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Best kit in 1/72 for an F-15A


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I was going to do this years ago. I finally have the time and want to do an F-15A. I think I

was told way back that the Hasegawa 1/72 F-15C USAF boxing was a good place to start.

I am totally ignorant to Eagles as I mainly do Navy jets and Japanese WWII fighters. What

do I need to do to back date to an A model? Thanks---John

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Those look nice! I was looking at an early F-15A with the old blue scheme. Did all the units use that

scheme or just a few early ones? I have seen tail codes FF and LA. I had the 1/72 Hasegawa USAF

F-15C version and it was quite good, liked the turkey feathers, a pain to assemble but looked  much better

than the old Airfix E although outside of that it was a good kit. Is the ESCI A really an A?  jon

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2 hours ago, Johnv said:

Those look nice! I was looking at an early F-15A with the old blue scheme. Did all the units use that

scheme or just a few early ones? I have seen tail codes FF and LA. I had the 1/72 Hasegawa USAF

F-15C version and it was quite good, liked the turkey feathers, a pain to assemble but looked  much better

than the old Airfix E although outside of that it was a good kit. Is the ESCI A really an A?  jon

The early A models did not have the Turkey Feathers of the later models.  The tail pipe shroud was still in place.  They went to the Turkey Feathers (no shroud) in the late 70s.  You would have to get a set of resin tail pipes that still had the shroud.  Aires part number 7123 has the correct type of tail pipes for an early A model F-15.

Later,

Dave

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3 hours ago, Johnv said:

Those look nice! I was looking at an early F-15A with the old blue scheme. Did all the units use that

scheme or just a few early ones? I have seen tail codes FF and LA. I had the 1/72 Hasegawa USAF

F-15C version and it was quite good, liked the turkey feathers, a pain to assemble but looked  much better

than the old Airfix E although outside of that it was a good kit. Is the ESCI A really an A?  jon

It's all mentioned on my Triple Nickle build thread,  just the first few Eagles that colour with white codes.

Then realised that this enhances visibility, rather than obscuring - hence changed to grey.

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1 hour ago, busnproplinerfan said:

I think just a few early ones, not sure. I have the same kit to do in blue also. I had a hard time getting the paint .

I mixed my own colour, until it looked right.  Some blue into a tin of Humbrol 127.

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On 9/13/2019 at 10:45 PM, Jordi said:

The only real difference is the tiny fairing aft of the speed brake on the spine.  Other than that, the main wheel hubs are about the only real difference.

 

 

This isn't entirely accurate. The dorsal airbrake of the F-15 underwent several changes over time, but they don't correspond precisely to the sub-types.

 

Prototypes & Pre-production/FSD airframes (FY 71-72 serials) originally featured a "short" airbrake design - trailing edge ending at roughly the same point as the aft end of the curved fairings that blend the wing root and house the gun (starboard) and IFR receptacle (port).

 

For the bulk of production A/B (73-0085 through 77-0168) the airbrake was extended aft, ending approximately at the point where the engine "bulges" begin.  Initially the enlarged airbrake had an external "fin" running its full length. At some point during A/B production the airbrake fin was deleted, and a "finless" version of the long airbrake seems to have been used for most A/Bs and all C/D production.  Some A/Bs were also retrofitted with the later airbrake, however the early version could still be found on a few F-15A/Bs at least as late as the early 2000s.  It's thus possible to find A/Bs with all three airbrake types, but if you have a specific serial number you can at least verify whether it has the short or long version. Finned/finless would require a photo to confirm, but for all but the very early airframes the odds favor finless.

 

Another more definitive difference between the A/B and C/D - albeit one not easy to determine in most cases - is the main wheels.  Early Eagles featured main landing gear wheel hubs with 12 holes, originally painted black.  For C/D production a revised wheel design was used with 8 holes in the hubs which were typically white.

 

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1 hour ago, CT7567 said:

This isn't entirely accurate. The dorsal airbrake of the F-15 underwent several changes over time, but they don't correspond precisely to the sub-types.

 

Prototypes & Pre-production/FSD airframes (FY 71-72 serials) originally featured a "short" airbrake design - trailing edge ending at roughly the same point as the aft end of the curved fairings that blend the wing root and house the gun (starboard) and IFR receptacle (port).

 

For the bulk of production A/B (73-0085 through 77-0168) the airbrake was extended aft, ending approximately at the point where the engine "bulges" begin.  Initially the enlarged airbrake had an external "fin" running its full length. At some point during A/B production the airbrake fin was deleted, and a "finless" version of the long airbrake seems to have been used for most A/Bs and all C/D production.  Some A/Bs were also retrofitted with the later airbrake, however the early version could still be found on a few F-15A/Bs at least as late as the early 2000s.  It's thus possible to find A/Bs with all three airbrake types, but if you have a specific serial number you can at least verify whether it has the short or long version. Finned/finless would require a photo to confirm, but for all but the very early airframes the odds favor finless.

 

Another more definitive difference between the A/B and C/D - albeit one not easy to determine in most cases - is the main wheels.  Early Eagles featured main landing gear wheel hubs with 12 holes, originally painted black.  For C/D production a revised wheel design was used with 8 holes in the hubs which were typically white.

 

There is another difference ( if I did not shifted into a different universe) at the aft end of the airbrake there are some reinforcement plates which were different between A and C variants respectively U shaped for A and Y-T~ish shaped for C variants, Detail & Scale book shows that, I'm trying to scavenge pictures from my messy folders but it will take time and I usually forget about everything the day after posting something on the forums (my bad :-\)

Also MLG wells were painted in metallic green or blue paint, plus there it was all that hell of things I was trying to describe in a different thread but I lost the will to correct myself :D

 

Probably something can be seen here (Wikimedia pics)

 

F-15A there it was a thread on ARC forums regarding the red/brown canopy sealing

McDonnell_Douglas_F-15A_(SN_76-043)_with

 

F-15C

 

DF-ST-91-04463_(5375236909).jpg

 

 

Luigi

Edited by Silverkite
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14 hours ago, Silverkite said:

Also MLG wells were painted in metallic green or blue paint

Any pics? I know about the electronics well aft of the pilot on the singleseaters being painted this shade, but this is the first time I've seen main landing gear bays of the F-15 being anything other than white.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

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1 hour ago, Hook said:

Any pics? I know about the electronics well aft of the pilot on the singleseaters being painted this shade, but this is the first time I've seen main landing gear bays of the F-15 being anything other than white.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

It was a discussion on ARC forums, barely anyone was aware of it, this thread comes with a list of A/C differences, I'm now scavenging for the other thread

 

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/295433-early-f-15a-from-the-gwh-f-15c/

 

Ok found it, pics will be probably hard to find through Google, maybe Flickr has them hidden somewhere

 

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/298797-icelandic-f-15s/page/2/&tab=comments#comment-2861545

 

and here Dave explains the red/brown thing that surrounds the canopy

 

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/246071-f-15-canopy-question/&tab=comments#comment-2341947

Luigi

Edited by Silverkite
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4 hours ago, Johnv said:

Thanks, can the Hasegawa F-15DJ be used for an ANG F-15D? Looks to be same

kit as USAF but with 2 seats. Thanks jon

Sure. Just use the 2nd vertical tail marked not for use in the instructions for theJapanese version - F-15J/DJ's have identical mass balances on top, USAF Eagles have a fatter ECM antenna on the port side.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

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