AeroSinai IFC

[upnorth]

Hello all:

Those of you who've been following my "Austria Divided" alternate history thread into it's most recent developments will be familiar with the divided Isreal sub plot that has grown within it.

If you haven't been following it; very simply put, Israel plunges into civil war in the 70s and ultimately splits into a north and south half. The south half renames itself the North Sinai Protectorate (eventually to become a republic) and begins to prosper with the help of a good deal of international help and investment. Meanwhile, the north remains war torn.

AeroSinai, based at Elat was created shortly after the split after Elta and IAI merged their assets and moved into the south just before the split was made official.

In the mid 1980s, AeroSinai designers created a mock-up of their proposed design for an Indigenous Fighter Concept, or IFC as it came to be known to most. The IFC was designed in response to the uncertainties and controversies surrounding the sale of Panavia Tornados to North Sinai.

Ultimately, the Tornado sale went through and the IFC was cancelled at the mock-up stage. By most accounts of people who saw the official unveiling of the IFC mock-up just before the 1986 Beersheba Air Festival, the aircraft looked like the offspring of a Mirage F.1 and a Sepecat Jaguar with a touch of Tornado thrown in.

Like the Tornado, the IFC was designed around the MRCA premise and was intended to exist in BVR interceptor, tactical strike and recce variations.

[upnorth]

I've started bringing together the components for my IFC model. I picked up the Airfix 1/72 Mirage F.1 and Hasegawa 1/72 Jaguar and plan to have pretty much everything for the build come exclusively from those two kits.

The difficult part was deciding where Jaguar should end and F.1 should begin (or vice versa) I wanted the lineage of both to show in the finished product, but want something better than a roughly cobbled together "Frankenfighter"

These four photos show you the general arrangement as I have it so far:






As the Jaguar came with the forward fuselage separate, I decided it was best to use the Jag for the mid and rear fuselage and try to tailor the F.1 forward fuselage to fit. this also created the situation where the nose and main landing gear could be a mix from both planes rather than concretely one or the other.

I also removed the spine from the Jaguar and filled the gap with scrap styrene to minimise actual putty usage.

I opted for the F.1's wings so that I could put wing tip missle rails on them and have something mid fuselage to throw the Jaguar look a bit. The horizontal tails will be from the Jag, but the vertical fin will come from the F.1.

After test matching the F.1 forward fuselage to the Jaguar's, I found the Jag was a tiny bit wider and deeper than the Mirage. The gap between the fuselages that you see is where a spacer will be put to ease the connection of the two and negate any clumsy looking steps in the join.

I decided the mock-up would have the Mirage's DEFA cannons and removed the Jaguar's cannon fairings and prepared the resultant openings for filling

Other things that will occur:

Jaguar intakes will be retailored to resemble Tornado intakes

Jaguar speed brakes will be deleted and different speed brakes will be scribed at a yet to be determined alternate position

National markings for the North Sinai Armed Services (NSAS) will be created as I intend the mock-up to represent an operational aircraft rather than in some company house scheme

I'll certainly make some other determinations along the way.


I have no set completion time for this project, but I do plan to post pics of the progress every so often for feedback.


As always, I'm wide open to all comments and suggestions

Incidentally, the model is 1/72 and the batteries holding up the wings are AA size to give you some sense of scale.

[ysi_maniac]

This can result in a very elegant plane!
BTW: think that the remains can make for another nice whiff

[Brian da Basher]

I have a feeling this one's gonna be well worth watching!

I especially like those seriously powerful looking wingtip engines!

Brian da Basher

[upnorth]

I especially like those seriously powerful looking wingtip engines!

Thanks for the comments guys.

I can't promise fast or regular progress updates, but any significant progress will be posted in due course.

I am still working on:
divided Austria story......
East Austrian Steyr MiG-15 variant.....
West Austrian Mustang...
North Sinai national flag and insignis design...

You get the picture, I'm sure

[Thiel]

I have a feeling this one's gonna be well worth watching!

I especially like those seriously powerful looking wingtip engines!

Brian da Basher

Na, those are obviously wing tanks for the electrically driven engine.