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A special thanks to Vern Gwin
of Saskatoon who so generously gave me a set of his “featherless” exhaust
nozzle, without which I would not have been able to complete this model.
Goal Set for This Project:
When I start a project I would
access the potential of a kit and set a goal to achieve.
This model was purchased at the Vancouver Show Swap room for only $9 CAN.
After assessing the kit, I determined that I don’t want to spend too
much money on this kit because the kit can be brought up to a high standard by
just using a resin seat I already have on hand.
Therefore the goal is: To
have a good looking model with today’s standard without having to spend too
much. A nice relaxing goal.
Kit Features:
This model is built from the
1/48 scale Monogram F-15A kit (Kit No. 5801).
The kit, without any modifications will produce an early F-15A.
The kit is typical of the old molds from Monogram.
When this kit was released in the “old” days, I think it was around
1984 but I will let the Old Timers correct me on this, it was the best all
around F-15 kit around until Hasegawa came along.
This reputation is certainly well deserved when you see some of its fine
features.
The model comes with raised
panel lines. The upper
fuselage is molded as one piece along with the top halve of the wing and the
stabilator. This is a better feature than the Hasegawa kit as one does not have
a top wing to fuselage joint to deal with. The bottom fuselage halve is also one
piece right up to the folding part of the intake ramp.
Each afterburner come as a one
piece nozzle molded with the metal cover plates (turkey feathers) typical for an
early F-15. After the
“turkey feathers’ caused problems, the USAF removed these turkey feathers to
solve the problems. The
featherless nozzles are typical for all F-15C in operation today.
The cockpit is one of the
jewels of the kit. For a kit
from the early 80s the cockpit is superbly detailed and well crafted.
The cockpit comes as a cockpit tub and a separate rear avionic bay.
The side walls are detailed with ribs and padding.
The avionics bay behind the seat is detailed with most of the visible
fuse boxes, wiring and piping. The
AN/ALQ-135 ICS black boxes for the port side of this bay are not provided but it
does come with the black box mounting frame and base.
The details here are just beautiful.
The hydraulic canopy actuator is finely molded with all the details. The canopy latching mechanism is provided as a one piece
molding and correctly detailed. The
instrument panel and side console have finely raised details and goes very well
for dry brushing. The only catch is
the instrument panel; it is for an early A version and the throttle handle is
not provided. The control
stick is molded with a wire on the stick.
The only drawback in this package is the seat.
The seat comes as a 3 piece seat with just sufficient details.
The canopy is a two piece
assembly; one clear canopy and the base molded with the lower canopy frame and
rear deck. The wind shield is
a one piece clear part.
The nose cone is provide as a
separate piece complete with an AN/APG-63 radar antenna, bulk head and mounting
base for the antenna. The
nose cone can be displayed open showing the antenna or displayed closed.
Landing gears are study and
finely molded with lots of details, particularly the nose gear.
Weapons included in the kit are
4 AIM-9L Sidewinders, 4 AIM-7
Sparrow and one 610 US Gallon drop tank on centerline station.
The Sparrows are very crude, basic and comes complete (bonus feature)
with sink holes on the body between the fins.
If you have the Hasegawa set, I would suggest replacing the stock AIM-7s
with the Hasegawa set.
Construction:
Construction is very basic.
The kit is very easy to put together and can be finished in less than a
week if you don’t start “improving” it.
As usual for me, the challenge of getting a high grade model out of a
cheap kit is hard to resist. Therefore,
out come my scribing tools. All the
external surfaces are sanded off and panel lines are rescribed with recessed
panel lines. Then comes the dry
fitting.
I start with dry fitting most
parts of the model to get an idea of the trouble ahead.
Generally speaking, this kit fits reasonably well, for a Monogram kit
that is. Some difficult joints have
to be content with. They are:
- The
cockpit fuselage to main fuselage’s vertical joint.
This joint cannot be joined together without a noticeable seam.
Therefore the fix is to join it the best I can and then sand the join
flush. This still leave a
noticeable gap on my model. This
is solved by filling the joint with thick CA glue and when dried, sand
smooth. This joint
represents an actual panel line on the plane.
Therefore, I scribed in this replacement panel line just away from
the join to avoid cracking the CA filler.
- The
main fuselage halves joint near the stabilator. After gluing this joint, I used a sanding block
and sanded this flat and smooth. Any
gap in the joint is filled over with CA glue.
- The
vertical fin to the main body is another poor fit.
If attention is not paid to this joint then a noticeable “step”
is evident between the fin and the portion of the fin stub that protrudes
from the main fuselage body. I
use a sanding block to sand these joints until they are flush together.
I used the cockpit as is
without resorting to buying a Black Box cockpit.
However, a True Detail Aces II resin seat replaced the kit seat.
The resin seat is embellished by adding the launch rails and rail braces.
The rails and the main tie brace are made from Evergreen’s 0.080”
I-beams cut to length.
An oxygen hose is added to the
starboard console by wrapping 0.008” dia. brass wire around 0.01” dia. brass
wire. Then this assembly is bend to resemble the coiled hose shown on most
photographs of the office. The
hose connector is made with a stub of 1/16” dia. Evergreen rod and CA glued to
the hose end.
A throttle handle is made with
scrape styrene and glued to the top of the throttle stub that comes with the kit
cockpit. Extra wires and pipes are
added to the rear avionics bay.
The kit’s representation of
the canopy latching mechanism is good but needed a slight improvement when
compared to photographs. The
pole that extends upward from the latches goes through a guide with visible
space between the guides. The
kit’s version is a solid piece of plastic molded with the pole.
I corrected this by carefully cut out the space between the pole.
This little bit of work improved the look of this part.
According Squadron Walk Around,
the F-15’s cockpit is supposed to be painted with Dark Gull Gray (FS36231) –
Gunze color No. 317. Instead,
I used Gunze No. 57 – Aircraft Gray because Dark Gull Gray looks too dark
“scale wise” when compared to the photos.
The instrument panel and side consoles are sprayed with a mix of dark
gray. The F-15’s avionics bay is painted with an unique
chrome green color that is not available straight from a bottle. I mix this “chrome green” color as follows:
80% Gunze 89; 5% Gunze 15; 15% White.
I keep adding white until I get a tone that looks right when compared to
the photos in my reference books. Note:
I heard that some aircraft have this area painted white.
The ailerons are cut from the
wing and glued in a drooped position. Most
of the photos of F-15 show the ailerons drooping when parked on the ground.
The kit’s afterburner nozzle
is replaced with the featherless nozzle given to me by Vern.
The nozzle comes from an Academy/Minicraft F-15 kit. The
diameter of the nozzle, where it glues onto the fuselage, is too small for the
Monogram kit. I fix this problem by sawing out a portion of the Monogram
nozzle to use as an adapter between the fuselage and the Academy nozzle.
This worked out perfect but I’m sure the Scale Police will say the
nozzle extends out a little too long when compare to scale drawing.
I really don’t care. The
nozzle interior is painted with an off-white color and then washed out with
Testor gun metal. Then, I use
a paper towel wet with thinner and wipe out until it looks dirty and burnt.
Since the kit comes with the
AN/APG-63 radar antenna, I have to show this as other 1/48 scale model of this
aircraft do not provide this detail.
The only details needed to add are some of the visible wirings, some
holes on the bulkhead and on the radar housing, and the nose cone brace (at the
bottom of the cone and bulk head) to hold the cone in the open position.
I made the nose cone brace brackets with the soft aluminum cork cover
that comes with most import wine. I
prefer the French variety (wine that is).
The landing gears do not need
anymore embellishment as they are just fine as is.
The only thing needed is 2 MV lenses for the nose gear to simulate the
landing lights. Since Uncle
Bill’s Hobby Shop have the True Detail bulged tires on hand for a good price,
I had to put them on. The True
Detail wheels look better and more accurate than the kit’s wheels.
I reduced the bulge on the tires by sanding them down as they are rather
excessive.
Holes are drilled into each of
the gun barrels and to the exhaust end of every missile.
The fuel dump port at the tip of each wing are also drilled and cleared
out.
The two piece canopy is a very
tricky assembly to do right. The
clear canopy, also the wind shield, is not molded to fit exactly to the canopy
base. I sanded the canopy edges
down until I think it will fit well. I
glued the canopy to the base after all the painting is completed.
I had to glue it three times before I got it right (I think).
I made some AN/ALQ-135 ICS
black boxes from the left over base of resin parts complete with handles and
knobs. But I felt it would more interesting to show the black boxes
holder frame and the wiring behind it and thus these boxes are not installed.
To bring the A model up to a
F-15C, 3 more antennas are made and glued to the underside of the front fuselage
per reference books.
Painting:
Prior to painting, I taped over
the area of the rear and bottom fuselage where it will be painted with metal
color.
The decals I have are for a MOD
Eagle. I have debated much as to
the proper color by referencing the photos that I see in my reference books, the
pictures on the web, and of course the color specified on the decal sheet
instruction. The instruction
says to use FS 36176 and FS 36251. I
compared the color of the paint jars against photos and decided the color right
out of the bottle is too dark. This
will of course be debatable, but I feel that the model will look better and more
to scale effect if I used lighter grays. Therefore,
the model is painted with Gunze 308 (FS36375) and Gunze 337 (FS35237).
Wheel wells and landing gears are painted gloss white and washed out with
a mix of dark gray to bring out the details.
A coat of Future is sprayed
onto the painted model and let dried prior to decaling.
After decaling a Gunze flat coat is sprayed over the entire model. The taped over area on fuselage is then painted with buffable
Model Master Aluminum and Burnt Metal colors.
A thinned out wash of Gunze clear blue is sprayed over a portion of the
afterburner can to simulate the blueish-aluminum tone that I see on some F-15.
This is a very subtle effect and not to be overdone.
Decal:
The kit stock decal looks nice
but it is totally useless. The
decal would curl up tight after release from the backing paper.
An aftermarket decal set is absolutely necessary.
The decals used are the
SuperScale Decal No. 48-528 and SuperScale F-15 MOD Eagle Data sheet No 48-523. The model is of an aircraft from the 1st FS, 325th
FW at Tyndall AFB.
The slim lights and the wing
tip formation light comes from left over decals from my Hasegawa F-15 kit.
The decal solution of choice is
the Gunze Mr Mark Softer. This
solution will set the SuperScale decals down very nicely.
Fine
Finishing:
For the fine additions, I made
some Sidewinder seeker head covers from styrene tube and sheet.
Paint them yellow and attached a set of rope to the missile fins.
Covers are also provided for the heat exchanger exhaust ducts below each
side of the rear fuselage. “Remove
Before Flight” streamers are from the Monogram kit decals and tied to each
location with fine wires.
The FOD covers for the intake
ramp are stolen from my Revell F-15E kit. It
is better to used them on this kit than to use them on the fine F-15E kit. It required a little bit of sanding to make them fit this
Monogram intake.
As the last finishing touch, I
followed Mr. Roger Jackson’s lead by making a boarding ladder to fit in with
the open cockpit. I made the ladder
from aluminum tube and styrene rods for the rungs.
I used an almost similar ladder from a Hasegawa F-4F kit as the master to
follow.
Conclusion:
This is a fine F-15 kit for the
money regardless of whether one is upgrading the kit or not. It
shape right and looks right. With
some effort and TLC, it can be a fine addition to the display case.
References:
-
F-15 Eagle in Detail &
Scale by Bert Kinzey
-
World Air Power Journal,
Volumn 9, Summer 1992
-
Walk Around F-15 Eagles #28
by Squadron/Signal Publications
Wayne
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