FMA Cavalero

[comrade harps]

An Argentine thing, eh?

OK,

here's the facts:

Take a High Planes Cheetah C, ditch the pathetic wings and replace 'em with ones from a Kfir (Italeri) - creating unfilled, but quite nice gaps between the wings and the fuselage. Use an J-79 afterburner, add wingtip Sidewinder style launch rails (carrying Shafir 2s), a big centreline drop tank, two of those supersonic Mirage 111 wing drop tanks (from a Revell kit) that carry ordnance (a GBU-12 each in this case), with Magics on the underwing outer pylons and a GBU-12 (left) and an Atlas2 laser designator (right) on the under intake pylons. The ventral spine is from the Cheetah C.

Paint it light gull grey with a creamy light grey radome and a light neutral grey triangle for some countershading above and below.

Add Argentine roundels, the grey number 77 and "road runner" art on the under intake pylons .

The result: the FMA Cavalero.

Here's the story:

After producing the Mirage 111E/D and 5 during the 1960s, FMA work with Grumman (Dassault Canada's US licensee) on the Americanise, J-79 powered Lion to produce a Mirage replacement on the production lines at Córdoba.

No sooner than this is in production, a replacement is planned. With the help of Dassault, Grumman and various white technicians who fled black revolutionary South Africa and moved to Argentine, FMA comes up with the Cavalero. Outwardly, this is a streched Mirage 111 fuselage with carnards and a Lion wing. Underneath, though, it is alll new. The Cavalero takes it's name from the Cava "leaky turbojet", a low-bypass turbofan deriviative of the Orenda Atar 9 that had been under development in South Africa until the revolution there, Armscor managing to smuggle a bench test example plus blue prints and a technical team out of the country on an Argentine Navy freighter. (The gaps between the fuselage and the wings are actually inlets to feed the Cava engine.)

Using American avionics, including an export only radar by Texas Instruments (derived from the one they developed for the Tornado, imaginately dubbed the Cavalero Radar) and Grumman fly-by-wire  technology (Grumman having used both Atar and J-79 powered Mirage 111 R&D test beds for developing the basics of the fly-by-wire that went into the F-14), FMA was able to develop a Mirage derivative that was in many ways superior to the Dassault's contemporary Mirage F.1 and F.2.

Dassault's role in the project was largely consigned to making sure that they obtained some legal measure of royalties.

Here's the mission:

Flying with the South American Expeditionary Force - East Africa from it's base in "somewhre in Kenya", the Cavalero's of the FAA's II Escuadrón fly air superioroty and interdiction missions against the Socialist Union's North African stronghold.

Why a Magic and a Shafrir 2?

Well, the Shafir is actually the Python 2. This is an Argentine IR guide AAM, which is a superior dogfight missile as it is connect to a helmet mounted cueing system in the Cavalero. The Canadian Magic, though, has twice the range, so was often used in conjunction with the Python 2.

Other AAMs like the SARH American AIM-7F, the Canadan Skyflash and the Australian ASPIDE (Australian Sparrow Product Improvement Developnment Effort) were all cleared for use with the Cavalero, (the FAA's choice being the Skyflash), but were not often carried when toting bombs due to weight, drag and mission focus considerations.

Sorry, no piccie as yet, but is is real.

By the way, what FMA number might projects likethese Mirages, Lions and Cavaleros have?

gh
aka comrade harps