+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Israel Aircraft Industries Kfir (Hebrew: כְּפִיר, "Lion Cub") was an Israeli all-weather multirole combat aircraft based on the French Dassault Mirage 5, with Israeli avionics and an Israeli-built version of the General Electric J79 turbojet engine. The project that would ultimately give birth to the Kfir can be traced back to Israel's need for adapting the Dassault Mirage IIIC to the specific requirements of the Israeli Air Force (IAF). The all-weather, delta-winged Mirage IIICJ was the first Mach 2 aircraft acquired by Israel from then-close ally France and constituted the backbone of the IAF during most of the 1960s, until the arrival of the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk and, most importantly, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, by the end of the decade. While the Mirage IIICJ proved to be extremely effective in the air-superiority role, its relatively short range of action imposed some limitations on its usefulness as a ground-attack aircraft.
Thus, in the mid-1960s, at the request of Israel, Dassault Aviation began developing the Mirage 5, a fair-weather, ground-attack version of the Mirage III. Following the suggestions made by the Israelis, advanced avionics located behind the cockpit were removed, allowing the aircraft to increase its fuel-carrying capacity while reducing maintenance costs. By 1968, Dassault had finished production of the 50 Mirage 5Js paid for by Israel, but an arms embargo imposed upon Israel by the French government in 1967 prevented deliveries from taking place. The Israelis replied by producing an unlicensed copy of the Mirage 5, the Nesher, with technical specifications for both the airframe and the engine obtained by Israeli spies.
The Kfir program originated in the quest to develop a more capable version of the IAI Nesher, which was already in series production. After General De Gaulle embargoed the sale of arms to Israel, the IAF feared that it might lose qualitative superiority over its adversaries in the future, which were receiving increasingly advanced Soviet aircraft. The main and most advanced type of aircraft available to the IAF was the Mirage, but a severe problem developed due to the Mirage fleet's depletion due to attrition after the Six-Day War. Domestic production would avoid the problem of the embargo completely; efforts to reverse engineer and reproduce components of the Mirage were aided by Israeli espionage efforts to obtain technical assistance and blueprints from third party Mirage operators.
Changing an aircraft’s powerplant had already been successfully executed in Israel with the French Dassault Super Mystère SM2B. In IDF service, the SM2B had its Atar afterburning engine replaced by a stronger but non-afterburning J52-P-8A engine from the IDF-exclusive A-4H Skyhawk variant, leading to the Sa’ar. A re-engined Kfir represented a very similar project, and two powerplants were initially selected for trials: the General Electric J79 turbojet and the Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan. In the end, the J79 was selected, not least because it was the same engine used on the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, which the Israelis began to acquire from the United States in 1969, along with a license to produce the J79 themselves. The J79 was clearly superior to the original French Atar 09, providing a dry thrust of 49 kN (11,000 lbf) and an afterburning thrust of 83.4 kN (18,750 lbf).
In order to accommodate the new powerplant on the Mirage III's airframe, and to deliver the added cooling required by the J79, the aircraft's rear fuselage was slightly shortened and widened, its air intakes were enlarged, and a large air inlet was installed at the base of the vertical stabilizer, so as to supply the extra cooling needed for the afterburner. The engine itself was encased in a titanium heatshield.
The Kfir entered service with the IDF in 1975, and over the following years, several other squadrons were also equipped with the new aircraft. The role of the Kfir as the IAF's primary air superiority asset was short-lived, as the first F-15 Eagle fighters from the United States were delivered to Israel in 1976 and immediately took over that role. The first basic production variant was the Kfir C.1, of which only 27 examples were produced and which was quickly superseded by the C.2 variant, which had different wings with dogteeth and small fixed canards for better handling, plus some other changes that markedly improved the type’s performance.
The early C.1s were quickly retired from frontline service, but in 1985 25 upgraded Kfir C.1 aircraft (recognizable through retrofitted, highly swept canard strakes on the air intakes) were leased to the US Navy and the US Marines Corps as aggressors for dissimilar aerial combat training and designated F-21A Lion. They served until 1989 and their overall performance matched the Soviet MiG-23, but they were soon replaced by F-5E and F-16N fighters. The F-21As were returned to Israel and mothballed, since the IDF had in the meantime introduced the advanced Kfir C.7 fighter bomber and did not want to operate various versions of the aircraft.
Since the J79 turbojet engine was an U.S. design, although manufactured under license in Israel, all export sales of the Kfir were and are subject to prior approval being granted by the U.S. State Department, a fact that has limited the sale of the Kfir to foreign nations. The F-21As were a special case, since their number was relatively small and the type did not represent the Kfir’s state-of-the-art anymore.
However, when the Estonian Air Force (Õhuvägi) was re-established on 16 December 1991 after the restoration of independence of the Republic of Estonia in 1991, the USA decided to support the nascent nation and its military potential under the “Peace Baltic” program and donated its former aggressor fleet.
Refurbishing the Kfirs as part of the support program and upgrading them to Estonian standards (the latter financed by the Estonian government) took nearly three years, though. The cockpit received a modern HOTAS layout, matching the state-of-the-art Kfir C.7 standard. Avionics were updated, too, with an onboard UAT-40 central computer. This managed most mission-critical systems, integrating navigational data and functions, radar information and display, and weapons targeting and controls.
The most obvious change was the integration of a French Thomson-CSF Agave radar in a redesigned, less pointed nose section with a bigger radome that gave the Kfir a profile that reminded of its interceptor ancestor, the Mirage III. The Agave was operating in X-Band multi-mode radar, with navigation and air combat capabilities with a range of up to 40 NM (~74 km) but optimized for guiding the French air-to-sea AM39 “Exocet” missiles, which were regarded as a vital maritime defensive asset for the young country and procured for the Kfirs, too. Maritime patrol and strike were the Estonian prime missions, plus interceptions upon airspace intrusions on QRA. Another addition to improve survivability was a Sherloc passive radar warning system, integrated into the fin with a slender, box-shaped fairing.
The Estonian Air Force Command and Control Headquarters was formed in Tallinn on 13 April 1994. In the meantime, the German government donated in February 1993 two Let L-410UVPs transport aircraft (former NVA-LSK aircraft). In October 1994 the first modernized Kfirs, now designated F-21B and locally called “Lõvikutsikas (= Lion cub)”, as well as three Mi-2 helicopters, were delivered and followed by four Mi-8s in November 1995. Initially tasked with ground-based air surveillance and air defense using only old Soviet radars and AAA equipment, on 15 May 1997 the Estonian Air Force moved into the former Soviet Su-24 base at Ämari, south of Tallinn.
In the following years the Estonian Air Force slowly rebuilt the military infrastructure left by the Soviet military and made it compatible with NATO standards. Most of the funds were directed to the badly damaged Ämari military airfield which was finally completed in 2011. The objective of developing Ämari Air Base was to cooperate with NATO and partner nations air forces and being able to supply standardized airfield and aircraft services necessary for Host Nation Support, e.g. the multinational Quick Reaction Force for Operation Azotize, NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission. However, due to the lack of modern and developed military aviation infrastructure, the Estonian Air Force's development was very slow.
Lacking funds, the F-21Bs have been soldiering on as the Õhuvägi’s sole supersonic jet fighter, even though the procurement of second-hand F-16s from USAF overstock had been considered. This came to no fuition and in 2020 the small F-21B fleet was still active. By the time it had been reduced to only six operational aircraft, though, after two had been lost over the years through accidents, and the rest had been mothballed and partly used for spares. A replacement is still not in sight, even though F-16s are still at the top of the Estonian wish list, and French Mirage 2000s were considered, too.
General characteristics
Crew: One
Length (incl. pitot): 15.73 m (51 ft 6 1/4 in)
Wingspan: 8.22 m (26 ft 11½ in)
Height: 4.61 m (14 ft 11 3/4 in)
Wing area: 34.8 m² (374.6 sq ft)
Empty weight: 7,285 kg (16,060 lb)
Loaded weight: 11,603 kg (25,580 lb) with two 500 L drop tanks, two AAMs
Max. take-off weight: 16,200 kg (35,715 lb)
Powerplant:
1× General Electric J-79-J1E turbojet (IAl Bedek-built) with a dry thrust of 52.9 kN (11,890 lb st)
and 79.62 kN (17,900 lb st) with afterburner
Performance
Maximum speed: 2,440 km/h (2 Mach, 1,317 knots, 1,516 mph) above 11,000 m (36,000 ft)
Combat radius: 768 km (415 nmi, 477 mi) in ground attack configuration, hi-lo-hi profile,
with seven 500 lb bombs, two AAMs, two 1,300 L drop tanks
Service ceiling: 17,680 m (58,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 233 m/s (45,950 ft/min)
Armament:
2× Rafael-built 30 mm (1.18 in) DEFA 553 cannons, 140 RPG
7× hardpoints under the wings and fuselage for up to 5,775 kg (12,730 lb) of payload
The kit and its assembly:
Another Kfir, I just love the creative potential of this aircraft. And this build is - finally - the last one in a trio of fictional Post-Soviet Baltic air force aircraft (including a Lithuanian MiG-2000 and an Latvian F-5E). The Estonian sibling was inspired by the rather unrelated question: what had become of the F-21As that had served in the United States for a couple of years as aggressors for dissimilar flight training? These apparently were the first Kfirs ever built (almost the entire small C.1 fleet), but after their short use the airframes would certainly still have had some flying hours left, so that they might have found a new use? Potential operators from the period before the millennium that came to my mind were Mexico (Mexico actually wanted to buy 24 Kfirs, but this deal was vetoed by the USA because of the J79 engine), Botswana and Latvia, but I eventually settled for Estonia because I had been wanting to create a modern-day whif for this Baltic country for some time - to complete the whiffy aircraft trio.
There’s only a single OOB Kfir C.1 out there, AFAIK, the venerable Italeri F-21A kit. There are certainly better Kfirs available, but modding a later C.2/7 into the early variant would take some effort. Losing the canards is probably the simpler task, but the wings are very different: they lack the dog tooth and have a Mirage-III-esque simple slot in the leading edge. A wing transplant might do the trick, but this would require a sound donor kit, and I did not want to spend too much money on this project.
The F-21 was mostly built OOB, with its traditional flaws like the poorly fitting cockpit tub (which received widened side consoles, and the seat received elector trigger handles made from wire), sinkholes on the wing root and the complex/jagged seam area between fuselage, air intakes and wings.
I wanted to give the aircraft an update, though, so I decided to provide it with a better radar for maritime strikes in the form of a French Agave multi-role system (used in the Super Étendard, too, and by 1990 not state-of-the-art anymore), which would also make the use as the Exocet ASM as a prime weapon against sea targets and the Kfir’s new role as a defensive strike aircraft plausible. To change the look a little more I also added a radar warning fairing to the fin under the dielectric fin, made from styrene strips.
The ordnance was inspired by the French practice to carry only a single Exocet missile under one Super Étendard wing and a drop tank under the other; the missile came from an Italeri NATO weapons set, the drop tank is the large OOB tank - both just mounted on pylons on the inner underwing stations while the ventral hardpoint was omitted. The outer wing stations thankfully already come with molded AAM launch rails, I just replaced the OOB ACMI pods with modern Sidewinders.
Painting and markings:
The funnier part, and initially I thought about keeping one of the USN/USMC grey-in-grey aggressor paint schemes. But then I rather went for something darker, suitable for low-level operations over the sea, and found Estonia’s (early sole) L-39 Albatros trainer, which carried for some time a disruptive paint scheme in three blue and grey tones (probably FS 36440 or something lighter, 35164 and 35109) with very light grey, almopst white (FS 36622 and/or 36495?) undersides.
Using photos of this singular aircraft as benchmark I designed my own camouflage pattern for the Kfir’s delta wing layout and reduced the colors to just FS 35164 and 35109 from above, while FS 36440 was used as the third upper tone as well as for the uniform undersides. Looks almost decorative, but in the air the scheme appears to be quite effective, esp. against clouds but also over a cluttered underground, as it reall breaks up the aircraft's outlines.
A light black ink washing was applied as well as post-panel-shading with brushes. The cockpit interior became medium grey, the landing gear white, very conservative.
Decals and markings were puzzled together, asp. the Estonian trianglesof relatively small size were hard to procure - they actually belong to a real-world post WWI Sopwith Camel (from two PrintScale sheets to get four of them), and the had the added value of a whote edge that would add contrast to the markings on the grey/blue surfaces. The only other national marking is a fin flash, which had to be painted, though.
Tactical markings are minimal, and I adapted a code style from the Estonian L-39 which looked quite American. Stencils were taken from the Kfir's OOB sheet. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).
A relatively simple whif project (after the long and tedious fight with the V 200/Märklin 3021 conversion), since the model was mostly built OOB with just minor cosmetic changes - just tha radome was added/changed and the ordnance. However, despite its exotic operator, the Estonian Kfir look attractive and purposeful in its subdued yet flashy grey/blue scheme (the blue turned out much brighter than expected!), even though the question how plausible it looks is better left open. :D
