Special Hobby have announced two new 1:72 kits to appear this month, plus more subjects in preparation. Chief among the latter is the eagerly awaited 1:32 Hawker Tempest due for release this spring.

SH72294 - Mirage F.1CG 1/72
Finely detailed new tooling Mirage model comprises six runners, a clear parts runner and nicely cast detailed resin parts for weapon launchers specific only to Greek Mirage F.1s. The decals are printed by Cartograf and supply markings and full set of stencils allowing the modeller to build a silver-painted anniversary machine, two aircraft in standard Aegean Blue and Silver livery or a machine in "Fantasma" three-colour camouflage scheme.

The Mirage F.1C came to being as a private venture of the French Dassault company. The French Air Force, or the Armée de l´Air, had ordered two prototype aircraft named Mirage F.2 and Mirage F.3 which were to be equipped with a JTF10 engine. However, Dassault built on their own expenses yet another prototype, smaller than the two previous and fitted with an Atar 9K power plant. This machine, which was eventually chosen, took off for its maiden flight on 23 December 1966 and production aircraft were put on strenght of the Armée de l´Air in single-seater fighter version known as the F.1C and two-seater F.1B trainer version. During their service, number of the machines were upgraded by fitting of IFR probes which gave the F-1C-200 version. The French Air Force used also a dedicated reconnaissance and a ground-attack version, designated the F.1CR and CT respectivelly, the latter being converted from F.1-200 machines. In total, 246 of all versions served with the French, the type was exported abroad and enjoyed success with foreign air forces. In Europe, the Greeks and the Spanish flew the Mirage F.1C, in South America there was only a sole operator, the Fuerza Aerea Ecuatoriana, but in Africa and Asia the Mirage F.1C an B were put on strenght of air forces of Gabon, South Africa, Morocco, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar and Kuwait and were used in many clashes around the world, including no-shot combats of Greek pilots against their Turkish adversaries, as well as French military actions in Chad, Ecuadorian over-border skirmishes with Peru, battles of South African Mirages against Angola-based Cuban fighters and the list might end with mentioning the Iran-Iraq war in which the Mirages were used by either side. And even nowadays the type keeps on flying in several countries.

SH72292 - Nomad Mk.I “RCAF, RAF and SAAF Attack Bomber” 1/72
In the 1930s, the Northrop Corporation was the leading company in the field of aviation design, mainly thanks to fenomenal designer John Knudsen „Jack“ Northrop, who had worked for several other companies and had designed for them many of their most famous and successful aircraft. Having established his own firm, he introduced a whole range of all-metal aircraft named with letters of Greek alphabet. To US Army Air Corps requirements he developed an attack bomber aircraft, first version of which, the A-17 had fixed undercarriage and the later version, known as the A-17A was equipped with a retractable one. The first machines of the A-17A type were delivered to the USAAC in the beginning of 1937 and this type´s production was finished in September 1938.

The Northrop Corporation, as a subsidiary of the Douglas Aircraft Co. Inc., became El Segundo Division of the Douglas Company on August 31, 1937. Thus, export versions were designated Douglas DB-8 subsequent to this date. In 1939, following the German attack against Poland, the French Armée de l´Air send a Purchasing Commission to the USA to buy aircraft. Permission was given for the French to buy 93 of the redundant A-17A´s, but by the time the aircraft had been refurbished and re-engined, France had falled and the British Purchasing Commission took up the order. The British named the A-17A the „Nomad“, but it too was deemed to be obsolescent by the RAF and it was never put onto operational duty. Part of the RAF machines were transferred to SAAF training units, thirty-four of the RAF machines were sent to Canada to serve within the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in training and target-towing duties.

Two frames of the model´s styrene parts are accompanied by a clear injected canopy and resin parts of the propeller hub and the long exhaust tube with a heat exchanger. The decal sheet provides for two RCAF machines in highly attractive black and yellow livery (one of the machines can be modelled with two different styles of marking), there are also two RAF planes wearing standard Green and Earth camouflage, first of which was test-flown in the RAE and had its undersurfaces in Sky, while the other had black and white underneath) and finally two SAAF aircraft, one of them in Green and Earth again, the other with its yellow undersurface colour drawn up to middle of the fuselage height.

WE ARE PREPARING:
SH72289 Mirage F.1 CE 1/72
SH72193 Nakajima Ki-43-II Otsu
SH72284 Fouga Magister "Exotic Air Forces" 1/72
SH32049 Tempest Mk.V 1/32

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