Italeri RAAF Mirage IIIO. FINISHED

[ClumsyDude]

Looking sweet Eric. I love that you took the sandpaper to a painted model, I'd do the same. Great work.

 

Jim

[TTail]

Victor K2 talking about Jane . ..... Just Jane ..... "Jane of the daily mirror" ....  actually Jane Leighton Porter married to my God father Arthur Leighton Porter a Typhoon pilot in WWII ..... small world .... apologies for thread creep

Edited April 11, 2017 by TTail

[dodgem37]

Hard to imagine one can make a great-looking model look even greater.  But you and your remarkable skills certainly have done that.  Well done, Eric.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Kahunaminor]

Great stuff Eric,

 

Taking that extra time and leap of faith to strip down and reshape a completed area has certainly paid off.

 

Regards,

[TTail]

Scramble !

 

Sitting in the aeroplane on Alert 2 at Tengah in the old RAF Lightning Alert sheds.

Telebrief cable plugged in providing secure comms. This cable just pulls out as you taxi off. The aircraft is pre flighted with most switches made. From the scramble order the requirement is to be airborne in 2 minutes.

After around 30mins in the cockpit The Telebrief comes alive with Singaporean accented chatter :

 

"Tengah Alert 1 Mirage"

"Mirage A3-13 Become Mission 501 Alpha"

"Mission 501 Alpha"

"Scramble Gate Climb Angels 35 Vector 040"

"Call Gombak GCI 15"

"Mission 501 Alpha Scramble"

 

So began an eventful trip. scramble from Alert 2 in the "lightning sheds"

A quick Flash of the landing light to alert the troops.

Hit the start button and 1min later taxing from the Lightning sheds on to Rwy 36 Tengah.

No take off clearance required as Scramble clearance by default gives the Clear take off.

Already at Full dry power as I align with the runway check for 600deg T4 yes lift the Throttle lever up initiating AB light off see the red AB inj light come on followed almost instantly by the Yellow AB on light. Smartly advance the throttle.

 

 

Passing 125Kias gradually ease in some backstick, at around 165Kts commence the rotation to 10 deg nose up. As soon as I am airborne pull the gear up. Hold the attitude and accelerate into the Full AB climb schedule at 450Kts. Start the climb at around 25 degrees nose up.  Gunsight in Missile mode, Missile Master on, Gun Master on, Verify Missile Stby switch on,  Master Arm on. Passing 16,000ft convert to 0.9Mach to follow the schedule. In next to no time level at 35,000ft. Across to Gombak the GCI sight and check in.

After all the excitement of the scramble I check in with Gombak. I am told that the contact I was scrambled for has dropped off the radar. Probably gone to low level I think. Gombak then says "set speed Saunter CAP in present position at Angels 30". so I set up a CAP holding 0.9M running East West pretty much at right angles to any expected Threat to Singapore. After two goes around the pattern I see 4 tiny Triangles darting down below in the weeds in Battle 4 heading South ... jammiest pick up ever. I tell Gombak I am engaged and roll in on the 4 ship. This is a 30,000feet vertical conversion on 4 Mirages doing around 540knots.  As I arrive at low level I am just out of Sidewinder range but with reasonable overtake. They are really really low and haven't as yet seen me. Okay get lower than them so I am not skylighted. I ease it down doing around .95Mach/620Knots     .... shitbags I really am low. I see the 4 ship just crest a small ridge line ... easy don't come up too early just skim the ridge. As the ridge line comes up I ease the stick back ....BAM from somewhere up front, Radar drops off line Master Fail light On, DAMP light on the fail panel ... and Dampers popped .... aeroplane still flying engine still going ...... Heart rate off the clock .... **** I must have hit a tree or trees coming over the ridge I thought.... I was really pushing the Low flying a little .... Keep it going up need to get it slowed down and above Minimum Ejection altitude. level off around 6000feet and ease the throttle back ... no issues engine ok. I declare a PAN on the radio (Green set) .... nothing, do the same on the Red set (Standby radio) .... nothing .... Bummer radio failure as well ! Rotate the IFF mode selector round to EMERG ... if the IFF is working it will now be transmitting 7700 on mode 3 and setting off alarms in all the ATC/GCI centres telling everyone I have a problem.

 

Ok lets start heading for Tengah and take stock of the situation. Aeroplane is flying OK (though without the Dampers ... no big deal), Engine going nicely, No radios, No radar. I get back to 300knots (Min drag speed) and track towards Tengah. I hit final around 8nm out at around 2500feet. Time for the gear hope its all right ....I am still pretty sure I have hit trees and thats whats causing the issues. Gear goes down just fine....Phew ! Now lets just slowly decelerate and see if she responds normally (ever mindful of unseen damage). I get down to 200Kias and all is good. OK lets fly final at 200Knots a little faster than normal but gives a little bit more margin. at around 3Nm I see a Green light from the tower ... clear to land. Normal touch down.... hold the nose up .... wait for 160knots then pop the chute.. I feel the reassuring Tug as the chute deploys ... phew not a good time for a chute failure. I use the full length of Rwy18 at Tengah, Jettison the chute and then taxi in to the ORP at the end of the runway and shut down. Put the seat pan and face blind pins in to safe the seat. Waiting at the end of the strip are the troops with a tow motor and a ladder and of course the Fireies. I look at the troops faces as they approach the aeroplane expecting to see incredulous looks and finger pointing at bits of Malaysia jutting out from the underside. Unbelievable no such thing they just stroll up put the ladder on to the cockpit side and jump up to verify the seat pins are in and ask what the problem is ? ....

Ok be careful here Ttail I say to myself ... I just say I  frightened myself and had a major electrical issue. I get off the ladder and attempt to nonchalantly check out the underside of the aeroplane. To my surprise absolutely nothing clean as a whistle ! Ok I didn't hit anything then so what the hell happened? how am I going to write this up in the 500 ? (Technical log ... same as the form 700 for the RAF types).  I catch ride back with the troops as the jet is towed back to the hangar exchanging the tale of how I was chasing these 4 Mirages then bam etc etc.

I decide to write the aeroplane up exactly as the events transcribed but not talking about any possible tree strikes just the hard facts of the failures. Off to the crew room and had a chat with the flight commander a great guy and told him the sequence of events including the possibility of tree strikes but no evidence on the aeroplane. No probs let that be a lesson to you was the guidance given.

 

About an hour later the phone rings and the WOE says I better come over and have a look at the jet in the hangar. Fearing the worst I stroll over and see about 6 troops all peering into an open equipment bay (The one behind the cockpit on top of the fuselage that Eric re shaped .  I clamber up the work stand and peer inside ... shitbags clearly been a fire in there. It turns out at some stage a minor electrical fire had occurred in the equipment bay ... that caused the radar to drop off line, the radios to fail and the dampers pop. It would seem the power failure occurred at exactly the time I started the pull over the ridge line. The BAM I felt was the radar antenna losing stabilization and slamming to its gimbal limits as the G came on .

 

Another day in the life of a Squadron pilot.

 

None PIC T Shirt Circa 1979.... complete with typos

 

[Kais]

So you missed the intercept, Sir?  

Cowboy pilot indeed!

Rippa yarn TTail.

[Simmo.b]

Always enthralling to hear these stories and great build, thanks guys!!

[Whitey]

Nice work on the blending of the nose cone and the pitot Eric. 

[ericg]

Sean, once again, an awesome read. Almost worthy of a book!

 

The extensive modification to the nose cone has paid off now that I have painted it. I reckon it looks much better.

 

 

In its own small way, it contributes to the overall look of the model.

 

 

I installed the blast deflectors, a nice touch that was included in the kit. Immediately next to them are the vents which I could not find any reference to in the instructions (although they are depicted installed in some of the pages of the instructions and not others) I had initially missed them and had to repaint that area once installed. Incidentally, these vents are depicted in the sprue breakdowns on page 2 as parts with no numbers on Sprues `D` although on the sprues themselves they are part number 20.

 

 

More work on the ejection seat. I am scratch building the lower harnesses now. All parts of the harness have been fabricated from plastic card, aluminium foil and brass.

 

 

 

The main legs painted. I clad the hydraulic rams with chrome Bare metal foil.

 

[TTail]

Haha a book, well Eric I have actually considered one. Once I retire which is is not that far away it might come to fruition. The name is all ready set "Oscar Amedee Dashpot and me" would be its title I ll leave it to the sleuths out there to figure that one out

[Cheetah11]

Hi TTail,

 

You should make the riddle a little more difficult. I will give one of the answers and the see where it goes. The Amedee provided variable rates in the roll plane on the Mirage III. RC modelers know this as logarithmic throw. In plain language the more stick applied, the greater the elevon deflection in the roll plane. I hope you get to write the book and look forward to read it someday.

 

Regards

 

Cheetah11

Edited April 12, 2017 by Cheetah11

[TTail]

Very Shrewd reply Cheetah11 I sense in your ID some inside inside Knowledge

[DesTROYer]

Beautiful work Eric.  This build of yours just keeps on inspiring me to not only build better but to spend more money. Between the Kit, the punches and the Silhouette that I've bought, all as a result of you and your posts, I think I'm up to around $750 in newly bought items. Keep it up.

[ericg]

Beautiful work Eric.  This build of yours just keeps on inspiring me to not only build better but to spend more money. Between the Kit, the punches and the Silhouette that I've bought, all as a result of you and your posts, I think I'm up to around $750 in newly bought items. Keep it up.

 

Ok, can I interest you in a drill press, compound table and accessories? There is another $750ish right there!

 

http://www.mytoolstore.com.au/products/PROXXON-Bench-Drill-Machine-TBM220%2328128.html

[ericg]

More work on the stuff hanging underneath the model. The fuel tank that I was going to fit to the centerline pylon seemed to be a bit thin compared to photos. Cheetah11 did point it out a few pages back and the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to fix it. I removed the rear fins and  glued 2mm thick plastic to one half of a spare tank, then glued both halves together, before cutting the tank into halves again perpendicular to the original join. I then glued another 2mm thick section of plastic card to one half and rejoined it, significantly expanding the diameter of the tank. Once the glue had set, I spun the tank in the lathe and sanded the joins flush. I also decreased the span of the rear wings once I had them glued into place.

 

I have also finished the pylon.

 

 

 

Hung under the model and the tough bits are starting to come together!

 

 

 

Once primed and compared to the original tank, the new one looks much better.