Day 3 of Blogging. This is getting to be more fun than I had expected. No one has visited this site yet but for now that's not so important. I wanted to start off the Blog-site with vehicles and equipment from the 1967 war and carry it on through the Yom Kippur war of 1973. All participating armies and air forces from both sides will be included. In the spirit of that I present the Mirage IIIC of the IDFAF.
The model is an extensively re-worked Revell kit in 1/32nd scale. The model has been out of production for many years but still appears from time to time on Ebay. The biggest conversion was in the cockpit area and tail section. The Revell kit is a Mirage V. The IIIC version was used by the Israeli Air Force so I needed to shift the engine intakes forward and extend the tail section to accommodate the Atar 9 engine of that version. Here are some photos that I took during the conversion.
This photo shows how I moved the intakes forward on the cockpit to about mid-canopy as per the Mirage IIIC
This photo shows the re-worked tail section and the tail root fillet per the Mirage IIIC
This photo shows the aft underside where the Mirage V has a spare fuel tank located. This needs to be removed and a fairing with a ventral blade created to duplicate that of a Mirage IIIC.
After all the building headaches, I then tried my hand at a natural metal scheme using Alclad paint. It looked great for about a month or so and then started to show some cracks. I could have lived with that but after I photographed the model for another modeling forum it became clear that this problem would need to be fixed. I chickened out on another metal scheme and changed to a post 1967 camouflage scheme. In reality this is exactly what happened to the actual planes in that they all went from bare metal to camo after 1967. By the time the "War of Attrition" began, they all carried the new IAF Sand/Green/Brown colors. So here is the final result. The first photo is an actual Mirage IIIC aircraft in Israeli service during the 1960s. The next photos are my model (of course).
Revell 1/32nd scale Mirage V conversion to Mirage IIIC version.
The Ghastly process of removing the Alclad finish with oven cleaner...AARRGHHH
The next photo shows an actual Israeli Mirage IIIC in the Camouflage paint applied in late 1967.
Here is a photo of the actual plane that I replicated. Many Thanks to "Merchav Aviri" website for the use of their photo.
Revell 1/32nd Mirage IIIC in camouflage scheme circa 1968-73. The Orange triangles were only applied during the Yom Kippur war to help with quick identification of friendly Mirage aircraft. The Libyans had moved a squadron of Mirage Vs to Egypt to augment the Egyptian Air Force. There was some concern in the IAF that there might be fatal misidentifications made during combat, ergo VERY large Orange triangles in six positions were applied. My plane is from IAF "101" squadron.
Next Post: The Arab adversary
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