1:48 Alpha Jet AT12 Batbird 2 75 Years 11Sqn Belgian AF 1993

Batbird 2 – the Belgian Alpha Jet AT12

The Belgian No. 11 Squadron has a bat in its badge, and in 1993 it had a whole training Alpha Jet with the construction code AT12 covered with that motif. The nickname Batbird 2 suggests that this was the second machine in that bat tradition. The attraction of the finish is the spread membrane of the wings drawn across the fuselage and the tail surfaces, which makes it one of the most striking European schemes of the 1990s.

The aircraft and its role

The Alpha Jet is a two-seat jet aircraft of French and German origin, intended for the advanced training of pilots and for light combat tasks. The Belgian Air Force took it into service at the end of the 1970s and gave its machines codes beginning with the two letters AT. The seats are in tandem one behind the other; the instructor sits at the back and has a raised view.

The anniversary that stands in the name

The designation gives seventy-five years of the unit related to 1993. Counting back therefore points to 1918, that is to the close of the First World War, when the Belgian air service was founding its first squadrons.

Belgian Alpha Jets served for whole decades and the festively painted examples made them welcome guests at air days. The bat machine thus became one of the most photographed aircraft of its time, and modelers return to it to this day.

• Subject: an Alpha Jet with the code AT12, the Belgian Air Force
• Finish: a bat motif named Batbird 2, 1993
• A commemoration of seventy-five years of the existence of No. 11 Squadron
• A sheet in 1:48 scale completing a separately bought Alpha Jet kit
• The extensive colored areas are best applied in sections