Mirages, Daggers, and Neshrs......

[ardethomas]

Yesss!!!!

[gsnde]

Mike, when do you plan to tell us about the Royal Australian Mirage III package on AVSim?

[gsnde]

Okay, getting old. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, Mike

[Firebird]

You need to stay in and read the forum more, Martin.

[gsnde]

With the help from all of you I might fetch the most important things going on...

[mikeblaze]

Okay, here is the last actual modeling package for this project, the Pakistani Air Force. Pakistan has bought up a bunch of surplus airframes from various countries (France, Libya, Lebanon, Australia) to supplement its own ageing fleet. I looked through a lot of photos to sort this out, and have come up with fourteen distinct variants. I tried to use a couple of the two-seaters to represent multiple models, but with subtle antenna variations, I just had to do all separate models. It is 14 base models, 57 loadouts, and 118 repaints, so I broke it up into two parts (would have been about 70MB as a single file). I'm just one Kfir package away from completing this part of the project, and then I owe MAIW some more Spartan painting this next week.

In no particular order, the models are as follows:

IIIEP, IIIDP, IIIRP, 5PA, 5PA2, 5PA3, 5DPA2 (all original Pakistan delivered and/or upgraded models)
IIIBE, 5EF (ex-France)
5DD (ex-Libya)
IIIEL, IIIBL (ex-Lebanon)
IIIOA, IIIOD (ex-Australia)

Have fun, as usual.

[james84]

Thanks Mike!
Are all of these aircraft in service, BTW? Some flightplans are needed here!

[Firebird]

You are right, mate. These are superb, and flightplans, scenery etc are needed but really we should be keeping Mike's model shop free for his models.
Requests should be made for such things in one of the other forums, otherwise the purpose of this thread can easily get lost.

[james84]

Thanks Firebird,
sorry to "hijack" the thread. My intention was only to know if Michael released all the aircrafts that are still in service as I'm planning to do the flightplans!

[mikeblaze]

I think the in-service aircraft are everything except for the original PAF deliveries (IIIEP, IIIDP, IIIRP, 5PA). The PAF wants desparately to upgrade their fleet with something that the Mirage-equipped infrastructure can handle, but there are some political issues. They can't get the Mirage 2000 because India has it, and they don't want to get a large and ready supply of surplus Mirage F1s because they consider a third-gen aircraft a step backwards; coming from the country that still operates nearly a hundred Mirage III/5 airframes as front-line aircraft.

[mikeblaze]

Here's a completed alpha model, just have to sort out some FDE stuff (lights, contact points, and a little balance). Note the bypass air doors (all ten of them with both sides), landing light, and the double-chute thing (useful for some other upcoming project). Multi-LOD will take a day, and then off to the races...... I don't think I'll have a problem with my end-of-May deadline for this one.

[Chrisb]

So where exactly do you squeeze the mundane things like SLEEPING in?

Chris

[mikeblaze]

I could ask the same thing of guys who wake up with the chickens.......

[Firebird]

I could ask the same thing of guys who wake up with the chickens.......

That must have been some weird night out to have that happen to you .

[mikeblaze]

I could ask the same thing of guys who wake up with the chickens.......

That must have been some weird night out to have that happen to you .

It's a farm thing, people who rise and turn in with the chickens.... oh, forget it, it already went down the toilet, lol...... Incidentally, the Mirage IV only has one big chute, and that will be noted in the final model. I had drawings that suggested two chutes, but watched some old film last night from a Mirage IV tail-cam during a landing (the best source, really).

[campbeme]

Here's a completed alpha model, just have to sort out some FDE stuff (lights, contact points, and a little balance). Note the bypass air doors (all ten of them with both sides), landing light, and the double-chute thing (useful for some other upcoming project). Multi-LOD will take a day, and then off to the races...... I don't think I'll have a problem with my end-of-May deadline for this one.

I found these just for fun RAF schemes of the BAC/Dassault Mirage IV.

I like the red flag one.


http://airlinebuzz.com/forums/entry.php ... -Archives)

[mikeblaze]

Yeah, that was where I got the inspiration..........

Multi-LOD model is nearly done, hammering out some little poly count things, and then I will have an actual finished beta model for final flight test. I'm very lazy about multi-LOD, it's one of my failings, and it's something I can live with. I only make a couple of far-LOD parts (wings, tail, rear fuselage), so my LOD200 only has about 300 less polys than the LOD400 model. The big poly dump happens at LOD100, and goes pretty steadily from there. I've used this recipe for all of my original modeling projects, and the framerates are okay, so I will stick with it.

Mark, you will have some new Spartans this week, I swear, lol........

[mikeblaze]

Having a short halt, I am doing an MLU of my big Alienware desktop (shameless plug for a fantastic system), new GPU, restore to factory settings (the best antivirus in the world, lol). I plan to at least have FSDS, MSFS, and Photoshop back up tonight.

I stopped the work at doing paints for the Israeli export Mirage IV. I'm not trying to get too out of hand with the virtual project, but the IDF variant will have metal, brown-tan Vatour-style camo, and the three-color sand camo (all are already done). I am using 110 Tayaset as the squadron, as they operated Vatours up through the 1973 War. I should be able to post some screenshots later tonight. The Indian paints (the other interested export customer and my other virtual user) are an interesting notion; as the IAF getting these back in the late 1960s would have politically obliterated a generation of Pakistani Mirages. I'll probably keep it simple and stick to metal and the Jaguar-style wraparound scheme; don't want to get too wrapped around a virtual project, there are 'way too many historic projects I have going to get derailed by one flight of fancy, lol.

[mikeblaze]

Here is the first part of the 2-part Mirage IV project, and this one just got uploaded to AVSIM. This part is the traditional Mirage IVA/P, with all production serials included. As a bonus, I am throwing in the Mirage IIIB2 (-RV) with the fake Mirage IV nose refueling probe used for pilot training. This package is 17 models and 92 repaints. The second part will be the might-have-been RAF variants, with RAF, Israeli, and Indian paints; plus the paint kits. Have fun with strategic nuclear deterrence..... obviously, it works....

[Chrisb]

Thanks Mike.

Chris