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Dassault Mirage IIIS/RS. 1:48


Shar2

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Dassault Mirage IIIS/RS

1:48 Kinetic Models

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History

In 1961, Switzerland bought a single Mirage IIIC from France. This Mirage IIIC was used as development aircraft. The Swiss Mirages were built in Switzerland by F+W Emmen (today RUAG, the federal government aircraft factory in Emmen), as the Mirage IIIS. Australia too, bought one French-made aircraft in preparation for licensed production. Cost overruns during the Swiss production led to the so-called "Mirage affair".

In all, 36 Mirage IIIS interceptors were built with strengthened wings, airframe, and undercarriage. The Swiss Air Force required robustness comparable to that of carrier based planes; the airframes were reinforced so the aircraft could be moved by lifting them over other aircraft with a crane, as the aircraft caverns in the mountains that Swiss Air Force uses as bunkers offer very little space to manoeuvre parked aircraft. The strengthened frames allowed for JATO capability. The main differences to the standard Mirage III were as follows:-

  •      New US avionics with
  •      Changed cockpit design with gray instead of black panels
  •      New U.S. radar, TARAN-18 from Hughes Aircraft Company
  •      Use of HM-55S "Falcon" (Swiss designation of the SAAB Licence built Robot 27 (Rb27) which is similar to the Hughes AIM-26 "Falcon")
  •       Radar warning receiver (RWR) on both wingtips and on the back of the rudder
  •      Strengthened structure for use of JATO-Rockets
  •      Retractable nosecone and lengthened nosewheel leg for storing in Aircraft cavern.
  •      Four lifting points for moving aircraft in underground caverns with a crane
  •      Bay at the fin with a SEPR 841 rocket engine to double the velocity for short time or climb to 20,000 m (66,000 ft).
  •      US TRACOR AN/ALE-40 chaff/flare dispenser at the back under the end of the engine (fitted with the upgrade 1988).
  •      Canards designed and produced by RUAG Aerospace (fitted with the upgrade 1988)
  •      New Martin-Baker ejection-seat (fitted with the upgrade 1988).

The Swiss Mirages are equipped with RWS, chaff & flare dispensers. Avionics differed as well, with the most prominent difference being that the Thomson-CSF Cyrano II radar was replaced by Hughes TARAN-18 system, giving the Mirage IIIS compatibility with the Hughes AIM-4 Falcon AAM. Also the Mirage IIIS had the wiring to carry a Swiss-built or French nuclear bomb. The Swiss nuclear bomb was stopped in the pre-production stage and Switzerland did not purchase the French-made one. The Mirage IIIS had an integral fuel tank under the aft belly; this fuel tank could be removed and replaced with an adapter of the same shape. This adapter housed a SEPR (Société d'Etudes pour la Propulsion par Réaction) rocket engine with its 300 l (79 US gal; 66 imp gal) nitric acid oxidiser tank. With the SEPR rocket, the Mirage IIIS easily reached altitudes of 24,000 m, an additional thrust of 1500 kp, the SEPR could be switched off and on minimum three times in a flight, a maximum use of 80 seconds was possible. In case of an emergency it was possible to jettison the SEPR Unit in low speed flight. The rocket fuel was very hazardous and highly toxic, so the SEPR rocket was not used very often, special buildings for maintenance were built in Buochs and Payerne and the personnel had to wear special protective suits. The Mirage IIIRS could also carry a photo-reconnaissance centerline pod and an integral fuel tank under the aft belly; this carried a smaller fuel load but allowed a back looking film camera to be added. In the early 1990s, the 30 surviving Swiss Mirage IIIS interceptors were put through an upgrade program, which included fitting them with fixed canards and updated avionics. The Mirage IIIS were phased out of service in 1999. The remaining Mirage IIIRS, BS and DS were taken out of service in 2003

The Model

This is the fourth iteration of the Kinetic Mirage III kit, first released in 2014, you could say seventh, since three versions were also re-issued by Wingman Models.  On opening the colourful box lid, which has two of the aircraft in flight, both in similar commemorative schemes, you will find nine sprues of medium grey styrene, one sprue of clear styrene and a large decal sheet.  Kinetic have done a great job with the moulding, with very fine, recessed panel lines and rivet detail, raised areas where required, with no sign of flash or other imperfections and only a few moulding pips.  The instructions are beautifully clear and easy to read and if the kit goes together as well as their recently released F-18C apparently does, then it will be a joy to build.

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Construction begins with the assembly of the six piece ejection seat, which, although nice, doesn’t have any belts to finish it off with, so you will have to resort to aftermarket items.  The single piece cockpit tub is fitted out with an upper rear bulkhead, alternative instrument panel, depending on whether you are building the S or RS versions, joystick, rudder pedals and several black boxes.  The kit comes with full length, split, air intake trunking with either side being assembled from two parts, and joining together just before the fan disk once the fuselage halves are closed up.  There doesn’t appear to be a problem with join lines as they will be so deep within the fuselage you will be hard pressed to see them.  With the intakes fitted, the cockpit tub, three piece nose wheel bay, two piece exhaust, with separate nozzle, and the separate fan disk are glued to one half of the fuselage, after which the fuselage can be closed up. Two holes on either side of the fuselage need to be opened up and the four lifting eyes fitted, for when the aircraft is hung from the ceiling of the tunnels that the Swiss used at the time.  The fairing aft of the cockpit is then attached, along with the two outer intake fairings, which also need to have two holes drilled out for the canards, and the two upper pitot probes fitted just forward of the cockpit.

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The two upper wing panels are then attached to the single piece lower wing panel.  This assembly is the fitted with the upper and lower airbrakes, two piece rear under-fuselage fairing, and two lower panels, with side of the fairing.  Shame the rocket motor panel isn’t included, but I guess you can’t have it all.  The wing assembly is then glued to the fuselage assembly and the whole model begins to look like an aircraft.  The undercarriage is assembled next, with the three piece nose-wheel attached to the yoke, which in turn is attached to the nose wheel leg, which is then fitted with the lower nose bay door, landing lamps and scissor link. The assembly is then glued into position, followed by the main door, upper front door and main actuator.  If you wish to pose the undercarriage up, the doors will need to have the fixing pins, and in the case of the main door, the actuator removed.  The lower panel, underneath the cockpit is then fitted, along with a pair of probes and a pair of aerials.  The main undercarriage are ach made from a three piece wheel, three part leg and two doors, which again need the pins removed if they are to be posed closed.

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A bit more detailing includes the fitting of the fin fillet, canards, two upper fuselage intakes, a panel above the rudder, the windscreen, canopy and a choice of nose cones.  The simple S nose is made from two halves and the pitot probe, whilst the camera nose for the RS is made from two halves, a lower panel, a camera bar insert and the pitot probe. On the underside of the wing the flight control actuator fairings are attached, and there is a choice of flap fairings depending on whether the modeller wishes to pose the flaps retracted or deployed. The same goes for the two pylons. The separate flaps and flaperons are then attached, followed by two, two piece drop tanks finishing the build.  Whilst the kit comes with another pair of tanks, rocket pods and a pair of missiles, these aren’t used with this variant.

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Decals

The decals appear to be designed and printed by Kinetic themselves; they look pretty good, being in register, good colour density and quite glossy, which matches the glossy scheme the aircraft should be painted in.  There are large and small roundels, plus a set of low vis roundels.  The kit does come with a full set of stencils and warning symbols.  The options are:-

  • Mirage IIIRS R-2110 “Mirage Swiss Farewell” Staffel 10, Swiss Air Force, Buochs Air Base, 2003
  • Mirage IIIRS R-2116 “Mirage Swiss Farewell” Staffel 10, Swiss Air Force, Buochs Air Base, 2003
  • Mirage IIIRS R-2111, Staffel 10, Swiss Air Force, Buochs Air Base, 2002
  • Mirage IIIS J-2327, Staffel 16, Swiss Air Force, Sion Air Base, 1998

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Conclusion

I’ve not seen other versions of the Kinetic Mirage, but I really like this one, and I’m not normally an aircraft modeller.  There is something special about the Mirage III series that brings back memories of seeing them at airshows when I was a kid. The options and colour schemes with the kit will make a nice addition to any collection.

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Thanks for the detailed review and history! 

As far as I know they had people with specific knowledge helping on the decals. They should be fine actually! 

I would have liked Swiss specific load outs,  especialy the  indigenous center line tanks RUNT would have been nice. 2 types where used. Aim-9ps can be sourced elsewhere. Falcons is another issue altogether! 

 

Nevertheless, very much appriciated  tjis kit. Already on the way to me!!😃

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Nice kit and review, but the wrong scale! ;)

 

I just checked some details of the kit against some pictures I took in 2003 when we disbanded. So far, it looks really nice! I guess I will add the pictures in the reference section when the Mirage GB will start. Some minor points, option Number 3 should read Staffel 10 as well, Staffel 11 never operated the Mirages (only Hunters, Tigers and Hornets, they are the Swiss Tiger Squadron). In front of the cockpit, there is only one pitot tube on top, but two on the bottom of the fuselage. At least, that's for the IIIRS. On the inner gear doors, there should be some rather large fairings for some kind of cooler, I can't see them on the sprues. Are they there? (I guess they were for the gun cooling, as some don't have them installed. We sometimes had an auxilliary fuel tank instead of the gun pack) Oh, and by the way, the LIRAS-Pod seems missing as well, but it was not standard as we only had a few of them. Would have been nice, still. And now please do this kit in 1/72!

 

Alex

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Great review, an interesting read. I've just started this kit and it's looking to be another enjoyable build from Kinetic. I've also noticed the lack of fairings on the main gear doors (they look a bit like small gun pods) and lack of centre tank. I've seen at least one photo of an RS carrying Aim-9's was this common?

 

I would mention the box states the decals are printed by Cartograph.

 

Muzz

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The center tank was used very seldom, as it was lenghtening the take off run to the limit. Not that confortable when surrounded by big mountains, pilots didn't like that configuration. So mostly, we flew with the two small wing tanks, and from time to time a LIRAS recce pod. AIM-9 could be carried, but again, not that often. As it never saw a "hot" mission, I can't say what we would have been carried when the going got tough.

 

Alex

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On 22.9.2016 at 9:43 AM, alex said:

The center tank was used very seldom, as it was lenghtening the take off run to the limit. Not that confortable when surrounded by big mountains, pilots didn't like that configuration. So mostly, we flew with the two small wing tanks, and from time to time a LIRAS recce pod. AIM-9 could be carried, but again, not that often. As it never saw a "hot" mission, I can't say what we would have been carried when the going got tough.

 

Alex

but they were defenitely used:

here is a walk around on ARC with a nice paint scheme, sidewinder pylons and the large cente line tank:

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/AWA1/401-500/walk411_MirageIII_Bob_Verhegghen/walk411.htm

 

and here sone pictures with large RUNT even on the retirement scheme:

http://www.hottail.nl/airforces/switzerland/MirageIIIRS.html

 

here at Materhorn circle, also some pics, this one with Aim-9P red/orange training round

http://www.mc-one.ch/documents/right stuff/dokuments/IIIRS/IIIRS-1.htm

 

by the way the Mirage IIIRS was often called "AMIR" for Aufklärungs (Recce) Mirage

 

for those interested in a really great book:

http://www.goatworks.com/portfolio/amir-mirage-iiirs-book/

 

 

 

and there seem to be resin upgrades available, for the french speeking part of the comunity or with google translate ;)

http://www.master194.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=94248

 

 

do you have any more info/ pics on the LIRAS pod? is this a stock Vinten recce pod (ar least externally?)

 

thanks eveybody!

 

maybe Ihave gone too far in the review article.... mods please move if deemed necessary!

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  • 3 weeks later...

got my edition :)

 

some thoughts:

it looks like the normal E/R/... kits content with a new fighter nosecone incl. nose tip strakes BUT with considerably fewer sprues (no Magic missiles, AS-30s, no Snakeeyes, 1700L fuel tanks) but strangely enough you get RP-100 and JL-100 combi tanks, an R530,  Aim-9B ... which might have been used by the Swiss, but definitely not with any of the kit's marking schemes....... :unsure:

 

the only correct load out are the 500L supersonic wingtanks....

so in the end you get fewer sprues (but still too many) for the same price as the E/R/....at luckymodel  :unsure:

 

 

on the more interesting side, the canards were retooled! the the so called C70 canard which is supposed to be included now (70% of the Kfir canard?) has a different shape  than the canards already included in the E/ R kit (not needed at all there...) , as well as in the South American Mirage boxing (where needed for the modernized  Brazilian F103s)

 

 

could anybody please shed some light into Mirage III canard versions? there seem to be quite a lot different shapes and sizes out there (model and resin upgrade wise) and maybe also on the real planes!

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On 23-9-2016 at 5:58 PM, exdraken said:

but they were defenitely used:

here is a walk around on ARC with a nice paint scheme, sidewinder pylons and the large cente line tank:

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/AWA1/401-500/walk411_MirageIII_Bob_Verhegghen/walk411.htm

 

and here sone pictures with large RUNT even on the retirement scheme:

http://www.hottail.nl/airforces/switzerland/MirageIIIRS.html

 

 

All those pics are from events abroad though. The pics in your links are taken in Belgium. (So not really for regular use but consider them more like a 'ferry tank')

Edited by KoenL
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14 hours ago, exdraken said:

the the so called C70 canard which is supposed to be included now (70% of the Kfir canard?)

 

Yes, Afaik this was the biggest canards which could be put on without increasing the strength of the airframe.

About the RUNT, please note that the images of the first link were taken in Florennes, and the second most probably at a NATO recce meet as well (I think this was Florennes 2013, where we even won!). It's true that we used them on ferry flights, but operationnaly, we practised only little with them. We often preferred the fuel pack instead of the gun pack (called soute-avant), giving more range but without the additional drag of the fuel tank.

 

Alex

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23 hours ago, KoenL said:

 

All those pics are from events abroad though. The pics in your links are taken in Belgium. (So not really for regular use but consider them more like a 'ferry tank')

Hi,

 

thanks for your input! I only said that they were used....

fortunately there never was a need to use them in anger!!

 

22 hours ago, alex said:

 

Yes, Afaik this was the biggest canards which could be put on without increasing the strength of the airframe.

About the RUNT, please note that the images of the first link were taken in Florennes, and the second most probably at a NATO recce meet as well (I think this was Florennes 2013, where we even won!). It's true that we used them on ferry flights, but operationnaly, we practised only little with them. We often preferred the fuel pack instead of the gun pack (called soute-avant), giving more range but without the additional drag of the fuel tank.

 

Alex

 

thanks for the clarification! interesting detail about the fuel pack , the would compromise the guns! Swiss Mirage also had the possibility to use a fuel pack in the rear, no? (instead of the SEPR rocket pack)

 

one more question regarding possible and practical armament:

 

Swiss Mirages used the Aim-9P3 missiles, the IIIS  also the AIM-26B Falcon &  30mm cannons

 

WHAT else, if anything?

I know of some tests with the AS.20/ AS.30 missiles, but else?

 

thanks!

 

 

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It's possible that the SEPR was replaced by an additional fuel tank, but not sure about that. I don't know either if in wartime, we would have used the fuel tank instead of the gun pack. I guess, if the range without tank would allow it, the pilots would have preferred the gun packs anyway. Just to be on the safe side.

 

Alex

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Guys, if you read the pre-amble history in the review, you will notice I mentioned the rear fuel tank, which could be replaced with the rocket pack. :D

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4 hours ago, Shar2 said:

Guys, if you read the pre-amble history in the review, you will notice I mentioned the rear fuel tank, which could be replaced with the rocket pack. :D

that is true.....but was it done on the RS? i.e. did they also use the rocket pack there as not being an interceptor plane....

 

you also write about the AIM-4 Falcon missiles. but there is also the AIM-26b . Both? were operated by the Swiss as HM55 (radar?) and HM58 (IR?). (in sweden as RB 27 and RB28 respectively) According to wikipedia they existed in IR and semi active radar guided versions...

 

quite a lot info here I found, but not with out contradictions as well.....

so first hand info appreciated!

 

thanks,

Werner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Oh I quite agree @exdraken I fully admit not being an expert on the type, and always willing to learn. The history section is there for people like me, and may not include every little detail. I try to add as much as possible, but can't include everything. Ask me about the Sea Harrier though and it will be a different matter. :D

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10 hours ago, Shar2 said:

Oh I quite agree @exdraken I fully admit not being an expert on the type, and always willing to learn. The history section is there for people like me, and may not include every little detail. I try to add as much as possible, but can't include everything. Ask me about the Sea Harrier though and it will be a different matter. :D

Hi,

the same goes for me..... the "problem" is that the deeper you dig, the less you seem to know...

 

will come back to you when I finally build my Sea Harrier... ;)

 

for the record, I went through my literature yesterday and here I was successful:

http://www.aviationmegastore.com/mirage---das-fliegende-dreieck-9783855451579-baden-verlag-51579-rest-of-europe/product/?action=prodinfo&parent_id=1&art=101771

 

according to this book Swiss Mirage used the following weapons  throughout their career:

  • 30mm canon
  • Aim-9B (SIWA in Swiss nomenclature )
  • Aim-9E3
  • Aim-9P3 / up to P5
  • HM 55S & Aim-26b (FACLO) Falcon radar guided versions (Aim-26b were acquired second hand form the USAF when the F-106 was retired), carried on rear fuselage mounted pylons (same location as Mirage 5?)
  • AS.30 (Noras) Nord Aviation missile radio command (MCLOS guidance ) missile
  • 450kg bombs (not clear if eventually used)

 

I think that is all there is.....  but lets wait and see!

 

Cheers, Werner

 

 

 

 

Edited by exdraken
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  • 1 year later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 6.11.2017 at 3:09 PM, stalal said:

This tank is a standard 1300 l Mirage III tank. Can be center and /or wing tank. And it can be found in many Mirage kits, as wellas  e.g from Wingman models.

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1 hour ago, exdraken said:

This tank is a standard 1300 l Mirage III tank. Can be center and /or wing tank. And it can be found in many Mirage kits, as wellas  e.g from Wingman models.

 

But my question still remains and may be should be put to Kinetic Models. 

 

When they have tanks in the kit which are not even correct for the particular kit, why not add these tanks which are appropriate for all III/V versions?

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17 minutes ago, stalal said:

 

But my question still remains and may be should be put to Kinetic Models. 

 

When they have tanks in the kit which are not even correct for the particular kit, why not add these tanks which are appropriate for all III/V versions?

Hi, yeah, good question!

Jzst one mire point:

This thread is about the SWISS Mirage IIIs 

Afaik, they did NOT use the 1300l tanks!

Only 500l wing tanks (non jettisonable, original version) and 2 types of indigenous centerline tanks. The smaller, supersonic capable one is also used on Kfirs I think....

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