Quand un mirage n'est-il plus un mirage ? Quand il transporte un rayon de soleil

[PR19_Kit]

Would an acceptable compromise be to build up the level of the sill so the SU-27 canopy would work?
Not raising the floor or seats, only the cockpit wall?
Just a thought...

That's what I did with the 2 seat Vought Pancake when the Jaguar canopy looked too low, and it worked quite well. But the shape of the coaming itself is important or it ends up looking artificial.

[Gondor]

Taken from the picture that Weaver posted from Secret Projects Forum. The picture below shows what I am roughly aiming for, which is more like the Tornado canopy, just a bit longer, unfortunately.

[Gondor]

After looking at the picture below, from the Secret Projects Forum, and also looking at the instructions for the Mirage 4000 single-seat aircraft, I have realised that the rear cockpit is too far aft.



Despite my thinking that it would be very difficult to remove the rear tub from the fuselage, it came out fairly easily and with no damage. I have since modified the front underside of the tub so that it clears the rear of the nose undercarriage bay. A dry fit of various canopies I have is making me lean towards using the F-14 canopy, with modifications, of course.

These will include removing the edge of the canopy frame where it meets the fuselage. The F-14 canopy has a slope where it looks as if the Mirage does not. I can shorten the canopy a bit now, and the underside of the canopy can be raised at the front as well. I don't know if the existing mid-canopy frame is in the correct place yet, but if it is not, then there is not much to remove and polish out if needed.

So a small backwards step that should lead to a few steps forward.

[Gondor]

OK, change of mind. I am going to use the canopy from an old Monogram Tornado kit, which, going by the artwork, dates back to the days of the early production machines. I did look at using this earlier, but with the rear cockpit in the wrong position, it would have been too much work, now though.

There is no MDC (Miniature Detonation Cord) in the canopy, and as you can see from the pictures below, the only thing I really need to do is to widen the spine I have to add to the fuselage.





It's not perfect, but as I intend to have the canopy open, it doesn't have to be, just close enough, which it is, at least for me.

[Rick Lowe]

That's much better! 

[Gondor]

I seem to be taking two steps forward, followed by one step back. I realised that I had made a couple of mistakes, partly due to the instructions and the design of the model, and partly down to my own impatience to progress the build.

The first part of that statement is down to the part that sits between the engine exhaust tunnels.



The roughly )( shaped part should be flush with the plastic at the top and bottom. I was slightly scared that the part would fall inside, never to be seen again. Perhaps I should have fitted the part before I fitted the underside of the fuselage, but then again, perhaps there could have been a moulded lip that would have allowed the part to be fitted as I have done, after the lower fuselage is fitted, and which is when, in the instructions, it is shown to be fitted. At least I know what I can do with the other Mirage 4000 I have in the stash when I get around to building that.

The second thing that I have done wrong was in the way I fitted the upper wing to the right side of the fuselage. I have been so used to building wings on aircraft where the upper and lower parts meet along their lengths. The wings of the Mirage 2000 and 4000 have a definite hump partway along the upper surfaces and a large gap between the fuselage/wing joint on the top and the underside of the wing. I tried to make the wing flat on the right side and ended up with a large gap on the top side where it met the fuselage. Fortunately, the glueing process was not very well done, so I could tease the parts apart with only a small amount of glue added as a solvent. I am not going to use Liquid Poly when I glue the parts back together.



As they say, "we live and learn".

[NARSES2]

As they say, "we live and learn".

The day we stop doing that is the day we have a real issue

[Weaver]

As they say, "we live and learn".

The day we stop doing that is the day we have a real issue

I always think the saying should be: "we live, learn, and forget again..."