Kinetic 1/48 Mirage 2000C Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

The Mirage 2000 arose from the French Air Force requirement for a Future Combat Aircraft (ACF) to replace its aging Mirage III. With the defeat of the Mirage F.1 by the General Dynamics F-16 for the NATO tactical fighter requirement, Dassault developed two designs, the twin-engined Super Mirage and a single-engined design based on the Mirage III. The French Air Force turned down the Super Mirage as too costly and development of the single-engined variant ensued and dubbed Mirage 2000.

Development of the Mirage 2000 proceeded very quickly given that the airframe was essentially a Mirage III that was modified to accommodate the SNECMA M53 Super Atar engine and much of the airframe volume used for older avionics and traditional flight control systems were recycled to accommodate advanced fly-by-wire systems as well as state-of-the-art avionics. First flight of the Mirage 2000 was 27 months after program start. In contrast, the P-51 Mustang took only four months, the F-16 about two years, and the X-35 (F-35 prototype) took about four years. The Mirage 2000C has been adopted as the primary interceptor for the French Air Force and Mirage 2000 variants have also been adopted into the air arms of Brazin, Egypt, Greece, India, Peru, Qatar, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates.

Two years ago, Kinetic released the two-seat Mirage 2000 series kit which had the parts to render the 2000B, 2000D, and 2000N variants. Here we have their first single-seat offering with the Mirage 2000C and as with the previous release, this kit is quite nice.

The Mirage 2000 kit is molded in light gray styrene and presented on eight 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
• Positionable canopy

Among the weapons and stores in this release:

• 2 x Magic 1
• 2 x Magic 2
• 4 x MICA
• 2 x wing tanks

This release has eight colorful marking options:

• Mirage 2000-5F, EC 01/002, Souda AB, Crete, French AF, Operation Harmattan, 2011
• Mirage 2000C, EC 03/002, Dijon AB, France, 1985
• Mirage 2000C, EC 02/005, Orange-Caritat AB, France, 2006
• Mirage 2000, EC02/005, Orange-Caritat AB, France, 2008
• Mirage 2000-5, 331 FIS/114 CW, Tanagra AB, Greece
• Mirage 2000EGM3, 332 FIS/114 CW, Tanagra AB, Greece
• Mirage 2000-5EDA, Souda AB, Crete, Qatar AF, Operation United Protector, 2011
• Mirage 2000-9, Decimomannu AB, Italy, UAE AF, Operation United Protector, 2011

These decals are nicely done and include a nice suite of airframe stenciling and weapons markings. Painting instructions are provided using FS equivalents and 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