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Dassault Mirage F.1 CR - 1:72 Special Hobby


Julien

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Dassault Mirage F.1 CR
1:72 Special Hobby

 

boxcr.jpg

 


The Dassault Mirage F.1 has been a successful point defence fighter for over thirty years, and was developed initially as a private venture by Dassault as a replacement to their ageing Mirage III fighters. It is a single-engined, single-seat fighter aircraft with a high-mounted delta wing and capability of reaching mach 2.2 in short order. Power was provided by a single SNECMA Atar turbojet providing about 7 tonnes-force (69 kN; 15,000 lbf) of thrust. Dassault soon found an eager customer in the shape of the French Armée de l'air, who bought various versions over the years starting on 1974. The French retired the Mirage F.1 in 2014.

The F.1CR was a programme to bring in some degree of tactical reconnaissance without going to a dedicated platform. The port cannon was removed and a A SAT SCM2400 Super Cyclone infrared linescan unit is installed in its place. A space under the nose can be used for a Thomson-TRT 40 panoramic camera or a Thomson-TRT 33 vertical camera, and variety of podded sensors can be carried on the centreline station. 64 CRs were ordered for the Armée de l'air. 



The Kit
This is a superb new moulding kit from Special Hobby. The parts are crisp with engraved panel lines deep enough not to disappear under a coat of paint, but not trench like. From the parts break down on the sprues it is evident more versions are on there way. Construction starts conventionally enough in the cockpit area. The instrument panel and coaming is built up and attached to the front of the cockpit, the rear bulkhead is attached, and the control stick added in. For some strange reason step 3 in the instructions has you placing the cockpit inside the fuselage and closing it up; and step 4 has you adding the front wheel well and exhaust into the fuselage. I would safely say that it's best to reverse these. On the subject of the exhaust, it is a three part affair and the quality of the kit parts is very good. Once the exhaust, front wheel bay, and cockpit are in the main fuselage can indeed be closed up.

 

sp2.JPG


Once the main fuselage is together the correct nose can be added for your chose decal option. Various nose antenna are added along with the front airbrakes which are moulded in the closed position. The engine intakes are also added at this stage.

 

sp3.JPG


Next the main wings are added which are of conventional upper/lower construction. Once these are on the rudder, tail planes, and ventral strakes are all added as well.

 

sp6.JPG

 

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Once the main aircraft is built it is time to switch to the landing gear. All three units are built up and added along with their respective doors. The undercarriage is quite detailed but has been moulded to be in as few parts as possible. The main legs along with their retraction struts are one part, with only a single small section needed for each of the mains. The wheels are one part each and have nice relief for painting.

 

sp4.JPG


It is then a quick re-visit to the cockpit to build the ejection seat. For the scale this is quite detailed with 4 parts making up the seat. There is a choice of seat back/cushion however no indication of which to use for which option. It is suspected these options are time frame based, and the modeller should check their references.

 

sp5.JPG


The penultimate step is to add the pylons. A single centre line pylon is added along with wing pylons, &chaff dispensers. Thankfully this time the instructions show which should be added for each decal option. The instructions show only fuel tanks to be attached, although the sprues do contain a nice selection of French weapons to be deployed as the modeller sees fit,. Lastly the canopy and front screen are attached.

 

canopy.JPG

 


Decals
The decals are printed by Cartograf so should pose no problems, The are crisp, in register and look colour dense. Three marking options provided in this boxing are;

 

  • 33-TA ER3/33 Special 4 colour brown Scheme for Red Flag 1990. Flown the now Chief Of Staff of the French Air Force how managed to claim 2 adversary F-15s.
  • 33-NR ER2/33 Standard dessert scheme as used in Chad in 1988 features a sharks mouth on the nose.
  • 33-CY ER1/33 Standard French Grey/Green scheme. These aircraft operated from Corsica over Kosovo & Serbia.

 

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Conclusion
This is a great new tool kit of an important French Aircraft. Very highly recommended.

 

 

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Review sample courtesy of
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Thanks for the nice presentation. Just wondering about the sprue K  (bottom one with the chaff/flare dispenser): when were they introduced, and were they already on on a desert storm (sorry: daguet) aircraft?

 

Alex

 

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