Special Hobby Mirage F.1C/C-200 Armée de l'Air' - 1:72

[Paul A H]

Mirage F.1C/C-200 Armée de l'Air'

1:72 Special Hobby

 

 

The Dassault Mirage F.1 has been a successful point defence fighter for over forty years. Originally developed as a private venture by Dassault to replace the ageing Mirage III, it is a single-engined, single-seat fighter aircraft with a high-mounted wing and the ability to reach mach 2.2 in short order. Power is provided by a single SNECMA Atar turbojet providing about 15,000 lbf of thrust. The Armée de l'air operated various versions over the years, with deliveries beginning in 1974 and the last aircraft retiring in 2014. The aircraft was also an export success for Dassault, with foreign operators including Ecuador, Greece, Morocco, South Africa, Spain and Libya. The F.1C-200 featured a fix air-to-air refuelling probe.

 

This is the latest iteration of a well-regarded kit from Special Hobby which first saw the light of day three years ago. The parts are crisp with engraved panel lines that are probably on the deep side, but still acceptable. At least they won't disappear under a coat of paint. The kit is spread across six grey sprues and a single clear sprue. Decals are by Cartograf and the instructions are printed in full colour. So far, so good. 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction starts conventionally enough in the cockpit area. The cockpit is of conventional tub construction, with a multi-part instrument panel and coaming and detailed rear bulkhead. The control column is added as this stage, but not the ejection seat.  For some reason step 3 in the instructions has you placing the cockpit inside the fuselage and closing it up, while step 4 has you adding the front wheel well and exhaust into the fuselage. I would say that it's best to reverse these steps. On the subject of the exhaust, it is a three part sub-assembly and the quality of moulding and detail is very good. Once the exhaust, front wheel bay, and cockpit are in the main fuselage can indeed be closed up.

 

Once the main fuselage is together the correct nose can be added for your chose decal option. If you are building the C-200 variant, the IFR probe in moulded in place on the starboard side of the nose cone. Various nose antenna are added along with the front air brakes which are moulded in the closed position. The single-part engine intakes are also added at this stage. Next the main wings are added. These locate via tabs in the wing roots and are of conventional upper/lower construction. Once these are on the vertical and horizontal tails can be added, as well as the ventral strakes. The landing gear - or at least the main gear legs - of the F.1 always remind me of the units for the Sepecat Jaguar. 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.

 

With the bulk of the airframe complete, construction returns to the ejection seat. For the scale this is quite detailed, with four parts making up the seat. Apart from adding the canopy, all that remains to do now is add the pylons and your choice of ordnance. The instructions show which should be added for each decal option, but in total you get:

• 2 x Matra Magic Mk.I/II AAM
• 2 x V-3 Kukri AAM
• 2 x Matra Super 530F MRAAM
• 2 x GBU-16 LGB
• 1x ASTAC reconnaissance pod
• 1x RAPHAEL SLAR reconnaissance pod
• 1x RP35 reconnaissance pod
• 1x ARAL 1B Phimat
• 1x ARAB 9A Barrax
• 2 x RP35 Fuel Tanks

If bonus marks are awarded for generosity in the field of ordnance provision, the Special Hobby get a hat full. 

 

 

 

A generous four decal schemes are provided on the Cartograf sheet:

• Mirage F.1C c/n 46. 12-YE, Escadron de Chasse EC 1/12 Cambréses, Base Aérienne BA103 Cambrai Épinoy. This aircraft is finished in blue-grey over aluminium, with tiger strips painted on the tail for the 1979 Tiger Meet;
• Mirage F.1C c/n 84. 12-ZF, Escadron de Chasse EC 2/12 Cornouaille, Base Aérienne BA103 Cambrai Épinoy. This aircraft is finished in blue-grey over aluminium;
• Mirage F.1C-200 c/n 206. 5-OA, Escadron de Chasse EC 2/5 Ile-de-France, Base Aérienne BA115 Orange Caritat, France 1981. This aircraft is finished in blue-grey over aluminium, with a fleur-de-lys emblem on the vertical tail; and
• Mirage F.1C-200 c/n 201. 30-LA, Escadron de Chasse EC 4/30 Vexin, Base Aérienne BA188 based at Ambouli International Airport, Djibouti City, Djibouti, Africa, May 1994. This aircraft is finished in sand/brown/chocolate over aluminium;

 

 

Conclusion

 

Special Hobby has the F.1 market pretty much sewn up now, and with each new release we got the ability to build more and more variants. The mouldings are crisp and well-made and the overall package is very complete, particularly given the amount of ordnance and the generosity of four decal scheme. Overall, this is a nice kit an can be highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of 

[eclipse]

Thank you for the review.

There is also a Barracuda jammer pod and I think it's GBU-12 rather than GBU-16, bigger and with different rear part.