M-346 “LAVI” – the Israeli school - training aircraft

Alenia Aermacchi M-346 “Master” – a modern Italian training aircraft with limited combat capabilities. The aircraft structure is all-metal, mainly made of aluminum alloys. The first flight of the prototype took place in 2004. In the same year, small series production began. The aircraft is powered by two Honeywell F124 engines, each developing 27.8 kN of thrust. The aircraft has no permanently mounted armament, but can carry weapons, weighing up to 3,000 kilograms on underwing pylons. Initially, the M-346 was developed in collaboration with the Russian Yakovlev company as a light and versatile training aircraft with limited combat capabilities. However, in 2000 cooperation broke down and “Alenia Aermacchi” decided to complete the machine itself. The final version, compared to the original, has a modified fuselage, improved aerodynamic characteristics, other equipment and is powered by Honeywell engines. Currently, 17 countries operate or have ordered these aircraft for their air forces, and about 10 of these countries are already in service: the air forces of Greece, Italy, Israel, Qatar, Poland, Turkmenistan and Singapore. One Polish AF aircraft crashed in 2024, killing the pilot. On July 19, 2012 the Israeli Air Force signed a contract for the delivery of 30 new M-346 "LAVI" training aircraft worth $ 1.1 billion. They were to replace the aging TA-4 "Ahit". The Italian construction was chosen from a relatively small offer: the T-50 "Golden Eagle" and Boeing T-45TS "Goshawk" remained behind. The contract included not only the delivery of the aircraft themselves, but also ground training equipment and systems and a logistics package. And the Italian side has committed to purchase the Israeli-made reconnaissance satellite “OPTSAT-3000” and two “Gulfstream” G550 aircraft of the CAEW (Conformal Airborne Early Warning) version, which are being converted to this version by the “Israel Aerospace Industries” factory. The first machine was presented to the public on March 20, 2014 at a ceremonial handover at the IAF in “Alenia Aermacchi” factory in Upper Venegana. The first two exemplars were delivered on 9th of March 2014, while noting that 7 next will be delivered by the end of 2014, another 15 will reach the customer in 2015, the rest - in 2016, which was fulfilled.

A simple, well-designed and perfectly detailed model, that will suit modelers of any experience. However, we recommend, that advanced beginners and modelers of little experience, working under the supervision of a more experienced colleague, do not rush, work carefully and accurately. The cockpit equipment, transparent windows and the extended landing gear assemble as a test: if it works – GREAT!!! – we make a full model, if it doesn’t work – we will have to be content with a model with opaque windows and the landing gear retracted. The fuselage, cockpit, landing gear, its niches, all the remaining external detailing are perfectly detailed. The visible engine details are minimally detailed; there is an additional fuel tank and two “air-to-air” missiles. The standard camouflage of Israeli AF training aircraft, the appearance of a new aircraft is recreated. There are color reserves, but not many. The textual instruction in Polish is large, detailed and clearly illuminates the entire model assembly process. It perfectly complements the small and, I would think, not quite sufficient for good model assembly, but still informative and easy-to-read graphical instruction.