I believe that this is the first non-IAF sheet that Isradecals has produced. The aircraft in question are Kfir C.2s that were leased to the USN/USMC between 1985 and 1989. These aircraft served with two squadrons; VF-43 at Oceana, and VMFT-401 at Yuma. The aircraft were flown in a 'Glop' scheme with VF-43, while the Marines used mostly desert schemes similar to the IAF's F-16 camo and the F-5E's 'Lizard' camouflage. While there were similarities in the patterns, there were enough differences to say that the 25 aircraft leased were not 'cookie cutter' copies of each other.

All of the basic color schemes are provided in the instruction sheet along with the appropriate FS 595 reference numbers. There is also an additional sheet just for the plethora of stencils that were applied to the aircraft. Naturally, IsraCast is offering a new conversion set for this aircraft to use on the Italeri/ESCI kit to make a proper Kfir and I hope to have one soon for review.

One thing that is missing is a definite tie-in of serials, camo schemes and nose numbers for all the fleet. There are four examples provided as part of the camo. All the serials started with 9997, and what the modeler has to do is match up the rest of it from the separate numbers provided.

All in all an excellent sheet and something that I think will do very well, especially as this fills a gap in somewhat modern US fighters from the last quarter century.

August 2005

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