Kinetic 1/48 Mirage 2000-5 Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

The Mirage 2000C entered service in the early 1980s but were quickly becoming outdated in comparison to updated airframes like the F-16C. Dassault developed an improved Mirage 2000 series incorporating improved avionics, night vision compatibility, glass cockpit, HOTAS flight controls, and more. This new configuration, designated Mirage 2000-5, began production in the early 1990s or as refits/upgrades to existing aircraft. Not stopping there, Dassault continued working with new capabilities including helmet-mounted displays, targeting pods, newer radars, GPS navigation, OBOGS, and other subsystems. These improvements are being integrated as the Mirage 2000-5 Mark 2.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) selected the Mirage 2000-5 as their next fighter in 1992, though these aircraft designated Mirage 2000-5EI were delivered without air refueling or air-to-ground capabilities. The first examples arrived in 1998 and reached operational readiness by 2001, but the aircraft has been plagued with engine and reliability problems which nearly resulted in the fleet's grounding in 2009.

Three years ago, Kinetic released the two-seat Mirage 2000 series kit which had the parts to render the 2000B, 2000D, and 2000N variants. This was followed by the Mirage 2000C released last year. Here we have the next single-seat variant with the Mirage 2000-5 and as with the previous releases, this kit is quite nice.

The Mirage 2000 kit is molded in light gray styrene and presented on eleven parts trees (duplicate trees not shown), plus a single tree of clear parts.

Among the features of the kit:

• Nicely detailed cockpit
• Separately molded tires and wheel hubs for easy painting
• Positionable flight control surfaces (except rudder)
• Choice of open or closed afterburner nozzle
• Choice of original or lightning discharge updated radomes
• Positionable canopy
• Optional Harlan tow tractor and tow bar

Among the weapons and stores in this release:

• 2 x Magic 1
• 2 x Magic 2
• 4 x MICA
• Choice of 2 x standard wing tanks or 2 x Mirage 2000N enlarged fuel tanks

This release has an extensive set of airframe maintenance stenciling, national markings, and modular serial numbers to render aircraft numbers 2001-2048. Painting instructions are provided using GSI (Gunze) paints.

This is another very nice release from Kinetic and easily tops Heller's kit as the best Mirage 2000 in any scale. This kit is definitely recommended!

My sincere thanks to Lucky Model for this review sample!

References:

• Mirage 2000 Online Reference