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1/32 Italeri Mirage IIIE


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Here with my recently finished Italeri 1/32 Mirage IIIE

 

What can I say about this kit? Well I love Mirages and particularly the Mirage III. If I didn't, this kit would be in the bin! Soft and sometimes incomplete surface details. The surface is rough. The instructions are unclear in a number of areas. The nose cone in particular and some other major parts are poorly fitting - in fact I would go so far as to say the nosecone is an appalling fit for a modern kit! The wheels are a joke - the tread on the main wheels, well, what there is, bears no resemblance to the real thing. I wasn't helped by a strangely moulded canopy which didn't even start to fit and was strangely flexible (Italeri did replace this after an argument). The afterburner area is horrible! The indicated position of the holes to mount the underwing fuel tanks are in the wrong place and if, like me, you choose the large 1700l tanks, they foul the U/C doors. I filled and repositioned after much swearing. The sprue with the ECM pods on has some weird short shot areas, luckily on the inside, out of sight (though I am going to tackle Italeri again for some replacements). I certainly didn't find this easy.

 

I was going to use some Berna decals and build something a little different but ultimately, the kit did not seem worth it to me so I went with the kit decals which worked superbly - but some of the decals are horribly over-scale and unreallistic.

 

In the end, it looks quite nice but I am truly fed up with it now so I'm calling it finished. I did intend to do some more weathering/chipping etc and I may go back to it later.

 

I replaced the nose probe with a Master turned one and I replaced the wheels with IIIC ones from Eduard which luckily include the later E type brakes.

 

So without more ado - some pictures (And yes, I do need a bigger base LOL!)

 

Cheers

 

Malcolm

 

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Edited by Baldy
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If you hadn't have told us we'd be none the wiser about all of the shortcomings you've had to overcome.  Brilliant result well done!

 

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Despite of your big problems with this kit, you made a great job my friend, i dont know what thoughts hit the engineers from Italeri, so many complains about their previous F-104, so they got the chance to make it better now, but no, the Mirage is, i think, more worse than the 104.

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17 hours ago, Harry Callahan said:

Despite of your big problems with this kit, you made a great job my friend, i dont know what thoughts hit the engineers from Italeri, so many complains about their previous F-104, so they got the chance to make it better now, but no, the Mirage is, i think, more worse than the 104.

Thank You Harry

The thing I find most annoying is that in the UK Italeri price the kit at RRP £89.99, which is way high in my opinion, but the same mouldings are available (less a bit of PE) from Revell at £54.99 which seems more in the ball park WRT quality. I would certainly expect these days something more refined and which fitted better than this kit. I guess that explains why so many turn up for sale at low prices at model shows.

I have also managed to pick up Italeri F-104s cheap at shows so may have a go at one of those some time - for now though, something Tamiya I think!

 

Cheers

 

Malcolm

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As a comparison, whilst I had both models out, I snapped the Mirage III with my Revell 1/32 Bf109G-6. The 109 was not a large aircraft, even by WWII standards but side by side it shows the diminutive size of the Mirage III. Not a great shot, taken on my phone but an interesting comparison I think.

 

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