delta wing assuming that the craft might be created late war and built of stressed plywood versus wings of the metal now in short supply. Also being a bit conventional in thought, would still include some rudders at the wingtips. The normal color of a prototype machine would be brilliant orange or unpainted, but a wood machine would need paint. Also, no test pilot would want to go up in an orange machine in a sky that could include the enemy. So I painted the craft mostly in a green drab, but striped the forward third in white so that this test machine could be photographed during trials. I used wings from a B777 airliner, engines from a Constellation transport and rudders from a Pan-am Clipper flying boat kit plus odd bits of clear parts, wheels and such from the scraps box. A radio control models enthusiast said when looking at it that not only should it fly with stability but probably be very agile and really fast.

Description
Very often, I see so many models that others make and so often they are of the same airplane, car, sci-fi subject etc as so many others have built and this is dictated by what there are available as mass-marketed kits. I like to go outside of these and use kits only as sources of shapes and combine with raw plastic sheeting, rods and strips. With this freedom, think up something that never flew - maybe never even was a wild brain-fart of an aero designer. The sci-fi kit builder has more license to do this, but I push to bring that to aviation and apply it to past time periods and create what are labelled as "what-if's" by the rest of that community. It is an acquired idea that had history gone a bit differently, the shapes we think of as so iconic like the Mustang, Spitfire and the Zero might have been a completely different appearance, even assuming a war took place at all and just sport planes were the normal of that era. The tail-less or flying wing design was tried now and again and occasionally surfaces in the development of flight but never quite catches on, even the modern B-2 exists only as two dozen machines. In an alternate time line, maybe the design would predominate.
Ok, the model pictured. I wanted to show what it might have looked like if WW2 japan had attempted an all-wing design along the lines of the USA with its actually built and flown XB-35 and the German Horten designs. So figured that engineers at either Mitsubishi or Nakajima would try this, and since their last design name was the G10N, I would call this the G15N I-8. A lot of designs for tail-less put the engines in the pusher position at the trailing edge of the wing, but the more conservative Nippon engineers would put half of them in the more traditional tractor position, or on the front of the wing, pulling the airflow along. Went with a swept, partial delta wing assuming that the craft might be created late war and built of stressed plywood versus wings of the metal now in short supply. Also being a bit conventional in thought, would still include some rudders at the wingtips. The normal color of a prototype machine would be brilliant orange or unpainted, but a wood machine would need paint. Also, no test pilot would want to go up in an orange machine in a sky that could include the enemy. So I painted the craft mostly in a green drab, but striped the forward third in white so that this test machine could be photographed during trials. I used wings from a B777 airliner, engines from a Constellation transport and rudders from a Pan-am Clipper flying boat kit plus odd bits of clear parts, wheels and such from the scraps box. A radio control models enthusiast said when looking at it that not only should it fly with stability but probably be very agile and really fast.