Dassault Mirage 5PL(M)

[TomZ]

Looks good in this scheme!

TomZ

[Glenn Gilbertson]

That looks VERY smart and realistic, are you sure it's a Whiff?   
[/quote]

I'll echo that - well done!

[ChernayaAkula]

Damn, but that's pretty! 

[DogfighterZen]

Glad you like it, guys, thank you! 

So, finally, here's the rest of the pics and story.

Mirage 5PL(M) of the Portuguese air force, BA5 Monte Real air base, 2004

"During much of the colonial war, the fighter jets of the Portuguese Air Force (FAP) were decisive on all fronts of the conflict and virtually untouchable until the appearance of the Strela missile in Guinea. The intensification of war in this colony led the FAP to look for a new fighter plane capable of carrying out both air combat and ground attack missions. The choice fell on the French supersonic fighter Mirage 5.




However, negotiations between the two countries would be difficult with France imposing several restrictions on the use of airplanes in Portuguese colonies, mainly in Guinea. Throughout 1974, the Mirage issue is discussed several times with the French authorities, who insist on not allowing aircraft to park in Guinea because of the privileged relations that Paris has with Senegal. The number of aircraft negotiated (32 units) clearly indicates that, in addition to Guinea, it was also the intention of the Portuguese Government to send the French fighter to Angola and Mozambique, but although the French government would end up authorizing the deal, negotiations were put on hold with the April 1974 revolution in Portugal.




The end of the old regime in Portugal meant the end of the war in the Portuguese colonies in Africa and also, the subsequent retreat of all Portuguese armed forces from colonial territories and the granting of independence to all of these countries. With the new priorities dictated by the change of geopolitical situation, the recently elected Portuguese government decided that the investment in military material had to be cut down but with the confirmation of the deal only waiting a formal signature from the Portuguese officials and the growing need to renew the outdated and over used inventory of the FAP, the order was given to go ahead with the deal and funds were made available through a prearranged loan from the South-African government.





The deal was only officially closed and papers signed in November of 1975 with the delivery of the 32 units, 28 single seat and 4 twin seat airframes that were to be delivered in several batches. The choice of variant to be purchased would end up being the Mirage 5PL but 10 of these aircraft would be built by Sabca in Belgium due to the inability to fulfill the purposed deadline of delivery by the end of 1978. The delivery of the first 6 aircraft occurred on the 1st of September, 1976 at BA5 Monte Real air base.



These Mirage fighters were divided in two squadrons of 12 aircraft each, the 304th "Magníficos" and the 302nd "Falcões" which were both stationed at BA5.
The 304th FS was tasked with air space defense duty and the 302nd had its primary mission in ground/maritime attack and close air support and air defense as secondary role, although both squadrons had the same training in all possible scenarios.





The last batch of 8 fighters was delivered in November of 1979 and most of these were stored to be used for spares and replace possible losses. Although the Mirage III/5 family was already becoming a dated design, it was very welcome by the Portuguese pilots, who saw it as an upgrade to the even older design of the F-86F they were using up until very recently.



The Portuguese Mirages would undergo some modernization programs throughout their service time and the first major upgrade would be made after 12 years of service, in 1988, when Dassault launched their last attempt at marketing a program that was created for export costumers since it's inception in the early 1980s. This consisted of the NG program developed as an alternative for the countries that couldn't afford the F.1 or the more recent Mirage 2000 and still had a reasonable number of Mirage III/5 airframes in service that could be refurbished with more modern avionics and weapons, or for countries with a smaller budget that wanted newly built Mirage III/5 with more modern capabilities.



This program that benefitted greatly from the studies made for the Mirage 2000, was named NG for "Nouvelle Generation" or "New Generation" and a prototype had been built and flight tested, proving the worth of the new design enhancements with the new leading edge root extension called the "APEX" and the installment of canards on air intakes for better low speed handling.
A vital part of this upgrade was the fitting of electronic flight controls derived from the ones used on the Mirage 2000 and 4000, which gave the old fighter a much improved performance envelope.



Another important upgrades included the change of engines from the old Atar 9C over to the more modern Atar 9K-50, a Cyrano IVMR radar system, a more modern rwr sensor suite and also, a pair of new chaff/flare dispenser pods on the aft lower fuselage. Also added was a FLIR sensor under the nose section, an in-flight refueling probe to extend operational range, structural repairs and reinforcements made to the airframe which left them as good as new, effectively doubling the initial expected service life of the Mirage 5 airframe.



These upgrades would not be applied on the whole Portuguese fleet but on the oldest 18 airframes because of funding shortages for the armed forces.
The Mirage fleet would soldier on until it's replacement began with the arrival of the first 2 F-16CM Block 50 in 2012, and would finally come to an end with the last flight of number 15543 on the 25th of August, 2014, closing almost 40 years of service in Portuguese skies."

And that's that!!

[Old Wombat]

Yep, one nice piece of work!

[sideshowbob9]

Outstanding model and I enjoyed the backstory too. 

[zenrat]

Excellent work.  Well done DFZ.

[PR19_Kit]

And we're meant to believe this ISN'T a Real World model? 

Yeah, right................. 

It looks blooming MARVELOUS, super job. 

[DogfighterZen]

Thank you, gentlemen, glad you liked it! 
I'm rather pleased with how it came out cause the hardest part was choosing a suitable scheme and i was loosing a bit of mojo with the build. But i like the SAAF diamond scheme on their Cheeta C, which happens to be one of my favorite real world derivatives of the Mirage lineage, so i went with that as inspiration.
Now i wanna build another one in a wraparound SEA camo scheme... much like the Chilean Mirage 5M Elkan...



But i think that before buying another PJ or High planes kit, i'm going to wait and see if Special Hobby or Modeslvit come out with more variants of the Mirage III/5 family to see what's the best buy.

[NARSES2]

Another lovely "Grey Lady" 

[DogfighterZen]

Thanks, Chris! 
The Mirage family are a sexy bunch, aren't they? 

[Pellson]

Awesome! And the old Mirage is so whif-friendly. I mean - almost everyone bought them at one time or another irl, so you can get away with just about anything.. 

[Tophe]

And the old Mirage is so whif-friendly

Do you know the topic in which I presented many crazy whif Mirages 5?
https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=10054.180

(the web-site with my whole collection of whif Mirages as thumbnails is 
http://www.kristofmeunier.fr/miraj_&.htm )

[TomZ]

Looks very smart in that scheme!

TomZ

[kitbasher]

Excellent