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Alpha Jet A ‘QinetiQ’ (KPM0267) 1:72 Kovozávody Prostějov At the end of the 60s, with the SEPECAT Jaguar transformed from a trainer into an attack aircraft, it left the advanced jet trainer replacement unfulfilled, so France and Germany began a collaboration to design a new trainer that was to become the Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet, the Breguet part in the collaboration being absorbed by Dassault when they bought the company. It flew late in 1973, and went into service with France in 1979 after extensive trials as the Alpha Jet E, fulfilling a similar role to the BAe Hawk in the RAF. The Germans used the jet as a Light Attack aircraft with the A suffix appended, and limited export success brought the Alpha Jet to Francophile countries in Europe and Africa, with a number of ex-Luftwaffe aircraft finding their way to Thailand and Portugal. One of Britain's defence company QinetiQ bought 6 ex-Luftwaffe aircraft, which occasionally make appearances at airshows. Germany has retired the aircraft now, but many airframes are still in service, with the later MS2 with new avionics, engines, a glass cockpit and improved weapons carrying performance used to train pilots on modern types. The Kit Originally released in 2021, there have been a number of reboxings of the core kit, with various markings options and parts to address the needs and wants of us modellers, which is their stock-in-trade. This boxing offers you the ability to model the A, E or more advanced MS using the parts in the box, but the decals supplied are purely for the A, as stated on the box, opening the door for anyone with aftermarket decals for the other types to use this boxing to apply their own decals. Good to know. The kit arrives in a figure-type end-opening box, with two sprues in grey styrene, a clear sprue, decal sheet and instruction booklet. The rear of the box has all the profiles for the marking options printed on it in colour. Construction begins with the cockpit, which revolves around the two-seat tub, with the two seats having belt decals, a pair of control columns, additional console parts, and decals for the side consoles. The two instrument panels also have decals, with a choice of decals, depending on which mark you are depicting. The cockpit and rear coaming are inserted into the fuselage along with the nose-gear bay, and in anticipation of adding the underside insert, the main gear bays are built on a single roof part with bulkheads separating them and outfitted with landing gear struts and wheels, then glued into the inside of the insert, which can be fitted into the fuselage, closing up the underside. The wings are simple structures with two main parts each, the undersides smaller than the uppers, to make for a slimmer trailing edge, and attaching to the fuselage by the usual slot-and-tab method, as are the elevators, with a pair of blade antennae fixed near the top of the tail fin. The intakes are also installed at this stage, which each have an inner splitter plate with a C-profile intake trunk joined together and offered up to the fuselage either side of the rear pilot’s cockpit. The mark of your model is determined by the instrument decals within the cockpits and the nose cones, which you have a choice of for all three types of this aircraft. The decals are for the A, which has a pointed nose and pitot probe, and required the removal of a strake on each side of the nose, which is shown in the diagram. The E has a rounded nose, while the MS has an angled flat tip. A busy diagram shows the installation of the nose gear and all the remaining bay doors, the former being made from three parts with an additional retraction strut added as it is inserted into the bay. Four underwing pylons are included in the kit, which can be left empty or have two extra fuel tanks slung under them, with the option of a central gun pack under the belly. The forward sections of the flap fairings are moulded into the wings, but the aft sections are added from separate parts on the moulded-in flying surfaces. The sensor fit differs between options, with extra steps showing those for French, Canadian and QinetiQ, then the one-piece canopy is glued in place with a small intake on the side of the spine, after which it’s time to paint your model. Markings A separate sheet shows the location of all the stencils, of which there are quite a few, then you refer to the rear of the box for your main markings options. From the box you can build one of the following: Decals are printed without acknowledgment, and have good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. The upper wing stencils are printed on a single decal per wing, so care will be needed to ensure it doesn’t break up, and here the thin carrier film will be a boon once applied, but tricky during fitting. Conclusion I’ve always liked the Alpha Jet, and this is a great little model with lots of detail moulded-in, and some nice decal markings that are just that little bit left field. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of