History

First flown in June 1973, the Kfir C1 was in essence the airframe of the Mirage III/V series with the General Electric J79 afterburning turbojet and a host of Israeli electronics fitted. The Kfir C1 entered service in only a limited amount totalling 27 aircraft.

Kfir C1 fighters with small canards and no weapons were delivered to the US Navy and US marine Corp as aggressor aircraft for dissimilar air combat training.

In the box

This release shares a majority of the parts of the earlier C2/C7 release (reviewed here by Tim Hatton), but a new K sprue holding new upper wing sections, intakes, canards and various other small parts is supplied. The wing sections are without the dogtooth leading edge, which the C2/C7 has.

The kit contains nine light grey plastic sprues, one clear sprue, a small photo etch sheet, a set of instructions, a full colour painting and decaling guide and one sheet of decals, all packed into the familiar top opening box.

Exterior wise very fine recessed panel lines adorn the kit, and no imperfections in the plastic are found.

The aircraft can be modelled with the canopy open or closed; the flaps can be positioned, open or closed main wing airbrakes, and positionable elevons.
The interior has some very nice details, with a nice representation of the bang seat, but there is no harness’s supplied. The instrument and side panels have raised details, but are a little soft. No decals are supplied for the dials so the old fashioned way of painting them will have to be done lol.

The main wheel wells have very little detail moulded onto the bay floors but the doors do have moulded on detail, which will add to the look of the kit.
The nose wheel bay does have a very busy look to the interior, with various pipes and servos found on the floor and sidewalls. The doors also have detail moulded onto them.

The undercarriage is well detailed with moulded on oleos for the main wheel struts and the nose wheel with several parts to be added.
The wheels themselves have separate hubs and tyres, so painting these should be easier.

The intakes have a internal duct ending in a fan, whilst the rear end has a pretty good rendition of the jet exhaust, complete with an afterburner ring set into the pipe. A nice looking J29 nozzle completes the rear of the aircraft.

As stated earlier this is a basically a re-box of the Kfir C2/C7 already released with a new sprue added., The new K sprue holds a new upper wing section. The wing doesn’t have the dogtooth leading edges the later version possesses. The sprue also holds a new instrument panel.

A new nose for the C1/F-21, and intakes without the mounting ridges for the bigger canards found on the later versions. Two small holes mount the smaller canards on the new intakes.

A new chaff, flare dispenser and camera parts for the rear fuselage is also supplied.
Gun trough blanks are supplied for the F-21 version, but there isn’t any mention in the instructions whether these parts should be used if you are building the C1 version.

External stores for the aircraft are
2 x Python 3 AAM’s
2 x Griffin Bombs (not use by the Israeli’s)
2 x under wing fuel tanks
1 x centreline fuel tank
1 x ALQ-188 pod.

The clear parts are thin, and distortion free.
The rivet detail for the frames on the front screen is quite impressive. The canopy can be modelled open or closed.

The small Photo Etch fret holds the reinforcing strips that go above and below the canards to represent the reinforcing strips on the full size aircraft. Four metal strips are supplied, but looking at the instructions only two are needed.

Instructions

The instructions are printed in an A4 size booklet. The drawings are the black on white line drawings, with the build sequence over eight stages.

Internal colours are given throughout with a colour chart for Vallejo, ModelAir, Mr Color and Italeri’s acrylic paints given.

There is a couple of discrepancies in the instructions, the rear bulkhead on stage 1 shows it made up of three parts, but this is not used as a one piece bulkhead is used instead, which is shown on stage four.

The drawing of the fixing of the upper wing sections actually shows the dogtooth wing section, instead of the newer wing. Later stages do show the new wing in the drawings.

New gun trough blanks are shown for the F-21 but no mention of the fitting the standard gun troughs for the C1 version.

Python 3 missiles are supplied but I am not sure these were actually used on the C1?

Options for the external armament are basic, with the aircraft only having the fuel tanks and the Python 3 missiles to be added.

The ALQ-188 pod was only used on the F-21 along with a ACMI pod, which doesn’t come with the kit, but the instructions don’t show the assembly or fixing the ALQ pod.

Decals and markings

The decals are printed by Cartograph, and have been designed by IsraCast. As you would expect from Cartograph, the decals are in register, thin and have little carrier film around the edges.

A good set of aircraft and weapon stencils are supplied on the sheet.
Three schemes are supplied,

• Kfir C1 - number 710 ‘The Valley' squadron, Ramat-David AF Base, 1980
3 tone scheme of FS30219 Tan, FS34227 Light Green, and FS33531 Sand upper surfaces and FS35622 Light Blue under surfaces. The aircraft has the large yellow and black identification triangles painted on the fin, wing upper and lower surfaces. These are supplied as decals.

• Kfir C1 - number 727 ‘The Valley' squadron, Ramat-David AF Base, 1983
3 tone scheme of FS30219 Tan, FS34227 Light Green, and FS33531 Sand upper surfaces and FS35622 Light Blue under surfaces. The aircraft has the large yellow and black identification triangles painted on the wing upper and lower surfaces.

• F-21A Kfir - number 06 of VMFT of the US Marine Corps based at Yuma Air Station, 1985.
This aircraft is painted a 3 tone grey wrap-around scheme of FS36251, FS35237 and FS37307.
The paint guide is a A4 size full colour sheet of the aircraft in 4 profiles, with the FS numbers supplied.

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