Yesterday Ihappened to wander in to the courtyard of one of the Dublin City Museums and I came face to face with a Fouga Magister on display. I was aware that the Irish airforce had Magisters and although I had found the design to be quite dated over the years, I began some light reading on the plane and it seems to be full of character and history for many countries. While Ihad to stand back outside of a cordon I was able to snap away a few photos at leisure. I thought these might be useful to someone looking for a somewhat unique scale scheme. It seems that this plane was at one time part of the Irish Air corps aerobatic team - the Silver Swallows. There is quite interesting reading on the team here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Swallows AND http://forum.irishmilitaryonline.com...sh-Perspective

I also found this interesting pictorial and walkthrough that gives further details of internal controls and flight characteristics etc:http://www.eaa1000.av.org/pix/fouga/fouga.htm

There also seems to be a few other scheme choices as many countries used the Fouga in operation, some for active service and others for display teams (Belgian Red Devils). A lot of this background can be found at this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fouga_CM.170_Magister

The aspects Ifind most interesting about the Magister are:
* the V tail - kind of a rare design, it gives the Magister a very graceful look when on a shallow banking dive.
* the plane has a periscope - I thought only submarines had those!
* the Fouga has a small (fixed) tail wheel that is only used in the case that the pilot pulls back too hard when rotating!
* there is no ejector seat, the pilot 'hooks on' to a rail in the plane so that if he has to jump out, the static line will pull the rip chord and deploy the chute. Something to remember when disembarking from the plane after landing!
* there is a place in France where you can get a tourist flight in a Magister!
* Magisters at one time were popular for use by display teams so running a smoke system could be considered a scale add on.

There are many more interesting facts available online and in numerous publications but for now I will leave you with some photos of aircraft 216, one of the six Irish Fouga CM.170 Magisters....





































Out of interest, has anyone seen a model Fouga Magister in the Irish Air Corps colour scheme?