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MIRAGE F1 1973-2014 Histoire & Collections - Casemate Publishing Surprisingly enough The Dassault Mirage F1 was not commissioned by The Armée de l'Air, but was a private venture funded by Dassault. Following the Mirage III, and Mirage 5, the successor was to be the Mirage F2. As the F1 was privately funded it was to use the same engine as the Mirage 5, with the same shoulder mounted wing and tail of the Mirage F2, a bait in a scaled down airframe. The F1 would prove to be a better aircraft than its predecessor with 43% more fuel, a shorter take-off run; and better manoeuvrability. The prototype first flew in 1966, with an order flowing in 1967, and production deliveries starting in 1973. The Mirage F1 would serve as the main interceptor of the French Air Force until the Dassault Mirage 2000 entered service. Export orders would see the aircraft serve in Ecuador, Libya, Iraq, Greece, Morocco, South Africa, Gabon (from South Africa), Iran (Defecting Iraqi aircraft), Jordan, Kuwait, Quatar, and Spain. The F1 has actually seen a fair deal of combat. The French would use the F1 in combat in Chad, Afghanistan, Mali and Libya. Ecuador would use their aircraft in limited combat in their brief wars with Peru. Iraqi aircraft would fight in their war with Iran (and then defect there during the Gulf war). Moroccan aircraft would see limited combat in The Western Sahara in the late 1970s. South African aircraft would see combat in Namibia and Angola. Libya would use its aircraft in Chad, they were also used in the Civil war with two aircraft defecting to Malta when they pilots disobeyed order to attack protesters. The title gives away the fact that this book is in French, but don't let that small fact put you off. It is great if you can read French, but if you don't you can still get the gist of things; and the wealth of photographs are worth the asking price alone. The book is medium format 200 x 240mm sitting between A4 and A5, with 128 pages. The book covers the following areas; Origins Prototypes French Air Force Examples F1B, F1C, F1CR & F1CT Operational Deployments to Chad, Afghanistan, Mali and Libya. Overseas Operators. Special Markings Aircraft. There are a wealth of excellent photographs in the book as well as 8 pages of colour profiles featuring French Aircraft, and a further 4 pages of export aircraft. Conclusion It might seem strange to recommend a book I can hardly read (my French is not great!), however the photographs will be of invaluable use the the modeller. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

1/48 ESCI Dassault Mirage F1C Armee de l'Air EC 1/5 Vendee, BA 115 Orange, 1975, built for French Fancy Group Build. Aftermarket used: Scale Aircraft Conversion undercarriage plus resin wheels, Pavla cockpit set and intakes, AML exhaust set, Master pitot tube and angle of attack probe, Berna decals. Link to build thread here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234978769-esci-dassault-mirage-f1c-148/

At first, my plan was to build a Mirage IIIB by combining Heller and Eduard kits. But checking my calendar, I realized that it would be impossible to manage that before july. So instead I have chosen something more easy to build. Well, that was at least what I thought... Cockpit is rather OK, since I probably will have canopy closed, it will do. Especially since it is pretty dark in there... I had hoped that such a new kit would have good fit. Especially since I am going to do this one in NMF. But since Kinetic have used - and will continue to use - this kit for a number of Mirages, Kfirs and others, the kit is engineered in a way to make this possible rather than to get a good fit. And since moulding is pretty bad, at least by modern standards, the fit is much worse than expected. Not extremely bad,not much filler is required but I think that I never have used this much violence on a kit trying to get the parts together... Detailing is good, but Eduard's Mirage IIIC is far better. Since this is an OOB build, I did not add anything to the wheel wells. But after lots of violence and superglue, this is starting to look like a Mirage. The beginning of a seat. I will of course add seatbelts. Another annoying thing is the instruction sheet. It looks good, but sometimes it just gives you clues. Detail painting instructions are limited to about half the parts, you either have to guess the rest or check references. And some parts are just stated as "optional", which means that you once again have to find out in another way which parts you are going to use. On the good side, the overall shape seems correct to me, the decals (by Syhart and printed by Cartograf) look brilliant and panel lines are crisp and not too deep - in fact not deep at all which is a challenge when you have to recreate them after sanding. And as I mentioned earlier, detailing is good, but not as good as Eduard's IIIC, which may be older but still is a better kit in many ways-

I've finally finished a model of my own for the year, although I could have picked a better kit to start with. I bought this for about 9 bucks years ago when it was about the only Mirage III you could buy in the scale. I had visions of converting it into a Mirage V Dagger, but with the coming of the new Kinetic kits, I don't need to do that anymore. There isn't much to say about the plastic, apart from; it's a poorly detailed, ill-fitting, obsolete relic. A Britmodeller member was kind enough to send me his leftover decals from the Eduard kit and these were really nice to use. If you have this in the stash, just buy the Eduard kit. I did get the pink a little dark, but it'll do.

Kinetic kit, Xtradecals. I had a lot of fit issues with this one..

Hi fellow modellers, I'm starting to build Hasegava Mirage F.1C. Instructions are only giving mixing instructions in Gunze colors and I don't have access to those. So what are best options in Humbrol range for blue gray and silver gray used in late 70's an early 80's? TIA Vesa

Here goes for my first Ready For Inspection post. I used the venerable Heller kit with a few bits liberated from a High Planes kit. I brush painted it with xtracolour aluminium (X142) over the top of humbrol 56. I used FCM decals for the first time and they worked brilliantly apart from one which folded up upon itself. I don't know how I managed to recover it but I did. Anyway this Mirage represents a IIIEBR of the Brazilian Air Force from 1972. If you can see the photos, I guess I have tamed PhotoBucket. Thanks for looking. http://i1164.photobucket.com/albums/q566/Mark_Ascott/P1030810_zpshnfr38zf.jpg http://i1164.photobucket.com/albums/q566/Mark_Ascott/P1030807_zpsfekag5va.jpg http://i1164.photobucket.com/albums/q566/Mark_Ascott/P1030804_zpsrpvbz94d.jpg http://i1164.photobucket.com/albums/q566/Mark_Ascott/P1030801_zpsfpedkxcy.jpg http://i1164.photobucket.com/albums/q566/Mark_Ascott/P1030797_zpsphur8fho.jpg

Hi, anybody happen to know what pod were used for the first GBU-49 drops from the Mirage 2000D flying out from kandahar? PDLCT or Damocles? I am making serial 3-XK, I think. Cheers

After the 1/48th kit (http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234959104-148-kinetic-mirage-iii5/?hl=mirage), Kinetic is projecting to release 1/72th Dassault Mirage III/5 kits. No release date yet. Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/KineticModel-France/284153468459310?fref=nf V.P.

High Planes Models (http://www.hpmhobbies.com/ & https://www.facebook.com/HPMHobbies) is to release a 1/48th Dassault Mirage IIIE/O kit ref. Some CADs Source: http://www.master194.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=79680 V.P.

AMD Mirage III E 1:72 PJ Productions The Dassault Mirage III ranks alongside the MiG-21 and McDonnell Douglas Phantom as one of the most easily recognised and widely used combat aircraft of the Cold War. First flown in 1956, the distinctive tailless delta was built in significant numbers and was employed by the air forces of a large number of countries, including Australia, Belgium, Egypt, Spain and Switzerland, as well as France. Incredibly, it is still in service with the air forces of Argentina and Pakistan. The III E was a multirole/tactical strike variant, developed from the III C interceptor. It differed from the interceptor version in having a 30cm fuselage extension in the forward fuselage, just aft of the cockpit. The extra space was used to increase fuel capacity and house additional avionics associated with the Mirages new role. Many, but not all, III Es also had a continuous wave Doppler navigation radar fitted under the cockpit. The vertical tailplane was also revised in order to house a radar warning receiver, and the new Atar 09C engine was fitted with a petal exhaust nozzle. This kit marks a new chapter in the story of PJ Production, a Belgian manufacturer whose previous kits have all been produced in resin. This is one of the first in a series of injection moulded Mirages, produced in cooperation with High Planes Models of Singapore. The kit comes packaged in a top-opening box with a flip-top lid. Inside the box are four sprues of grey plastic, a single clear sprue, a bag of resin and photo etched parts, a sheet of decals and a full-colour painting diagram/instruction book. Upon opening the box, you are greeted with the intoxicating smell of fresh resin. The plastic parts look reasonably well moulded. I couldnt find any signs of flash but there are some shallow sink marks on the trailing edges of the wings, which are moulded as solid parts. Surface detail is comprised of recessed panel lines. They are quite pronounced but appear to lack sharpness. If you dislike the current generation of Airfix kits because of the way the panel lines are rendered, then you may not like this kit either. Construction starts not with the cockpit but with the wings. The lower surfaces are moulded in a single span with the wheel wells moulded partly in place. The trailing edges are nice and thin, but as mentioned above, the panel lines are rather pronounced. The rear fuselage can also be assembled and fitted to the wings before the cockpit has been put together. Remember to use the resin stabiliser rather than the plastic version as the latter is not correct for the III E. The panel lines are noticeably finer on the resin part too. The engine exhaust is all-plastic and can be assembled and fitted at this stage of construction as well. Construction finally moves on to the cockpit once the major parts of the airframe have been assembled. The instructions refer only to the plastic ejector seat, even though a superb resin version is included. This is a bit of a mystery, as although the plastic seat isnt the worst Ive seen, I wont be using it over the resin one, which is rather lovely. The rest of the cockpit is comprised of a tub, instrument panel and control column, all reproduced in resin. The extra detail provided by the resin parts wont be wasted as the canopy is pretty clear and can be posed in the open position as well. Four different nose cones are provided, so make sure you use the right version before fixing it in place. The engine intakes are pretty thin and sharp, although they are only half-an-inch deep. With these in place the airframe is pretty much complete and the instructions move on to the finishing details. The undercarriage is pretty nice, although the main gear wheels are split vertically. The undercarriage doors feature nice detail on the inner surfaces. The navigation radar dome is replicated in resin and plastic, leaving you free to choose which to use. A full set of drop tanks is provided, including a subsonic belly tank and 1300 L, 1700 L underwing tanks, as well as 500 L supersonic tanks. A small photo etched crew access ladder is also included, which is a nice touch. Four options are provided on the decal sheet: Mirage III E, French Air Force, EC 03/003 Ardennes, Nancy-Ochey, 1991. This aircraft is finished in dark green and dark grey camouflage over aluminium undersides; Mirage III E, French Air Force, EC 02/004 La Fayette, Luxueil, 1979, also finished in dark green and dark grey camouflage over aluminium undersides; Mirage III E, French Air Force, EC 02/013 Alpes, Colmar, 1996. This aircraft is natural aluminium; and Mirage III EE, Spanish Air Force, Sqn 112, ALA 11, Manises, 1992. This aircraft is finished in dark green and dark grey camouflage over aluminium undersides; The painting instructions are printed in colour, which is always helpful. The decal sheet itself is nicely printed. The makings look crisp and clear and the colours used are nice and bold. The decals look thin and glossy on the sheet. Conclusion A new kit of an important type such as the Mirage III is always welcome, and this is no exception. The kit looks pretty accurate, it includes some useful resin extras and boasts a superb decal sheet. On the other hand, theres no doubt that the panel lines are going to be too pronounced for many modellers tastes. This feature can be remedied with a little care and attention, and I would certainly avoid finishing the model in a natural metal scheme without doing so. Overall though, this is a nice little kit, and the few finished examples that I have seen certainly look pretty good. Recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Source: http://www.master194...p...=55&t=68815 French craft company Rflight is working on an improvement & correction set for the 1/48th ESCI/Italeri Dassault Mirage F-1 kit: incl. longer nose for F1C-200, CR & CT types; correct windshield, canopy, wheels, air intakes; new resized and redesigned wings with separate flaps and slats etc. Rflight home page: http://www.renaissance-models.com/Avions/nouveautes-avion.htm http://www.renaissan...Avions/1-48.htm V.P.

Goodmorning fellow modellers! First post in the Ready for Inspection corner! Been wanting to build a Mirage V in the lovely SEA camo for a long time. Only the fonderie miniatures kit with extra resin was available. But last year Italeri released a Mirage III pack which gave me the option to build a Belgian Mirage V. The Mirage is an early model, this particular Mirage crashed in Holland in 1977. I built the plane white/grey belly and SEA camo on top. The model is completely rescribed and further more a resin MB Mk.7 seat was added together with an Air Master brass pitot tube. Paints are Vallejo. Together with a French Mirage IIIE (hobby boss kit) Hope you like'm Evert

In a message on LSM forum about a future 1/32nd SEPECAT Jaguar project, the Kitty Hawk's rep, Glen "Kagnew" Coleman, says the company has some 1/32nd French projects in the pipeline for 2015-2016. Most logical contenders should be 1/32nd Dassault Mirage F-1C/CT/CR & B as there's already some 1/48th kits from this French fighter in the Kitty Hawk catalogue. But alternative subjects might be 1/32nd Dassault Mirage III/5 or Rafale C/B/M... To be followed. Source: http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=53067&p=617140 V.P.

Hi everybody, This is my first "in progress" post. I am by no means a professional builder and the purpose of my post is purely for interest to those wanting to see how the new Kittyhawk Mirage F1 single seater goes together. Photography is also not my strong point so please forgive the quality of my (Cellphone taken) pictures. This is the kit: My attempt will be to turn it into this: This is the South African Air Force example of the Mirage F1C, called the CZ in SA. This aircraft was the first example painted in the blue/grey air superiority scheme. Shortly after it was painted in this scheme this aircraft shot down an Angolan Mig-21MF with its 30mm canon. Soon all F1CZs were painted in this scheme. The initial impression of the kit is very good. Mould quality is excellent and the kit has a lot of detail. Certainly an improvement over the Esci/Italeri example. The kit is however not without faults of it's own. the main problem for me being the shape of the intakes. More on it here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234948924-kittyhawk-mirage-f1-intake/ I decided to use the Pavla intakes. Although originally designed for the Esci/Italeri kit, it can be made to fit this kit. Some sanding is required but the general result is acceptable. I also used some plastic card to build up the area where the intakes join the fuselage to get a better fit as the Kittyhawk kit is slightly deeper in this area: I'll post more pictures shortly Victor

This is one of the kits I made for my birthday, it was fast to build but took forever to paint... for obvious reasons (I wish I had a gigantic tiger decal :joker: ) . Everything hand painted as you might expect. Straight out of the box, except for the inclusion of a Atlantic figure converted to pilot and a small ladder it appear from somewhere. As you can see, the undercarriage is detachable, as with all my latest models, which has given me inmense trouble, constantly breaking. The antenna on the nose was already broken and missing on the kit, and I have since made two which have broken and been lost. More pics in my blog; http://toysoldierchest.blogspot.com/

Ok So I am having a 'Mirage' week and am currently working on the Italeri 1:48 Mirage 2000D with two Mirage 111's lined up behind it! I could do with some help though on the grey/green wrap around camouflage as there seems to be a number of different routes to go with this. I have Tamiya and Humbrol paints to work with and was thinking of either the following: Humbrol 140 for the grey and 163 for the green or possibly number 30? Tamiya - HF53 for the grey and either XF81 0r XF61 for the green? Anyway got any views on which way to go? The green I think should have a slight olive type tint to it? Any help appreciated as ever! Thanks Cjris

Happy New Year Folks! This is the only model I finished in 2013... Is the well known Mirage 5F in some perhaps not-so-well-known marking from the chilean air force FACH. IMO the most elegant of all the french deltas. It is the old Esci kit with High Planes Models resin nose. Vallejo paints, Pavla seat and some of the Eduard Zoom PE set in the cockpit. Did not use any drop tanks cause I like the clean lines of the a/c. Hope you like it. C&C Welcome. Adrian

Heller's 1980s kit, built for a Mirage family GB in Another Place It's actually a rather nice kit. OK, so the panel lines are raised, but does the Hobby Boss single seater really look MORE like pictures of the real thing than the Heller kit? I did a fair bit of scratchbuilt "gizmology" in the cockpit, which of course you can't see, because it's black... Humbrol Metalcote polished aluminium overall, with decals from Berna Decals, who seem to OWN the Mirage III in 1/48.Oddly, they don't quite fit some of the engraving on the kit, which is strange considering this is (I believe) the only 1/48 two-seater game in town... bestest, M.

Hello all, my first post at this great forum! Maybe this has been discussed before, but I didn't really find exactly the answer I wan't from prevoius threads. I want to do an Argentinian Dagger A during the Falklands/Malvinas war in 1/72. I plan on getting the PJ Productions injection molded Mirage III E or Mirage V BA/BR. I know the Dagger/Nesher is a copy of Mirage V, but how similar are Mirage IIIE and Mirage V BA/BR? So the main question, if I want to do an Argentinian Dagger in 1/72, is it best to buy the PJ Productions Mirage IIIE kit or Mirage V BA/BR? Are there any differences in the two kits regarding sprue content, or is it just the decals that differ? I know High Planes has released a Dagger, but that is not an option since it's harder for me to get and it's a more expensive resin kit if I'm correct(?). Cheers! /Jesse

Hi, Here is the second Mirage from my 3 years long double build: http://s362974870.onlinehome.us/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=199514&st=0 I had to give some work to bring it up to -5 standard... I first wanted to depict an aircraft who "met" a Tu-95 near Iceland, but Lybia crisis came around... So I decided to switch for one of the first aircraft which flew over Lybia on 19th of March 2011. A patrol of Mirage from Dijon air base took of to cover striking missions of Rafale. Here is my model: Alongside with another -5 built by a friend of mine: Thanks for watching! cheers! Rom

Kitty Hawk kit designer, M. Song, has displayed in his personal photopage a Dassault Mirage F-1(CT if you look at the nose) CAD drawing. Source: http://s511.photobuc...lovemen/uploads So... Project? Yes. Scale? 1/48th. V.P.

Here's the third of my many stalled builds which I'm trying to clear before starting something new. This kit is horrible and as a result has taken me 2 1/2 years to complete! It's not my best model by far, but it's a joy to not have to see it looking sad on top of the wardrobe any more The decals are from a Model Alliance set and the big tanks are from a HobbyBoss rafale kit, otherwise its straight from the box. Thanks for looking

Hi all, I would like to present you one of my models, a Dassault Mirage 2000N from EC 2/4 Lafayette during Red Flag 94/2 exercise. May be you had already seen it on the french forum master194. This is the Eduard/Heller kit which includes resin seats and some photoetch parts. I have added a NECA pod and an inert Magic II, both scratch built, and the Renaissance exhaust nozzle set. The cockpit has been detailed too. The desert paint scheme was specifically made for the occasion. The Mirage 2000N is the nuclear strike variant of the Mirage 2000 family. It was made to carry the ASMP nuclear missile but can perform conventional strike missions. It has been optimised for low-level flight, incorporating a terrain following radar. On picture below it is presented with a SOCEA starting unit from l'Arsenal and scratch built ladders. Thanks for looking, Nicolas

Hi, I've been working on this model almost a year now. It's a kitbash of a Eduard Mirage III CJ and a Italeri Mirage III EA. Since 2012 is the year of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War, I thought I'd do a Falklands War aircraft. I bought a load of books, and some kits (A-4's, SHAR, Harrier Gr.3). This is the only one I've managed to finish so far... The kit itself was a clone between the better detailed Eduard Mirage III CJ and the poor Italeri Mirage III EA. As the Eduard Mirage III CJ is far superior in detail, and looks very similar to the Mirage III EA, I decided to bash the two together using the Italeri cockpit section and the Eduard kit from the area around the intakes and to the rear. I've scratched the weapons stations for the Magic AAMs and used a spare look-alike for the centreline station for the R-530C missile. The droptanks came from Italeri, however I scratched the fins in card. The Magic missiles are from the Esci Mirage 2000 box. I also made the various antennae needed on the fin, back and in front of the cockpit. Decals used were the new Falklands print from Aztec (highly recommended, as it has the toned-down Argentinian markings) and some from Aerocalcas and stencils etc. from Eduard and Italeri. As the engine is different on a III EA than on a III CJ, I used a Wolfpack Atar 9C resin part for the engine section with exhaust. I also used a Pavla MB mk.4 ejection seat and a metal pitot from Master. With regards to the paint; I had a small crisis, as I had pictures of the fin being overpainted in brown to cover som ID panels (probably in yellow). I had no pictures that were good of the top side of the wings, which some also claims were painted with the ID panels and then overpainted. I decided to do the fin, as I had good pictures of this, but not the wings. I used WEMs FS36622 grey, FS 34079 dark green, FS 34102 green olive drab, and grey-toned white for the antennaes. Undercarriage were painted with Alclad. I used RAF Dark Brown for the ID panels. EDIT. Forgot FS30219 tan. I hope you like it, and any comments are welcome - also constructive critque!