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1/48 Kfir intakes too small?


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I've got a couple stalled projects on my bench, both Kinetic; a Mirage-IIIE and a Kfir. Something seemed off about the Kfir compared to numerous saved photos I have of the real thing, and then it hit me. The Kfir's intakes are much smaller than those on the Mirage-III. It should be reversed, should it not, as the J79 needed more airmass than the ATAR? Its noticeable as the underside of the intakes with the cannon ports has to ramp up significantly, bringing the lowest edge of the intake just above the leading edge of the wing, where its mostly level on the Mirage.

"Okay, so now I need to sell my Kin Kfirs and wait for AMK to do another run."
No! I checked a build review of the AMK Kfir and it's intakes have the same shape as the Kinetic kits! And I have several photos of real Kfirs from the F21 through the C10 and the intake shapes definitely place the lower edge of the intake below the leading edge of the wing. See this photo for example.

 

Were AMK just copying off Kinetic but actually putting in the hours with the mold engineering, or is there some legitimate reason for this? And has there been any whisper of anyone doing resin/3D printed corrected intakes? I...am Kinetic's target market, and usually subtle shape issues don't bug me, this isn't subtle.

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This seems to be visual perception. I've compared my AMK Kfir and 1/32 Mirage III and their intake sizes are the same to scale (14.7mm vs 22.05mm). Mirage intake seem to be located a bit lower than Kfir's but it is hard to judje in different scales.

Kinetic part is a tiny bit smaller - 14.5 mm. Maybe with primer, paint and clear coat it will reach AMK size 🙂

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Hi TGT,

Intakes in the Kfir are exactly the same dimensions as in the IIIE. The additional airmass that the J79 engine needs is provided through those four large scoops you see above and below the mid fuselage, and also through the intake in the tail root.

Cheers,

 

Gwen

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11 hours ago, Gwen Phoenix said:

Hi TGT,

Intakes in the Kfir are exactly the same dimensions as in the IIIE. The additional airmass that the J79 engine needs is provided through those four large scoops you see above and below the mid fuselage, and also through the intake in the tail root.

Cheers,

 

Gwen

 

For cooling yes, alot of the literature I've read indicated the Kfir had larger intakes than the Nesher.

 

23 hours ago, Helmsman said:

This seems to be visual perception. I've compared my AMK Kfir and 1/32 Mirage III and their intake sizes are the same to scale (14.7mm vs 22.05mm). Mirage intake seem to be located a bit lower than Kfir's but it is hard to judje in different scales.

Kinetic part is a tiny bit smaller - 14.5 mm. Maybe with primer, paint and clear coat it will reach AMK size 🙂

 

The Kin Kfir intake mics at 14.5mm (x48=696mm) like you indicated. The Kin Mirage-III intake mics at 15.7mm.(x48=753mm) I have a Hasegawa 1/72 kit I picked up a long while back just to walk out of the hobby shop with something, lol. 11.8mm.(x72=849mm) So we've got a bit of a scatterplot here it seems but your 1/32 Mirage is almost-on for what the Kin and AMK Kfirs measure out to. Its just...look at Kfirs on Airliners.net. Then look at the 1/48 Kfirs and tell me something isn't off.

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On 7/16/2022 at 4:43 AM, TheGloriousTachikoma said:

And has there been any whisper of anyone doing resin/3D printed corrected intakes?

The Kinetic Kfir was released nine years ago. My guess is if there was a market for such a correction it would have been done already.

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Well, for what it's worth, the Hasegawa and Italeri 1/72 scale Kfirs look ok-ish.

Not helpfull. I know. I tried looking at the distance between the bottom of the fuselage and the lower intake lip. It seems ok-ish on Kinetic Kfir pics compared to both the Mirage IIIC, IIIE and Kfir pics. The intake upper lip comes very near the canopy. Mk1 eyeball says it looks about right. Perhaps a quick fix would be to add a wedge to the upper intake piece, so the entire intake would be a bit pointed downward? Obviously You'd need to sand the lip to match.

The other explanation would be that the wings are too low. And frankly, that would be my first guess looking at the side pic of the F-21 and some finished Kinetic Kfirs.

https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAI_Kfir#/media/Datoteka:DN-ST-89-01919.JPEG

Or it's just the wing leading edge that's too low. Either way, I feel there should be more downward slope on the underside of the wing, at the wing root. Perhaps someone would be kind enough to post a photo of a finished Kinetic Kfir? I've seen most of them with under intake stores, which obstruct the view.

 

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18 hours ago, Thadeus said:

Well, for what it's worth, the Hasegawa and Italeri 1/72 scale Kfirs look ok-ish.

Not helpfull. I know. I tried looking at the distance between the bottom of the fuselage and the lower intake lip. It seems ok-ish on Kinetic Kfir pics compared to both the Mirage IIIC, IIIE and Kfir pics. The intake upper lip comes very near the canopy. Mk1 eyeball says it looks about right. Perhaps a quick fix would be to add a wedge to the upper intake piece, so the entire intake would be a bit pointed downward? Obviously You'd need to sand the lip to match.

The other explanation would be that the wings are too low. And frankly, that would be my first guess looking at the side pic of the F-21 and some finished Kinetic Kfirs.

https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAI_Kfir#/media/Datoteka:DN-ST-89-01919.JPEG

Or it's just the wing leading edge that's too low. Either way, I feel there should be more downward slope on the underside of the wing, at the wing root. Perhaps someone would be kind enough to post a photo of a finished Kinetic Kfir? I've seen most of them with under intake stores, which obstruct the view.

 

 

I didnt realize images could be directly uoaded here.  There is definitely a difference here. 

 

It might not end up being a big issue. I keep digging and it is sounding like Dassault serruptitiously made most of the Kfir fuselage and wings for IAI in the first place, which lessens my need to choose the Kfir over the Mir3 for this what-if project. 

 

 

20220719_120158.jpg

Edited by TheGloriousTachikoma
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