History

The Matra R.530 is a French medium to short range air-to-air missile. It was available in infrared homing and semi active radar homing as the main armament of the Mirage III which was able to carry a single missile in the centerline, the Mirage F1, which carried two (one of each type) under the wings, and the F-8 Crusader in the French Navy service.
Info from Wikipedia

In the pack

Packed in a blister pack the resin parts are snug and safe with a foam backing.
The contents of this missile set are -
21 resin parts
2 clear resin parts
1 small photo etch set
A set of stencil decals
A set of instructions

All the parts are flawlessly cast with no imperfections in the resin.
The parts are connected to the casting blocks on one side and are easy to remove and clean up.
Detail is beautiful with the missile have some recessed and raised areas, and the pylons having some very delicate recessed lines and rivet detail.

Each missile is made up of the main body, four fins, a rocket exhaust, and photo etch plate which fits behind the exhaust, and either a two part seeker head using the clear resin part or a one piece head for the seeker.
The rest of the parts, make up the three pylons, of which there are two types.
There is one Mirage III pylon and two pylons for the Mirage F-.1.
Each pylon has a part to be attached to the rear of the pylons. Two spare parts are supplied, should the Carpet Monster require feeding.

Instructions and building

The instructions are printed on two postcard sized sheets, and are in the standard black line drawing style.
The build takes place over three steps, with each step having sub-steps.
Colours for the missile and pylons are given alongside the build for the usual Gunze and Mr Color paints.
A stencil guide is on the back page of the second sheet.

Step 1 The first process is too attach the fins to the missile body, keeping in mind there is different numbered fins, which fit on the correct way.
One of the fin parts, labelled R4 should be swapped for R3 as R4 lacks the indent on the rear of the fin. Bit of slack checking of the instructions there Eduard.
This stage also has the P.E part and rocket exhaust fitted.
Eduard show where a 0.4mm wire should be attached to the rear of the missile (wire not supplied).
Sub steps, A and B have the two different seeker heads fitted.

Step 2 and 3 With the missile built, its now time for fitting the pylon. Step 2 is for the Mirage III pylon and step 3 is for fitting the Mirage F.1 pylons.
As already mentioned each pylon has a part (no idea what it is though lol) fitted to the rear bottom of the pylons.

With the missiles and pylons built, Eduard supply a nice set of stencils to adorn the set. The decals are slightly glossy, and having used Eduard decals before there shouldn't be any problems.

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