SPA Modeler

So believe it or not, I’ve actually been working on this one a bit as well. I was a bit let down by the kit seat,



so I did some googling and ordered this PE harness set to dress it up some. Did I mention that I really don’t like PE harnesses?



In hindsight, I should have just ordered a resin Mirage III C seat with harness. I’m 90% certain that both types used the same seat, a MB Mk. 4. Anyways this is how the PE harness turned out once installed.



Not the greatest, but far better than the bare kit seat.

In the meantime, I found another build of this same kit over on Brit Modeler, and decided to do some simple additions to the cockpit based on what I saw there to add some details on some bare areas.







Now to get some paint on this and get it all closed up…

That a great bit of improvement work Carlos, it'll look good under some paint. I'm not a big fan of PE either, or resin for that matter bit stuffed either way really.

Stuart, the one thing that I really like in resin for aircraft are seats with harnesses. With some good paint those really look best I think. Since I am pretty sure that the Etendard and early Mirage III use the same seat type, I will be hunting for those seats or harnesses for the Etendard IV P and Super Etendard in my stash.

And now back to our Etendard IV M build. This week I did get painting in the cockpit done, and the IP decal applied. It’s a beautiful decal and really just could use some raised bezels to look outstanding. But no time for that here.



Then a test fit of everything into the cockpit





So far so good… but then disaster strikes during the fuselage assembly…. While I was adjusting the fit of the seat in the cockpit, the front of the fuselage broke off!!!



After seam clean up, I reattached the front to the main fuselage… I don’t know what I would do without a good supply of various size rubber bands



And lastly once the fuselage had dried, I added the intake splitter plates and the nose (with lead shot in there just in case…)



More to come next week…

Very cool! I'd replace that yellow grab handle for the ejection seat with something smaller. It looks WAY to big.

Medicman71 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 15, 2022 5:14 pm Very cool! I'd replace that yellow grab handle for the ejection seat with something smaller. It looks WAY to big.

I was thinking the same thing. I took it off during the installation, as I was pretty damn sure that it would get broken off. A piece of wire will do much better.

Nice save on the cockpit section.

Thanks Tom.

One more update before next week. I finished up basic airframe construction today, addin the upper wing halves, intake lips, and the tail planes. The fit of the stabilators is terrible, so I had to add some shims in there. And there will be some filling and sanding to fair the intake lips in smoothly to the fuselage.



More coming next week…

Nice progress Stik!

Thanks Stuart. The next step of gap filling, sanding, and rescribing any lost detail is gonna be a bear.

Now for my Etendard… this one has been fighting me too! The intake area had some warping, so needed a good amount of shims and putty to fair everything in smoothly. I also used strip styrene to fill in the gaps at the wing roots, upper and lower surfaces. I was afraid that putty would crack and fall out, and I’m out of gel CA for gap filling. The local shops are a good distance away and I didn’t want to lose the bench time, so it was a case of using what I had on hand.
Once I had all the sanding completed, I added the tail and the under nose strake so characteristic of the Etendard IV



Here’s a close up of the worst filling area



I left off the wingtips and the staibilator is not glued in place to aid with painting that I should be able to start after adding the last few little scoops and such…