Eduard MICA RF/IR Missiles (648749 & 648750)

[Mike]

MICA RF/IR Missiles (648749 & 648750)

1:48 Eduard Brassin

 

 

The MICA series of missiles are a French designed medium-range air-to-air (A2A) missile that is a fire-and-forget weapon that is capable of tracking multiple targets, including those behind the firing aircraft, which is sometimes referred to as over-the-shoulder targeting.  They are available in Infrared (IR) or active radar (RF) flavours that are designed to resist counter-measures, filtering out the clutter to keep track of the selected target.  They can also be launched vertically from ships or other installations as the VL MICA.

 

There are two types available from Eduard, and those are the two airborne variants, both holding eight missiles, and all parts save for the IR seekers 3D printed directly on thin bases.  As is now usual with Eduard's smaller resin sets, they arrive in the new shallow Brassin cardboard box, with the resin parts safely cocooned in bags, and the instructions folded around acting as padding.  Each set has the missile bodies separately bagged from the nose cones and tails, and with my sample, a couple of the fins had been damaged due to the flexibility of the printing bases.  They were simple to repair with super glue, but it may be worth the designers thickening the bases so that they aren’t able to flex and bang together in the bag.

 

 

MICA RF Missile (648749)

The main missile body is attached to the print-block by the front, and thanks to the way in which 3D printing is done, there is a socket waiting for you when you cut the body from the mount.  This makes for much easier construction, and to test my theory I made one of the missiles up, which was extremely easy, fitting together perfectly without the use of glue.  With a bit of super glue it will even stay together!  That’s all there is to make one up, then following the painting instructions that are called out in the instructions, and the stencil instructions on the front page will see your missiles complete.  Detail is excellent as usual.

 

 

 

 

MICA IR Missile (648750)

The missile body and exhaust parts are the same for this variant, with a different nose cone that has a socket in the front into which you slot the domed clear resin seeker window.  Painting is different for the nose cone, having silver accents instead of a gold band.  The stencils are subtly different too.

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

A couple of nice sets representing the most common MICA variants, with a generous eight missiles per set.  With a thicker base plate to stop them clashing together in the box, the set would be perfect.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Review sample courtesy of