INCOMING FIGHTING FRENCH BEAUTY - 1:48 SCALE MIRAGE F1B FROM KITTY HAWK

SMN REPORT
It’s taken a while, but at last the latest Kitty Hawk Models 1:48 aircraft kit is coming. It’s another tasty and unusual choice from this US manufacturer, a Dassault Mirage F1 swept-wing attack jet.


The Kitty Hawk Mirage F1 is an all-new tool 1:48 scale kit that, judging from these computer drawings, is going to be a knockout in terms of accuracy. Cockpit detail should be a new high for any kit of the French machine, while panel and surface detail should be well engineered too.

Details
Wheel wells and landing gear are intricately detailed, as are the engine intakes and nozzle. Drooped slats, flaps, and an air-to-air refuelling probe are included.

Weapon fit
The Mirage F1 is a warfighter, so combat ordnance is well provided for, with - as revealed by these CAD images - wingtip Matra R550 Magic air-to-air missiles, underwing Matra Super 530 missiles, ECM pods, and an underbelly fuel tank. The Mirage F1 can also be configured to carry an Exocet anti-ship missile, which would be a bonus if one happens to be in the box.

Completed size
When completed, the Kitty Hawk Mirage F1 will measure some 318mm (12.5in) long, with a wingspan of just under 177 mm (7in). The kit on sale right now is the F1B two-seater version, so we’ll expect other variants to follow.

The real thing
The swept-wing F1 evolved from Dassault’s classic Mirage III delta design, though it looks utterly different, with a shoulder wing and conventional tailplane. First flown in 1966, the aircraft is still in service with the air arms of some eight countries, though France is down to a single squadron, recently in action in the ongoing Operation Serval in Mali.

Hobby Link Japan are taking orders for the F1B two-seater, with 10 percent off.

Other Mirage F1 kits, including the 1:48 scale F1C single-seater from Italeri, available here.

KITTY HAWK LOCKHEED F-94C STARFIRE TO 1:48 SCALE

SMN REPORT
Kitty Hawk is a newish model company, with a limited range of kits on sale. The company motto states, ‘the finest military miniatures’, so our question is, do Kitty Hawk kits match up to that promise?

We looked at the first kit that Kitty Hawk produced, a 1:48 scale Lockheed F-94C Starfire to see what it was like.

Rocket defender
First of all, the choice of subject is interestingly unusual, and as lovers of early jets, we found the Starfire to be a draw, its design featuring a Pinocchio-style nose radome and a gun-less weapon system consisting of multiple Mighty Mouse folding-fin rockets, fired from pop-out launch tubes (above).

Fire all!
These rockets were widely used on NATO interceptors of the time, though it was just as well they weren’t needed in an East-West shooting war, for they were hardly leading-edge where accuracy was concerned. Firing a two-dozen volley of not-so-Mighty Mice was somewhat akin to pulling the trigger of an old-fashioned blunderbuss loaded with nails - they spread out after launch and in a few seconds could cover an area the size of a football field.

New vs old kits
Back to Kitty Hawk, and the kit: what’s it like? Opening the box reveals a wealth of parts, all neatly packed and cleanly moulded, and the 1:48 scale means the two-seater is a decent size, too. Plus of course, previous F-94C kits have not been exactly excellent - the early Revell kit was fit-the-box scale, the 1:48 scale Lindberg kit had an inaccurately blunt radome, while the Collect-Air kit was much better, but being resin, was best suited for fairly advanced modellers. So this Kitty Hawk model sits for the time being in a field of one.

Model Club comments
As for putting the kit together, we probably cannot put it more succinctly than the UK’s West Middlesex Scale Model Club, which says: “...a very good build with lots of fine detail” and: “The decals used are the supplied ones, which are excellent.” Praise indeed, though it’s worth pointing out that the decals are very thin, so you need to take extra care when applying them.

Summation
So, to answer the original question, is this kit the finest? Well it's certainly the best F-94C out there, though there's no real competition. Judged against its peers, the Kitty Hawk F-94C still stacks up well, assembling into a very good 1:48 scale model of a Cold War interceptor jet. We’re now looking forward to getting to building Kitty Hawk’s Lockheed Martin F-35B to the same scale.

Picture of the built-up Kitty Hawk F-94C, courtesy the West Middlesex Scale Model Club. Do visit, as there are plenty of beautifully-built models on display there.

Visit Kitty Hawk's website here, though there's not too much to see. The company seems concerned with developing kits, rather than letting the world know about them.

AT LAST - F-35 LIGHTNING II SCALE MODEL APPROACHING

SMN REPORT:

Newcomer kit-maker Kitty Hawk Models has already received praise for its excellent inaugural model, the 1:48 scale Lockheed F-94C Starfire. And now here’s a really badly needed subject to the same scale, the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II.

Expensive bird

The real thing, known as the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) has had a chequered development, with massive cost overruns on the way (nothing new there, then) but it’s starting to get past those development problems now, with the STOVL (Short Takeoff, Vertical Land) ‘B’ version the subject of this kit by Kitty Hawk.

Picture story

We’ll let the pix tell the story of this Kitty Hawk model - suffice to say that we’ll be first on the block to fly this kit into the assembly zone at SMN Towers.

Testing in the tunnel

Here’s a real-world model in the form of a scale F-35 built for wind tunnel research. In the pic below, engineer Tim Wright examines an F-35 LIghtning II Joint Strike Fighter model in the Arnold Engineering Development Center's 16-foot transonic wind tunnel at Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee. The information from testing will go into a database to refine and validate the aircraft designs for flight testing.

Approaching kit

So we’re just waiting now for the Kitty Hawk release - it's due soon. Here’s a lineup of development pix released by manufacturer Lockheed Martin - you'll note that there's plenty of opportunity to OD in the detail-up and weathering departments!

Wind tunnel pic courtesy US Air Force/David Housch.

Other pix courtesy Kitty Hawk Models and USAF, USMC, USN.