There are four manufacturers of 1/48 scale kits of the Mirage 2000 – Airfix/Heller, Italeri, Kinetic, Monogram, and, of course, the re-boxing of the Heller kit by Eduard. All of these kits have poorly detailed exhaust nozzles, except the Eduard re-boxing which provides PE to overhaul the engine to a more convincing replica, the exterior exhaust petals being particularly noteworthy. Enter Aires with its offering of both an open and closed nozzle replacement engine. This is a review of the open nozzle set.

I have built a number of Aires engine exhaust assemblies, all US engines, and this set is the best of the bunch. Why? Detail and ease of assembly. Aires continues to astound me with the detail that they can cast in their durable gray resin, and the three resin components of this set are amazing, especially the exhaust nozzle inner and outer petals. These components include the nozzle assembly, exhaust tube, and afterburner section. To further detail the afterburner assembly, Aires provides a fret with four PE components. The corrugation in the exhaust pipe is also noteworthy and a beautiful rendition of the prototype.

I began the assembly process with the resin components. I carefully removed them from their pour blocks with a micro saw and then used a sanding stick to clean and even them up. This is less critical than it sounds, since the Aires set provides positive alignments with overlapping sections. The seams between the sections are hidden once assembled. I used a range of Model Master Metalizer buffable metals to coat the resin components, including Exhaust, Burnt Metal, Titanium, Magnesium, and Aluminum, including some mixing of Metalizers to vary the shades. I created a triangular mask to spray the shiny sections between the spread nozzle petal where the metal is burnished. I used Aluminum for the effect. It ended up being more subtle then I hoped. I polished the Metalizer with a soft cloth.

The afterburner is a small project that is well engineered. The PE is layered on the resin section to provide the most detailed section that I have seen in any kit or set. Aires provides the PE detail in steel, which is good for the technique I use when building engines. I experimented with this technique on the Eduard Mirage 2000C engine details to good effect. I reasoned that there is no better way to replicate heat-stressed metal than heat-stressed metal. So I applied heat to the PE fret using a small handle. I let the metal work through a series of colors before removing it from the flame. I ended up with nice blacks, browns and blues as a result. The process also anneals the metal and makes it easier to work. In assembling the afterburner rings, I found the Aires instruction clear to follow. I worked slowly with gap filling superglue to stack the sections. Once the glue was cured, I flattened the assembly with Testors Dullcoat for a more realistic dull appearance.

Final assembly was quick and easy with the positive alignment feature. Fitting the engine is just a matter of trimming the stiffener at the back end of the fuselage. I plan to fit it to the Kinetic kit which is similar in layout to the Heller kit, for which this assembly is designed. The Aires set is far nicer than the Kinetic offering, which is still lacking even if you add Eduard PE. The end result is a very nicely detailed engine that looks every bit the part of a Mirage exhaust. If you are a fan of the Mirage 2000, you will want this set – it is worth the cost.

My thanks to Aires for supplying this set and IPMS/USA for offering the opportunity to review it.