The master metalworker of Poland, Piotr, just keeps cranking these things out… THANKS VERY MUCH for sending IPMS USA another of your growing line of turned metal Pitot tubes, and thanks also to IPMS USA leadership for sending it on to me to review….

This is the now-expected, much improved upgrade to the kit plastic. Consisting of 1 metal pitot tube and a radome adaptor directly replacing the kit pitot probe, this is an easy addition to improve the longevity of your kits’ appearance… The usual warning about being careful with the needle-like probe applies.

The Mirage III pitot tube is a multiple- angle, different diameter item; look at the finished product to get what I am saying. There is just no way for us mortals to turn a needle into a tube looking like this with the boundary-layer differences of the actual item. It’s really interesting how this all works, but that’s a physics lesson for others to teach.

Just be assured this looks correct and better than I could do!

One problem I ran into was a missing radome; after waiting for a while for a new one, I decided to get busy making my own so I could finish up the review. Took me three separate nights; one to assemble and rough-carve it out, one to superglue into place, fill, let dry, re-sand, re-fill, repeat, three times, until I got it right and finished; then the last night was a final fill and paint.

I used a saw to cut off the extreme radome tip, drilled a hole in the flat spot for the tube-to-radome adaptor, then had to fettle it a bit before everything looked in alignment. THEN, I filled and sanded THAT seam. Final primer coat, looked good to me, so I installed the tube and photographed it. TLAR modeling? (That Looks About Right”?) yep. But now I have a Mirage III ready to move on to the other side of the bench!

HOLD ON THERE BoBBA BOY! (anyone else remember “Quick Draw McGraw?” and Bobba Louie?) So I went by my mailbox Thursday and found a large box from Mary Ann at Hobbyco, the distributor for Italeri here in the states, and inside was the entire parts runner which held the missing nose radome! (It had also come off the runner, so that accounts for the missing part originally.) Half a fuselage…what to do with THAT now?

So, in the interest of a proper review, I sawed off my scratchbuilt nose cone (It was only 3/8” shorter and looked surprisingly like the Italeri item without the fine scribing on it), sanded down the mating surface and made sure it was square, and cemented the italeri radome in place. I then installed the Master pitot tube parts… . Check out the pix; the rest of the review is the same. Thanks again to Hobbyco for the fantastic parts support!

The photos tell the story; the master probe fits perfectly into place, and I know have peace of mind that the tube will shrug off my attempts to break it.

Master’s metal parts make the difference for many kits like this. Once more earning a “10” rating, thanks again Piotr for taking care of this modeling niche and IPMS USA for the forum to review these items…