Ecuador Mirage F.1 (Hasegawa 1/72)

[bianfuxia]

I know the old Hasegawa kit is probably not the most accurate, even for what it's meant to be, and maybe worse for an Ecuadorian plane.

 

But....I'm going to do it anyway.

 

 

Online I found a pic of an Ecuador AF F.1 armed with Durandal and Python - both of which I have handy which is what gave me the idea and prompted me to get the decal sheet. As these old F.1s from Hasegawa are (a) incredibly affordable and (b) pretty easy to build I might get a couple more to do that Morocco scheme which is also cool.

 

This will be a weekend build for me, when I get to it.

 

 

[Sam]

Welcome @bianfuxia !

The jet in your link looks great with that loadout. Enjoy your build(s), I will certainly be following with interest!

[Wings unlevel]

1 hour ago, bianfuxia said:

which is what gave me the idea and prompted me to get the decal sheet

I think it’s the hardest part of a Mirage build, deciding the operator and decals!

[bianfuxia]

1 hour ago, Wings unlevel said:

I think it’s the hardest part of a Mirage build, deciding the operator and decals!

Totally! There are so many great options!

[TEMPESTMK5]

Welcome aboard bianfuxia

Have fun and enjoy your build

Best regards

Patrice

[Rabbit Leader]

Great to see this kit being built here and I’m sure the choice of final paint scheme doesn't make things easy when you have a great decal sheet like that! I have recently acquired the old Airfix F.1 kit as part of a cheap stash buy and have always been intrigued to know “which (out of all the Classic kits) is the more accurate Mirage F.1 out there” - Airfix, Esci, Heller or Hasegawa? I’m sure the new Special Hobby kits blows them all out of the water, however these classic kits can often be found cheap and to my eye still quite serviceable. 

 

Cheers and best of luck with his build.. Dave 

[bianfuxia]

Yeah I think there's still fun to be had in the older kits, especially if it's not subject you're super expert about. I like to go to town on some of my models but with others it's about ...well, quantity has a quality all of its own! I like to punch out the 1/72 jets and have a busy multinational shelf-top airbase with some money left over for schools and hospitals, haha. 

 

It would be great to see the other classic F.1 kits in this GB and be able to compare them. 

[Rabbit Leader]

3 minutes ago, bianfuxia said:

 

It would be great to see the other classic F.1 kits in this GB and be able to compare them.

Couldn’t agree more. Let’s see what turns up. 

[PhantomBigStu]

Snap, doing the same kit and subject from a different decal sheet  

[bianfuxia]

Well, I made a start on this. The main thing was to decide what greens to use. I really like Vallejo Model Color paints - they're so easy to brush paint, and they are so readily available near me. But they often don't have clear matches to obvious colour and I just don't know why that is. So the pic below shows every green I have - three are Tamiya on the left but the rest are Vallejo.

 

 

None of those are specifically a match for the FS numbers listed on the sheet but I think the circled two are probably pretty close.

 

I also got started on the cockpit:

 

 

The instrument panel decal doesn't fit. I think I will leave the plastic part painted grey, because by the time you're looking through the cockpit window, that grey will merge in with the rest of the cockpit, leaving the black decal appearing to be the instrument panel alone (ie, the grey bit of the panel plastic will kinda disappear from view). 

[bianfuxia]

In this wikipedia pic (public domain, USAF) from 1986 the plane must have been brand new. The paint is perfect:

 

 

Makes me think my darker green shade needs to be a bit darker.

 

In this one, taken in 2006 (creative commons licence), the shades are a bit different:

 

 

I'll probably stick with the colours I have and see how it looks.

[Wings unlevel]

18 hours ago, bianfuxia said:

I'll probably stick with the colours I have and see how it looks.

They look a good match from here. At any rate it will be a terrific looking Mirage.

[bianfuxia]

This one bogged down because I ran out of blu-tack! 

 

finally made it to the shops today...

 

 

I found some washers and a screw from some Ikea flatpack or something like that and shoved it in the front. It easily passes the "balance on the finger at the main wheel axis to test the C of G" test. 

 

You can also see how the instrument panel decal will look like the full panel even though it doesn't actually cover the whole part. Once the seat is in and the glass is on, the appearance will be fine.

 

 

then, because these old 1/72 jets are so easy, I stuck on the wings and tails and boom, I have a Mirage F.1.

 

 

(I took that pic before adding the tail planes)

 

I have to admit, the F.1 is actually a pretty cool looking plane from some angles. I hope to make some more progress on this one soon. 

 

 

[Wings unlevel]

9 hours ago, bianfuxia said:

found some washers and a screw from some Ikea flatpack or something like that and shoved it in the front

Some clever ‘Upcycling’!

[bianfuxia]

Moving this one along a bit. I only needed to do some very minor sanding on that top seam along the fuselage (and a little on the bottom, where I never put in that much effort anyway).

 

Then I painted the first two coats of the darker green camo. I've decided the F1 looks really awesome from the top-front angles.

 

 

 

[Rabbit Leader]

It's good to start seeing some paint being applied to these GB kits. The galley is looking a little empty and does need some filling. Nice work so far. 

Cheers.. Dave 

 

[bianfuxia]

 

This is the first coat of the second green colour. Looks bad now but wait...it will be better with another coat. This is Vallejo acrylic, brush-painted.

 

 

[PhantomBigStu]

Looking good which Vallejo is that lighter green? 

[bianfuxia]

10 hours ago, PhantomBigStu said:

Looking good which Vallejo is that lighter green? 

It's 924 in Model Colour - I think it's called WW2 Russian Uniform Green, of all things. 

[PhantomBigStu]

Just now, bianfuxia said:

It's 924 in Model Colour - I think it's called WW2 Russian Uniform Green, of all things. 

Ah yes, i was going to use that myself originally but my bottle looked slightly too brown, yours looks fine  

[bianfuxia]

Yeah I think the colours are pretty speculative anyway...if you see the few pics of the real deal I posted above there is a pretty wild variation in the appearance of the two planes. I can only assume the first one was pictured the day it left the factory and the second one had been sitting on the Ecuadorian tarmac for a decade! 

 

Either way it's a pretty wicked scheme. Naturally I have now developed plans to buy several more of these Hasegawa F1s - they're so cheap! - and do all the other wild schemes on the decal sheet 😆

[Wings unlevel]

Colours look great!

[bianfuxia]

Second coat of the lighter green. Now it's time for the underside grey and then touch-ups and other details. Still must stick on the intakes!

 

 

 

 

[Rabbit Leader]

Yes, I’d be fitting those intakes rather soon, hopefully they’re a good fit and join clean up and repaint will be minimal. The colours look really good. 
Cheers.. Dave 
 

[bianfuxia]

 

ask and ye shall receive...😁

 

These are the Durandal bombs I plan to put on the centerline. They come from the Hasegawa F-111 kit, which has eight. That big thing is the triple-mount, twin set bomb rack. I will use that, I think, with either nothing on the center mount or maybe I will cut that off. 

 

The kit comes with two Matras for the wingtip rails, but the Ecuadorian F1s also had the Python AAM.

 

Conveniently enough, China licence-built the Python as the PL-8. My J-10 came with a pair of them:

 

 

So that plane has now been relieved of its PL-8s in favour of this F1 which now gets two Python 3.

 

 

They could probably use a bit of a tidy up and I am not sure if these are going to be the right pylons.

 

I still have to figure out the tanks - I think I can maybe use the kit centerline tank, by scavenging the tank off my existing French F1. I will see how the tank looks before I go that way, though. Otherwise it might have to be configured as though it had dropped its tanks.