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Dassault Mirage F.1 kits in 1/72 scale: kit modelling reports
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The second single seat Special Hobby F.1 kit will be finished as a South Africa air force (SAAF) F.1 AZ flown in 1976 era. The full kit of Special Hobby is #SH72435 which is for a SAAF F-1 AZ or F.1 CZ. But I got a Special Hobby "over trees" bagged kit that has all needed parts but no decals. The decals would come from Carpena and other sets.
The kit has a choice of noses as seen on page 1. I made the instructions' "scheme A" with a range finder fairing below the nose for which nose parts #108, 109 are provided. The vertical tail #13 has the small fairing but the wing tips do not have the small antennas so clip these off.
Some sources suggest that the SAAF F.1 AZ had slightly different shaped perforations in the pair of lower air brakes than standard but I could not check this and used the kit parts.
It is indicated in the instructions that upon delivery the SAAF F.1 Mirages got light grey under surfaces' colour FS36375 but later a more blueísh colour. So I airbrushed the latter with a mix of acrylic paints at the lower surfaces and pylons: 75% FS36375 with Gunze Sangyo Mr.Hobby H308 + 25% Gunze H311 acrylics.
The upper colours airbrushed were
- sand Revell 16 Aqua acrylic
- dark green/brown FS34070 Gunze Sangyo Mr.Hobby H304.
(NOTE: the wing tip antennas were clipped off later)
NOTE: drawing seen here is for a CZ, but I made variant AZ.
The SAAF scheme picked is for F.1 AZ "217" as flown by no.1 squadron at Waterkloof in 1985.
The decals came from the CARPENA set 72.02 but I replaced the SAAF national marking "castles" with better printed decals from XTRADECALS set #4.
And I added the red lines on the wing. The peculiar red stripes on the wing-fuselage joints were made with spare decals. (indicated in the SH scheme as 39,40) though not sure these were always applied on SAAF F.1.
The cockpit got the old style MB mk.4 seat (parts #1,14,19,20) though I was not sure what type SAAF used here in 1976.
The model got a central fuel tank and a few dumb 400 kgs bombs set on the wing pylons used during the "border" wars.
Final completion was done as generally described on page 1.
[area: 1,221,000 sq.km | population: 20 million in 1970, 60 million in 2021 | capital: Pretoria | GDP 6,500 USD per capita nominal 2021]
The SAAF Mirage III needed replacement but there was still an arms embargo in the 1970s. The first export customer for the Dassault France F.1 was South Africa. Delivered were from December 1974 some 16 radar equiped F.1 CZ. An additional 32 ground attack F.1 AZ were acquired from March 1976 with last delivery October 1976. The F.1 AZ was simpler variant and had EMD AIDA rangefinder in a lower nose fairing for ground attack missions. The jets were based at Waterkloof and later also at Hoedspruit and forward operating bases as they were used in the various border and bush wars. As there was an arms embargo, local industry like ArmsCor developed chaff and decoy systems. Also a local V3B Kukri AA missile was developed by Kentron that became available in 1981.
The SAAF flew the F.1 until 1997s, and 6 F.1 AZ jets were sold to Gabon and others put in storage.
... at Waterkloof...
The third single seat F.1 similar kit was finished as a French Armee de l'Air model. But the kit now came from Revell Germany that cooperated with Special Hobby and has the same plastic parts.
The Revell Germany F.1C/CT kit was released in 2020 as kit #04971 (so not to be confused with the old Revell release of the Hasegawa moulded kit).
The C or CT variant can be made.
It has decals for 2 French Armee de l'Air jets:
[1] scheme Normandie-Niemen EC 3/5 squadron. Revell suggests the jet to be a F.1C but it is probably a F.1 CT.
[2] EC 1/30 blue-grey scheme:
I made this kit in the EC 3/5 scheme.
Assembly was done as described for the Special Hobby kit, the parts are similar. It also had the refuelling probe. The vertical tail #12 is used that has the CT upgraded rectangular shaped fairings at the leading edge and above the rudder.
Some putty is needed as seen.
The overall colour EC 3/5 of this special scheme was gloss black. After the model had gotten a base grey primer coat, Revell Aqua acrylic paint 07 black was airbrushed. (bit any gloss black will do).
This special scheme appears not to have a lot of stencilling on the wing.
The remainder like landing gear and so on was done as described on page 1 for the Special Hobby kits.
A central fuel tank was set in place on the central pylon and it also has nice markings. No other stores were installed as this jet was shown "clean" during air shows.
Inside the canopy 3 mirrors were installed and the canopy set open.
Final completion was done as generally described on page 1.
F.1 CT, Armee de l'Air, Normandie-Niemen EC 3/5, 260 / 30-QB, in a special livery to remember French Normandie-Niemen pilots participation in Russia during WWII.
(unfortunately the World has changed since than because of the agressive Russian invasion of the Ukraine).
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