The Reco NG reconnaissance pod, nicknamed AREOS, in cast form. It is hung under the fuselage of the Rafale and turns a combat machine into a reconnaissance aircraft.
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Reco NG is a reconnaissance device of the new generation that the French Air Force acquired for the Rafale; it carries the nickname AREOS. Inside the long housing sit optics imaging obliquely and vertically, a recording section and a data link through which the pictures taken can be sent while still in flight. The pod is hung on the axis of the fuselage and is large enough to change the overall silhouette of the machine.
Without the pod one builds a fighter or strike machine and has to load it with missiles or bombs for that. With it something quite different comes about: an aircraft on a photographic run, which usually carries only drop tanks, a self-defense pair of missiles and precisely this housing. The arrangement is cleaner, more restrained and incomparably less often seen at shows than a fully laden machine.
The casting is fitted at the center station of the fuselage, so it is good to check in advance whether the kit reckons with a hole there or whether the area will have to be leveled and one drilled. Given the length of the part, it pays to glue a piece of wire inside the join, so that the heavy housing does not sit on the glued surface alone.
The real housing tends to be in a shade close to the underside of the aircraft, with the faces of the optics differentiated. The decals enclosed bring the lettering and markings the pod really carries. The glass of the optics is worth suggesting with a gloss varnish and, if need be, backing with a thin piece of transparent film, so that the lenses do not look like a mere polished hollow. It is they, after all, that attract the most attention on a finished model and decide whether the housing looks like an instrument or like a piece of casting.
Naši poradci a znalci sortimentu jsou připraveni odpovídat na Vaše dotazy (Po–Pá, 8–18 hod).
Zeptejte se na co potřebujete, odpovíme co nejdříve.
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