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Mirage F.1 EQ/ED (72386) 1:72 Special Hobby


Julien

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Mirage F.1 EQ/ED (72386)

1:72 Special Hobby

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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) 

 

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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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  • 1 month later...

This is indeed a lovely edition. One thing to look out for is that the box art depicts an Iraqi EQ with underwing Matra R.530's, which are not in the kit - luckily, the Iraqi AF did not buy the R.530 but used the follow up Super 530 development, which is in the kit.  

 

It's always better to have an incorrect box art with correct box contents that the other way around.  😉 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre 

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  • 2 years later...

I know it´s an old post. But, do you, or anyone else, have any idea about the correct weapon load? There are very few pictures online, only some pre delivery photos and some without weapons. 

So, on attack runs over the Persian gulf, did Iraq hang the Exocet missiles under the fuselage or on an unsymmetrical load with and Exocet on the starboard wing and a fueltank under the port?

 

Regards from and other André... ;-)

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Hi there

 

Well this kir is just amazing but all your questions are going to be answered in this book https://www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/iraqi-mirages-dassault-mirage-family-in-service-with-iraqi-air-force-1981-1988.php

 

There are other books that explains the Marcel Dassault Mirage F-1 but for the Iraki AF only this one

 

Ragarrds

 

Armando

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I know. It look like an amazing book, thank you for showing me. But it cost like a new model and í´m almost done with the model (I don’t do digital editions if I can’t get the file to my computer, unlocked). If you have the book I would be very happy to know the answer.

 

Regards André

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