1/48 Dassault Mirage IIIO - No. 75 Squadron RAAF

Prior to building this kit I wasn't that interested in the Mirage but after finishing it the aircraft has definitely grown on me.

I built this kit as part of three way build off with a two mates  people I know.  You can see one of the others here. The other guy hasn't finished yet but I'll update this blog enty if ever  does.

Whilst finishing the kit was the ultimate goal the process of building it would  provide another yet another opportunity to take the psis out of each other. 

We decided on the Aussie Mirage as the RAAF operated the aircraft for about 25 years and hence pretty popular. My build has been finished in the most common paint scheme and is depicted as a aircraft operated  by No. 75 Squadron RAAF in the late 1970's. I've gone for a well weathered finish  trying to simulate an aircraft that has spent a lot of time operating in the tropics.

The Kit

• Kinetic 1/48 Mirage IIIE/O/R/RD/EE/EA Kt No 48050
  
  
  
  
  
  This kit is not the easiest kit to build.  You need to take a fair bit of time to clean up most parts and dry fit it before committing to glue. The areas that need to most work are the wing to fuselage join, the intakes an underside where the lower wing assembly. There is a link to some build threads below.

Aftermarket

• Eduard Mirage IIIE PE set.
  
  One of the issues I've found with both Kinetic kits I've built to date is that the design of the cockpits means that there is no drop in aftermarket seat. Hence I've had to utilise PE to detail the seat.
  
  And whilst not accurate for the Mirage IIIO the dark small cockpit means not much will be seen. The coloured PE set provides a pretty simple and quick up.

• Hasegawa Weapons Set A Mk 82 Low Drag bombs.

Decals

• Carcal decals.
  
  
  Although printed by Cartograph I only used the fin flash from this sheet as the colours of the roundels, in particular the blue, looked far to "bright". Some of the fin flash colours for some of the options didn't match the images I looked at either.
  
  
• Kit Decals
  
  
  Kinetic have their decals printed by Cartograph so you know they will perform well. The RAAF option in the box is for a silver aircraft but fortunately the roundel and stencils are the same as for the three tone colour scheme. Kinetics colours for the roundels and stencils look much better than the Caracal ones so I used them.

Paints

• Mr Color Lacquers for dark grey and underside grey
• Mr Hobby H73 for the olive drab/green
• Tamiya NATO Black/ semi gloss black
• Vallejo Acrylics for details
• Tamiya Olive Drab for the base for the bombs, Mr Color Olive Drab (No 304) for the tails with other shades of OD/green.
• Gaianotes  for the Gloss coat
• Gaianotes and Dullcoate for the flat coat

Weathering

• Artist Oils for the wash
• Coloured pencils, pigments, pastels and Tamiya Weathering sets for the various streaking / grime markis

Build Threads

• Britmodeller

The Photos