Mirage III S/RS/DS
Conversion Set

PJ Productions, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Mark Davies

cyber-hobby's 1/72 scale Sea Venom is available online from Squadron.com

Dassault’s Mirage III/5 family and its numerous derivatives must surely be one of the most successful and widely used jet fighter designs of all time. Information on the design and its derivatives is readily available, including an outline history here at Wikipedia.org.

The subjects covered by this conversion set are for three Swiss versions of the Mirage III, specifically the:

• Mirage IIIS – Thirty-six built under licence in Switzerland. This IS A single-seat all-weather interceptor fitted with a Hughes TARAN 18 radar and fire-control system, AND IS armed with AIM-4 Falcon and Sidewinder air-to-air missiles.

• Mirage IIIRS – Eighteen built, this is the export version of the Mirage IIIR for the Swiss Air Force.

• Mirage IIIDS – Two built as a two-seat trainer for the Swiss Air Force.

Intended Kits

The set is obviously intended to compliment PJ Productions’ Mirage III kits such as the one I recently reviewed here on HyperScale. The same parts are shared with High Planes as a co-production effort, and I also reviewed a High Planes example here. These are in many ways some of the best Mirage III kits available from the standpoints of fit and accuracy, but are let down by their unattractively wide panel lines.

The conversion parts could also suit other brand kits, which in the case of the two Swiss single-seaters would need to be a Mirage IIIE, and for the twin-seater a IIID.

Both Heller and Revell offer kits of the former, with the Revell kit out of production now. Frog and PM also made IIIE’s, but these are best ignored, whilst PMS offered one in resin. With a couple of exceptions, there are only conversions for these make IIID’s (Falcon, Graphy-Air, and Eagle Designs). The exceptions, as it happens, are both PJ Production and High Planes. Each have produced their own, and unrelated, kits of the IIIE & D twin-seat versions. PJ’s were resin, whilst High Planes’ were limited run styrene. These independent Mirage III releases are now out of production.

So it can be seen that PJ Productions and High Planes pretty much dominate the market when it comes to base kits for this conversion set.   

The Conversion Set

The set comes in small end-opening box with a plan-view of a Mirage IIIS on the front. Inside are a folded A-5 sheet of instructions and zip-lock plastic bag containing the resin parts and a PE fret.

The instructions are in English and use clear and well-drawn diagrams. The kit parts references obviously relate to those of the PJ Productions base kits.

The main resin components consist of:

• A replacement tailfin and rudder,

• Canard flying surfaces,

• Alternative replacement radome (IIIS) or clear-resin reconnaissance nose-cone (IIIRS),

• A replacement nose-wheel well and cockpit tub (forward seat only),

• A replacement nose-wheel door for the IIIS & RS versions (this requires a small are of the kit fuselage plastic to be removed as the wheel-well is longer than the kit item),

• A replacement nose-wheel leg (two parts),

• A small fairing mounted on the underside at the rear of the fuselage shown here,

• A couple of forward facing tubular fairings with what looks to be a dielectric cap mounted under each wing on the leading edge (see here), and

• A ventral blade antenna and its fairing that mount under the cockpit.

The resin parts are faultlessly produced and feature fine panel lines on the tail fin. As such, the new tailfin will not match the Matchboxesque panel lines of the intended base kits!

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Thumbnail panels:

The PE fret provides thin ribs to fit either side of the IIIS & DS nose-cones, a variety of blade antennae and pitots. Two other strakes appear superfluous for the versions offered, whilst others are probably spare antennae etc. A parts map would have made things a little clearer, although one is not required to complete the conversions. Like the resin parts, the PE fret is of good quality too.

Colours & Markings

Unfortunately, no guide to markings is provided, nor are there any decals supplied. Decals for three versions may have added a bit to the cost, but would make for a much more complete conversion set. I thought that perhaps PJ Productions might offer the decals as a separate option, but it seems not. I did note from their website that they include decals with some of their conversions however.

This is a nice conversion set offering a number of possibilities for Swiss Mirage III’s. The instructions and components are of good quality and should present few, if any, constructional challenges.

I feel that a guide to colours and markings could have been provided without much effort or additional expense, whilst the provision of decals would make for a more complete conversion despite the cost they would add.

The tailfin as provided will not match the heavy style of the intended base kit’s surface detail, so some may choose to enlarge the existing fine panel lines to make them match the rest of the kit.

Despite my markings gripe, I am happy to recommend this conversion set.

Thanks to PJ Productions for the review sample

Text and Images Copyright © 2014 by Mark Davies
This Page Created on 7 April, 2014
Last updated 7 April, 2014

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