Many veteran
modelers will remember this interesting (!?) Heller kit from the late 70's-
indeed it is still available in the Squadron catalogue. At the time I made my
first attempt at it, the kit was the only Mirage of any type available in 1/48
scale(1/50? oops, Fujimi recce!). I'd had this kit around for some time-even
tried to sell it; but no takers-most modelers are pretty savvy nowadays! The
plastic is that bluish-colored, almost weightless type that you see
sometimes-and my second example was badly warped both in the wings and fuselage,
but I remained determined to get a better job than my first. This proved to
be an elusive goal even after the 24 years between builds!
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
Even with the use of
the Eduard Detail Set (from 1994) and the re-scribing that I did the, model
really didn't look all that much better than my earlier try. Those who have the
kit will recall that there are two front sections-for the C and 2-seat B ; this
joint was troublesome and coupled with the warpage problems, a lot of filling
and touching up was needed to eliminate the very noticeable 'fault' line.
The Eduard detail helped a bit,
but the Instrument panel-cum-shroud was a bit finicky and the seat harnesses and
handles gave the rather plain seat a better look. But what`s really required is
a resin cockpit and seat. The main decaling comes from an old MicroScale sheet
48-128 International Mirages; most of the stenciling came from the kit sheet. In
Jean-Pierre Decock's MIRAGE (Warbirds Illustrated A&A Press, 1985) there is
a nice flying shot of '10-LL', EC 3/10 'Vexin' over Djibouti (formerly French
Somalia) which was the inspiration for this project. But sometimes things don't
turn out the way you imagine. So, new Eduard III C kit, here I come! P.S. I
tried to breath a little more life into my Mirage with several Adobe PhotoShop 7
composite images. Oh yes, and about the airbrakes-cutting them out is a fool's
errand. I know because I did it!
Bob
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
|
|