Javlin 1:50 Whilhelmshavener

[hyair]

The Javlin and the Vautour N two seater were contemporaries of the mid 50's.
They started the development with first flights of the prototypes around 1952.
Also they entered operational service in 1956 -1957 . While the Vautour had relatively painless development with 3 different versions - day fighter one seater , two seater bomber and all weather interceptor , the Javlin had more troublesome development with tail section redesign and buffet problems due to the thick wings. In order to overcome the big drag the Javlin was equiped with afterburners . The Vautour had much thinner fuselage and wings , so there was no need for afterburners. Due to the big wings of both they could reach 50000 feet
but the Vautour had an edge in terms of climb rate and range due to wing mounted engines that left the fuselage for carrying more fuel. The Vautour could attain supersonic speed in a shallow dive while the Javlin needed a stip dive.
430 Javlins from all versions were produced against 150 Vautours in the french tradition of small scale production series. While the Javlin never fired in anger the IAF Vautours had plenty of war activity throughout thier service life with the peak at the six day war in 1967.
The long range helped them to reach remote places such as south Egyptian airbases where they destroyed TU-16 bombers that tried to evade southren.
Some pics of two for comparetion purpose. The Javlin look is formidable while the Vautour look is more elegant and streamlined.

Yair

[hyair]

The Yak 28 Firebear had the same mission of the Javlin -that of inteceptor that can carry 4 AA missiles . Of course the Yak 28 was a 10 years later design but the basic mission remained the same despite much higher performance. The Firebear had a top speed of mach 1.8 and climb rate of 30000 feet which put it in a different and much modern class. In the Russian tradition it carried two IR and two Radar missiles. The only place that the Javlin had a chance against it was in low level where the speed difference was small.
The Firebear is Hobbymodel reduced to 1:48 scale and had a seperate thread in paper modelers forum.
I attached here pics of the two.

Yair