IAF Kfir
The IAI Kfir — Israel's indigenously-built delta-wing fighter, derived from the Dassault Mirage 5 — captured as an RC EDF scale model in IAF livery.
About
The IAI Kfir (Hebrew for "lion cub") is the work of Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI, now Israel Aerospace Industries), the state-owned Israeli aerospace company that grew out of the country's need for a domestic fighter capability after France's 1967 arms embargo cut off the Israeli Air Force from continued Mirage III/V deliveries. IAI's solution was to take the Mirage 5 airframe — Israel had received initial deliveries before the embargo — and re-engine it with an American General Electric J79 turbojet (the engine of the F-4 Phantom), with substantial structural and avionics modifications to support the heavier engine.
The Kfir prototype first flew in 1973, and the type entered Israeli Air Force service in 1975. Variants ranged from the original Kfir C.1 to the more advanced C.2 with canard foreplanes (improving low-speed handling) and the export-targeted C.7. The Kfir saw combat with the IAF and was exported to several smaller air forces, including a brief U.S. Navy and Marine Corps lease in the late 1980s for adversary training.
The unmistakable Kfir silhouette — Mirage-derived delta wing, distinctive nose-mounted canards on later variants, ventral fin, and the tall vertical tail — appears in foam and composite RC EDF scale jets at modern fly-ins.
In the simulator
A demanding delta-wing fighter scale subject. Use it for jet pattern flying with the visual signature of one of Israel's most iconic indigenously-built combat aircraft.
