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Mirage F.1 EQ/ED - 1:72 Special Hobby


Julien

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Mirage F.1 EQ/ED (72386)

1:72 Special Hobby

 

qd01.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 ED is the export version for Qatar, and the EQ the version for Iraq. Its worth noting that private military contractors in the US are buying large surplus stocks of Mirage F.1s to use in the adversary role. 

 

The Kit

This is a reworking of the superb new tool kit from Special Hobby. This boxing has extra plastic parts for this version being the tail and large centre line tank. There is also some small resin parts for the "lumps & bums", and a resin Exocet Missile for the Iraqi version. 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.

 

qd02.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.

 

qd03.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.

 

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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.

 

qd05.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.

 

qd06.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. 

 

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Markings

There are four decal options on a sheet from Cartograf so there will be no issues there.

 

1. F.1EQ No.79 Sqn Iraqi Air Force (Sand / Grey scheme).

2. F.1EQ-5 No.81 Sqn Iraqi Air Force (Dark Sea Grey Scheme) - Fitted for Exocet.

3. F.1EQ-6 No.102 Sqn Republic Of Iran Air Force (Grey / Blue Scheme).

4. F.1ED Libyan Peoples Air Force (Aircraft which defected to Malta) 

 

qd09.JPG

 

 

 

Conclusion

It is great to see more versions of this new tool from Special Hobby becoming available.  Highly recommended.

 

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Review sample courtesy of

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Thanks, Julien.

Certainly one of the best looking jets, ever.

By the way, ED stands for Libya, Qatar owned EDA.

Despite obvious efforts by SH, I'm still a bit disapointed by the range of weapons/pods/tanks offered, considering the F1 capacity.

Lets hope we'll soon find more on the aftermarket.

Also, EQ is a bit vague. Looks like its an EQ4?

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11 hours ago, Antoine said:

 

Despite obvious efforts by SH, I'm still a bit disapointed by the range of weapons/pods/tanks offered, considering the F1 capacity.

 

I think you are being a little harsh there. They include the A2A missiles, pods, bombs; and drop tanks as standard, then in this boxing they supply the Exocet and larger tank. Some manufactures would give you nothing and expect you to buy their armament sets.

 

Julien

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I've had a test fit of all the major components and I think Special Hobby may have tweaked the wing moulds. The under wing inserts are still a little thick but they appear to be much better than what was reported in the initial boxings.

 

Mike.

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I have a question for Mirage F1 experts about Corail conformal chaff/flare pod, in SH kits parts 113 and 114. I think you can mount them on "modded" airframes only. The airframe has to have two additional attachement points, bulges on pics where the Corail is not mounted. I could only find it on some French CR and CT version, on Jordanian EJ, on Iraqi EQ-5 and probably on some South African AZ models. Here is a list of confirmed airframes by the pics:

Iraq - F.1EQ-5 - 4562

France:

227 (330-AP), 242 (118-QA), 251 (30-SA), 274 (330-AJ), 282 (13-QR),
603 (33-CB), 604 (118-CF), 607, 608 (33-NG spec camo), 611 (118-NM), 615, 620 (112-CT), 621 (30-BY), 624 (33-NY), 628, 634 (33-CK), 638, 641 (33-CD), 648 (33-CE), 655 (118-CV), 657 (33-CV), x62
??? (30-QH), ??? (30-QJ), ??? (30-SV),

 

I guess you had to "mod" the wing with some strenghtening, adding two locating "lugs" and a wiring.

So, who can elaborate that ? Thanks a lot !!

 

Jakub

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All F1CT and CR are capable of Corail. Regarding Jordanian EJs and Iraqi EQs, it's not Corail gondolas, but Sycomor, also avalaible as pod for external point. South Africa designed a third - indigenous - system called RIMS (Radar Infrared Misleading System) with gondolas but quickly abandoned for the benefit of keels containing the chaff/flare launcher.

Edited by eclipse
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Hi, thanks for the responses.

Here are the few pictures and questions:

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=https://dstorm.eu/_ostatni/1.jpg&key=b5a1616bba3487e88ada1c2532d498830143ce6f06878121a60092c3692e0da1

 

Here you can see the attachement ponts for the Corail, they are the small bulges. BUT, you can not see them on many airframes. So, are even those points detachable ?

 

2.jpg

 

Here is the above mentioned Corail on French Mirage

 

3.jpg

 

An the only one known (atleast to me) pic of Iraqi Mirage F1EQ5-200 "4562". Attached are Corail, some SLAR pod and Remora ECM. Regarding Sycomor, it is only pylon mounted, not wing mounted box right ? If not, can you point me to some info ? And, I read that the Corail was also an option for update for some Moroccan Mirages, but no idea if the update went through.

 

Thanks !

Edited by Julien
Please DO NOT use airliners.net pictures.
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And here is Gabon TR-KMM (ex South African) which also shows the mounting points - if there RIMS was not used, why those points were not removed ? And, what about drag/wing flow penalties with those attach points there ?

4.jpg

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2 hours ago, Jakub Cikhart said:

So, are even those points detachable ?

AFAIK, no

 

2 hours ago, Jakub Cikhart said:

Regarding Sycomor, it is only pylon mounted, not wing mounted box right ?

Compare the gondola on these pictures of Mirage F1EJs and Corail gondola... here, we have the Sycomor gondola form.

 

2 hours ago, Jakub Cikhart said:

And here is Gabon TR-KMM (ex South African) which also shows the mounting points - if there RIMS was not used, why those points were not removed ?

It's not that the RIMS (which included also a new RWR) was no longer used, but the gondolas has been replaced by thickened keels with chaff/flares launcher inside.

http://www.sa-transport.co.za/aircraft/dassault-brequet/mirage_f1-cz_201_14_dc.JPG

2 hours ago, Jakub Cikhart said:

And, what about drag/wing flow penalties with those attach points there ?

It's not very important, in fact. But it's precisely because of the drag that gondola has been removed. And the same problem exists with Corail... but French Air Force kept it. 😉

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So, if the mounting points are not removable, why some CR/CT planes have "clean" wing and some has the points ? That could suggest some "mods" to the plane/wing.

Regarding F1EJ - now I can see that the pylon is different, my mistake :)

So, the Corail gondola had some drag so it was removed ???? That is really strange. Was it replaced with something or just left off and let the Mirages flew until witdrawal without them ?

One clarification then:

French CT/CR - Corail

Jordan/Iraq/Iran(ex-Iraq) - Sycomore

correct ??

 

Thanks a lot !!

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11 minutes ago, Jakub Cikhart said:

So, if the mounting points are not removable, why some CR/CT planes have "clean" wing and some has the points ?

Do you have any pictures ? 🤔

 

13 minutes ago, Jakub Cikhart said:

So, the Corail gondola had some drag so it was removed ????

Hm, no, RIMS gondola was removed, not Corail used until withdraw of CR and CT.

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Hi, yeah.

Let me show you:

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=https://dstorm.eu/_ostatni/5.jpg&key=ea64ef440d9b71b4ae1aa787921a397e2f321d70a43d6267bf1af072a15f32f9

 

6.jpg

 

Clean wing without any attachement points.

Edited by Julien
dont link to copy righted pictures
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In fact, I see the both attachment points on the first picture... 🤨

https://cdn.jetphotos.com/full/2/54134_1060141254.jpg

And for the second one, quality and shadow don't allow me to be sure. You have to know, Corail have been added from 1992-1993 ten years after the arrival of F1CR in French Armée de l'Air. If the picture is older than this date, there are no attachment points...

Edited by eclipse
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Gents as much as it pains me to do so I am shutting this thread down. 

 

If tyou want to start a Mirage F.1 discussion thread then please do so in the appropriate area not on the back of a review.

 

Also and I must stress this please dont post up copyrighted pictures, especially from Airliners.net. This is against site rules as these companies come after forums posting their images.

 

Julie

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