Mistral

Back to some regular programming . Cheetah D now painted in base colours as follows : Light grey - Mr. Colour 306 (FS367290) Dark grey - Mr. Colour 305 (FS36118) (x3) + Mr. Colour 366 (FS35164) (x1) + Tamiya X-2 white (x1), then overpsrayed with thinned 366. The SAAF has not published official colour designations for the Cheetahs and I approximate these using reference photos where the white balance in the image appears to be accurate. In this case, I think the colours work. Most Cheetah Ds with the original Mirage IIIE/D undercarriage and framed windshield were painted in an overall medium grey. One of two were painted in the later two-tone grey camouflage prior to being upgraded to 16 ton undercarriage and single pice windshield (and Atar 09K50 engines). One of these was #841 which will be the subject of this model. So, base light grey on and now masking prior to applying dark grey diamond - I use stuff called "Prestic" in South Africa (blutac) rolled into thin worms to give a nice soft edge : Masking removed : I've used mottling mask to provide a random patchy appearance to the base colours :

And now for my favourite part - adding the Tamiya fine grey primer straight from the can. This stuff is gold and provides for a really nice surface to identify any defects which need to be rectified. Once that's done, I treat the primer coat to some 12,000 grit micromesh for a silky smooth finish upon which the paint can be applied : Wing fences have been added but broke off soon after. They'll go on as the last part before final varnish is applied.

So then, looking all the part like a mini Cheetah - it's really quite a looker, even with that droopy nose : All major resin parts are now present and accounted for, including the refuelling probe trunking on the starboard intake and the long trunking along the starboard wing/fuselage interface - I think this has something to do with electrical looms. The rectangular opening on the starboard fuselage side is characteristic of Mirages and Cheetahs powered by the Atar 09C engine. For the later modification of the Cheetah D to 09K50 engine, this was closed up. I added grilles with small sections of plastic card to both the rectangular and square openings as seen on the real aircraft. The elevons have been added and drooped as was characteristic of the Mirage III / Cheetah aircraft. The inner SAS control surface was normally seen in the neutral position.

And then, the worst part of this build - cutting the windshield and gluing in position - the fit here is not good to say the least. So a lot of filler and elbow grease is required. Luckily the vac-formed windshield is clear and very robust and retains it's shape irrespective of whatever mishandling the modeller throws at it. Tamiya tape is used to prevent any scratches whilst applying filler and sanding : Before I glued the windshield in place, I added some internal framing with Evergreen plastic flat sections : After at least 10 sessions of applying Tamiya white filler followed by sanding followed by more filler we get to this ..... patience is the watchword here. And if you feel like hurling the kit at the closest wall, just take a deep breath, place it out of harm's way and have a beer.... All that remains is to carefully scribe the panel line around the windshield. It looks pretty bad in the image above but once primer is applied, it looks the part. And just like that, the hardest part is behind us

Next was to install the vertical stabiliser. This was slightly warped to port but a liberal treatment of heat care of my wife's hair dryer sorted that out. This was followed by gluing the canards into position. This is the trickiest part of the resin set - getting the correct amount of resin casting block removed to allow the canards to sit tightly against the double curvature of the intake trunking. Once again, gentle work with a dremmel tool followed by test fitting (and repeating several times) is the only way to go. Assuming the "bull in the China shop" approach will end up in tears. And anyway, after all the effort to get to this stage, one doesn't want to mess things up !. The dorsal intakes have also been glued in place : Test fit of the resin exhaust. There is a gap between the rear of the kit supplied exhaust duct and the resin part - will need to figure out a plan to sort this out . By gluing the rear fuselage sections to each fuselage half before gluing the fuselage halves eliminates what could be a problematic step in this area.

Here are some photos of the droopy nose. Not very aesthetically appealing, but it still has presence . Some portions on the resin nose needed treatment with Tamiya white putty. The nose to fuselage interface was filled with Tamiya light curing putty - that's the sickly yellow looking stuff in the image below - it's great stuff and sands at a similar consistency to the kit plastic and the resin and doesn't result in an obvious dip in surface contour. It also scribes well using demo tape as a template and a Tamiya razor saw as the scriber - the Tamiya white putty tends to shatter under the onslaught of the razor saw : I had to carve out the avionics cooling vent : A minor detail (missed by Kinetic on their 48th Cheetah D) is the asymmetric arrangement of the two side by side vents just aft of the RWR bumps.

Thanks Furie. That's as I understand it from ex-SAAF pilot. Your translation is good !

Hi Furie. Thanks for your kind words. Open airbrakes were a characteristic of the Mirage when powered off, as were the drooped flight control surfaces. There's also a lot of "under the skin" modifications to the basic Mirage airframe to convert to a Cheetah. For example, the reinforcing on the forward intake trunking to accommodate canard aerodynamic loads, refueling probe and the intake weapons hardpoints. The Cheetah Ds were later upgraded with a single piece windshield, upgraded 16 ton main landing gear legs (per Kfir) and, even later, ATAR 09K50 engines. Aircraft with this engine can be identified by looking at the curved shape of the intake boundary layer plate.

Loose fit of dog tooth inserts - care must be taken not to snap off the tips of the tooth...it has a habit of catching on one's clothing : Then using Tamiya white putty, the gaps are filled in and sanded smooth followed by rescribing the panel line in that area : Next is gluing on the distinctive ventral fairing which included a chaff and flare dispenser : At this stage I've glued on the elevons and drooped the outer two units at more of an angle than the inboard one - again, characteristic of Mirage IIIs and Cheetahs at rest. The outer elevon actuator fairing can be replaced with the stores pylon - for the Cheetah D, this is where the V3B air to air missiles were carried. And then checking the loose fit of the major resin parts - forward fuselage, nose, intakes, spine and vertical stabiliser - all that's needed are the canards :

As an interlude to slicing and cutting, I completed the assembly of the cockpit including painting the interiors. Cheetah D cockpit were painted a light grey and not black like the Mirages. The instrument panels can be wiggled into position later. And now for the major interface of resin to kit - this required a lot of trimming, sanding and test fitting to get the resin forward fuselage to fit neatly into the kit fuselage : Snug fit :

Next is to cut off the lower fuselage intake trunking - once again that vicious little cutter makes its appearance : Based on my experiences having built 5 other Italeri 32nd Mirage III derivative kits, the best way to avoid a potential nasty wing to fuselage joint is to do the following : a) Glue each wing lower half to the lower fuselage section and b) Glue each wing upper half to the upper fuselage sections With a bit of prep work, the fit is excellent requiring no filler. I've also glued the airbrakes into place allowing them to have a slightly open position as was characteristic for Mirages and Cheetahs at rest. These will not break off as the arms are quite springy - I've had no issues with this in the past 5 kits I've built. This is then followed by cutting away the kit outboard leading edges to take the resin dog tooth sections as can be seen below : The white strips on the wing leading edges are where I've filled in the slot which the Mirage IIIs had. On the Cheetah D, this was covered and a small wing fence added at that location. These fences are fragile items and will only be glued in upon final assembly.

So next step is to start cutting away the forward fuselage and intakes. The kit intakes are a few mm too long and ScaleWorx provides correct length items as can be seen below : The forward fuselage is cut away using a circular blade in my dremmel tool. The spine aft of the cockpit must also be removed to allow the two seater spine to be inserted : In the image above, the prominent intake scoop is of the incorrect configuration - I actually started this model 5 years ago as a Cheetah E conversion which had that shape intake on the starboard side (similar to the Mirage IIIE). The Cheetah D had two larger and more angular shaped intakes in that area each side of the spine - this will be rectified.

Hi Alain. Yes, the kit is not a shake and bake conversion but it's also good to test / reinvigorate one's basic modelling skills. A bit of elbow grease never hurt anyone. I for one am grateful that at least ScaleWorx gave us a good basis for 32nd Cheetah D and E and Mirage III dual seaters.

Ja nee Nick. The info you provided me on 841 colour scheme is sure to help.

Not sure about the 4 bomb one. They have a Facebook site via which you can correspond with them. They also sell via local hobby shops in South Africa but not sure about Europe or elsewhere.

The first operation with the kit parts is to glue the two fuselage halves together. I only glued the top seam. The rear bottom seam near the exhaust is kept unglued as there is some flexibility needed when gluing the wing bottom section. This is then followed be several cuts where the resin parts must be inserted using the ScaleWorx instruction dimensions as a guide : The area in the image below is where the dual seater resin spine must be inserted. The double curvature on the kit upper fuselage is incorrect and must be a smooth curve. So this will require a bit of work once the resin part is glued in place : Test fitting the vertical stabiliser - the Cheetah D had the same vertical stabiliser shape and size as the Mirage IIIDZ/D2Z. The reason for the resin replacement part is that ScaleWorx has corrected the inaccurate rudder dimensions (kit = too short in span, too deep in chord), corrected the dreadful kit rudder actuator fairing and has provided the rectangular inspection panel which can be seen on the port side of the Cheetah D vertical stabiliser. The Cheetah D EW antenna at the top of the vertical stabiliser is also included : The resin vertical stabiliser was slightly warped to one side as can be seen below but this was corrected with some hot water persuasion.

Test fitting the dual seat cockpit section - nice detail and will look great once painted. Note the Mk.10 seats. Very loose fit of droopy nose to forward fuselage - it doesn't look great in the image below but actually turns out better once glued in place as later images will show :

The resin parts are indicated in the image above. ScaleWorx supplies the MB.Mk.10 ejection seats used in the Cheetah D. These replaced the Mk.4s used in the Mirage IIIs. Oddly enough, the later (more advanced) Cheetah C used MB.Mk.6 seats So then, the bad part of any resin set was tackled - removing the bits and pieces from their casting blocks. I did this with a combination of a dremmel operated circular cutter and other methods (and a face mask...). I decided to start with the nose gear bay. The two seat Mirage III / Cheetah nose gear retraction system was different to the single seat Mirage III / Cheetah. The resin nose gear bay is lacking in detail and the detail provided is very soft and needs help. The kit retraction arm also needs to be shortened significantly. The kit nose gear leg is a bit of an abomination and needs lots of work. I added just enough detail with plastic rod, card and fishermans lead wire to create some interest. You can see that the retraction piston has been shortened - not entirely correct but you get the idea... :

I actually received this set around 2 years ago to do a test build, but work got in the way and I had the joy of spending time in the sandpit where I could not model. So, I started this build as soon as I got back home. Some words on the Cheetah D. In the 1980's during the Apartheid years and the international sanctions against South Africa, and on the back of ongoing combat operations against Angolan and Cuban Armed Forces in southern Angola, there arose a need for a replacement for the Mirage III and F1 series of fighters used by the SAAF. Israel to the rescue with a derivative of the Kfir / Nesher T design. The SAAF's fleet of Mirage IIIDZ and D2Z aircraft were selected to be upgraded with new wings (Kfir style with dogtooth leading edges), canards (70% of Kfir canard size), an extended nose incorporating an advanced avionics suite, fixed inflight refuelling probe and additional weapons pylons on the intakes. 8 Mirage IIID2Z airframes and 3 Mirage IIIDZ airframes were modified as part of the Cheetah D project. An additional 5 Nesher Ts were obtained and were also modified for commonality with the 11 Mirage III based airframes. The Nesher T derivatives were initially referred to as Cheetah Bs, but as a general rule, Cheetah D became the common designation. Some of the Ds were later upgraded to incorporate strengthened undercarriage (16 ton) and a single piece windshield. Even later, the Atar 09K50 engine was installed to replace the 09C engine and this provided much needed additional thrust. The main reason for this was to provide operations commonality with the 09K50 powered single seat Cheetah C. The Cheetah D project may be considered a success. The ScaleWorx conversion set only provides for an early mod state Cheetah D i.e. framed windshield and standard Mirage IIIE main landing gear. As such, the decals provided (printed by MavDecals) are consistent with the early overall medium grey colour scheme :

So, time for another foray into the Cheetah sanctuary. This time, to give my Cheetah E a friend, I am busy with the Cheetah D. This is based on the Revell reboxing of the Italeri 32nd Mirage IIIE/R as the donor kit and the ScaleWorx Cheetah D resin conversion set : The kit should be well known by now, so no image of the box art is necessary The ScaleWorx conversion set arrives like this : Standard baby-blue resin parts - these are not 3D printed but rather of the moulded variety. The set also includes two vacform parts - the canopy and windshield as one item and the wind deflector between the front and rear cockpit. The set is comprehensive in providing all the major and fiddly parts to do an accurate Cheetah D conversion :

More detail of the tank fins : The tanks are dimensionally correct and details accurate based on measurements taken of the real thing at the SAAF Museum at Swartkop Air Base. In the image below, the tanks have been assembled with the dimensioned drawing as a backdrop. Artman used these dimensions to create the 3D CAD for 3D printing. Primed with Tamiya fine grey primer :

32nd RPK combined fuel tank / bomb carrier. This was an Israeli designed item. It is not the same as the French 4-bomb RPK fuel tank / bomb carrier. These were used by South African Air Force (SAAF) Mirage IIICZs in combat operations as well as the later Cheetah variants operated by the SAAF. These were also used by other air forces and on Israeli Kfirs. The box : The contents - comes with two tanks and 4 bombs. These were always carried symmetrically on the inboard wing pylons. Very nice instructions : The tanks are split into 3 sections and are connected using cyano glue. Correct orientation is ensured through a key method on each interfacing part. In the image below, the bomb shackle detail can be seen - the little reinforcing plates must be cut away with a sharp blade. These samples are 32nd scale.

32nd scale South African V3B Kukri missile and launcher as carried on Mirage IIICZ, RZ and F1AZ :

Here are the actual resin parts as they arrive in the box - the PM3 beam and two Mk. 82 bombs as used by the South African Air Force. Regarding the Mk. 82, they provide a number of fuse options which you need to make sure ops before you order. The resin beam is accurate in scale and detail as a sample was available at the Johannesburg Museum of Military History for Artman and I to measure.