Special Hobby 1/72 72291 Mirage F.1 B/BE Jet Fighter Aircraft Plastic Kit
This nicely detailed model of the two-seat Mirage F.1B/BE is now re-released and once again back on offer. The kit parts are broken down to seven sprues, one clear sprue, the kit also contains a set of resin details portraying Spanish-specific parts as the differing missile racks or flare dispensers. The Cartograf-printed decal sheet caters for two French-operated airframes, both of with are blue grey on top and aluminum beneath with colourful trim, the third colour option being a Spanish Mirage wearing four-tone scheme with fancy tiger stripes.
The Mirage F.1 came about as a private venture by the French Dassault company. The Armée de l´Air had ordered the build of two prototypes the Mirage F. and F.3 powered with a JTF10 engine. Dassault, however, designed and built one more airframe, smaller than the officially ordered airframes and fitted with the Atar 9K powerplant. The first flight of the Mirage F.1 took place on 23rd December 1966 and production aircraft entered servicewith the French military as the F.1C single seat fighter and F.1B two seater training versions. During their service with France a number of these aircraft were upgraded by fitting of IFR probes which resulted in the designation F.1C-200. The air force also flew dedicated recce and ground-attack versions of the F.1 designated respectively the F.1CR and F.1CT, the latter being converted from the earlier F.1C-200 airframes. A total of 246 Mirage F.1s of all versions served with the French and Dassault also tried to offer the aircraft with a more powerful engine to Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. These countries chose the F-16 instead and the F.1E version remained only as a prototype. Nevertheless, the F.1 was exported successfully further afield. In Europe, the F.1 flew with Spain and Greece, in South America, the Mirage saw service with Ecuador, but both in Africa and Asia, the F.1 airframes were widely used, namely with Gabon, South Africa, Morocco, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait. Flying with these air forces, the famous Mirage F.1 saw service and even hot combat action around the world, including mock fights over the Aegean between Greek´s F.1s and Turkish jets, French aircraft were deployed and used over Chad, Ecuadorian Mirages were put in combat against Peru, South African aircraft successfuly fought Angola-Based Cuban MiG jets and during in the Middle East, Mirages even fought on both sides of the conflict between Iraq and Iran.