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First in a new series: Pakistani JF-17 & F-16


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Folks,

I am glad to announce the start of something I had in mind for a long time: the "Global Air Power" series. This will be a series of decal sheets that I plan to keep on regularly releasing, roughly at a rate of once every six weeks.

This series will cover aircraft and countries that are "off the beaten path"; and it will be closely tied to current global political events and conflicts. Many of these subjects will be stuff that many other companies will not even consider. This series will be exclusively available from the Caracal Models web site only. I will be doing each sheet in both 1/72 and 1/48, in fairly limited numbers and absolutely no reprints. As always, they will be silk-screen printed by a high-quality manufacturer such as Microscale, Cartograf and such.

The first sheet in this series will be "CD48010: Global Air Power - 1: Pakistani Air Force JF-17 & F-16". Pakistan has been in the forefront of international politics for a long time, and its stability is critical to peace in the region and the world at large. PAF commands a respectable air power, flying several different blocks of F-16s and the Chinese/Pakistani JF-17 "Thunder" among other types.

Pakistani F-16s have been covered in decal form before, but I am not aware of any decals for operational JF-17s. This aircraft has the potential of being the Mig-21 of the 21st century; offering capability close to F-16 at a fraction of the price. Trumpeter and Bronco make excellent kits of the JF-17 in both 1/48 and 1/72 scale.

The subjects on the sheet will be:

-JF-17 Thunder 16 Sqn "Black Panthers"

-JF-17 Thunder 26 Sqn "Black Spiders"

-F-16A/B 9 Sqn "Griffins" (options for one F-16A and one F-16B)

-F-16A/B 11 Sqn "Arrows" (options for one F-16A and one F-16B)

-F16C/D Block 52+ 5 Sqn "Falcons" (options for one CFT-equipped F-16C and one CFT/spine equipped F-16D Block 52+)

Most of the artwork is already finished, and I will be posting profiles this weekend. As always, let me know what you think and whether you have any suggestions for future sheets in this series.

Edited by KursadA
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Zotz also released some....way back when...as part of the VV#1 sheet...hard to find in 1/48 now. They also only covered the #14 and #11 Squadrons ...and not the new griffins/arrows tail schemes.

Yeah i know but they are impossible to find now :( I´ve tried hard to no avail!

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In order to get attuned to the new Caracal Pakistan AF sheet I show you here a couple of F-16A shots taken at the outstanding Centennial of the Turkish AF Air Show at Izmir-Cigl in June this year. Two F-16A (85726 and 85728)were alternately flown during the rehersals and Air Show

85726.jpg

857281.jpg

85728.jpg

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O.K., here are a couple of JF-17 shots coming. It was the first time I saw these fighters and I was quite impressed by the flying displays. As with the F-16A, two different airplanes were alternately used for training and displays during the airshow. A third JF-17 was in the Static Display.

According to the very friendly PAF pilots and a spokesman, the JF-17 reaches 85% of the F-16 Block 52 in terms of power and manoeuverability. But in overall, the JF-17 has better performance thanks to its superior avionics in the latest configuration, which currently is impelmented in the PAF JF-17 force.

09-112-1.jpg

09-1121.jpg

nose.jpg

10-114-1.jpg

Edited by falcon91352
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  • 1 month later...

Oh for Pete's sake you are going to take all of my money Kursad :) I have a model budget and it will be difficult to spread it to other suppliers if you keep doing stuff like this :D

I picked up the Bronco kit of the JF-17 last year and was wondering what I could do with it since I was not too impressed with the decals.

Edited by skyhawk174
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  • 1 month later...

Here is the final draft of the Pakistani JF-17 sheet (I will release JF-17 and F-16 as two separate sheets, both in 1/48 and 1/72 in *very* limited numbers. This will be available around the end of April.

The next "Global Air Power" subject country will be North Korea. More on that later.

cd48014.jpgjf17draft1.jpg

Edited by KursadA
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Amazing JF-17 Sheet! Can't wait for this one to become available, I've got a Bronco 1/48 JF-17 just gagging for these decals. I hope the *very* limited release won't be too limited. Keep up the great work!

Edited by ESTRO
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  • 5 weeks later...

Is this sheet still on track for end of April? When abouts will pre-ordering start?

I will have the decals back from Microscale on April 24, and will hopefully start selling them within a week. I will set up the product details page and the preorder link sometime later today or tomorrow.

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The JF-17 sheets are here, and they look pretty good to me. I should have the pre-order link up sometime tonight, and start shipping early next week. These are the only accurate decals for JF-17s in actual, operational Pakistani service.

pak_jf1.jpg

pak_jf2.jpg

pak_jf3.jpg

Let's see how the Global Air Power series will work. Hopefully they will be successful, so I can continue the series and release decals for air forces and aircraft that are not likely to be covered by anyone else.

Edited by KursadA
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