1/48 Academy Mirage III 

by Pablo Girgulsky

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After the Malvinas War (Falklands War) the reserve aircraft of the Fuerza Aerea Argentina were re-assigned to bases, mostly in the patagonia as those were the ones which lost planes.  There was also a certain distrust about the Chilean Government after they helped British in intelligence duties.  So these planes started flying as soon as possible over the cold skies of  south Argentina.  The  Peruvian government sent some Mirages days before the end of war, which were reserved an later reasigned.  This kit represents one of those aircraft.  

This Academy kit is known as a poor kit.  Really truth.  Anyhow, it has nice recessed panel lines and rivets.  The cockpit is a joke and the canopy clear part is only one part.  I started working here, scratch built everything: seat, instrument panel and the radio behind the seat which was put further back to give some more space in there.

The other thing that is disagreeable is the landing gear bays which have no "roof", so you can see the fuselage join from the underside.  I corrected these with a curved blister cut to match the front and back ends.  As I was doing that, I decided to take away the airbrakes just to put something else to the plain delta wing.  I also added some wires here and there, reinforced the struts, sealed every join sand and paint, ufff! that was hard...

Click on images below to see larger images

Peru sent their planes in sand/brown camo scheme.  Some were keep as that, but most were painted sand and green for a while. Today they have a low visibility grey scheme.  Yes, next time I will pick the Italeri one...

Pablo

Photos and text © by Pablo Girgulsky