Mirage IIIO Stick Grip

E-Resin, 1/1 scale

Reviewed by Mick Evans

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Beautifully moulded in a light grey resin, E-Resin has captured all of the fine detail of the control stick grip fitted to the Dassault Mirage IIIO.  

The moulds for this kit were cast from an original Mirage control stick used in Royal Australian Air Force service.  The detail from the bottom through to the top of the stick grip has been faithfully reproduced from the original cast aluminium stick grip.  The original stick grip was very beat up with many layers of black touch up paint.  I can remember sitting in the cockpit as an instrument technician with a tray of Dulux black, red and yellow paint to touch up chips and scratches in the Mirage cockpit.  Unfortunately this caused many layers of paint to be built up on items such as the control column. 

I assisted Eric in obtaining the original from the museum and after a close inspection I realised that a good moulding could not be taken from the original unless the multiple layers of paint were removed.  This required many hours of Dremmel work with the wire brush attachment fitted and some disassembly of components prior to sending on to Eric at E-Resin.  Eric then took a mould of the stick before creating a master to which he did further work to remove the many dents, scratches and rough moulding to produce the production mould.

The resin casting contains no flaws or air bubbles, which is quite a feat in a casting of this size.

The stick grip is made up from one major part, (the grip itself) and three minor parts containing the gun trigger, trim switch hat and auto command disengage slab switch.  Also provided is the mounting hardware for these items. These smaller parts will require some clean-up to remove the casting blocks.

The stick grip requires the casting block to be removed from the bottom of the stick prior to painting.  The moulding and casting process has captured the knurled grip area, screw heads and micro-switch buttons and other fastening hardware perfectly. 

The top hat switch for actuating the roll and pitch trim servomotors for the elevons has been mould separately.  This item is prominent on the top of the stick grip and is actuated by the pilots thumb to trim the aircraft during flight.  The gun trigger is a perfect replica of the original along with the replication of the grub screws for set up of the gun camera and gun actuator buttons.  Also perfectly replicated are the grub screws for setting the spring pressure for the trigger to flip to its operating position.  The final piece is the disengage slab switch for the auto command electro flight control assistant system.  The moulding has perfectly replicated the knurled pattern on the slab switch.

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Some drilling is required to clean out the mounting holes for the trigger and auto command disengage switch but there is nothing major required.

The actual stick is basically a satin black colour.  The modeller needs to add a few paint details such as the red area under the trigger switch, yellow band at the base of the stick and the 3 anti spin yellow bands across the top of the stick.  The micro switches could be any colour from red or blue depending on the supplied colour of a new switch and then whether the technicians painted the switch red or black or left it unpainted.

The final touch is a very nice decal replica of the data plate. 

This requires the blank data plate on the stick to be painted silver prior to applying the decal.

This will please collectors of 1/1 scale aircraft part replicas and Mirage enthusiasts across the globe.  I for one am looking forward to the finished item once I get time to construct and paint it.

ericgalliers@hotmail.com for orders.

Thanks to E-Resin for the review samples.

Review Text and Images Copyright © 2013 by Mick Evans
Page Created 26 August, 2013
Last updated 26 August, 2013

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