Dams301's thread : 1/72 MQ-9A in-progress (p.11)

[dams301]

Thanks Greg, I appreciate 

The wait was not long, here is the Rafale C completed just a few minutes ago 

As for most of my what-if, I have of course written a small backstory 

Rafale C F1.4+
In the late 1990s, the decision was made to order 10 Rafale C aircraft to the F1 standard, in addition of the 10 Rafale Marine aircraft already planned to the same standard. Their mission will be to immediately reinforce the Mirage 2000-5Fs deployed under a defense agreement in the Federal Republic of Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) to counter the escalating tensions with Burma, which would continue to grow in the following years.
As these aircraft were at the F1 standard, they did not yet have the Forward Optronics System (OSF), which was still under development.
Starting in 2003, the first five Rafale C aircraft flew from France to their home base in Da-Nang under their own power, demonstrating the Rafale's ability to be rapidly deployed over long distances. The last five aircraft would arrive by sea a few months later, using French Navy resources, thus completing the replacement of the Mirage 2000-5Fs, which will be returned to France in the same manner.

Over the years, these Rafale C F1 were progressively modernized to reach the F1.4+ standard — a version similar to the F2, but without the OSF functionalities.
Their operational service in the Federal Republic of Indochina will end in early 2014, with the arrival of the first Rafale F3.4+. Repatriated to France, they will finally be equipped with the OSF, replacing the ballast that was installed, and upgraded directly to the F3R standard (first aircraft redelivered in 2018), following the process already used by the French Navy and the RFM F1.

The aircraft shown here is the Rafale C104 assigned to 3/30 Lorraine (re-activated for the initial deployment in 2003), during a patrol mission over Laos (from a detachment based in Phônsavan) in the early 2010's, and equipped with 2 x 1250L tanks and 4 Mica EM + 2 IR.

And with the F-104J

[Old Wombat]

A pair of very nice builds there, Dams301! 

[Frank3k]

Welcome back! Two beautiful builds! The F-104 looks especially nice.

[Buzzbomb]

Very neat work 

[Kerick]

The F-104J is sweet!
The Rafale is coming along well too.

[finsrin]

Looking great, that F-104 has "Missile with a man in it" look.  So fast in straight line. 

[dams301]

Thank you 

The next models are almost ready for the painting, it will be a Rafale N and a MQ-9A both 1/72th and from the French Navy (I have to do with available marking for now  )

[apophenia]

Nice! Looking forward to the Aéronavale types 

[Claymore]

Beautiful work! 

[dams301]

Hi 

Thank you Apophenia and Claymore 

Some in-progress pics of the Reaper. I used it to validate the color I will use on the Rafale N later and at the same occasion tried a splinter scheme.





And the loadout to be installed:



Still some details to be painted in the coming days before varnish and decals.

Hope you like it 

[GTX_Admin]

What are those missiles?

[Kerick]

That’s looking really good! Nice paint colors.
I have to say I don’t recognize those orange parts. Missiles and a gas bag?

[dams301]

Missiles are ADM-160 decoy missiles that can operates as jammer in the C variant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-160_MALD



The pod is an AN/ALQ-249, the one used on the EA-18G

[Kerick]

Interesting choices.
Where did you get them? They look like resin aftermarket.

[dams301]

Yes, they are 3D printing resin aftermarket.
No specific brand, I found them on a small shop on TaoBao (China). The guy is doing a lot of loadout stuff for aircraft all over the world (french, US, chinese, bomb, missiles, pods, pylon rails,...) and some figure as well at the main scale (1/48, 1/72, 1/144 mainly), so each time I go there, I order a lot from him 

First time I went in China, and got access to TaoBao, I was really amazed by local aftermarket options. Some are available on AliExpress (not him, but you have FabScale and SSModels which also have great options of resin for aircraft, and Galaxy Model for resin and decals options, I some of their references), but most of them are just selling inside mainland China.
Maybe available to local TaoBao as well (like HKG or some others South-East Asia countries where the app is available), but I didn't try to check there as I only have access to the China mainland app.