Kinetic Latin American Kfir C10 (K48048) 1:48

[Mike]

Latin American Kfir C10 (K48048)

1:48 Kinetic Model via Luckymodel.com

 

 

The Kfir is an Israeli development of the Dassault Mirage III, which was used by the Israelis successfully as a Mach 2 all-weather interceptor, but the they felt that it lacked the loiter time that would be needed if a ground-attack role that had been envisaged was added its list of tasks.  As a result of an arms embargo, Israel first built the Nesher, an unlicensed copy of the Mirage 5, which was then improved further still, and was suitably different from the Nesher to justify renaming it as the Kfir, which means ‘Lion Cub’ in Hebrew.  It entered service in 1975, and was almost immediately superseded in the air superiority role when the first F-15s arrived from America, even though it remained in service, equipping several squadrons of the Israeli Air Force in other roles.

 

The C10 variant was an export specific type, based upon the C7 that had more hardpoints added under the air intakes, a new engine with more thrust, in-flight refuelling probe, plus many upgrades to the avionics that included HOTAS capabilities and MFD screens embedded in the instrument panel.  It was sold to South American operators, and was also known as the Kfir CE in Ecuadorean service with 24 airframes based on upgraded earlier models, and Kfir COA in Colombian service, some new airframes and some upgraded from C2 standard by Israel.

 

It continued in service with the Israelis into the late 90s, after which it was replaced by more modern aircraft, but many are still on strength, whilst being offered for sale to potential purchasers with an upgrade and generous guarantee of aircraft that have been essentially returned to zero-hours.  Argentina originally intended to buy a batch of Kfirs, but after much negotiation, nothing has materialised after many years.

 

 

The Kit

This is a reboxing with additional parts of an original Kinetic tooling from 2013, depicting this fairly niche variant of the Kfir in Latin American operation.  The kit arrives in a traditional blue themed Kinetic top-opening box with a painting of a pair of Kfirs on patrol over jungle and a smattering of patchy white clouds obscuring the ground.  Inside the box are ten sprues in medium grey styrene, two clear sprues, a decal sheet and the instruction booklet, which is printed in greyscale and has greyscale profiles for the decal options in the rear.  The instructions state that colour profiles are supposed to be online, but the kit doesn’t yet appear on Kinetic’s site, so patience will be a virtue if the ones below aren’t sufficient for your needs.  Detail on the kit is good, and the weapons includes are generous in number, with decals printed by an industry leader with utmost quality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the cockpit, starting with the seat that is built from five parts, with a HUD made from three clear parts for later use on top of the instrument panel, although someone has accidentally forgotten to paste the image of the HUD into that later step, leaving the arrows hanging in mid-air.  Four small intakes are made up from two halves for use later, with the part numbers reused at the time to ensure you remember them, just don’t lose them in the meantime.  The three-part rear bulkhead of the cockpit is also made up for later use before the seat, control column, rudder pedals and a choice of two instrument panels is inserted into the cockpit tub, adding the HUD from the invisible diagram once everything is painted.  Note that there is no decal included for either the CE or C10 panels, but the detail of the parts is excellent, so you should be able to pick them out to make a good rendition of it.  Also note that they are shown as parts H21 and H22, when they are in fact J21 and J22 on the sprues.  The three gear legs are also made up in advance, each one a single part with three-part wheel, and the nose gear having twin landing-lights and other detail parts added, with its bay made from three parts with lots of moulded-in detail visible.  In order to close up the fuselage, the intake trunks are first made up from two halves that hide the seams well, the exhaust is built from trunk with afterburner details moulded into the forward wall and a crisp exhaust ring fixed to the rear, and the nose cone with sensor blisters and pitot installed once the two halves have been joined.  With all these sub-assemblies built and painted, the fuselage closing procedure is started by drilling a pair of holes within an oval marking on the top of each half, then sliding the intake trunks in through the cut-out in the fuselage sides, adding the external fairings in the next step.  The cockpit, rear bulkhead, nose gear bay and nose itself are all mated with the fuselage during closing, after which attention turns to the delta wings.

 

 

The lower wing is full span, and several holes are drilled out before adding the upper wings and their air-brakes to it, followed by the clear wingtip lights, one on each wing.  The various flap actuator fairings are glued to the underside on pins, with the flying surfaces also attached by pins, plus more air-brakes underneath.  If you wish to depict the flying surfaces dropped, you use a set of angled fairings instead of the straight ones, giving your model a little extra visual interest in the process.  Returning to an inverted fuselage, the exhaust is slotted into the aft fuselage, a circular fan part blanks off the intake trunking after it merges within the fuselage, and the canards are fitted to the engine nacelles using slots and tabs, with a narrow insert under the nacelles.  A host of antennae, aerials and two of the intakes made earlier are dotted around the fuselage and tail, differing slightly between variants, and then the wings are added from below, bearing in mind that the C10 late version had a small cut-out in the leading edge of the fin.  You also get an option of posing the canopy open by leaving the tab on the rear, which slots into the spine.  It doesn’t state whether you need to cut that off to pose it closed, so check by test fitting it in position once you have glued the windscreen in place.

 

 

 

The main gear legs are inserted into the well detailed bays, adding a zig-zag actuator leg plus two bay doors, and the nose gear differs only by the location of the doors, and the fact that is has a single straight strut fitted between the leg and gear bay roof.  More antennae, exhaust outlets, the remaining two intakes made early in the build, and a choice of inserts under the cockpit are fitted to the undersides, and a choice of two sensor bundles under the tail are provided, although the arrow showing where they go has been omitted, but it is visible on the profiles centred under the exhaust butted up to a moulded-in fairing on the belly.  Each decal option carries a long refuelling probe on top of the starboard engine nacelle, and although it is on one of the sprues, it isn’t mentioned on the instructions.  The profiles or your references will guide you here, and it is a butt-fit so plenty of test-fitting to find the right location may be needed.  The model itself is complete by this stage, leaving only the weapons and additional fuel tanks to be built.  There are two styles of tank with different tail fins and pylons for under the wings, plus a single tank for under the belly, plus a pair of Rafael Derby and Python 5 air-to-air missiles for engaging the enemy.  The missiles are each made from a single body with two sets of fins and steering vanes moulded-in, and the perpendicular fins separate parts that fit into slots in the body.  There are also other weapons on the sprues for the Red Flag airframe, such as the GBU-49 and the AN/AAQ-28 Litening Pod, but these aren’t shown being built.  The GBU-49s are shown on the instructions for the earlier C2/C7 variant however, which you can find here on Scalemates.  The profiles include painting and stencil information to guide you for all the munitions and pods used in this boxing, making for a nicely detailed weapon load-out.

 

 

Markings

There are three decal options on the busy sheet, which is separated into sections pertinent to each variant, plus common stencils and weapons stenciling.  From the box you can build one of the following:

 

• Kfir CE FAE 905, Escuadron de Combate 2113, Taura Air Force Base, Ecuador, 2006
• Kfir C10(EW) FAC 3056, Escuadron de Combate 111, Palanqueros Air Force Base, Colombia, April 2011
• Kfir C10 FAC 3060, Escuadron de Combate 111, Red Flag 2018 Participant

 

 

 

Decals are designed by FCM Decals and printed by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.

 

 

Conclusion

An attractive boxing of an attractive aircraft in South American service that should build up into a detailed replica.  A few mistakes in the instructions could trip you up, but this review covers most if not all of them, so forewarned is forearmed.

 

As well as being available from Lucky Model in Hong Kong, you can now select UK, USA, Australia, and Malaysia with local shipping when purchasing your model, as Kinetic now have local warehouses in these locations to reduce the postage costs for us modellers.

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of