Mirage F1CR 118-CY - Last of les Bleus

[Wez]

Here's my place marker for this GB although I won't make a start until I return from my jolly holidays!

 

I'll  post details of the kit up then but suffice to say, I'll be using Special Hobby's superb 1/72nd Mirage F1 in the guise of an F1CR.

 

I'm planning on doing s/n 660 118-CY as it was marked up for the farewell of the Mirage F1 from French service, several aircraft were marked up for the farewell but 118-CY was painted in the famous Mirage Bleu scheme and as such (along with F1B 118-SW as featured in the Special Hobby F1B kit),were the last of les Bleus.

 

Pictures of the particular aircraft can be found here, here and here!

 

Here it is, sharing the flight line with its similarly marked squadron mates here, here, and here!

 

The Special Hobby F1B features the red markings, I shall be using those as a guide for my model.

 

Obligatory photos of kit will appear here when I return.

[Enzo the Magnificent]

1 hour ago, Wez said:

Here it is, sharing the flight line with its similarly marked squadron mates here, here, and here!

 

Were you not tempted to do them all...?

 

[Wez]

8 minutes ago, Enzo Matrix said:

 

Were you not tempted to do them all...?

 

NO!

[Wez]

As promised, back home so here's some photo's, first the kit and box:

 

 

Instructions and decals, I'll be using a mixture of kit decals with Berna decals to provide the fin marking, Syhart decals for the numerals.  My plan to use the fin markings from the SH F1B kit fell at the first hurdle because the provide the red sunburst for the F1B tail, nonetheless, they'll provide the dimensions I need to match so no great loss.

 

 

Finally the references.  If you only have one reference for the F1, then it should be the Cocardes book, it's excellent:

 

 

As mentioned in the 5F thread, the garden is showing the signs of neglect after my 3 1/2 weeks in France.  I've done the crime, got to take the punishhment.

 

Modelling will commence at the weekend.

[Avgas]

Nice. I'm looking forward to this.

 

As an aside, I'd love to tackle that scheme on the box but I'm not brave enough yet.

[Wez]

5 hours ago, Avgas said:

Nice. I'm looking forward to this.

 

As an aside, I'd love to tackle that scheme on the box but I'm not brave enough yet.

 

Thanks, I'm looking forward to it too, my studies keep me away from the bench most of the year, it will be great to get some bench time in.

 

As an aside, as a Brit, I too would love to do the scheme on the boxtop bit frankly, lack the skill and definitely the courage. Maybe one day...

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good morning Wez

 I am also looking forward to see the beginning of your build

Patrice

[Wez]

Thanks Patrice

 

[Jabba]

13 hours ago, Wez said:

 

 

As an aside, as a Brit, I too would love to do the scheme on the boxtop bit frankly, lack the skill and definitely the courage. Maybe one day...

 

Come on Wez you know that faint heart never won fair lady, or something like that. Anyhow I will be watching how you do with this as I too have one in the stash to make at some later date.

[Wez]

Thought I'd better post some progress on this one...

 

...first off the beast on the bench, you'll notice I've glued the nose sections to their respective fuselage halves, this seemed to work very well.

 

 

Next the wings, the lower wing insert is too deep for the space it's supposed to go into, there are very obvious ridges around the leading, outboard and trailing edges of the insert that to my mind needed reducing...

 

 

So I decided that some time consuming sanding was needed on the lower insert, I decided to do it this way because I felt I'd be able to control the outcome more easily.  I worked mostly on the leading edge taking most plastic off towards the outboard edge but of course taking some off towards the trailing edge too.  It's essential to keep offering the insert up to the upper wing to make sure you haven't gone too far.

 

 

It worked quite well I think. 

 

Another thing that I felt I need to do to the wing was to sharpen up the leading edge inboard section, as Jay (Mountain Goat) has pointed out, it's noticeably very thick compared to the outboard section, it's almost like the chord section transitions from fast jet to transport plane at that point.  I scraped plastic working mostly outboard to inboard using the panel line a couple of millimetres back from the leading edge as my guide from both upper and lower surfaces.  I then sanded chordwise to even things out, I almost elinated the panel lines but they can be easily restored, all I can say is to my eye the end result looks better and much more fast-jetty!

 

I'll try and post some more photos up as I've made more progress on this and the Mirage 5F, real life has kept getting in the way but it's a bank holiday here in England today so hopefully I can get some more modelling done...   ...but the sun is shining and the garden needs wrangling...   ...we'll see!

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good afternoon Wez

Very good start despite the issue on the wings , I didn't mention that point in my post but I do had to sand the lower insert too and of course I had use some putty ..

 

Best regards

Patrice

 

 

[Wez]

Thanks Patrice, I've found that the wing to fuselage joint will need a smear of filler, not too much though.

 

I've also cut off the IFR and pitot probes too, it was either that or end up breaking them off anyway!

[Mr B]

This does look like a nice kit.............might just get hold of one.......and the scheme that you are planning looks great !!

 

best of luck and hope to see it up soon

 

rgds

brian