Dassault Rafale-T

Dassault Rafale-T

Heller, 1/72

Backed into a corner during the Asian Arms Race, Taiwan was forced to expand and upgrade its air inventory to compete with its neighbours, who were suddently aquiring new weapons. While its F-16s were more than adequate for its air defences, more were needed and its fleet of Mirage 2000s were growing outdated, based on the alarming appearance of newer aircraft from its rival, China. The Ministry of Defence decided to budget for a new-generation fighter to eventually replace the Mirage.

A bid was put out, and several countries responded: The United States offered the F-16 and F-35 JSF, Eurofighter offered its latest Typhoon incarnation, Russia offered its Su-35, Sweden presented the Gripen and France showed off its Rafale. After a highly competitive fly-off the JSF was selected, but budget issues arising from the fact that the additions Taiwan suggested meant that the price for each one ended up costing $12 million more apiece (as well political pressure from lobbyist back home fearing the placement of highly sensitive stealth technology so close to China, who were itching to get their hands on one of these new fighters) meant buying the less-stealthy, but equally capable Rafale. The usual media frenzy followed, with stories circulating that France bought off the Defence Minister (proven untrue) and other stories claiming that Taiwan was going to buy the Rafale anyway as a political favor (also untrue) made the decision a bittersweet affair, and the usual fistfights in Taiwan Parliament ensued between rival politicians whenever the issue of the Rafale was brought up.

The first of the new Rafales landed in Taiwan, spare parts, aircrew and all, on September 20, 2009, just in time for flyovers on Taiwan's National Day (October 10). Changes and updates mainly were confined to internals, such as avionics and a fire control system designed to work with major US, Israeli and European weapon systems, in order to achieve a level of compatibility. This update added an extra two years into the delivery time as all parties involved had to perform load tests on the weapons, as well as keep the weapons off each other's hands (the French were especially careful not to let the Israelis learn more than what was necessary to mount the weapons on the aircraft, an understandable sentiment echoing back to the days the Israeli swiped the plans for the Mirage from right under their noses to build the Kfir). In terms of development two years was remarkably fast, considering the political and technical hurdles the parties had to overcome.

Another significant, though unexplained, feature on the Rafale was the fact that the landing gear was that of the Rafale M, as well as the landing hook, were retained. Being a land-based aircraft it was not known why the ROCAF decided to keep the carrier equipment on the aircraft (or why they couldn't just get the Air Force variant instead), though it is rumored that Taiwan was also working on obtaining and aircraft carrier. A more realistic (though still very speculative) possibility, fueled by rumor, would be that they were equipped for emergency landings on an aircraft carrier (if one happened to be around) in the event of war. This rumor was fueled by the fact that there were several months of training unaccounted for by the Taiwanese pilots, with the possibility that they were off training on the carrier Charles de Gaulle.

This Rafale is a continuation of what I call the Asian Arms Race, which is a series of aircraft based on a fictional arms race in the South East/East Asian region. The world economy had picked up in late 2003, and had fully recovered by mid-2005, with all the countries in the Asian region scrambling to buy new arms as a knee-jerk response to China's new purchases.

The kit is a Heller Rafale kit, which I purchased for US$3.99. It came in a starter pack containing the kit, as well as a few paint brushes, a tube of glue and a few small pots of acrylic paint (which I have yet to try). The decals were horribly out of register. While the kit was mainly targeted at kids, Heller could have at least put more effort into making sure quality control kept and eye on the decals. But then again maybe the kids wouldn't have cared, and I've just been taking this hobby too seriously that I had forgotten the days when I'd have the kit built and flying around the living room in a day (I miss those days).

The kit features recessed panel lines, which I promptly sanded off and rescribed. The kit didn't have too many panel lines anyway. The cockpit was rather basic, but was adequate. The only problem I had with the cockpit was the fact that the flightstick, which was a side arrangement much like the F-16, was mounted too far back (think of where your elbow rests when you sit on an armchair - yeah it's that far back). I had to cut off the mounts and drill a hole farther in front for the stick.

Fit wasn't too hot either. The air intakes didn't want to fair in with the fusealge too well, and the nose wheel well was molded as a drop-in piece in the nose, which in theory was a great idea as you'd be able to mold in all kinds of neat detail in it, but that didn't fit too great. I had to fill and sand the join area to fair it in. The nose was also a separate piece, but interestingly enough fit well enough that fairing it in required minimal effort.The wings were part of the fuselage so that wasn't an issue, though I had to make sure that the tail was set properly - another separate piece.

I adopted the paint scheme for a Mirage 2000D of the ROCAF, with light gull grey overall and intermediate blue as the camo. I found it a refreshing change from the usual grey/blue Mirage camo. The stores were painted light ghost grey, with black or white as nacelle colors as well as the occasional stripe to color it up. The missiles were drilled in the back to make exhaust nozzles.

Decals were swiped from an Italeri Mirage 2000D. I was going to do the Mirage as a French one, so why waste the rest of the decals? Decals were in excellent register and went on well with an application of Solvaset. Oh, the canopy was pretty decent, and a dip in Future floor wax made it look even better.

The final parts, such as the nose probe and landing gear, came in after the airframe was painted, sealed, decaled, sealed again, weathered, and sealed yet another time. The landing gear was painted Testor's Metalizer Steel (that stuff brushes on beautifully!), as well as the interiors of the landing gear doors.

In hindsight the aircraft could have been a little cleaner - after all, it's not wartime, and I'm sure SOP requires that you keep the plane as clean as possible. Those of you who really know me know that I love grungy airplanes, and unfortunately a year of doing WW2 subjects have done little to restrain me.

Overall I'd say I put in about 2 weeks of work into it, and since there were no real modifications most of the time was spent making sure that the kit went together looking like an aircraft. To be honest I'm not too sure I'd do another one, and if I was a 1/48th builder I would have gone for the more detailed Monogram offering. However when done it does look great sitting next to the Q-15 and I'm glad that I finally got done with it. I hope you enjoyed it, and hopefully it won't be a year before the next installment in the Asian Arms Race comes up again!

Page created June 1, 2003