Portuguese Air force - Mirage III

[chrisonord]

That is very nice Luis,  you certainly know how to make a silk purse from a sows ear
excellent job 
Chris

[Green Dragon]

Hard to believe anyone could do such a good job with that kit! Well done Luis, great looking scheme. 

Paul Harrison

[Weaver]

Nice one Luis!

I've got three of those kits, but strictly for spares.....

The wierd missile on the centreline is supposed to be a Matra R510, a very early AAM of canard aeroplane configuration.

Mossie: the only other JL100 pod I know of is on the centreline of the Matchbox Jaguar, which also features long intake splitter plates and four seriously inaccurate AS.30s.

[Mossie]

I'd long forgotten about the Matchbox kit Harold, I kind of half remembered building one when I was a youngster, but rummaging into the depths of my memory, it was the Airfix kit.  A JL-100 on the centreline would make for quite a interesting load out, I don't think I've ever seen pics of an aircraft armed with a single rocket pod.

I know you know about this set, but the Odds & Ordance do a lovely looking set of JL-100's for the Lightning:
http://www.oddsandordnance.co.uk/index.asp?pageid=161038

[ysi_maniac]

A very nice model, indeed!

[Glenn Gilbertson]

Great result from an old kit - well done!

[Geoff]

 

[nev]

Superb result from a terrible kit

Makes you wonder why Portugal didn't use Mirage IIIs in real life...

[James]

Nice one Luis!

I've got three of those kits, but strictly for spares.....

The wierd missile on the centreline is supposed to be a Matra R510, a very early AAM of canard aeroplane configuration.
Mossie: the only other JL100 pod I know of is on the centreline of the Matchbox Jaguar, which also features long intake splitter plates and four seriously inaccurate AS.30s.

I thought that missile was the Matra R.511? Whatever it is, is this the only kit that includes this missile? 

Great looking model Luis. 

[Howard of Effingham]

well done for perserving with an old, old model.

the end result is very respectable. 

[Luis Almeida]

thanks for the comments guys!

Superb result from a terrible kit

Makes you wonder why Portugal didn't use Mirage IIIs in real life...

I have an answer to your comment nev

Portuguese airforce allmost used them in the war in Africa.
in the late 60´s PoAf was looking for interceptors in the market and the contenders were, Mirage III, F-4c, SAAB J-35, MirageV
and a there was also the possibility of the Jaguar and Mirage F1

the last 2 were discarded in the beginning because they were only prototypes at the time
the J-35 was difficult to service in the field
the F-4c was to expensive, so after concluding that PoAf could only buy 25 aircraft, was considered insufficient for the number of aircraft required
in the beginning of the 70´s, PoAf received 2 Mirage III for evaluation, ( they still rest in an Hangar in Portugal), and despite being the favourite aircraft, we made a deal with Dassault for 79 Mirage V.
Finance was approved By the South African Government, and the delivery date was supposed to begin in 1975, the problem was that the cease fire happened just after the revolution in 1974, and we never took the delivery of those aircraft along with 80 FIAT G-91 from germany.

I can search for more details if you like

[nev]

Cool, I never knew all that

[DogfighterZen]

I didn't know that Portugal almost had one of my favourite jets, gotta go read some more about my own country's air force.
Great job on that kit, my friend! 

[Dizzyfugu]

Nice one - looks very natural. 

[fightingirish]

What a coincidence...
This weekend I am reading the magazine 'Aviation Classics 17: Dassault Mirage III/5' with the very interesting article ' The Customer that never was' by Jose Mantos.

Source:  
The Customer that never was - by Jose Mantos - pages 62-65
Aviation Classics 17: Dassault Mirage III/5
Mortons Media Group 2012, ISBN-10: 1906167648, ISBN-13: 978 1906167646