FCM Decals | 32021: Mirage III EBR
Reviewed by Rato Marczak
No, you haven’t read it wrong, and it is not a typo. The denomination EBR refers to the Dassault Mirage III sold to Brazilian Air Force (BAF) during the seventies. This FCM Decals sheet is specifically designed for Brazilian Air Force’s Mirages, or F-103E.
Small modifications over the standard Mirage III E led to the EBR denomination, but for modeling purposes it is basically the dash-E (check if your model has the dorsal fillet – they were standard in Brazilian Mirages). BAF started to receive the 22 Mirages of their first batch in 1972 (along with the dash-D trainers) and, contrary to the French III E, they were all painted in Alumilac, and Aluminum finish.
Sheet 32021 covers essentially the two camouflages used by BAF on their Mirages when based in Anapolis Air Base from 1975 until 1990, close to the retirement of the fleet. The first version is an overall Alumilac F-103 as received from Frence. The other three versions covered by this sheet are glue gray (FS 35109) / light gray (FS 36662) camouflage pattern used by all Brazilian F-103s during their last operational years.
FCM decals are printed by Microscale from USA, and my sample was, for practical purposes, noting short of perfect. The instructions are four pages with nice diagrams and include a small stencil placing plan. Federal Standard color calls are used. The artwork is signed by FCM’s Felipe Miranda.
The 1/32 scale Italeri Mirage IIIE is out there. If you want a Mirage III different than French/Israeli/S. African ones, this sheet if for you. There is a legend claiming that Marcel Dassault bought the Fairey Delta plans to make the Mirage... but that’s another story.
For the record, Hannants carries most decals from FCM catalogue.
Highly recommended.
© Rato Marczak 2019
This review was published on Thursday, April 04 2019; Last modified on Thursday, April 04 2019