High Planes 1/72 Mirage IIIBS/DS & IAI Nesher 2 seater

HIGH PLANES 1:72 MIRAGE IIIBS/DS / IAI NESHER (2-SEAT)

Reviewer: Paul Wherran (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 10 March 2008

Kit Details:

#72052 Swiss Mirage IIIBS/DS and Israeli Nesher two-seater

Aircraft History:

The Mirage III was part of the 'first generation' of Mach 2 Jet fighters designed in the mid-1950's, along with such other famous aircraft as the MiG-21, F-104 Starfighter, English Electric Lightning and Saab Draken. This was a period of very fast evolution in terms of aircraft technology and design, with a variety of radically different fighter configurations being researched in the quest for speed, and a good many of these made it to the production stage. Indeed, each of the five aircraft already mentioned had a quite distinct configuration. In the case of the Mirage III, this was the tailless delta wing layout, with an 'area ruled' fuselage. Among the other aircraft mentioned, only the Draken came even close, and that had a 'blended' wing/fuselage which was a markedly different concept.

Like all of the other aircraft mentioned, the Mirage III was originally designed for the interceptor role, but eventually found itself being pressed into service in the ground attack role. In this, the Mirage III was probably more successful than most of its competitors, despite the basic drawbacks of the tailless delta layout - poor manoeuvrability and high landing speeds. Of course, its main competitors were also hampered to some extent by their optimised design. While the Mirage III did not have the 'Superpower' advantage of MiG 21 or F-104, it nonetheless enjoyed considerable export success as well as in France. The successful employment of the Mirage III by Israel during the 1967 six-day war gave an obvious fillip to export sales.

Over 1,400 Mirage III's were built, with production only terminating in the early 1980's. A number of different variants were produced, including the dual-rule 'E' model designed for the fighter bomber role, and which introduced a 30cm 'plug' behind the cockpit to store extra avionics and fuel. Israel commissioned the development of the Mirage, but the French government blocked the delivery of the aircraft, which eventually found their way into the Armee de l'Air. Having been refunded, the Israelis then copied the Mirage plans without license as the Nesher, although suspicion of collusion by Dassault remains. Some 61 Neshers were built, some being later re-exported to Argentina and given the name Dagger.

The Kit:

An unattractive photocopied box lid provides the inspiration for purchase, mainly because it was a different Mirage III and Nesher combined. I toyed with the idea of purchasing two kits, to make the different versions but only one was available for purchase. There is a resealable plastic bag inside the top opening box which contains 40 light blueish limited run molded parts. Another smaller bag contains 17 metal, 3 resin and vacform canopy. A decal sheet and instruction booklet float loosely in the box.

This kit shares a fair bit in common with some other similar types of limited run kits, with Amodel probably coming to mind first. There is a combination of finely engraved and raised rivet detail with parts attached to heavy sprue lugs, and a fair amount of flash and other clean up that will be required in the project ahead.

Resin parts look nicely cast with no flash really speak of and the white metal parts also look nice. The vacform canopy as always is very clear with the framework reasonably clear to cut and paint around but unfortunately no spare.

Instructions:

These are basically done on two double sided A4 sheets of paper to form a four paged booklet that size. On one side of the first sheet you are presented with a brief overview of the aircraft types depicted in the kit plus a narrative on the construction process with various tips to assist. The otherside sets out basic assembly steps with exploded views of the undercarriage and cockpit areas. The second sheet is dedicated to colours and markings for the three aircraft types you can build with FS numbers included for painting.

Construction:

Before construction can begin you need to pull out your #11 blade, sandpaper and cleaning solution as the whole kit needs a good bit of preparation in order to go ahead and build it. There is a lot of flash to clean, large sprue lugs to carefully remove and a waxy solution requiring the sprues receive a nice warm wash first. Be careful with the blade work though because it is very easy to carve gouges out of the soft plastic. Once that was done, the resin parts were carefully removed from their casts and the white metal parts put aside on the ready as well.

Inside the office you are presented with control columns, ejection seats and instrument panels which are all in white metal, making the project a little more difficult for those who have only delved into plastic cockpits before. It seems that the white metal parts for the cockpit were not quite made for this kit due to the poor fit, and several painstaking sessions of dry fit runs and trimming was needed before finally wearing the parts down to a point they would fit without any problems, particularly the oversized ejection seats. Ditto this for the nosewheel area too.

After the cockpit was placed inside the fuselage, nose weight was added a little more than what was suggested in the instructions and then the halves were closed. Again several dry fit runs were needed before a satisfactory fit can be achieved.

The wing is broken down into a single lower piece upon which two upper halves go and which are subsequently mated to the belly of the fuselage. Sounds easy in theory but some dry fit runs revealed a very poor fit. After some trimming the wings fitted quite well into the cavity but left lots of gaps around the joins, particularly at the rear wing section, which needed a bit of filler and sanding to fix. Some of the finely engraved surface detail was lost during this process, so you have to be careful with your application of filler.

Unfortunately there was more hard work ahead when I went to affix the air intakes and found these a very poor fit. Initially I thought the instructions had misnumbered the intakes the wrong way around such was the poor fit but the canard attachment area and the revelation they were poorer when swapped around soon shot that theory. A lot of dry fit runs and trimming etc was needed to achieve a reasonable and eventual fit, but you need to bear in mind that the canards have to be attached later if you are building the Swiss version so it is best also to incorporate them into all the dry fit runs. I spent most of the time outside of the cockpit on this part of construction.

The tail fin and nose cone were much better fits, providing again a quick dry fit run or two and careful alignment was undertaken. The vacform canopy also needs careful cutting and dry fitting before achieving a decent fit. The undercarriage section was pretty straight forward compared to the rest of the kit, but the nosewheel sits too high. The nose probe doesn’t fit very well at all and needs a dob of super glue and some patience for it to sit at the correct angle. The Swiss version requires nose strakes to be scratchbuilt which is best done from small 0.8 mm card.

Colour Schemes:

Three examples can be built from this kit, although two are identical Swiss versions in a two tone overall grey camouflage scheme. The other is a IAI Nesher/Mirage IIIBJ of 618 Negav Sqn in the typical Israeli camouflage scheme of Light Sand, Brown and Dark Green with light blue undersides and features no canards nor RWR receivers.

Decals:

The small decal sheet has some stencilling along with all the roundels needed for each of the versions. The register is very nice but also quite glossy and there is barely any carrier film surrounding the parts. In spite of some initial hesitation the decals went on without any fuss whatsoever and there was no silvering effect seen under a first gloss then second satin coat. They were really good.

Accuracy:

I found this a little difficult to make a judgement on because High Planes are renowned for producing accurate kits. However, the dimensions from books I checked, which could not agree with each other anyway, made the model come up slightly underscaled in length but very slightly overscale in span. Depending on which photos or references you use there are also different aerials and antenna that are lacking from the model, but again, different sources say different things. Overall though, I had no qualms with the accuracy, it looks very good to my eye.

Overall Recommendation:

The end result is worth it I must say, but it took a hell of a lot of work to get there. High Planes produce some left field subject material not covered by other manufacturers so on this basis you have to give them the tick of approval. But you need to be fairly experienced and have lots and lots of patience, and spend the time and effort dry fit testing and trimming to achieve a successful result.

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