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Morning Lads and Gals: I`ve finally finished something... Mirage Pantera, 1/72 from High Planes Models, painted with Akan and Vallejo. RBF eduard, Griffing bombs AMK, Python 3 Trumpeter, ladder and chocks L`arsenal. The High Plane Models Mirage IIIE family is extraordinary... there is so much Mirage in each box that the hardest part is to choose what to build. I have build both Panteras, single and two seater and they are both superb. High quality and accurate resins, quality decals, PE set, withe metal bits... and the best thing is that you find all the bits for the other variants in each box, so many options... I`ll leave you few pictures here, I hope you like it Regards Adrian

Hello fellas! On 1980 Chile bought 16 Mirage 50 to France as tensions with Argentina keep 'hot' regarding Picton, Nueva and Lennox islands on the Beagle Channel. At the same time, USA forbid selling spare parts and logistics to the new F-5 Tiger II acquired in 1976, due to human rights issues by the chilean dictatorship at the time, and the UK delay the deliver of new engines for the chilean Hawker Hunters, hence Chile did not have other option but to buy the last version of the delta french fighter bomber as Argentina got nearly thirty IAI Daggers by Israel between 1978 and 1981. The Mirage 50 was a late development of the Mirage 5, with a more powerful engine Snecma Atar 9K-50 (7.200 kg/thrust, 2.2 mach) and a new radar system (Cyrano or Agave options). I used the kit by Kinetic Mirage III/5 South American, as the Mirage 50 is identical to the Dagger, with the exception of some antennas. The fit of the kit was far from awesome, specially the air intakes and front wheel bay zone, but with a lot of sanding and putty it work out fine. For decals I used some spare chilean emblems from the AFV F-5 Tiger II and Trumpeter A-37 Dragonfly. Although the Mirage 50 can carry air to air missiles (israeli Shafrir II) the FACH used them mainly as a strike aircraft to ground and naval targets. I used the supersonic RPK-10 aux fuel tanks which can carry up to four 250 lbs bombs each, in this case, with 2 Mk. 82 Snake Eye bombs on the interior wing pylon and one M. 117 bomb (750 lbs) on the central pylon. This Mirage 50 FC served with serial number 504 of the FACH's 4th Group at Chabunco Air Force Base (Punta Arenas) in 1985. FACH keep the original french cammo from 1980-1985, later applying a low visibility one to the entire fleet. So, enough talking, let the photos show you my tribute to this elegant french delta guarding the chilean inlets of Tierra del Fuego during the 80' and 90'. Best wishes from Chile and happy modelling to all! Cris

I suppose I should start by saying I’m aware of the official MoD line “There’s nothing to see here” with respect to No.39 Squadrons involvement in the Falklands war, however it seems to be a fascinating story and mention of this exercise in Roland Whites excellent ‘Harrier 809’ book has peaked my interest. I’ve also just read a good article in the Key.aero forum which I’ll link here. Now googling all sorts of “Canberra, Chile, Falklands” criteria has turned up two artist impressions. It would appear that no ‘official’ photos exist of these deployed Canberra’s however I was just wondering if these drawings look to be a plausible (and happy to call it) What-if scheme? I also believe there was an article in the old Warplane Magazine Part series (#36), so if anyone has this magazine and is able to supply a scanned copy of this article, it would be gratefully appreciated. Any additional information that might assist a possible build would also be a real bonus. Here are the two images in question. All comments most welcomed. Cheers and regards.. Dave

All Chilean Air Force's F-16 1:72 & 1:48 - TG Decals TG Decals are a new company to us here at Britmodeller and this is their first sheet for users of the F-16. This sheet covers all F-16s in service in Chile, all the blocks single and twin seaters. There is one decal sheet, and a small sheet of self adhesive reinforcement plates for those Block 30 MLU aircraft. The sheet is not shown, but the placement instructions are. There are good detailed colour instructions and they have included a variety of popular paints in the colour call outs. While some modellers don't like making out tail codes from individual characters, the use like this enables any aircraft to be modelled. The decals are printed in the US so they leave you to guess who with The quality is excellent, they are sharp, in register and have minimal carrier film. The 1/48 sheet is shown for clarity but the 1/72 are just as good. Conclusion An overall great package from TG to model one of the national users of the F-16 not catered for by more mainstream manufacturers. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Morning Gals and Lads: Here comes the first one of this year (hopefully not the last). The good old Matchbox tooling of the Twin Otter depicting a Chilean machine operating from Antarctica circa 1985. I added the antennas, air scoop, wind screen wipers plus some safety ropes and struts for the skis. I leave you a few pictures: I hope you like it. Cheers Adrian

Chile 1973 - The other 9/11 The downfall of Salvador Allende ISBN : 9781912174959 Helion & Company via Casemate UK While everyone is familiar with the devastating event of 11th September 2001, in Chile the term 9/11 has a completely different meaning. The 11th of September 1973 was the day that General Pinochet staged a Coup and overthrew the democratically elected Salvador Allende which lead to a military junta ruling Chile until 1990. Until this point Chile had been one of the most democratic countries in South America. The Coup supported by the US but without any direct involvement involved the CIA creating conditions for the coup to take place, and supporting the regime afterwards. Deaths attributed directly to the coup were small and it was always reported President Allende took his own life. However in 2011 a secret military account was found which heavily suggested he was assassinated. Even though initial deaths were small the Military Junta then used the coup as a basis to round up an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 people and imprison them. Many of these people would later be murdered by the regime becoming the infamous "Disappeared" of Chile. It is not really know even today how many people were actually killed, however its estimated to be in the thousands. The book looks at all aspects of this dark period in Chilean history. It is A4 softcover in format with 64 pages. Black and white photographs feature throughout the text. There are 4 pagers of colour profiles of the aircraft which took part, and 2 pages with military vehicles. Conclusion This book should provide readers with a understanding of the the events which took place in Chile in 1973 and some of what follwed afterwards. Highly Recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Hi all! After a very brief hiatus, the next colourful bird has rolled out of the paint shop. As you can see, she is a Douglas A-26B Invader, or correctly a TB-26B, as she was when operated by the Fuerza Aerea Chilena (Chilean Air force). Depicted as “849”, the last Invader delivered to Chile, she was a target tug. Formerly she was operated by the 2nd Target Tow Squadron, United States Air Force from Mitchell Field. See: http://www.hempsteadplains.com/2ndtow.htm. The tail emblem is from that unit. These last two Invaders (848 and 849) ended their operational days with 8 Grupo at Antofagusta Air Base. “848” still exists as the base gate guard. The kit is the Italeri A-26B Invader (1/72). With this build my easy and obvious option was to build “848” as she is illustrated widely and you can find her on the net. However, I came across the image below. My interpretation of the image is that it was taken in Tucson. My only evidence for this is that the full image has an F-100 landing overhead. It was kindly supplied to me by Danilo Villaroel Canga . He is an expert on all things Chilean Air Force, having written books and he maintains a blog on the subject. He has been a great source of inspiration. This machine intrigued me and so I attempted to interpret the Black and white image below with a few others to get the colours and markings correct. She appeared to have retained some of the “Arctic Red” areas on the wings and tail and was then overpainted with the Dayglo areas. I haven’t seen any plan views of this so this is where I used my judgement. They may not be perfect but it is my best effort. I used some “modellers discretion” too, which I don’t like to do but I got to the end of the road with my research with some questions un-answered, particularly the colour of the pale areas on the nose, wing panels and rear fuselage. Danilo was sure it was yellow but I’ve gone for Dayglo/Fluorescent Red Orange. In construction terms the only real changes were the deletion of the turrets, the addition of the TT apparatus and the opening behind that from where the tow banner was dropped. An image of this is below: I have not been able to locate any images of the mechanism internally and as it is not visible I elected not to try and replicate it. So what did I do/use? Italeri A-26B Invader kit (1/72) Deleted the turrets and blanked the upper with plasticard. Built the TT apparatus and installed it underneath Blanked the nose gun ports Filed out the interior of the engine cowlings and added exhausts with half round Plastruct rod. Painted with Humbrol 27001 Aluminium Metalcote, 33 Black, 34 White, 189 Insignia Blue, 153 Insignia Red, 209 Fluorescent Red Orange (undercoated with white and yellow), 226 Interior green, and others. Varnished with Gloss and Mattcotes. Exhaust stains sprayed with very weak pale tan, brown and black. Decals came from the FCM Latin Invaders set although in the end I used almost nothing as I printed the Chilean “shield” (the sheet one has an incorrect blue), the unit badge, the serials (Amarillo). The white star on the rudder, stencilling and red lining came from the sheet. Antennas from Uschi Panel lined and dirtied with Flory Dirt and Sand, plus the use of Tamiya Weathering sticks. I hope she finds a friend out there..... Martin Adding more images:

I'm going to record here my progress on a long-term triple build. It's quite likely that I'll deviate away from time to time to build something else (and I have a Sherman to build for the Great Patriotic War GB), so this may take a while to finish. I have always found De Havilland aircraft to be rather attractive designs, and their distinctive twin-boom jet designs also grabbed my attention when I was a kid. One of the first kits I bought as an adult was the Airfix 1/48 Sea Vixen. I realised when I got home just how big the finished article would be, and it entered the stash as "one for the future". Move on a few years and Airfix released their new tool 1/72 Vampire trainer. I resisted the kit as I didn't particularly like the included schemes and didn't find an aftermarket decal sheet justifiable, but Home Bargains' recent cheap sale of what I assume were Airfix overstocks meant that two kits entered my stash. Crisp's terrific and very educational Sea Vixen FAW.1 build (http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234973210-de-havilland-sea-vixen-faw1-890nas-hms-ark-royal-1963-4/) was the final straw catalyst. No more excuses! But first, let's build something a bit smaller. You know, for twin boom practice... None of these are going to be completely OOB, but neither am I exactly going to town on the aftermarket. I'll be doing both Vampires in schemes from the Xtradecal overseas operators sheet #2. One will definitely be in the sand/brown Chilean camo scheme: The other I think will probably be in the Lebanese scheme, though I could easily be tempted by the Swiss and Aussie options on the sheet (or I may just wimp out at the prospect of the red and yellow bands required). I've picked up a couple of the Pavla ejection seats to go in that one; I suspect anything else in the cockpit will be invisible at this scale. Of course, they'll both be dwarfed by their big FAA sister. Again, she won't be OOB as I have some Eduard etch for the interior, and I've invested in a nice new pot of EDSG. Can't wait to brush paint all of that

Singapore Stratotankers (KC-135's) + Turkey & Chile 1:72 Miliverse As well as being the mainstay of the USAF Air-2-Air refuelling capacity the KC-135 also provides this capability to other countries air forces around the world. These include Republic of Singapore, Turkey, and Chile. These decals from Singapore based Miliverse give the modeller a chance to represent one of these countries KC-135s. The decals come on 3 major sheets. One contains only black lettering, the second national markings and tail flashes, and the third the main airframe markings including colours and metallics on the same sheet. The decals look excellent, well printed, colour dense and have minimal carrier film. Conclusion These decals will help the modeller make a good looking, and different KC-135. Highly Recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Hello again everybody. Revell kit + Nazca decals. White automotive paint, Alclad for the engines. My father flew this one, LanChile only had three of them and one was lost in 1991 in a runway overrun accident in Puerto Williams, Chile (Patagonia). 20 passengers died. It was an aircraft definitely ahead of its time, bringing by then unkown low-noise levels to air travel down here in south america. It performed extremely well in short runways in spite of having no thrust reversers as well. Thanks for looking