HubertB

Actually, the smaller instrument on the left looks like a turn and slip indicator, whereas the central one looks more like the classical artificial horizon. I confess I am anything but familiar with the Mirage instrument panel design, but maybe the flight characteristics of the delta wing made the use of the turn and slip indicator, as a sign of the commands’ coordination, on top of the reference of the horizon, necessary ? In my quest for understanding, I could see that the later variants like the « E » had the radar scope in the middle, and the artificial horizon on the left. Hubert

A genuine ignoramus question : is the double artificial horizon on the IP prototypical ? Very nice work, Alberto Hubert

I sometimes wish I had a miniaturising machine like you do ! Hubert

Slow shipping may be an issue for Rog. He may have exhausted his stash before replenishments come along Hubert (who should have thought twice - at least - before making fun of someone else’s stash size )

Oustanding, vey inspirational build ! You attention to detail is second to none . Hubert

What’s money when you have the looks and brain, plus all the other hidden advantages ? Hubert

The intakes look much better now ! As do the nose and tail. Hubert

Amazing. Just to remind me - and I guess all others - about the material. Are you using paper/cardbord as the main mdedium, or have you transferred the paper parts to plastic card ? Whichever, your work is gobsmacking. Hubert

The French in the 30s still had a view derived from the 1918 victory, i.e. that infantry won wars, and tanks were there to support infantry, just like most aircrafts, apart from those aimed at chasing the enemy's observation planes from the sky, or protecting their own support aircrafts from the enemy's fighters. The most influential military guys of the era were Petain - the "victor of Verdun" - and Gamelin, both infantry generals. The C2 reflects this retrograde - viewed from today's hindsight - thinking, including being long enough to cross trenches, and a rear-firing turret to kill the enemies ambushed in the trenches it just crossed. A French colonel of the late 30s had a different idea of how to use tanks in the forthcoming battlefields, along the same lines as e ceratain Guderian. His name was Charles de Gaulle... End of the broadcast of History Chanel . Very neat build of an interesting and certainly unique subject. Hubert

Excellent ! A nitpicking comment, but you are striving for such excellence, that I thought I’d share it: the plate on which the intake « mouse » slides IRL (« behind » the mouse) looks a bit thick on the kit compared to the original, especially on the left intake. Or maybe it is just that the mouse is not as pointy as on the right side ... Hubert

I build kits, but prefer scratchbuilding ... And truth is, my display has cut down my searching time for the right size of EG strips/rods/tubes. I could almost say this has trebbled my effective modelling time Hubert

Well, Scott's remark about visual clutter piqued me (positively), and I realised he was right and I could do better. So, some 60 Humbrol tins have been filed vertically, the plastic boxes containing bits and pieces have migrated from the shelves to behind the closed doors of the bookshelves on the opposite wall (Ikea Billy to the rescue). The finished kits moved one shelf lower, and I now have plenty of space for the myriads of other kits I will churn out soon The clutter is still there, but not as much and, as Phil said, there is some almost devious satisfaction on tidying the bench Hubert

Even though the engine is without an airframe now, I finished tweaking the design of the G&R Mistral 9 engine, just so that it's all done, and everything aligns as it should, including the pushrods It looks like a G&R engine, methink ... Hubert PS: in case you are wondering, like me, what these bulges on the intake pipes were for, I just found out last week that they held a device to prevent a flame return in the carburetor. You learn every day ...

And another masterpiece ! Hubert

Ahhh ... the dreaded drudge of « reference » drawings ... You are not the first modeller, nor modelling company btw, to be fooled by wrong references. And people wonder why new kits are sometimes not more accurate I like your tools Martin. A bit cumbersome on the bench maybe... Hubert

The good news is that, with the pilot at its office, you won’t be missing much of the cockpit details, Mike Hubert

The problem we have as modellers is the accumulation of tools (me, a tool freak ? ), paints, chemicals, plastic cards, brushes, masking tape, etc... Having them orderly yet accessible is a permanent headache. I have multiples of the same tools because I sometimes could not find where the first one had been stored out of view. Now, I can see and reach (almost) everything. But the drawback of that is the apparent visual clutter, as you point out, Scott. I sometimes find myself that my bench space looks cluttered, even with an empty bench . So there is no perfect solution, that suits SWMBO for neatness, and our need to have all our stuff ready for use when modelling. In all honesty, I probably can also empty the shelves when I look at all the paints I have. There must be some 200+ tins of Humbrol, some of them certainly more than 25 years old, and that I will probably never use, especially as there are better alternatives. I must just build the resolve to dispose of them, but somehow can get myself to act. Hubert

Amazing dedication there ! There are a few iconic jets for me, like the EE Lightning, the Panther/Cougar family, the Cutlass (yeah, I know ...), the Crusader, the Saab Tunnan and Draken... and the Mirage III ! So it’s really a pity that Italeri did such a half-hearted job on the Mirage. On the one hand, they used high-end molding technology like slide molds on the fuselage, and on the other hand, all the molds are done approximately ( for instance the slide mold joint line on the fuselage), with ejection marks ill-placed, poor fit, etc. This was understandable when molds were milled from a hand-made master with a pantograph, not with today’s 3D design and high-end CNC milling. If WnW or Tamiya can produce kits with VERY tight tolerances, Italeri could at least have gone with 0.1 mm ones ... Excellent job, Kai. Both on the modelling side, and on convincing me not to spend a dime with this kit . I can live with shrunk resin kits, scratchbuilding size discrepancies, but, iconic or not, the subject is not enough in my main-interest league to go for this kind of aggravation. Hubert

Finished designing the cylinder for the G&R 9 Kdrs engine, for what should have been an incorporation in my IBG PZL P11c conversion to the 1934 Paris Air Show prototype... In the meantime, Marcin has come up with new information that confirm that the P11/IV prototype in Paris in 1934 had the Bristol Mercury engine... So this engine design is now an orphan, for which I need to find an airframe ( I am thinking that the Morane Saulnier 225 had this engine, with a slightly different reduction gear crankcase. I always liked the looks of the 225, and there were civilian machines, or an acrobatic team scheme ) This is what the engine looks like, without the valve pushrod tubes : I hope you like it. Hubert

The "K" cylinder design is now complete. This is what the full engine, sans the valve pushrod tubes, looks like. Now : 1) I can resume the build with the original engine 2) I need to find an airframe to wrap around this engine Hubert

Bummer. Your sanding should be enough before the repaint. One trick I have learned is to spray gloss varnish on the mask before the new paint coat. It seals the tape, and if there are any bleeds, they are of a gloss coat. Hubert

If there was ever an iconic car for me, this is the one. Beaten only by the mighty 917. Hubert

I can only share my experience: - having a tidy bench helps modelling and avoiding the dreaded modelling doldrums, but it is not a failsafe method - having a cluttered bench is now a definitive modelling put off for me - Hobbyzone, or the likes, whilst not especially cheap when you start adding the modules, is the best tidying solution I could find. Hubert

Hey Martin, I take a few lessons from your posts: 1) you can improve your tidying skills. As Ikea ads say, it helps, sometimes ... 2) dogfood, per gram, is still cheaper than kits 3) you can still do taxidermy whilst the putty hardens 4) I would never have thought that Trumpeter could release inaccurate kits. Now that’s a tough lesson 5) you can still feed unused parts, like the propeller, or the spinner, or (insert the list of inaccurate parts here) to your starving buddy 6) you definitely have not lost your modelling skills 7) I love the scheme you have chosen All in all, I will conclude with a single word : Hubert

Hi Marcin, Thank you for your new information. It’s no problem at all that you were misled for a moment. As the saying goes, « only those who do nothing never make mistakes » . And it’s good as well that the documents I had read were not wrong in the end. The books I had read, from Polish authors, were affirmative about the 1934 bird in Paris being equipped with a Mercury, but your photograph convinced me that it could be a G&R Mistral 9. So we were brothers in error : we both mistook twin exhaust pipes for rocker covers. There are some positives about your intervention however, from my point of view : 1) Your pic has confirmed that the wheel spats had fairings to the gear legs. I had assumed they had, based on the contemporary P-24 pictures, but it was still some conjecture rather than a certainty. 2) I have learned some useful additional information like the lack of radio equipment and dedicated panel in the rear fuselage. 3) I have had to tackle again the design of a radial engine, and have in the process improved my skills with Solidworks, and used some new functions I had not yet used. It was not shake-and-bake, but it took me only a few working days to do so. 4) I will nevertheless finish designing the G&R Mistral 9 ( I am in the final stages of designing / fine tuning the « K » cylinder). This will open up some new possibilities, including scratchbuilding some ignored subjects. I always loved the look of the Morane Saulnier 225, for instance, and IIRC, it was equipped with the G&R Mistral 9 5) This was an opportunity to confirm my move into a new realm of modelling. Now, I know I can design and print some parts fairly easily, and this is a great alternative to gluing bits and pieces for creating some scratchbuilt parts. Keep the information flowing. Hubert