Mirage 3C- Yoav model 1/30 scale

[MacSongLi]

I'm with Erik, I love the aircraft all loaded up. Great work as always Isaac.

Gary

[Isaac]

Israeli Mirage were originally equipped with the AIM 9B Sidewinder missiles. However, later on, an Israeli modification resulted in the Shafrir ( meaning Dragonfly in Hebrew ) missile. That initial version failed to score a single hit in combat during the 6 Day War and a follow on Shafrir 2 was much improved and had great success in later combat engagement.

The missile was then exported .

Here are some pics of the missile as installed on the Mirage 3




pylon only on Mirage


on an A-4 Skyhawk


and a paint guide from the web




Isaac

[Isaac]

The missile is obviously a long cylinder. However, I have a tough time making long cylinders out of paper, so I will use a wood dowel and then wrap the paper around it.


Here is the dowel on my mini lathe. Just sanding operation to the right diameter and rounding of the nose.


wrap it



The fins here


add the pieces and it is done



as a comparison, here is the Shafrir next to an Aim 9



Isaac

[Isaac]

Here are the two drop tanks and two missiles



I may add a center fuel tank at a later date after a little more research.


Isaac

[MacSongLi]

Great looking missiles. They turned out very nice.

Gary

[Mike1158]

Mate, those are the business, great stuff.

[Isaac]

The design of the wheels is from Yaron's repaint of the Mirage ( files on the DGA web site )



I used a circular cutter to cut out discs out of card stock. The discs are oversized a bit to allow for the sanding.


Laminated and glued


Check the finished diameter to be achieved


sand the stack to shape and correct diameter


Now paint. I used Tamiya Black Rubber color for the tires.


let it dry


add the hubs


and a quick check in the main gear bay.



I like it



Isaac

[Isaac]

The main gear struts have a metal core ( large paper clip ).

Once formed and covered, dry fit with the wheels


Glue to the wings using super glue


The nose gear strut has a wood dowel as a core that is cut, shaped and glued internally with super glue for strength. When covered with card, the upper section has 2 holes for the metal pins I left in the bay as well as a hole in the lower round portion to accept the wheel fork assembly.



dry fit nose gear with wheels.



on wheels dry fit


add the strut details now



wheels are glued in place.



Isaac

[Isaac]

For the doors, I used the existing parts from this kit ( correct colors ) . Make sure you retain those parts when building the plane.



the inner surfaces are from Yaron's repaint. make sure you use the white colored doors. The silver ones are only for the silver Mirage .


glue the doors in place. I decided not to add the small actuators to the doors as it will be busy down there with all the drop tanks.






Isaac

[Isaac]

Yoav and I discussed my apparent error in the main landing gear canting inward ( or lack of ).

The real Mirage 3,5 and the Kfir all had the main gear struts canted inward in order to follow the wing profile as well as the stowage of the wheels.

Even though I knew about it, I neglected to properly glue the struts correctly.


Here is the view showing the landing gear struts canting inward.


I then bent the struts on the model to best correct it.

It needs more bending, but at this point, I hesitate damaging the model.


If you remember to do it correctly to begin with, you will not have this issue.

Now you know.

I will remember this when I build the Kfir next.


Isaac