This might be the single oldest creation I've posted here, originally being made some time around 2002.
I posted it to MOCpages in February 2006, and what you see here is a later revision from 2007ish?
It's the
Wolverine CR but with the trim reverted to the original red, and the special features of the CR removed.
So, let's discuss the elephant in the room:
There are no wings.
It looks better the way I built it way back then, and I'm not going to argue with an aesthetic choice superseding logic (AKA Rule of Cool).
The sensibilities of my pre-teen self were at play, and I have to be forgiving for that, what else can I do?
The landing gear seen in
the original are completely gone now.
The inspiration for the base fighter comes directly from
6544, one of my favorite childhood sets.
Later on, I would draw parallels to fighters like the F-104 (particularly the NF-104A with the rocket engine for training pilots for X-15 flights), and the SR.177.
However, when I built it, I wasn't really aware of either yet.
I liked this fighter enough to keep it around, still assembled for 20 years.
This modified version improves upon the original design, still using many of the same original pieces, but cleaning up some of the color mismatches and bad angles.
However, there is still more that needs to be changed in order to get to what I consider the current design.
Ultimately, I've learned to stand by the less realistic design choices if it's fun.