Snacso 4050 Vautour 1:48 scale - YOAVHOZMI designD

[hyair]

At first it seems that these two planes are remotely connected but a deeper look revealed a lot of similarities between the two,
Both origins started from German designs of Messerschmidt and Arado from the end of WW2 .
Both first flew in 1951 - 1952 time frame.
Both had two engines albeit the Cutlass with after burners.
Both could release external stores at super sonic speed in a dive.
Both could carry big loads for their time - vautour 4 tone , cutlass 2.5 tone.
Both had initial climb rate of around 12000 feet per minute.
Both entered service between 1954 for the Cutlass and 1956 for the Vautour.
Both could carry air to air radar guided missiles. The cutlass carried 4 sparrow missiles while the vautour 2 matra 511 missiles.
Both had 3 versions. Cutlass had - F7U-3 day fighter , F7U-3M all weather interceptor with APQ-51 radar , F7U-3P reconnaissance version.
The Vautour had the following versions - A was the day fighter , B - bomber
with glossy front , N - two seater all weather interceptor.
Same speed at low level of around 600 knots and 550 Knots at height.
Both needed long ladder for reaching the cockpit - almost 4 meters high.
The gross weight was 14 tones for the Cutlass and 20 tones for the Vautour-
both figures much greater than rival planes of the time.
Both were considered very complex to maintain and required very high demands from the ground crews and many hours of maintenance per 1 hour of flight !
Both could carry a tactical nuke weapon - VA-12 with the Cutlass and the B
bomber version of the Vautour.
The fact was that the Cutlass " end " it's service life only after 3 years ( 1954- 57 ) when the vautour only started to get into service in 1956-57 .
The Vautour served till the early 70's in both France and Israel air forces and the service in the IAF was very successful with a lot of war activity in which many are described previously in this thread.
The vautour also had an internal bomb bay with sliding doors - somthing that the Cutlass didn't have.
The short service of the Cutlass is not so surprising if we consider that many other types had the same fate in the 50's - Cougar , Tiger, Skyray , Demon , Fury are only few examples. As newer types as the Crusader and Phantom entered service all the previous types were phased out of service at a very rapid pace.
If we compare the two in a realistic look there is no doubt that the Vautour
was a much more successful plane although it was a rather conservative design and didn't look as futuristic as the Cutlass.

Yair

[hyair]

Here are photos of the two. The Vautour is a bigger plane in compare to the Cutlass. It is 4 meter longer and has a wider wing span by 3 meter.
Both are in 1:48 scale. The Vautour is YOAV's design and the Cutlass is from Wilhelmshavener 60's beautiful designs.

Yair

[hyair]

The Vautour had a strange begining in the IAF. For almost full one year it was hold inside a
big hangar at Hatzur Israeli airforce base. The reason for that was that France didn't want the big nations to know about the sale of 30 Vautours that were considered an attack plane .
Only in July 1958 it was cleared that Israel had Vautours.
Egypt recieved the first squadron of mig -19 in mid 1959. In October 1959 a formation of 4 Vautours encounter with 4 Egyptian Mig -19 . The dogfight was brief and the Migs lit thier afterburners and escaped back to Egyptian territori. An Israeli flight of Super Mysteres arrived to the place too late and the history missed what could have been a very interesting fight of two equal planes.

The Vautour is YOAV HOZMI design and the mig -19 is GPM 120 which is still the best around
from 1997.

Yair

[hyair]

The Vautour and IL-28 were serving with the Israeli air force and Egyptian and Syrian air forces from the late 50's. The two were used as a photo planes during black nights. The IL-28
performed many intruding missions over Israeli territori without getting punished.
The only plane at the time that was capable to intercept it was the two seater Vautour N.
At least in two occations the Vautour was close to a kill but the crew recieved an order to withrow the battle and disengage - so the first kill took place only in 1967 six day war by Mirages.

Some pics of the two . The IL-28 was modified with clear crew cockpits including the rear turret of the gunner.

Yair

[hyair]

The Yak-28 Firebear was somtimes called the Russian Vautour.
The Yak had two engines under wing naceles as the Vautour and the main gear was located in the front and rear part of the fuselage in the same manner as the Vautour. But the Yak had
engines with after burners and had mach 1.8 top speed or almost two times faster.
The speed was important for the interceptor role as it enabled it to reach the intruding targets faster. But as a tactical bomber the higher speed is not a big advantage as bombing missions are mostly done in subsonic speeds and here the original Vautour design was more suitable as the Vautour had better flight range and could carry heavier bomb loads of 4500 kg
while the Yak could carry 3000 kg maximum load.
In short the Vautour was a better bomber while the Yak was a better interceptor.

Some pics of the two for comparetion purpose.
The Vautor here is in the day attack version A . The interceptor version was called N and
was two seater as the Yak 28 Firebear here.

Yair

[hyair]

The two were contemporaries planes at the time. The Scorpion was built in a relatively large scale of 1000 and the D type alone around 500 . The Scorpion didn't have any fight despite serving until 1970 with the ANG while the Vautour had plenty of war activity with the IAF.

Some pics of the two for comparision purposes. The WHM Scorpion didn't have landing gears and cockpit - so I build them from scratch. The Scorpion serving unit was added to the tail.

Yair

[hyair]

The Vautour N was the rwo seater interceptor version and could carry two Matra 511 air to air
missiles besides the 4 x 30 mm guns and up to 200 ! unguided Matra rockets.
The later versions of the Javlin carried 4 Firestreak air to air IR missiles and 2 x30 mm guns
in each wing. The Javlin had a very wide fuselage and very thick wings and earned the mame
" the harmonious drag master ". In order to achieve a decent performance the engines were equiped with afterburners - but still the performance were lacking. The vautour had thin fuselage profile and the wings were almost half the Javlin thickness. Therefore it attained better speed and rate of climb and the range which was almost 5500 km - 3 times that of the Javlin. Both planed required heavy maintainance and long hours per 1 hour of flight.
The Vautour hidraulic system was in particular troublesome and toward the last years of service it was getting even worse .

I put here some pics of the two . The WHM Javlin was a relatively basic model so I added cockpits , missiles , guns and gears - all from scratch.

Yair

[elliott]

Well done Yair! Thank you for the continuing history of 1950s and 60's jets, particularly the IAF ones.

[hyair]

Thanks elliott !

Regarding the IAF history there are still many nice stories that I hope to cover up
and merge with the building of corresponding paper models.

Yair

[hyair]

The B model of the Vautour had a glossy radome and a bombardier had an ejection seat that
could be fired through removable hatch at the top. In the IAF only 3 B models were serving and instead of a bomber they were all adapted to be photo planes. The bomb bay was used to be the place were the cameras were installed. The installation was not standard and each of the 3 had different configuration. From the early 60's the Vautours flew many successful photo missions. The Vautour had two important strong points for a photo plane :
Service cieling of over 50000 ceet and very long range of over 5000 km !
There were cases where Egyptian mig -17 tried to intercept photo Vautours but in more then
one incident the Vautours just climbed slightly higher and left the mig-17 bolow

Some photos of the Vautour ( eagle in French ) that show the wide span wings and general
shape of it.

Yair