COBI Mirage 2000-5 Set 5801

COBI's Mirage 2000-5 is a 1:48 model built from 400 blocks, under original Dassault Aviation licence. The wheels fold, the ailerons move and the cockpit opens for the included pilot figure. A brick display stand with a nameplate is supplied. All markings are printed; no stickers.

Dassault gave up on the delta, then came back to it

The Mirage III was a delta and it sold everywhere. Then Dassault built the Mirage F1 with a conventional swept wing and a tailplane, and that was not a step backwards — it was an admission.

A delta wing is superb above the speed of sound and awkward below it. It lands fast, it bleeds energy in a hard turn, and it needs a long runway. The F1 fixed all of that and was a better aircraft to operate.

Then the Mirage 2000 went straight back to the delta. What had changed was not aerodynamics but electronics: the 2000 was France's first production fly-by-wire fighter, and a computer making corrections dozens of times a second could compensate for everything that made a delta unpleasant. The shape that had been a compromise in 1956 became a pure advantage in 1978.

That is the reason modern fighters are full of shapes that would have been unflyable a generation earlier. The Eurofighter and the Rafale are both deltas for the same reason.

Where it flies

Around 600 were built and sold to France, Brazil, Egypt, Greece, India, Peru, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Taiwan. The 2000-5 is the modernised multi-role standard with RDY radar, MICA missiles and a helmet-mounted sight.

In the COBI range

Set 5917 is the Mirage 2000-5F in French blue-and-white camouflage with the stork emblem. Sets 5818, 5827 and 5930 are the earlier Mirage III, and 5901 the Rafale that replaced it.

Specifications

Pieces: 400 · Figures: 1 pilot · Scale: 1:48 · Licensed by Dassault Aviation · Display stand and nameplate · No stickers