Spearfish Aeroworks Supermarine Scimitar

[SlimJimIV]

Spearfish Aeroworks Supermarine Scimitar MOD
A Royal Navy strike aircraft through much of the 1960s, the Scimitar was both loved and hated by pretty much anyone who came into contact with it. Supermarine's last hurrah is equipped with 4x30mm ADEN cannons, as seen on the more famous Hawker Hunter and EE Lightning, and four underwing pylons with provisions for AIM-9B Sidewinders, AGM-12 Bullpups (not planned for this mod as of time of writing), 4,000lbs of bombs, RP rockets, drop tanks, and a buddy refuelling pod. A ranging radar lights the way for this monster of a subsonic low-level strike aircraft in dogfights, and the Blue Silk nav/attack system guides you home to the welcoming deck of a RN carrier.

Progress Tracker

• AI Tanker - in progress
  • External 3D work - in progress
    • Basic Shell - complete
    • Landing Gear / Arrestor Gear / Control Surfaces - in progress
    • Cockpit - in progress
    • Pylons - yet to begin
  • AI SFM - yet to begin
  • Buddy Stores - yet to begin

** 1.0 AI Tanker Release Here **

• Player Aircraft - yet to begin
  • Internal 3D work - yet to begin
  • EFM - yet to begin

** 2.0 Flyable Mod release Here **

• Post 2.0 additions
  • Ranging RADAR - yet to begin
  • Blue Silk - yet to begin

We also now have a Discord server, where we will also be posting updates and other things Scimitar related.

Development Pictures

 

Edited April 6, 2024 by SlimJimIV
Updated SA Name

[Boresight]

A very welcome addition it will be too, I will follow with interest!!

[ST0RM]

Nice start!
Looks like a Razbam post.

[flyingscotsman]

Recall the Scimitar displaying at RNAS Condor, (Arbroath) in the early 60's, I was knee hi to a grasshopper then, and they were REALLY NOISY

[SlimJimIV]

22 hours ago, ST0RM said:

Looks like a Razbam post.

I'm going to have to improve my style then...

 

20 hours ago, flyingscotsman said:

Recall the Scimitar displaying at RNAS Condor, (Arbroath) in the early 60's, I was knee hi to a grasshopper then, and they were REALLY NOISY

Nice, sadly I was born about 30 years too late to see one of these flying, but I grew up near RNAS Culdrose, so the FAA played a key part in my love for aviation

[Boresight]

So if this is like a RAZBAM post I guess this will be out in about...... 2 weeks?

[SlimJimIV]

4 hours ago, Boresight said:

So if this is like a RAZBAM post I guess this will be out in about...... 2 weeks?

You heard it here first everyone - years not decades!

Edited May 6, 2023 by SlimJimIV

[ST0RM]

23 hours ago, SlimJimIV said:

I'm going to have to improve my style then...

Not a knock on you, at all. Cheers!

[SlimJimIV]

We now have a Discord server! Feel free to join us and chat as well as check out our progress there

Edited May 11, 2023 by SlimJimIV

[Boresight]

The Discord link is invalid apparently.

[SlimJimIV]

17 hours ago, Boresight said:

The Discord link is invalid apparently.

I've updated the links, should be working now

 

[SlimJimIV]

A quick update - still hungover from birthday celebrations so progress has been a little slow this week!

I've done a little re-working of the intake geometry and some work on the wingtips before I dive into the control surfaces next week. Photos are on the discord, I'm going to try and keep updates here shorter, with more detail over there from now on.

[SlimJimIV]

As promised, the bulk of the progress is being shown on the Discord server - flight controls, canopy and the main fuselage are now through the first stage of modelling, with follow-up work to come once I've completed work on the landing gear, flaps and arrestor gear.

After that will come a very basic cockpit for the AI version as well as the MK20 HDU. At that point the SFM will hopefully be ready as I'll have had some help getting the AI 3d work over the line, and the AI tanker will be available.

Once this stage is complete I plan to take a couple of months away from the Scimitar to work on other projects and refine my 3D work before I come back to finish it off in a fully flyable state. I've got a couple of AI projects in mind now that I have a basic handle on modding DCS, but all thematic with the Scimitar to hopefully populate the deck a bit better

[joey45]

Good idea not to get too burnt out on one model...

[SlimJimIV]

The key thing will be to not have too many projects going at once...

[Mike Force Team]

@SlimJimIV Have you considered submitting your work to dcs as a proof of concept for a full-fidelty module?

Mike Force Team

[SlimJimIV]

@Mike Force Team Probably not, for a number of reasons.

This is a hobby for me at the moment. As it stands, I'm the only person working on this, with possibly one other person joining me in a couple of months, it's not realistic nor something I want the pressure of doing to keep up with DCS updates at the rate that's expected from a paid-for module with that few people.

The aircraft wouldn't benefit a huge amount from SDK access, the only thing it would really let me add would be bullpup capability, which were barely carried in service, and not renowned for being accurate or easy to use.

I simply don't have the money lying around to do things to the level I'd want to ask people to pay for something. I'd want a much higher quality 3D model than I'm currently capable of, probably with laser scanning or photogrammetry, both of which cost a fair amount. I'd also need more people on the project, which would also cost money.

All of the above said, I'll never rule it out, but if I were to ever think about trying to take a mod 3rd party, the Scimitar would probably not be the airframe I'd do it with.

[AG-51_Razor]

What do you have in mind for an AI tanker? BTW, good luck on this project. I have no doubt but that it is a huge undertaking. I hope you have some pretty thick skin for the crowd around here! 

[Mike Force Team]

@SlimJimIV Thank you for your response and comments. Based on your previous comments, I understand this module is a labor of love. I don't understand the SDK requirements but i do know the modules require regular upkeep. 

Mike Force Team

[SlimJimIV]

14 hours ago, AG-51_Razor said:

What do you have in mind for an AI tanker?

The Scimitar is the tanker! Scimitars only served front line attack duties for a couple of years until that role was taken over by the Buccaneer. Once the Buccaneer hit the fleet, Scimitars were relegated to tanker duties or second line a2g duties.

@Mike Force Team The SDK is needed to implement any kind of guided A2G weapons besides ARMs, as well as a lot of other things. It's unfortunately only available to 3rd party developers, so the modding community have to put up without guided weapons. Many mods get around this by calling the A2G avionics from FC3 modules, but given this would only enable one weapon that was barely used, it's not worth it for this project.

[crazyeddie]

Looking forward to this ... but they had a dreadful attrition rate, over 50% of the 70 or so units built crashed killing about 8 pilots (not sure about those figures).

Most references will tell you it never saw combat but I had an FAC boss who was certain he controlled a flight of them in the Radfan (Yemen) in the early 1960's, I controlled Sea Vixens a couple of years after that (1965) in the same place but dont recollect ever seeing Scimitars.

Nice idea for a Mod guys, well done. 

[SlimJimIV]

1 hour ago, crazyeddie said:

Looking forward to this ... but they had a dreadful attrition rate, over 50% of the 70 or so units built crashed killing about 8 pilots (not sure about those figures).

Most references will tell you it never saw combat but I had an FAC boss who was certain he controlled a flight of them in the Radfan (Yemen) in the early 1960's, I controlled Sea Vixens a couple of years after that (1965) in the same place but dont recollect ever seeing Scimitars.

Nice idea for a Mod guys, well done. 

I believe the attrition rate was 51% of all airframes lost, from what I hear mostly thanks to the undersized tail and rudder, as well as the RN carriers of the day being a bit undersized for jet aircraft.

It wouldn't surprise me if they did see a bit of action in and around that bit of the world in the early 60's, especially if it was ...politically problematic... for RN aircraft to be involved in such activities, we might never hear of it.

My understanding is that the Scimitars were out of frontline service by October '66, with the last four years of the type's service life being in the FRU/FRADU, where they were replaced by Sea Vixens I believe.

Speaking of Sea Vixens, I'm sure you've got a couple of good stories from controlling them, but perhaps that's a conversation for a later date and a different thread.

Edited June 28, 2023 by SlimJimIV

[SlimJimIV]

No pretty pictures for you all today I'm afraid, but perhaps something approximating a roadmap.

I am currently less than three weeks away from the final hand-in for my dissertation and so my entire focus is on the degree at the moment, and will be until the end of the month. I then intend to take a couple of weeks holiday, which after six years of university through pandemics and other challenges, I think I've earned.

When I come back, some point in mid-August, I'm going to take a review on the 3D model I've built so far and see how I feel about it, as keen as I am to get the 1.0 AI Tanker version released ASAP, if the 3D work is going to need a complete overhaul anyway before the 2.0 flyable release, I might as well do it this summer whilst I have time between Uni and entering industry.

Additionally, when I return from my summer break I'll hopefully have some help to make the 3D work go faster, and although I won't put dates on anything yet in terms of when I think releases will happen, systems engineering is my dissertation, so hopefully that and the flight modelling will go significantly faster!

I would like to thank everyone for their interest already, what started as me being very bored in January and buying some flight manuals online has now lead to a bunch of strangers on the internet actually taking interest in something I'm doing!

Jim - Spearfish 1-2

[SlimJimIV]

Well, I'm back from holiday and I was right - there are too many issues with the 3D model for me to be happy with it, as such I'll be completely reworking it over the next couple of weeks. I'm also looking into a couple of 3D models I've been working on to become part of a wider project to provide 60s and 70s RN flavour to DCS.

[SlimJimIV]

A short update today - hopefully with some pictures to follow in the next couple of days. Progress continues, albeit slowly thanks to external pressure taking up more of my time than I'd like, the 3D work is slowly coming together. Sadly, only three Scimitars survived into preservation in any condition, so getting decent reference material is quite the struggle. This is really holding up the cockpit work at the moment, although I have a plan to get better reference in the next couple of months. I am also beginning work on a couple of other projects, DCS and elsewhere that build on the skills I've developed so far with the Scimitar, which might end up being out before the Scimitar given how much better referenced they are!