The HobbyBoss 1/72 Rafale M is an excellent modern model in semimatte light grey plastic with very good fit, minimal flash, detailed ejection seats, engraved panel lines and cockpit panel decals. Assembly is simple. The fuselage top and bottom halves include the wings; once theyre joined (dont forget to drill out the ordnance pylon guide holes first), its mostly just rudder and missile attachment. The most difficult are the pivoting canards (try taping them externally to keep them in place when joining the fuselage) and jet intake assemblies (there arent many registration pins). I have a quibble with the ordnance fit. The instructions suggest six MICA missiles and three 2000 liter or 1250 liter drop tanks as a proper loadout, but the kit only includes four MICA and two of each tank. Still, this 2012 release is far better than earlier HobbyBoss kits which have no ordnance at all the 2008 HobbyBoss A-10 has 11 pylons but nothing to mount on them. This Rafale even has a pair of Apache cruise missiles for an air-to-ground fit. By the way, the Apaches have a lot of small fins with poor registration aids.

The kit comes with 5 gray sprues and 1 clear sprue. Fuselage halves were very secure in the box to prevent warpage. The kit does have a lot of ejector pins, some of which are in bad places and will need to be dealt with. Detail in the cockpit is provided via decals. There is raised details in the cockpit which makes it tough to get the decals to lay down. The decals were very nice and played down well with some setting solution. Overall kit detail is very good with nice recessed panel lines. There is some fiddly construction, mainly the landing gear and intakes. The intakes will need some sanding and filling to blend them in. You will need to do some research on your own as some of the color callouts are incorrect (cockpit, drop tanks, and landing gear). Overall fit of the kit is above average and builds into a nice Rafale.