Gordon Dyne’s Brakpan Based Mirage F1 Squadron Newest Addition
By Neill Fenton
16.03.2025
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My brief from my dearest friend, Gordon Dyne, who I greatly respect, is to take this heap of corroded and scrappy aircraft down, and refurbish it so that it looks like the real deal! Complete with the traditional camo colours painted, and stickers and she must also incl. a pilot (with his sun shades) and emergency parachute attached.
The dilapidated Mirage Dassault F1 fiberglass scale model is mounted on two 150mm galvanise poles at a farm entrance in Nigel. Ugly cross support struts welded to poles and crudely screwed to underside of wings and fuselage. The tailfin is a homemade misfit and not secured properly and is also a poor resemblance of the original and proper shape it should be.
Having done that I had to mount the aircraft onto poles at Gordon’s Man-Cave at Brakpan airfield. A hugely challenging and exciting project. With Gary’s (from Smart Machine Moving and rigging) professionalism and competence, assisting Techneil CC we took the aircraft down and transported it to Techneil’s workshops in Elandsfontein.
At the workshops we were suddenly confronted with the realization of the true state of the machine, (an absolute corroded and damaged monster). The fiberglass structure is built around a steel structure compromising 1.6mm wall piping, steel bracing, angle irons and other mild steel pieces, all of which is badly corroded and rusted and in some areas disintegrated completely. We proceeded to replace all the steel structure inside the wings and elevators. The fiberglass skin of the wings etc had to be cut open to gain access to the inner structure.
While the metal structure was been worked on, it was necessary to design and build proper anchor points for future lifting of each wing and the main fuselage. This demanded some serious engineering and design work, obviously an important feature. The tailfin was a disaster, we took measurements from another Mirage, designed and built a brand new tailfin in all steel from scratch (metal frame and structure incl. sheet metal 1.2 skin)
All bolts / nuts / fasteners were replaced using galvanized components, aluminium pop rivets and the eye bolts for lifting were carefully selected according to weight capacity and tensile strength.
The next challenge was to design an internal electrical system for LED lighting and run all the com. cable, power supply, transformer 220V/12V and 7Ah battery. All light fittings installed are LED and comprise an interior flight deck light, starboard wiring tip green light, a port wing tip red light and various other lights incl. strobes as necessary and to the specifications of a real Mirage aircraft.
By then she slowly started to look the part. A huge amount of preparation in terms body & component repairs, fibre glass repairs and rebuild, surface sanding and preparation went into the preparation to get her ready for the two coats of primer paint.
Finally the base coat, colour (mustard) is applied and the Green camouflage overlay is carefully applied, the Mirage F1 looks exactly like the real Mirage especially after the decals and stickers were applied.
Gary and his team, transported her back to Gordon’s hangar at Brakpan airfield for the finishing touches. With the assistance and advice of a structural / mechanical engineer, we designed and build the steel reinforcing and poles structure to perch the F1. Engineering skill and mathematics is required to get the design spot on. The aircraft will be pitched at ten degree in a rotate attitude.
My friend Clint from And-Ros Construction did an excellent job casting the 2.5m x 1m x 1m reinforced concrete slabs into the ground, to support the 8mm wall steel poles 220mm diameter incl. 20mm thick steel base plates and high tensile bolts / nuts.
Techneil CC was bestowed a once in a life time honour to be given the privilege to restore this magnificent aircraft and bring her back to life.
The F1 Mirage now rests on two poles at Gordon’s Man Cave, a proud replica of the Dassault F1 and a tribute to the pilots who flew these machines in combat during the border war 1966 to 1989.
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