Mirage III, Mirage V, Nesher, Dagger, and Kfir

[ysi_maniac]

Spanish Air Force planned an upgrade program for their Mirage IIIEE. Kinda of Mirege 3NG, but without lerx, I think.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Mirage III:  Would the intakes need to be significantly enlarged to feed the air-drinking Spey?   How about the tail-pipe area?

Having the requisite parts in both the Heller Mirage III and the Rev/Germ Spey engined Phantom it would be a fun kit to do.

Or....even the Mirage IV

Does anyone have a decent drawing of the Mirage III and Mirage V stores pylons?  In particular the pylons that are fitted along the wing and fuselage on either side of the centerline pylon?  I would like to know a bit more about these items since they are not provided in any of the Mirage III or Mirage V kits that are currently in my protective custody. 

How about a kit bash involving the Mirage III or Mirage V and a Mirage 2000?  Specifically the Mirage 2000 fuselage with the forward fuselage of the Mirage III or Mirage V grafted on to it.  This would give you the larger air intakes that you would need for the larger exhaust without butchering up the original kit beyond recognition. 

[dy031101]

After browsing a page of Advanced Technologies and Engineering (a South African company):

http://www.ate-aerospace-group.com/popnews.php?id=88

I began wondering again what Argentina would be getting to replace their current Mirage fleet: ex-French Mirage-2000 or upgraded Mirage III/V (which is what the ATE page was advertising)?

The illustration on the webpage looks interesting- a Mirage V armed with two MICAs although as a fighter it'd probably make sense to fit a fire control radar in the nose...... based on what the page says, the upgrade would include elements based on the various modernisation projects for Mirage F1 carried out by this and other companies.

Is it possible to consolidate all airworthy Mirages and export Neshers into a single modernised standard?

[Archibald]

Problem : they are very, very long in the tooth. Plus there's a very large bunch of different variants worlwide...
I think it's time to give up Mirage III/V and start upgrading the fleet of Mirage F-1. At least 500 of them must be available on the market

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Simply because I have an old Esci 1:48 IIIE in the stash atm and have a HobbyBoss IIIC on-the-way from eBay - although this will be RW. AFAIK, in 1:72 the old Heller III/V kit is still easy to find and I know from experiance builds very nicely apart from the terribly fragile landing gear. Don't know anything about the 1:32 Revell kit, nor the 1:72 Airfix, Revell and M'box ones. The 1:48 Heller kit has dreadful cockpit details but builds quite nicely as either a IIIC or B.

So the kits are out there, and the RW decals are everywhere, so what about those that should-have-been, nearly were or if-only they had ?? - Obviously I have an entirely selfish reason for posting this thread, I have the kit, our very own Glanini has produced some fine profiles, and I'm very close to cutting plastic  - more inspiration and ideas that I can blatently steal would be very welcome. Anyhoos here's a few of mine:-

Obvious ones would have been those nations who opted for the F-104 in the early sixties, like Japan, West Germany, Norway, Holland and Canadistan. But IIRC, didn't France have a 'We will sell to anybody who can buy' policy at some point ? so what was to stop 'bad' nations like Syria, Burma/Myanmar, (Socialist)Indonesia or even China etc flying the III/V.

More prosaic, but in the early seventies a the Mirage would have been a superb and plentiful surrogate for the Aggressor T-38/F-5's flying with USAF/USN - as later-on the F-21 Kfirs were with the USMC. And dont forget - and the reason I bought the kit in the first place (cheers Martin  ) - The RAF evaluated the Mirage III, as a fallback point defence interceptor in the late sixties.

OK, that's it, over to you guys - Yes Radish, I know the Vatican Police Air Wing flew them in overall white with 'Clerical Purple' 'go faster' stripes on the fuselage and tail. Looking forward to reading what you come-up with.

Ian

[PR19_Kit]

.......AFAIK, in 1:72 the old Heller III/V kit is still easy to find and I know from experiance builds very nicely apart from the terribly fragile landing gear......

The 1/72 Airfix IIIC also has fragile landing gear. I built one as an RAAF IIIO some years ago and I've lost count of the number of times I've re-glued the legs. John Adams, there's a small market here....

And dont forget - and the reason I bought the kit in the first place (cheers Martin  ) - The RAF evaluated the Mirage III, as a fallback point defence interceptor in the late sixties.

The Mirage III/V looks good in the RAAF scheme, so it should look equally good in similar RAF colours, specially with an RWR set on the fin and a couple of Red Tops hung underneath......

[GTX]

Obvious ones would have been those nations who opted for the F-104 in the early sixties, like Japan, West Germany, Norway, Holland and Canadistan. But IIRC, didn't France have a 'We will sell to anybody who can buy' policy at some point ? so what was to stop 'bad' nations like Syria, Burma/Myanmar, (Socialist)Indonesia or even China etc flying the III/

Any of those would be a good choice.  Another might be New Zealand - possibly as part of a joint deal with Australia.

Still more might include Mexico or Sweden.

Regards,

Greg

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Still more might include Mexico or Sweden.

Regards,

Greg

Mornin' Greg

Mexico, yep I could very easily do that, Sweden, not really as it would fall between the Draken and Viggen (of course you could argue that in the What If universe, Sweden had never fully developed an independant aviation industry), and besides, I'm not certain that I could do another 'fields and meadows' project and retain what's left of my sanity !

Mexico eh....... Hmmmm Tan & Grey in the standard Mirage pattern...... Hmmmmm

Ian

[dragon]

Spanish Air Force planned an upgrade program for their Mirage IIIEE. Kinda of Mirege 3NG, but without lerx, I think.

Very remeniscent of the Mirage 50V that Venezuela just retired in 2008.

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Spanish Air Force planned an upgrade program for their Mirage IIIEE. Kinda of Mirege 3NG, but without lerx, I think.

Very remeniscent of the Mirage 50V that Venezuela just retired in 2008.

Agreed - almost identical

Ian

[Weaver]

Just read an interesting article on British-engined Mirage variants by John Fricker (in an old Air International), who witnessed some of the Avon-Mirage test-flying himself and saw the results. Boy, was that ever a should-have-been....... The engine access problems that plagued the Avon-Sabre shouldn't have re-occured since the Avon was narrower than the Atar and used all the same mounting points and access points. Take-off and time-to-altitude were dramatically improved although speed at altitude wasn't initially. However the main advantages were 15% better fuel economy (which let it meet the RAAF specified ferry range, unlike the Atar) and carefree engine handling. Furthermore, the second stage testing (which never happened) would have used a new full-section afterburner instead of the Lightning one used initially, which would have given even more performance. However, he also attested to the deteriorating relationship between Rolls Royce and the RAAF: the former didn't clear his visit with the latter who then practically accused him of being a spy!

In a footnote, he mentions that the Spey-engined Mirage IIIK was proposed to the RAF as a Hunter replacement in 1964, "with the full backing of Rolls Royce": sounds to me like another round of RR's anything-to-undermine-the-Harrier campaign to me... He confirms that the Spey-Mirage did NOT need a larger fuselage, since the Spey had a smaller diameter than both the Atar and the Avon, although he doesn't mention the issues of air intake mass-flow and rear fuselage cooling. The latter was the reason for the Kfir's enlarged rear fuselage BTW: the J-79 is actually narrower than the Atar. With the Spey being a turbofan, I'd imagine that the duct wall temperature between the core and the afterburner would be lower than the J-79, although it might well have needed a Kfir-style fintake for afterburner cooling.

Politics aside, a Mirage III airframe with a 20-odd thousand pound Spey (25,000lb was mentioned as being possible) sounds like a hell of a hot ship! 

[MAD]

The other potential Wifs for the Mirage III was the proposed Boeing/Dasault Mirage III/ F-5 in competition with the Northrop Freedom Fighter.
I did a few a couple of years back - they are in the Glasgow show pics from 2007 IIRC. Mirage 5 without radar as the F-5A equivilent, IIIE as the F-5E, and US built J-79 engined IIIE as an agressor a/c for the US forces.
Also the Mirage III for the RAF.

This was the Boeing/Dassault Mirage IIIW if I remember correctly!
Hard to find anything on this program.
I even wrote to Boeing many years ago requesting info on it - with no luck!

M.A.D

[MAD]

Hay Weaver – I second your opinion on the Avon / Spey engine Mirage III as a missed opportunity!

I think not perusing the Avon-engine Mirage III was one of the biggest mistakes that the RAAF made. After all the Dassualt had done all the hard yards with mating the Avon 67 engine to the Mirage III airframe, with the adamant thought that the RAAF would jump at the Avon-powered variant, after all the trouble it had gone through with time consuming efforts of making the Avon-Sabre work!

And in all fairness, the Mirage IIIK in RAF service would have been far more versatile and cost effective than the EE Lightning series of variants, let alone the Hunters.

M.A.D

[ChernayaAkula]

<...>
And in all fairness, the Mirage IIIK in RAF service would have been far more versatile and cost effective than the EE Lightning series of variants, let alone the Hunters.

And the F-104 Germany ended up with.

[Mossie]

And mores the pity, we built the Mirage first.  The Mirage series was directly inspired by the Fairey Delta II, just we did nothing with it.