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All 1/48 scale from the Russian Knight done in January to Rafale B finished yesterday in 2014. Have posted a majority of these before. Thanks for looking. New year resolution is flankers and more flankers! J-10B prototype

Here is the 1/72 Hobby Boss Rafale B Tiger Meet 2006. This is the first Hobby Boss kit I have ever made. As far as the fit of parts, I had little to no problems; the kit went together quite well. As for accuracy, beats me, I bought the kit for the Tiger Meet scheme and I hope it resembles a Rafale B. If it is one of those “Totally Unbuildable, Due to Horrible Errors” models, please excuse me for completing it, but at least enjoy the Tiger Meet scheme. The build thread is here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234959640-rafale-b-tiger-meet/ So far during my new found fascination for Tiger Meet planes, I have only built 1/144 and 1/72 Revell kits. (There is a 1/32 model in the stash, that should be fun!) What make these kits are the decals. And my experience with decals from Revell has been nothing but wonderful in their application and how well they fit together to make the intended scheme. Hobby Boss needs to contact whoever does Revell’s tiger meet decals. The decals were hard to work with, tended to fold into each other and did not like to be moved, once applied. For these schemes, you need to be able to adjust the decals so they fit next to each other. The other complaint is one that I often wonder when building kits, “Did someone bother to try and build this prior to it being put out on the market?” Some of the decals do not match the ones they are supposed to meet. This would have been quite obvious if whoever made them attempted to put them on the kit. Thankfully, they do react kindly to Micro Set/Sol solutions and can be manhandled into place with enough solution and patience to smooth them out over long periods of time. The above said, I would build another Hobby Boss kit and even take a crack at another tiger meet scheme though. Enough rambling, here are the end results. All comments welcome.

My fascination with Tiger Meet kits continues with this 1/72 Rafale B from Hobby Boss. I have built some 1/144 and 1/72 Revell Tornados, but I am branching out. This is the first Hobby Boss kit I have ever built. I am wondering if the fit and design of the kit, plus the quality of the decals will equal Revell. I have chosen the second Tiger Meet scheme in the box. The cover depicts another Tiger Meet aircraft. Upon opening the box, I am very pleasantly surprised with the amount of detail to the parts and surface. This is a very nice kit. Now, I have to admit, I have no knowledge of planes without propellers. If you asked me how accurate this kit is, couldn’t tell you to save my soul. I just bought it for the Tiger Meet scheme. If the kit goes together well and the decals fit, then I will be happy. Since my knowledge is negligible, I am solely relying on the color callouts in the instructions. My apologies if it offends the Rafale fans. I am not messing up on purpose. So on with the show. Let’s start out with the, ummm, cockpit. Nice amount of parts, looks like a lot of detail in the kit parts, plus supplementation by decals. The layout of the parts with a base coat on each looks like this. There are various decals that need to be applied to the two instrument panels. I am encouraged after application of these decals. They seem to react well with Micro Set/Sol and snuggle down nicely. I hope the Tiger Meet decals work as well as these. I put the two seats together and then painted on a few details along with weathering one to compare to the unweathered one. Here are the back of the seats (which will probably be invisible once installed) The sides, starboard, port and both sides weathered The cowling for the rear seat is next Finally, the tub is painted and various decals applied to good effect. Now, everything is put in the tub with these results. The fit was quite good except for one area. Each seat top has a gap that needs to be filled. That may very well be my fault as the fit for everything else was very good. So, need to break out the filler for these two little areas. Next up the center spline needs to have two vents installed and a little air scoop added. They all fit perfectly and I am still amazed at the detail level. The halves are split into upper and lower rather than right and left. I am hoping this will help ease any seams that need to be filled. I inserted the cockpit and canards which are designed to be moveable and joined the halves. They fit well and there appears to be minimal seams to fill and sand. (And for that I am thankful!!) And this looks like a good stopping point. My initial impressions of this kit and Hobby Boss are quite good. I hope they hold out for the entire build. Comments always welcome and encouraged.