Fouga CM.170 Magister Austrian Air Force

Kinetic, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Mick Evans

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The Magister was the first purpose built two seat trainer aircraft in the world.  It was a very good trainer jet with the French trainer having its first flight in 1952.  Nearly 1000 Magisters were built and many were exported to many countries.  The Magister had a distinctive V tail design.  Development of the Magister came to an end when the French Air Force selected the Alpha Jet as their new jet trainer to succeed the Magister. 

The Israeli Air Force operated a licensed built version, the IAI Tzukit.  While principally a trainer, it was used in the 1967 Six Day War by No 147 Squadron as a close support aircraft, attacking targets on the Egyptian front during the first day of the war, when Israel’s more capable combat aircraft were deployed on Operation Focus against Arab air bases. 

The Belgian Air Force operated 50 Magisters as primary trainers.  The aerobatic team The Red Devils also used them as display aircraft.  A small number of Magisters remained in use until September 2007, as flight maintenance aircraft for senior officers.

This release from Kinetic is a follow on from Kinetic’s earlier release of the Magister.

The only other 1/48 scale Magister of note is the multi-media low pressure moulded Fonderie Miniatures limited run kit.  The FM kit was very basic and required a lot of work and a high level of model skills to build.

The contents of this new release is identical to Kinetic’s earlier release except that the box only contains a single kit and the single decal option included.  Kinetic’s earlier kit contained two kits and multiple decal options.

The box contains 146 light grey injection moulded parts, 14 clear parts and 12 etched metal parts.  The fuselage is constructed from two main parts to which are added the nose cone, wings, intakes, exhausts and V tails.  The intakes contain full ducting back to the engine compressor face and continue with the exhaust ducting from the turbine to the tail pipe outlet.

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The wing detail is great. Separate flaps and ailerons are provided, which can be positioned in the up or down positions.

The wheel wells have a good level of detail.  The nose gear assembly and structure along with the forward bulkhead detail provides a high level of detail to the nose gear bay.  A major plus point is the separate photo-etched metal speed brakes.  On the Magister, the speed brakes are three serrated surfaces that slide out above and below the wing surfaces.

Wheels are provided in typical Kinetic style of separate wheel hubs sandwiched between two tyre halves.

The cockpit has sufficient detail with nicely detailed instrument panels and side consoles.

The transparencies are crystal clear and well moulded. The canopy is broken down into five parts to allow both the instructor's and the trainee's sections to be posed open. If you want to display the canopy closed, a full-length clear part is provided - nice touch.

Alternate rear cockpit bulkheads are provided but there is no reference as to which version uses which bulkhead.  A part numbered C4 containing two oxygen bottles although illustrated has no location identified in the instruction sheet.  A location line is missing pointing to a square locating hole between the front seat and in front of the rear instrument panel.

Alternate nose panels are included.  One has two cannons fitted while the other has the gun troughs blanked.  I presume that either panel may be fitted to any version but once again no information is supplied about this.  The instructions are also confusing around the wing pylon fitment.  Step 6 has you fitting the underwing pylon and then the next step mentions fitting a twin rocket launcher in the same locating hole that the underwing pylons has been fitted to.

The stores supplied for this kit are as follows:

• 2 x underwing pylons

• 2 x dual rocket launchers

• Twin nose cannon

Markings

The scheme provided by Kinetic for this kit as follows:

• Fouga CM.170R Magister, 4D-YL, serial No 359 of the Austrian Air Force. 

This aircraft is all over natural metal with dayglow red tips on the V tail, nose and wingtip drop tanks.

The decals are beautifully printed by Cartograf and colour saturation looks excellent.

In summary, another excellent kit and a big kudos to Kinetic for this release.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Lucky Model for the sample

Review Text Copyright © 2015 by Mick Evans
Images Copyright © 2015 by Brett Green
Page Created 21 September, 2015
Last updated 21 September, 2015

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