After the Malvinas
War (Falklands War) the reserve aircraft of the Fuerza Aerea Argentina were re-assigned to
bases, mostly in the patagonia as those were the ones which lost planes.
There
was also a certain distrust about the Chilean Government after they helped British
in intelligence duties. So these planes started flying as soon as possible over
the cold skies of south Argentina. The Peruvian
government sent
some Mirages days before the end of war, which were reserved an later reasigned.
This kit represents one of those aircraft.
This Academy kit is
known as a poor kit. Really truth. Anyhow, it has nice recessed panel lines and
rivets. The cockpit is a joke and the canopy clear part is only one part.
I
started working here, scratch built everything: seat, instrument panel and the radio
behind the seat which was put further back to give some more space in there.
The other thing that
is disagreeable is the landing gear bays which have no "roof", so you can see
the fuselage join from the underside. I corrected these with a curved blister cut
to match the front and back ends. As I was doing that, I decided to take away the
airbrakes just to put something else to the plain delta wing. I also added some
wires here and there, reinforced the struts, sealed every join sand and paint,
ufff!
that was hard...
Click on
images below to see larger images
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Peru sent their planes
in sand/brown camo scheme. Some were keep as that, but most were painted sand
and green for a while. Today they have a low visibility grey scheme.
Yes,
next time I will pick the Italeri one...
Pablo
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