RAF Eurofighter Cyclone FGR.2

[CammNut]

In 1981, France got its way and was given the lead in developing a new European combat aircraft, with Dassault heading up the multinational industrial team. France took a controlling 35% share in the European Combat Fighter (ECF) program, the UK 25%, Germany 20%, Italy 12.5% and Spain 7.5%.

This work split worked out well for Dassault, although it had to hold its breath until the merger of British Aerospace and Deutsche Aerospace fell through in 1998 - it would have given them a dominant 45% stake. Germany's DASA did merge with Spain's CASA in 2000, but still held only 27.5%, leaving France in control. But Dassault had to lobby hard behind the scenes to block the proposed merger of EADS and BAE Systems in 2012. It would have given the combined company a controlling stake.

As a result, ECF stayed essentially a French program. French industry took charge of everything. Dassault led the overall program, Dassault Electronics the fly-by-wire system, Thomson-CSF (later Thales) the cockpit avionics, radar and electronic-warfare system, and Matra (later MBDA) the weapons.

The one area French industry did not lead was the engine. With a nod and a wink from Dassault, Rolls-Royce was selected to lead development of a more powerful engine, the EJ200, than the one proposed by Snecma.

In a concession to its partners, France agreed to call the consortium in charge (on paper) of developing the aircraft Eurofighter SA. After further wrangling, the countries agreed to christen the new fighter the Cyclone, which meant the same in French and English. Germany prudently decided to stick with Eurofighter.

But, true to form, Dassault produced a good fighter, and the customer nations were pleased with the resulting Eurofighter Cyclone, an agile multirole combat aircraft. In Royal Air Force service, Cyclones assembled in the UK by BAE eventually replaced the Jaguar and both air-defense and strike variants of the Tornado.





The kit is a 1/72 Sharkit resin model of one of Dassault's pre-Rafale concept studies, the ACT 92C (Avion de Combat Tactique). My kit was nicely molded, with few defects, and it went together simply enough. But care was needed in positioning everything.





I changed the nozzles (which have F404-style curved feathers) to EJ200 nozzles from a Typhoon. I added the infrared sensor from the Typhoon forward of the cockpit, and various lumps and bumps to the inlets and tailbooms for the defensive aids system, a mix of Typhoon's DASS (towed decoys in the boom tips) and Rafale's Spectra.



The kit comes with a flimsy vacform canopy, but the injection-moulded one from a Heller Rafale A kit fits with a little fettling. Landing gear from the Rafale kit also fits, so I used that instead of the resin parts provided. The drop tanks come from Rafale A and C kits and the Storm Shadows, Meteors and Asraams from a Hasegawa European weapons set.





The markings come from a set of RAF Tornado F.3 decals. It's quite a big aircraft - a lot of wing. Here it is with my RAF Hawker P.1214 and BAe EAP-based Royal Navy Seafang.

[PR19_Kit]

What an awesome looking device. 

A superb build indeed, and it goes well with your other two.

[Steel Penguin]

that is top class stuff there 
and as Kit says looks just right with the other 2

[andrewj]

lovely model indeed , all three look great and very plausible.

Andrew

[NARSES2]

Really nice model 

[DogfighterZen]

I like it!

[Captain Canada]

Now that is neat ! Great job on that one. Love the shape and the ords on her. The three together is a great shot !

[Librarian]

Very interesting design...right up my alley at present. Beautifully constructed too . I'll stick with the Rafale though...probably the most gorgeous modern aircraft.

[CammNut]

Thanks folks, this one spent a lot of time during the build flying around my den going "whoosh!"

[kitnut617]

Very nice, have you anymore pics of the P.1214 ?  Got one in my stash to do, along with a P.1216

[KiwiZac]

Oh my! *undoes collar, flutters hand in front of face*

[CammNut]

kitnut - the original P.1214 post is here - British Aerospace Tempest GR.1

http://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php/topic,38069.msg620305.html#msg620305

[kitnut617]

Thanks mate! The P.1214 I have is the Fantastic Plastic kit too, just happens to be the last one they were selling (unless of course Allen Ury has put it back into production)

[Thorvic]

Like the Cyclone a nice build of the Sharkit ACT Kit   

As to the P-1214-3, its a nice build of a bad kit, I'm afraid Allan probably supplied Arnold at Anigrand with the 3-view drawing and the Artwork, but not the photos of the manufacturers model on the same page in BSP:Fighters 1st edition (with the 2nd edition due from Crecy in about 5 weeks I have no idea if the same images will be included or not !). Its apparent from the kit that Anigrand guessed at the shape of the booms as they don't show on the 3 view under the wing, but are quite clear on the model photos the rear upper fuselage is too bended to the wing where it should be more defined and the intake is too boxy.

I scratch built my own many years ago and we did a 2nd especially for Mike McEvoy so I got the feel of the aircraft shapes and could sense that the FP kit wasn't quite right. I also encountered the drawing problem with Anigrand on the P1154 for Freightdog as we were helping with reference material from Dr Mike Pryce (aka Harrier) and found the test shot didn't feel right either, it looked OK on the drawings but Colin found the nose gear bay, wings and intakes slightly off and the section between the nozzle's on the lower fuselage was just wrong, I reshaped that for Colin and sent it back so he could mark up the other changes and shown Arnold what needed correcting along wit the additional drawings and photos they needed to understand the shapes.

Its still a nice build of the kit and most recognise it as a P1214-3 X-wing 

[zenrat]

Looks good.