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Spiros Pendedekas
156 articles

Revell 1/72 SE.535 Mistral

May 10, 2022 · in Aviation · · 24 · 1.5K

Hi everyone!


This is my Armee de l'Air Revell 1/72 SE.535 Mistral.
The SE.535 Mistral (aka Vampire FB.53) was a licensed upgraded Vampire built by French SNCASE, basically utilizing a more powerful Rolls Royce Nene engine and a Martin Baker ejection seat. While not faster than the standard Vampire, due to the airframe's Mach limitations, it was among the best performing and most refined single seat Vamps.

The Mistral emerged from the need to power up the somewhat underpowered Vampire.

The post WWII rapidly developing French aircraft industry resumed De Havilland studies to install the more powerful, yet slightly bigger Rolls-Royce Nene engine (also licensed built in France by Hispano) in the Vampire, in place of the Goblin.

The required modifications included a slightly wider fuselage and new air inlets, with their prosperous design eliminating the need of the top mounted paired scoops witnessed at British and Australian Nene-powered Vampires.

The first Mistral to see service was the SE.532 using the Nene 102 engine and a fixed seat, of which 97 entered service.

Later on, the SE.535, of which another 150 were delivered was introduced, featuring a licensed built Martin Baker ejection seat, using the Nene 104 and capable of carrying bombs or rockets.

The Mistral operated with the Armee de l'Air from 1952 and was eventually phased out of service in 1961. All Mistrals were built in the SNCASE Marignane plant.


The Revell kit is a reboxed Heller mold with, a nice, sweet (if not at times challenging) build. It was built as a participant to our friend's Erik @airbum very successful de Havilland Aircraft Company 100 years GB.
Should you want to read the full build review, you may do so by visiting my beloved site Modelingmadness:
https://modelingmadness.com/review/korean/french/penmis.htm

Happy modeling!

Reader reactions:
5  Awesome

24 responses

  1. Jasou Spiros @fiveten, this is a beautiful build of a beautiful plane! I like the smooth metallic finish a lot. That is hard to achieve!

  2. How nice Spiros. I love the scale and results you got with the Metallic finish.

  3. Extremely nice looking Mistral, Spiros @fiveten
    It was a pleasure to follow your build thread.
    Definitely going to read your MM article as well.

  4. Nice French Vampire. I wish I could get hold of one of the new 1/48 Airfix kits, but they don’t seem to have made their way to China yet, maybe I’ll have to wait for Halloween.

  5. Nice work, Spiros. Vampires are all the rage!

  6. Nice looking NMF!

  7. Beautiful work, Spiros! The Vampire is an elegant design, as are all de Havillands.

  8. nice little bloodsucker!
    Gonna show it´s still British made relative in 1/48 soon 😉

  9. A nice-looking Mistral. Well done!

  10. Nice work with the NMF Spiros, nice looking Mistral.

  11. Another nice one Spiros.

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