Jump to content

Phantome

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    609

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Phantome

  1. Phantome
    Yes please! It's sorely missing. You also would probably make a killing from some Gulf/Yugoslav war Eagles decals. *wink* *wink*
  2. Phantome
    I am hoping that Eduard downscales their Harrier-specific Sniper pod, which they have in 1/48! That way you can fit LGBs on it. Another rather annoying issue with the Hase Harrier is the lack of any pylon clamps (if that's what they're called), basically the metal things where the bombs and missiles are fitted. Hasegawa left each pylon with a with a square hole. They've done this before: on the F-15 kit for example but that one at least included the clamps. This is not a piece that can be easily scratchbuilt either, at least realistically.
  3. Phantome
    That said @TonyTiger66 I thoroughly recommend the Hasegawa Jaguar, it's a great kit, just keep an eye out for three things: it does not come with a Phimat pod or an AN/ALQ-101 jammer, both of which became standard equipment on the RAF Jag from the 80s onward. I believe one of the Hase Weapons Sets includes a 101 but you'll have to get the Phimat elsewhere. Also note that the kit comes with Magic missiles which is ok for a French bird, but RAF birds use Sidewinders. Finally, note that the standard boxing does not include fuel tanks although some other special boxings do (mainly their Gulf War Special) You can avoid all these problems by getting the Italeri kit (or the Revell rebox with nicer decals). Its surface detailing is not as fine as Hasegawa's and it has some fit problems as well as some accuracy issues but at least you get everything you need for a fully armed RAF Jag out of the box.
  4. Phantome
    That seller is in an unscrupulous fraud. They have various UK-based listings but I think they sell from Australia. Prices are jacked up 2x 3x even 4x but always end their listing with "Best Price" or "Free Shipping" or some other stupidity. I once sent them a very sarcastic message on whether this was the "legendary kit made of golden sprues" hence the 4x price. They responded that they got their stock from many parts of the world, hence their price. They should be banned if anything for being dishonest on where they're based.
  5. Phantome
    The RAF/NATO weapons set has long been out of production and if you're lucky enough to find it on eBay, will probably go for over £20 On top of that, the quality of the weapons is pretty bad. Soft detailing (with an awkward combination of photo etch bits) and huge panel lines. I was not impressed. Best is to scrounge for RAF weapons from other kits. Like LGBs from the Revell Tornado. You will still need other stuff like Sniper pods, etc. but unfortunately all of these come with Harrier-specific mountings and nobody in the illustrious resin community has bothered (much more important, of course, is to correct millimetric errors in obscure short run kits [/sarcasm]) Probably best way is to source some Maverick missiles, that way you can get away without the pods. Unfortunately and to add to the absurdity, Hasegawa's weapons set doesn't come with launchers. You can get a pair from Maestro Models for the "lowly" price of £11.50. In a nutshell, despite the Hase Harrier being nicer looking than the Airfix (too toy-like and not the best fitting either), nobody has bothered to make many modern accessories for it. :/
  6. Phantome
    The detailing on the Revell (a.k.a. Ace rebox) is pretty good. I am not a Frogfoot expert so can't vouch on its accuracy https://www.scalemates.com/kits/105566-revell-04354-sukhoj-su-25-frogfoot I once had in my hands the Zvezda Su-39 but the panel lines were god awful. Absolute trenches. It seems like Zvezda had a streak of really wide panel lines (MiG-31) before they moved into their finer ones in their newer stuff.
  7. Phantome
    I think the only problematic bit is gluing the nose section with the piece that goes behind the canopy (the red line) and then with the fuselage (the blue line). None of them align, and if you get one right, you'll get the other wrong. My suggestion is to glue them all while the glue is still fresh so you can try and mold them into shape yourself. I also suggest getting the top part right (the red arrow) even if it means some misalignment with the fuselage (the green arrow). This misalignment will be mostly visible on the underside - which means you won't notice it much, especially once painted and decalled. The misalignment near the airbrake (blue arrows) is less problematic although still noticeable: one edge will be higher than the other.
  8. Phantome
    I'm eying the one with the "U2" callsign, one of the Mod Eagles
  9. Phantome
    Puttied and ready for priming. Can't remember if it's the JASDF or USAF plane I'm simultaneously building
  10. Phantome
    Update... fuselage built and puttied. The JASDF kit I'm building in a separate thread is also at this stage and quite frankly don't remember which of the two this photo comes from!
  11. Phantome
    Yes, you can do it with the F-15J kit but it's quite expensive: good luck getting it for less than £30 You can get the F-15E for cheaper (imported around £20-25) and in theory could use the K sprue for a F-15C, but you'll still need the tailhook... there's only one and it's used in the E
  12. Phantome
    This is one of the quickest builds of a big plane... there's not that many pieces and the fit is really good. You can basically build the entire fuselage in less than half an hour.
  13. Phantome
    Weekend update: fuselage mostly built. The fuselage goes together like a charm. The fit between the nose and the fuselage, however, has issues. It's hard to get it perfectly straight and almost inevitably leaves a noticeable "step" just below the canopy piece. Unfortunately there's no way to add some tabs with plasticard because of the avionics bay :/ This is the kit's only serious flaw.
  14. Phantome
    The pigments are not as fine as Gunze/Tamiya which are my preferred for freehand duties. But by all means try it out yourself, maybe you have a better hand than I do. That said, using lacquer thinner rather than acrylic thinner seems to help. I actually freehanded Revell Aqua a while back it wasn't too shabby. Don't remember what I used for thinner though (possibly distilled water). It's really the thinner that matters in the end...
  15. Phantome
    Please tell me that you're stash is composed of just Eagles... or is this just a fraction of all your other non-Eagle kits? Where do you live to keep all these?!? (mixture of amazement and envy)
  16. Phantome
    Btw, I'm happy that Japanese decal makers have understood that ivory is not white: the decals are very well printed, with nice bright whites. I have noticed that Hasegawa and Tamiya decals from kits I have bought new in the last 5 years have bright whites and don't yellow with time; I suppose they changed their formula at some point recently. They are, of course, still on the thick side but I learned to use hot water to remove them and nuke them with Mr Mark softer (imported Japanese version, not the "Neo" version that you get here). This leaves them silver-free and they snuggle into panel lines perfectly, even if they still appear a bit compared to non-Japanese decals.
  17. Phantome
    There's a dearth of decals for an "early" (i.e. 1990s) Mod Eagle scheme, such as those used in Bosnia and Kosovo and which can be reproduced with the Hase kit: building a current F-15C involves scratch-building the angled antennae, ECM stubs, removing the tailhook guard and scratch-building a tailhook. As usual, the resin community seems to prefer selling pedantic corrections to obscure kits in order to cater to the rivet counters than something that IMHO would be more appealing and lucrative like a MSIP II set for the Hase kit. My main issue is what colors to use for the Mod Eagle scheme. In a previous build I used Lifecolor but find it often tricky to use (terrible coverage). I have the Vallejo USAF set that includes both 36251 and 36176. 36251 looks spot on, but I plan to spray freehand the 36176 and Vallejo is not great for freehand in this scale. I will therefore experiment with Tamiya XF-82, which is RAF Ocean Grey. I have found it too blue for normal RAF WW2 use but it might just be perfect for a Mod Eagle. We'll see...
  18. Phantome
    Second in my double build, this will be my entry using the older ghost gray scheme. I had already done a Gulf War F-15 about a year ago and did not feel like repeating. Instead, I had in my stash this wonderful and colorful F-15J from Tac Meet 2013. Lots of lightning bolts. Awesome cartoon bear in the fins. This is Japanese creativity at its best! The kit will be built entirely OOP. First steps were the cockpit. I read somewhere that some of the JASDF Eagles kept their avionics bay in the original metallic emerald color so I will keep them as such. There is sadly, no equivalent in acrylic so I used the instructions' recommended Gunze metallic blue-green which is a bit too blue compared to the real thing. Not a big issue frankly.
  19. Phantome
    I'm doing a double build this time (on separate threads), one of which is a Hasegawa F-15C Bitburg MiG killer in 1/72 scale. Why this one? Because I want to do one in Mod Eagle and the other in the older ghost gray scheme. Decals will come from the excellent Two Bobs "Eifel Eagles" set. The kit will be the basic Hasegawa kit which I have already built numerous times so this will be a relatively quick and painless build (I also have a lot of time on my hands!). The kit itself has good fit, although the engines are a bit fiddly and the nose section fit with the fuselage has some alignment issues. Surprisingly for a Hase kit, the cockpit has phenomenal detail not least the avionics bay; overall one of the best I have seen in 1/72 scale. The rest of the kit shows some age, although the panel lines are nice and thin, there's no rivet detail at all and there's a bit of flash here and there. Anyway, let's get on with it: first steps were the cockpit parts and painting some of the fuselage interior bits.
  20. Phantome
    Yes, the effect is visible - as it should be. Revell and Airfix got it better in their respective Hurricane kits, it's a shame because otherwise the Hase kit is superior IMHO.
  21. Phantome
    Never thought of using Mr Surfacer to even out those horrible fabric lines, now I hate myself for not thinking of it when I built my last Hase Hurricane. Looks marvelous I presume you used a thicker type, like 500?
  22. Phantome
    It's such a bugger that Hasegawa never upgraded their basic F-15C kit. Good for *most* Eagles up to the mid-90s but beyond that, mostly useless without lots of scratch work (there is a JASDF MSIP II kit but it's pricey) A belated answer to your question is that many of the MSIP II improvements were internal (new radar, AMRAAM compatibility) and the different undernose antennae were gradually incorporated and I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) are not uniform. Rule of thumb is to find a photo of the real thing and see if it's something you can squeeze out of the Hase kit. Note how despite probably being MSIP II by then, even the Bosnia Eagles still had the old antenna layout. Not sure if the Kosovo ones as well. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_53rd_Fighter_Squadron_F-15C_Eagle_aircraft_returns_to_base_after_a_mission_during_Operation_Deny_Flight,_the_enforcement_of_the_United_Nations-sanctioned_no-fly_zone_over_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina_F-3282-SPT-93-000811-XX-0075.jpg
  23. Phantome
    With all the new options it's hard to imagine there was a day not too long ago that this was the best Fulcrum on the market in 1/72 scale. The fit is tricky (at best) and you'll have a lot of sanding and filling on your hands, so good luck!
  24. Phantome
    Those panel lines... ugghh. And the wing join fit :/ Can't be that it's 2017 and companies are still struggling with this.
  25. Phantome
    Btw, I just got my hands on the 1/72 GWH F-15E. No words to describe it, it is a jaw-droppingly amazing kit in the box. O_O Can't wait until they inevitably release a F-15C
×
×
  • Create New...