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Israeli Air Force Kfir C2/C7, Kinetic 1:48


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IAI Kfir C2/C7

Kinetic Models 1:48

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History
The Israel Aircraft Industries Kfir ("Lion Cub") is an Israeli-built all-weather, multirole combat aircraft based on a modified French Dassault Mirage 5 airframe, with Israeli avionics and an Israeli-made version of the General Electric J79 turbojet engine.

Two powerplants were initially selected for trials, the General Electric J79 turbojet and the Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan. In the end, the J79 was selected, not least because it was the same engine used on the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, which the Israelis began to acquire from the United States in 1969, along with a license to produce the J79 themselves. The J79 was clearly superior to the original French Atar 09, providing a dry thrust of 49 kN (11,000 lb) and an afterburning thrust of 83.4 kN (18,750 lb).

In order to accommodate the new powerplant on the Mirage III's airframe, and to deliver the added cooling required by the J79, the aircraft's rear fuselage was slightly shortened and widened, its air intakes were enlarged, and a large air inlet was installed at the base of the vertical stabilizer, so as to supply the extra cooling needed for the afterburner. The engine itself was encased in a titanium heat shield. A two-seat Mirage IIIBJ fitted with the GE J79 made its first flight in September 1970, and was soon followed by a re-engined Nesher, which flew in September 1971.
The Kfir entered service with the IAF in 1975, the first units being assigned to the 101st "First Fighter" Squadron. Over the following years, several other squadrons were also equipped with the new aircraft. The role of the Kfir as the IAF's primary air superiority asset was short-lived, as the first F-15 Eagle fighters from the United States were delivered to Israel in 1976.
The Kfirs first recorded combat action took place on November 9, 1977, during an Israeli air strike on a training camp at Tel Azia, in Lebanon. The only air victory claimed by a Kfir during its service with the IAF occurred on June 27, 1979 when a Kfir C.2 shot down a Syrian MiG-21. By the time of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982 (Operation Peace for Galilee) the IAF was able to use both its F-15s and F-16s for air superiority roles, leaving the Kfirs to carry out unescorted strike missions. Shortly afterwards, all IAF C.2s began to be upgraded to the C.7 version, with enhanced weight performance, making the Kfir more suitable to its new fighter-bomber role. During the second half of the 1990s, the Kfirs were withdrawn from active duty in the IAF, after almost twenty years of continuous service.

The Model
The kit, contained in the usual attractive box with an artists representation of the aircraft in dramatic pose of dropping a LGB and dispensing flares. Inside the kit is on seven sprues of light grey styrene, one sprue of clear styrene and two small sprues of a greeny-blue styrene. There is a nice double sided A4 colour chart and painting guide as well as a medium sized decal sheet. The parts are all very well moulded with fine recessed panel lines, fasteners, and raised areas, such as strengthening plates, where required. There is no sign of flash on any of the parts and only a very few moulding pips. The styrene appears to be on the soft side and any ejection pin marks aren’t on the visible sides of parts. The clear parts are very clear, although there does seem to be some distortion on the curving top surface of the main canopy. Initial impression is that this a nice looking kit and from completed examples on Britmodeller does in fact build into an excellent model.

Construction starts with the ejection seat. Now there are two in the kit, one for the C2 and one for the C7. Each seat is made of five parts, the seat squab and backrest, two sides, head box top and ejection handle. Unfortunately there are no straps or belts provided so the modeller will have to either scratch build or buy an aftermarket set. There are also a number of sub-assemblies shown to be built on the first page of the instructions; these include the HUD, which is made up of three clear parts, an auxiliary air duct, and cockpit rear bulkhead, on which two electronics boxes are fitted. The cockpit is made up of the cockpit tub, moulded as a single part, the ejection seat, optional instrument panels, depending on which mark is being modelled, two rudder pedals and the joystick. The detail on the cockpit tub is a little soft and really could do with extra detailing, as do the instrument panels, although some very careful painting may bring out the moulded detail on these.

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The next stage is to make some more sub-assemblies, which include the undercarriage, nosewheel bay, intake ducts, tail flare dispenser, exhaust nozzle, the alternative noses and the LGB illuminator pod. The nose wheel is built up with the oleo, scissor link, landing lights, wheel hub and two tyre parts, whilst the main undercarriage components are made up of the oleo and similar three piece wheel arrangement as the nose wheel. The nosewheel bay is a three piece affair with the roof, moulded with front and rear bulkheads and the two side pieces. The detail moulded on these parts look pretty good and will be enhanced with some careful painting and weathering. The alternative noses, whilst having different parts look very similar and the completed assemblies only differ by what looks like an auxiliary intake/outlet duct. The engine exhaust is built with just two parts with the exhaust fan moulded complete with the exhaust duct, which looks like it will quite awkward to paint effectively, onto which the exhaust nozzle is attached. The sub-assemblies for the intake ducts, cockpit, nosewheel bay, and cockpit rear bulkhead are then fitted to one of the fuselage halves, and then the fuselage can be closed up. The nose and external parts of the intakes can then be attached. Two holes need to be opened up on either side of the spine for additional parts fitted later in the build.

Moving onto the wings, these are made up of a single piece lower wing and two upper wing sections. Onto the completed wing the flaps, (flaperons?), can be constructed either up or down using different parts for the actuator fairings. The four airbrakes are then attached, two above and two below in either retracted or deployed positions. The wing is then attached to the fuselage along with the two cannon troughs, canards, engine nozzle, the engine fan disk, fitted the now joined intake ducts, the windscreen and canopy, although this should really be left off until the end of the build if being posed open as it will surely be knocked off. To the underside of the aircraft several sensors, probes, outlets and aerials are fitted, as are the optional panels aft of the nosecone, one with a laser guidance pod and one without. The undercarriage is then completed. Each main leg has an actuator and the two outer doors attached, whilst the nose leg has its actuator and the front bay door fitted. The main bays also have the large inner doors glued into place, through research there doesn’t seem to be a definitive position for these when the aircraft is shutdown. Some pictures show them open whilst on some aircraft they’re closed, so it’s really up to the modeller how they should position them.

What Kinetic do well is provide the modeller with plenty of weapons to hang off their completed aircraft, and this kit is no different. Apart from three different types of drop tanks the kit provides the following:-

• Two Griffin LGBs
• Seven Mk82 bombs with retard tails.
• Seven CBU-20 cluster bombs
• Two Python AAM

There are of course the requisite pylons for these weapons to be hung off, in addition to a Multiple Ejection Rack, (MER) for the centre line station on the C2 version. Not all weapons can be used for both versions.

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Decals
There are in fact two decal sheets, the main, large one, and a small additional one. This small sheet is for one aircrafts numbers, the Hebrew equivalent and a decal for the flare dispenser. The decals, by Cartograph are up to their usual high standard, being very thin, glossy with a fine carrier film. The register appears to be very good as is the opacity. They should settle down with the modellers’ solutions of choice. There are national markings and stencils for one aircraft and insignia and identification numbers for the following:-

• Kfir C2 number 805, The Valley squadron, Ramat-David AF Base 1983
• Kfir C2 number 861, The Valley squadron, Ramat-David AF Base 1985
• Kfir C7 number 553, Venus, The Arava Guardians, Hatzor AF Base 1988
• Kfir C7 number 539, Venus, The Arava Guardians, Hatzor AF Base 1992
• Kfir C7 number 521, Pluto, The Arava Guardians, Hatzor AF Base 1994

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Conclusion
This is another great looking kit of a really good looking aircraft from Kinetic. Yes the detail could be improved in the cockpit and the main undercarriage bays, but it will build into a good looking model straight from the box. Highly recommended



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Nice review, thanks.

.The development of this aircraft has been attributed to covert action on the part of Mossad...... Mossad was able to acquire the plans for the Mirage III, which were used directly in the design process of the Kfir aircraft series.

That was a legend from the last century, certainly set up by all the parties involved.

You should ask Tom for an up-to-date story, or check ACIG forum.

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Well Antoine, it's obviously still being propagated as I visited lots of websites saying the same thing. But, as always I'm up for learning more about the things I review so will take your advice and amend as necessary.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Few points here:

- The Kfir was developed by Gene Salvay, a US aircraft designer who used to work for North American, starting on B-25s back in 1942, and then via F-86, F-100, B-45 etc., etc., until North American was bought-up by Rockwell, in the 1960s. And because Rockwell Corp was already involved in developing a factory for automotive parts in Israel as of 1966...

....while the story about 'espionaged' information being used for development of the Kfir is actually related to the emergence of Mirage 5J...ehm...'Israel Aircraft Industries' Nesher (which have manufacturer plates of Aérospatiale') in Israel...

...well, sufficient to say: this all is going to become 'official', later this year.

- Installing Griffin LGBs on IDF/AF i.e. IASF aircraft would be wrong and making them entirely unauthentic: although manufactured by the IAI, and flight-tested on IDF/AF i.e. IASF Kfirs too, that weapon never entered service in Israel. It is manufactured for export only (that's going to be made 'official' later this year too).

Edited by Tom Cooper
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Thanks for the information Tom. There seems to be a spate of kits realeased lately that have weapons included that aren't used on the real thing.

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You mean via Harpia's new book?

Yup - and not only one of these. ;-)

Still, the griffin could be useful.

Under a Peruvian 2000C for exemple.

...also on Chilean Panteras (probably also Chilean F-5s and F-16s), on Colombian Kfir C.10s, Ecuadorean Kfirs C.10 etc... just not on IDF/AF i.e. IASF aircraft (except for testing purposes, as mentioned above).

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