The Kfir Cys'oon

[glorious.tachikoma]

The first project of my fictional canon posted.

In the late 60's, a colony ship from an alien world crash landed on Earth. The warp bubble collapsed too soon and the cargo hold of their ship was destroyed, leaving the armored inner hull carrying one million refugees fleeing the destruction of their homeworld from a dying sun. These aliens emerged from cryo stasis with little more then the clothes and effects in the drawers under their pods. These new residents of Earth have to restart their civilization from the point of human tech in 1968.

Great Britain donated the upper third of Uganda, and the USA helped wrangle a deal to get them some land on the south side of the harbor in Mombasa, Kenya to get them ocean port access. Being economic and political allies with the west put them at odds with a persistent cooperative Soviet and Sino empire.

The USA rushed through a military aid deal which saw the aliens in possession of a squadron of shiny new F-4E's to repel the aggression from a Soviet-backed Sudan. While adequate for the time, the pilots were ultimately dissatisfied with the planes and missiles.

In the early 70's, a kinship alliance had formed with Israel, who were selling the aliens Shafir-II missiles and helping them make the most of the F-4. By that point, their fledgling economy had grown sufficient they could afford to issue a tender for an additional squadron of fighters to compliment the F-4s. While Northrop, Dassault, Saab, Vought, and Lockheed (who were laughed out of the embassy) all submitted promising proposals, military leadership wanted to buy into IAI's development of a J79-engined Nesher to simplify the maintenance stream of having two dissimilar fighters on the ramp of their airbase.

Even if they didn't have access to advanced computers to simulate aerodynamics, the alien engineers were able to offer improvements to the Kfir based on existing knowledge of flight. The wing was reprofiled to shift the center of lift forward. Leading edge extensions would help generate vortices and wingtip launch rails acted as wing fences. The aliens expected to have a fly-by-wire module ready by the time production was reached, so the airframe was designed to allow the J79 to be shifted aft twelve inches to destabilize the aircraft in flight. Provisions were ensured to equip a radar and a semi-conformally mount a pair of Sparrow-class missiles. The end result was a fighter that was still mach-2 capable and would not be dethroned as the most maneuverable fighter in production until the F-16 was introduced. The name "Cys'oon" has ancient roots in the aliens' language as the noun "arrowhead".

This started out as the Kinetic Kfir. Its not as good as the AMK and they cost the same, so don't buy it until Kinetic bring the C10 kit to market. I wanted to replicate the C10 nose, but have done better; what I built looks almost like the Cheetah-C nose. I cut down the existing Kfir C2 nose to act as a base. The radome is a Hasegawa F-16 370gal wing tank cut a few mm ahead of the fill port and then split and thickened a few mm. After I get the wings sorted, I plan to buy materials to reproduce the nose and wings in resin as I want a few of these things. There will also be a future naval variant.

The wings are ten-thou styrene sheet carefully glued and sanded to shape. It also seemed like the path that involved the least sanding. I might just invest in the equipment to 3D scan parts and a resin printer, that remains to be seen.

Please forgive me for the atrocious state of my work bench.

[Dizzyfugu]

The wing shape looks cool. 

[PR19_Kit]

Looks like a pretty normal work bench to me............. 

Oh yeah, and a very promising build too. 

[Gondor]

That's an almost tidy work bench as far as I am concerned. Nice looking build as mentioned above 

Gondor

[Dizzyfugu]

To me the workstation looks pretyt tidy. My surgery tends to look more messy... 

[glorious.tachikoma]

Thanks for the encouragement ^_^. The hardest part is getting the wings symmetrical. A co-worker bought the F-21/C1 version of the kit and I might end up asking him for the wings he won't use to re-do this by gluing heavier styrene directly to the leading edges and building up layers of thin strips to achieve a more symmetrical look. At the very least this exercise has taught me the probable wrong way to do it, and that my idea turned out as good as I was hoping. I'd love to figure out a way to mold a LERX onto the intakes without needing to cast such a large hollow part.

Also the wingtip rails are looking good too, pics when those are mounted. I have...lots of Kinetic F-16s so I am awash with the older F-16 launch rails to use. The semi conformal Sparrow mounts are next and I need to figure out where the ejection chutes for the DEFAs are located. The Sparrows have already obviated any other centerline stores, they can't also prohibit firing of the gun. What is this, the MiG-29? 

[Wardukw]

Two rules i live by concerning my work area.
A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind
and a old clissic..
Lets organise this thing and take all of the fun out of it.

[DogfighterZen]

This is looking very promising... 

[Scotaidh]

Looking very good so far!   

I've always been a fan of the Kfir - it's my second favourite aircraft, right after the Harrier - and I like what you're doing with it. 

I'm also a huge sci-fai fan, and your backstory resonates with me. 

Keep up the good work!   

[Tophe]

Is the cockpit size and seat good for an alien?
They could be like humans of our size, or they could be 10 times bigger octopuses, or 20 times smaller dogs, or immaterial waves, or else, no?
(I have smiled seeing the film "planet of the apes": on a supposed other planet, the leading monkeys were speaking English, without surprising the Earth astronauts... maybe educated with an English Bible so thinking this is the language of the Universe)

[glorious.tachikoma]

This project stalled, and here is the resultant flow of things:

- Decided I wanted to 3D print the parts instead.
- Realized the work involved in designing parts that would fit.
- Came to hate the shape of the wings I made.
- Realized that the MirIII looked better, was in a 2-seater with no major kit surgery required, fit the timeline better.
- Bought Kinetic's single-seat Mirage IIIE kit and found out its detail and fit was so bad it makes the Kfir look like a Tamiya product.
- Found out the Kfir and Mirage wings are different and not interchangeable.
- Still made a larger nosecone for a larger radar and avionics
- Found good images of Atlas's test wings on the Cheetah D/E/R, decided wingtip missile rails were not as important as first thought.
- Figured the Mirage F1 made an overall on-paper better candidate and KH's kits were fiddly, but workable, and came with a boatload of cool stores.
- Found out the KH single seat F1 is OOS everywhere.
- Found out that KH went out of business and I refuse to pay Tamiya F-14 money for a mediocre model smaller than a F-16.
- Out of desperation ordered an Italeri Mirage F1 and found out Italeri is committing a felony by charging $60 msrp for that old poo-poo (with an english accent) mold.
- Kinetic's Kfir C10 came up for pre-order on LM, rejuvinated my enthusia for the Kfir.

     Thus my roundabout journey back to the starting point. I figure my next move is to try to see how parts-economically I can replicate the Cheetah-R's wings. That design just continued the leading edge curl in the same sweep as the dogtooth, but met the original wing root with a F16XL/Viggen/Tejas cranked shoulder. And I asked LM/Kinetic if I could buy the CAD files to some of the kit parts...I mean I predicted a "no" but it didn't hurt to ask. 

Looking very good so far!   
I've always been a fan of the Kfir - it's my second favourite aircraft, right after the Harrier - and I like what you're doing with it. 
I'm also a huge sci-fai fan, and your backstory resonates with me. 
Keep up the good work!

Thanks, I love the evolution of the Kfir. Old obsolescent fighter continually updated to remain relevant through the years. I'm glad you liked the backstory.

Is the cockpit size and seat good for an alien?
They could be like humans of our size, or they could be 10 times bigger octopuses, or 20 times smaller dogs, or immaterial waves, or else, no?
(I have smiled seeing the film "planet of the apes": on a supposed other planet, the leading monkeys were speaking English, without surprising the Earth astronauts... maybe educated with an English Bible so thinking this is the language of the Universe)

They're humanoid biped reptiles and their home planet was roughly Earth size. The ejection seats have to be modified to accommodate a tail that is generally 70% the thickness of their thighs.

[Tophe]

They're humanoid biped reptiles and their home planet was roughly Earth size. The ejection seats have to be modified to accommodate a tail that is generally 70% the thickness of their thighs.

Thanks for this explanation!