"Featuring topics as relatable or as close to the real world I live in is an idea I try to do as much as
possible", or if its possible…. coincidentally while “multi-task web
researching” for the more useful project matters of business
opportunities, income taxes, cost of health, starting a family 101 and one million ways to cook the best
“Sinigang na Baka (PH Beef Stew)” on those countless insinuative social
networking websites. Long been waiting for my
caressing “mouse-click”; on one of the search windows I opened is a news
article about the Philippines (RP),
China (PROC) and several other countries dispute on the once though to be
worthless zits of islets, reefs shoals and rocks scattered on the “East
Philippines Sea" (or South China Sea) the short written report suggested a link
to articles and videos which journalizes the situation of the “people” on the
frontline of this territorial claims, in the course of many of this mini-documentaries different
Land, Sea, and Air assets of the claimant nations involved are occasionally use
as visual backdrops on every frame of the video reports, in several of those
occasions the Utility-Liaison airplane Philippine Navy (PN) “BN-Islander” is one of the the aircraft seen as being used to help the Philippine uphold it sovereighty.
Penning an interesting blog feature is one thing, deciding how to
feature a subject as a scale replica is another thing. None can replace the
convenience, authenticity and technical accuracy of building a regular scale
model kit and more recently a “pre-built” model has become a tempting option
for me, but as usual a complete kit of the “BN-Islander” is quite
rare for a person in my locational situation, it would be tedious, risky and can be costly to acquire by international mail order, so I opted to
use a free cardboard model plan online that although quite inaccurate to my
scrutiny the basic shape is sufficient to base my own composite
carbonate-cardboard interpretation of the chosen blog feature aircraft. At about
“1:68 scale” my “pulp Islander’s” aesthetic presentation specially the color shades
are “based” on popular images of the “Philippines Navy’s” actual equipment;
however some detail like designation numerals and "special unit" markings are
either speculative or intentionally altered.
Built
by Britten-Norman of UK the BN-Islander is primarily designed as a mid-size
inter-island commercial utility aircraft, its short take-off and landing
capability even on roughly prepared airstrips is it main specialized
characteristic, however many BN Islander was adopted by the world’s Military as
a liaison and lite-lift aircraft, for the more well funded nations the aircraft
is even fitted with Hi-tech weapons for ground-attack or sophisticated radars
for reconnaissance. In “RP” the "Navy Air Group" is the primary users of the BN-Islander
which is an ideal air transport asset for an archipelagic republic wherein it
institutional service varies from VIP transport, calamity relief,
meteorological management, search and rescue, aerial reconnaissance-survey,
seaboard patrol and many more to be aware of.
When the United States (U.S.) Air
and Naval bases widrew from the Philippines soil in the early part of the 1990’s,
the once cautious advance of China on West Philippine Sea’s islets and shoals
has become bolder and bolder, in the mid 1990’s China began building permanent structures on many of this disputed
territories most notably ‘Mischief Reef”. During 1998 as a precautionary measure
the Philippines Navy (PN) armed transport warship named “BRP Sierra Madre” was “assigned”
on a group of coral formation it calls “Ayungin Shoals” to serve as a permanent
outpost and discourage further foreign incursion in the area, Ayungin and
Mischief reef is part of the “Spartlys Islands chain” long to have been though
as part of RP Dominion, it is about 194 km west
of the province of Palawan, Ph.
In more recent times, Emprouded by a surge of its economy; the PROC has
up-scaled it assertion on the “Far East”. In
the West Philippines
Sea, RP ships are being harassed to prevent
the re-supplying of food and materiel for the now fast deteriorating “Sierra
Madre” and the platoon of Philippine Marines that is manning it, on occasions
that this RP supply ships cannot break-through the PROC prowler ships the “BN
Islander” is one of the aircraft used by the PN to “airdrop” emergency supplies
for the rusted metal defender. At this writer’s last online inquiry regarding the subject, the PROC have
yet to find a internationally tolerable way to disrupt the airdrops as they have
no craft on the area to parallel the performance characteristic of the
“Islander”, Jet fighters will be too fast to shadow the Islander as what the Chinese
operandi is to “Japanese-U.S.” Fighters
and hi-tech reconnaissance planes on its own “assertion flights” against
Chinese incursion in their area of concern. Just a couple of years ago foreign
entities (China, Vietnam, Taiwan) also started manifesting incursions to
another Philippine exclusive economic zone territory, the “Scarborough shoal”
or “Panatag Shoal” another corals-sand clot
formation less than 200 kilometers west from the shores of “Subic bay” in the RP’s province of Zambales the former location
of Subic Naval Base, with neighboring
Clark Air Base; both used to be the biggest forward repair and
provisioning base of the “U.S. Seventh fleet”. outside of
continental United States.
The
BN-Islander is intended to be a commuter plane by design, flying as an un-armed
military supply aircraft in potentially hostile air space probably requires the
same skills and nerves as being in a cockpit of a fighter plane which more advantageously have weapons to depend itself and dedicated means to eject its
occupants if needed. As for the BRP
Sierra Madre a World War II –Vietnam era vessel; most of the time old ships are turned in scrap metal, scuttled to raise
mussels, or used as targets for weapons testing … the gallant old warship will
probably never fire its guns in defiant anger again, nevertheless it will remain at the forefront of the glorious
battle between multi-national principles in the Spratlys chain of islands up to when its either removed by hostile action or its last metal carbon is
oxidized by elements of the Salty Sea.
" the color shades
are “based” on popular images of the “Philippines Navy’s” actual equipment;
however some details like designation numerals and special unit markings are
either speculative or intentionally altered."
.jpg)
My 1:68th scale Scratch built BN-Islander with a 1:72 scale Mini Hobby Models PT-815 Torpedo Patrol Boat and 1:72 Machbox P51 Mustang.
PS Disclaimer :
The scenes and objects depicted
in this blog are mainly for the blog author’s personal opinion and artistic
expression only and not meant to claim absolute authoritative presentation of
actual events and people that often the inspiration for the subjects featured
in this site.
