Q: What got you interested in doing a series of Mirage III/5 aircraft?
You said something about starting this a year or so ago.
A: I always held that if I could get up to speed with modeling, I wanted to do "my"
era of FS, the 1970s-1990s. The aircraft I have done so far have been very specific
aircraft seen in Cold War-era Europe; and many places abroad. My criteria for what
aircraft I model are based upon their prevalence in aviation; and the "paint-ability" of
them; in other words, how many squadrons or export countries used them. Since I was
a painter first (for the last 13 years), I am careful to model my aircraft to be very
painter-friendly. To this date, I have done one British aircraft (BAC Lightning)
and one Russian aircraft (MiG-21 Fishbed) as original-design projects, plus I have an
upcoming Vought F-8 Crusader in the final beta stage. Therefore, the Mirage III/5
project is a natural continuation of that philosophy and agenda. With regard to
starting this a year ago, it was just a reference to the seven years of modeling failures
I have had before I figured it out.
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Early work in progress rendering of
Mirage IIIC AI model wearing desert camouflage and markings applied
EC 3/10 "Vexin" while stationed in Djibouti.
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Q: What models do you intend to make? All or specific (and if the latter, which)?
A: For this project, very easy to explain… Mirage III/5/50, everything I can
find record of. With regard to that, I am not worried about every little one-off
variation that may have occurred at the local level, but I will try to represent every
major variation as manufactured/upgraded/converted from the original Mirage III airframe.
That, of course, includes Nesher, Dagger, Cheetah, and Pantera.
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IAI Nesher AI model rendering wearing Israel Air Force tactical
camouflage with visual ID triangles and unit markings for 144 "Phoenix" Squadron.
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Q: What nations to you plan to paint? All or specific?
A: Same as the last question. I do not intend to do specialty liveries, nor will
I intentionally paint every variant used by every country; but I will strive to ensure that
every country that operated these aircraft is represented in paint at least once. I
guarantee that there will be opportunities for repainters.
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Mirage IIIC AI model rendering wearing Air Defense Blue scheme
applied to some Mirage IIIC units near the end of their operational careers.
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Q: Will they be released in groups (how grouped -- nations, model) or in one big package.
A: With multi-variant/multi-loadout models and many paints, obviously these will be
released in parts. As a comparison, my Lightning package was released in four parts,
and my MiG-21 was released in eight parts (including foreign builds). I will estimate
the Mirage package to be five or six parts, but that is not a firm number at this time.
The grouping will be around models, rather than nations.
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Mirage 5F AI model rendering in Armée de l'Air tactical camouflage
and unit markings for EC 2/13 "Alpes".
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Q: What features will they have -- animated parts: moving gear, opening canopies,
various tanks and weapons? Designed to be statics, AI, or full on models?
A: For the foreseeable future, I will be only doing AI models for public release.
I am just getting a rhythm for modeling (in my opinion), and want to learn how to do some more
things with FSDS first, before I get so bold as to do a full-feature model. I have done
one static model for MAIW for an upcoming project, but I want to concentrate on things that
actually move around in the sim, for now.
All of my models come with the following default or XML-coded animations:
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Retractable landing gear, compressing struts, rotating wheels, drogue chutes where appropriate.
Navigation lights, taxi/landing lights, smoke, and afterburner effects where appropriate.
Spoilers, speedbrakes, air inlet/bleed air doors where appropriate
Canopy raise/lower, pilots which appear/disappear with engine start/shutdown; on two-seaters,
canopies and pilots move asynchronously where appropriate.
Selected ground service equipment, to include boarding ladders and warning flags/covers; which
appear/disappear with engine startup/shutdown.
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Early work in progress rendering of
RAAF Mirage IIIO AI modelwearing the three-tone camouflage scheme
applied during the 1970's and partial unit markings of 77 Sqn.
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Q: Intended for FS9 or FSX?
A: If you email me privately, I will tell you what I think of FSX (other than visually
stunning). Beyond that, I will make all models, now and forever, primarily compatible with FS9.
A few work in progress preview images of the models, loadouts, and schemes.
Click for larger view.
A few completed package images of the models, loadouts, and schemes.
Click for larger view.
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All images by Michael Pearson.
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