F-1CG Mirage HAF
I present to you my latest completed build, a Mirage F-1CG by Italeri + Kitty Hawk in 1/48 scale. Unfortunately due to limited free time I have not taken pictures at each stage of the build.
That is why I will try to be a little more detailed in the description of this particular model.
First of all, starting from the cockpit, the “bathtub” and the instrument panel from the Fonderie Miniature improvement set were used. The Mk 6 seat comes from Neomega. I added quite a bit of additional detail throughout the cockpit area and generally throughout the kit according to the bibliography of the real thing below.
The air ducts came from the Pavla set, the exhaust and the engine bays from the Fonderie Miniature set and the engine bay legs from the metal pieces of the Scale Aircraft Conversions set. In particular, more attention was paid to the engine bays and legs of the improvement sets, to which several modifications and improvements were made to make them look correctly like the real ones. Eduard’s Exterior Details F-1B enhancement was also used to a limited extent for some general details of the model.
From the Kitty Hawk kit I used the wings with the moving surfaces, the missile carriers which were also modeled according to the Greek ones and the S/P windows. The conversion was made mainly because I saved a lot of time from having to build the flaps, speed brakes and ailerons from scratch, while the etched line and the negative dihedral of the wings of the Kitty Hawk kit are more correct.
Because in every new model I build, it “eats” my hand to open any hatch without wanting to “spoil” its final appearance in this model, I decided to open on the side faces of the fuselage at the height of the air ducts, the fuel filling hatches and pressure control hatches of the hydraulic hatches, while on the back of the fuselage (from front to back) a main and a smaller hatch of the electronic aids and systems of the F-1CG. In the center of the back of the fuselage, a hatch with its hydraulics was also opened. Also, the air duct headlight and the one in the lower area of the fuselage near the nose wheel, were built from scratch. The navigation lights on the wing tips were replaced with transparent plastic and painted with Clear Blue and Clear Red respectively.
The air brakes on the wings and those on the fuselage were designed and printed from scratch in photo-etches which were donated to me by Tsonos Megas, to whom I also thank very much for his advice.
The colors used for the blue of the camouflage were basically Intermediate Bleu (4744) by Model Master. For photo shading, 15% white on the base, Blue (X-4) by Tamiya and Blue Gray (H 42) by Mr hobby were used, all acrylic. For the lower surfaces, mainly aluminum by Alclad was used.
For the signs, only the warning ones came from the Icarus Decals set.
The emblems were made with masks and sprayed with the base color True Blue lightened by about 20% with white and a few drops of France Blue, all by Hambrol.
The model represents a Greek F-1CG towards the end of its career, with its camouflage and markings quite worn.
The s/n chosen is (136) which served in the 342nd Fighter Wing of the 114th Fighter Wing.
I hope you like it.
Bibliography
– Mirage F-1 (Cocpit)
– Mirage F-1 B/C/CT (Aviascope)
– MODELLING Issue 78
– Album 342MPK
F-1CG “Mirage135 SAMOS” 342 MPK 114 PM Tanagra
