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1/72 F-15 Dual Build (Hasegawa Israeli F-15D/GWH F-15SA)


Hoops

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Good Morning,

 

Attached are the first few photos of my next work in progress, this is a bit of kit bash between these two kits and both are being built parallel.

 

49331080623_59400089ab_b.jpg20200105_134423 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

The fist subject will be a new F-15SA (Saudi Advanced), still being flown by Boeing for flight test and integration purposes. Inspiration for this build can be seen in the link below:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/21755/f-15sa-bristles-with-a-dozen-aim-120s-missiles-during-star-wars-canyon-run

 

The second subject will be a Israeli Defense Force F-15D, it will be one of the aircraft seen recently at Waddington, but with a different load out:

Flickr Image (not mine!)

 

The Great Wall Hobby kit is a Strike Eagle out of the box, where as the Hasegawa kit is really an F-15D with some extra parts thrown in. The Hasegawa kit is still, good, but it shows it's lineage, and there are still some steps that need to be taken to make it an accurate Strike Eagle. For that reason I will take advantage of the kit's individual qualities, to make the best out of both.

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The first that I will cover is the Hasegawa based F-15D.

 

Many are probably familiar with this kit, having been the standard for F-15s in 1/72 scale for the last three decades. There will be some work required to bring the kit up to the standard required to accurately depict "715." The Isradecal book on the Baz has been very useful on this build.

 

Israel was very early ordering F-15s, most being purchased in the late 70s and early 80s. This particular aircraft was purchased much later, however.  There may be others, but these are the F-15D serials that I've found that were part of this later buy:

 

IDF Ser.     USAF Ser     Delivery Year

701           90-0278     1992  
706           90-0276     1992  
714           90-0279     1992 
715           90-0277     1992  
733           90-0275     1992   

 

Based on that timeline production of "normal" F-15C/Ds had ceased, and McDonnell Douglas was only producing F-15Es. I've not seen it written down anywhere, but I think that it is for that reason that these F-15Ds incorporate a number of aspects of the F-15E, while not being full Strike Eagles. These include:

 

-Round ESM antennas on both tail stings

-F-15E style engine vents on the top of the nacelle humps

-No notch in the underside engine petals

-Tail hook stands proud of the underside

 

Construction began with the cockpit, and I modified the rear instrument panel to represent the missionized rear seat of an Improved Baz. I also added a multifunction display to the lower left of the front instrument panel (similar to an MSIP F-15C). Reference was taken from the Isradecal book.

 

49331080568_842305885c_b.jpg20200105_134504 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

Modifications for the underside include:

-The CFTs were used for the Hasegawa kit, but the attachment points for the external pylons were filled in, as were numerous vents that are not applicable on the baseline F-15 CFTs.

-Sparrow pylons for the CFTs were sourced from an old tool Hasegawa F-15E kit.

-The Jet Fuel Starter Exhaust was opened up, the mesh is no longer present on the late F-15s.

-Notches on the underside engine petals were filled in.

-Round based antenna behind the nose gear was removed

-The two small blade antennas under the nose were removed

-The incorrect panel lines around the pitot tubes were filled in on both sides

-The panel line meant to show the boot on the tip of the nose was also filled in, not present on this aircraft.

-While not strictly visible on this photo, the chaff/flare buckets in front of the main gear were scribed in place.

 

49330878538_ea8d769138_b.jpg20200105_105843 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

Modifications for the top side include:

-Addition of the SATCOM antenna behind the cockpit. This was taken from the GWH F-15I kit.

-The environmental control system vent on the starboard side behind the cockpit was opened up and detailed

-GPS antenna added to the right mid fuselage

-Early F-15 style engine vent was filled, and Strike Eagle style vents added

-Fairing between the engines was cut off and the blanking piece added

-The air exhaust on the top of the intake was also filled with sheet styrene to bring it flush.

 

49330878583_aa2f5fd049_b.jpg20200105_105829 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

The weapons load will include two AGM-142 Popeye missiles, and the associated datalink pod on the centerline. The missiles were taken from the GWH kit, but there is one error as molded. The sensor window should look downward on the tip of the missile, but as molded, it looks upwards. The wiring conduit should be down the port side of the missile, when oriented correctly and the white hemispherical antenna on the tail should be oriented to the bottom. If those two are aligned, the sensor looks up, so I cut the nose of the missile off, flipped it 180 degrees and reattached it.

 

The datalink pod included in the GWH kit is appropriate for the AGM-130 that is also included, but not for for the Popeye. I sourced it from a Kinetic Israeli Weapons set in the stash. Despite the error decribed above, I still think the GWH AGM-142s are better than Kinetic's so I used those.

 

49330878743_01f13b36f1_b.jpg20200105_105957 by J Hooper, on Flickr

Edited by Hoops
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The F-15SA is currently the most advanced Eagle in service, and has a number of differences from a baseline Strike Eagle. Of particular note, it is the first F-15 with Fly By Wire controls, that allows the reintroduction of stations 1 and 9 on the outboard wings. This build will incorporate the bright orange paint scheme linked to above. Decals don't yet exist for that aircraft, I've completed the artwork and hope to see them printed soon.

 

The Great Wall Hobby kit starts off as a F-15E, in there is no work necessary to bring it up to that standard, all the conversion work will focus on capturing the differences for the "SA." The best place to start for these changes is the Hasegawa F-15SG kit, which includes spures "Q" "R" and "S." These provide the longer stub pylons, the larger fin tip antennas, the GE engine exhausts, and the MAWS sensors for under the cockpit and the tail booms.

 

I will describe the other changes in more detail as I complete them as part of the build, to this point, basic construction progresses. The only modification so far has been to adapt the Hasegawa tail booms to the GWH kit:

 

49331345581_e9c4a472c6_b.jpg20200105_110149 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

49331345631_57280a67d3_b.jpg20200105_110136 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

I opened up the engine vents on the top of the nacelle humps as there are simply scribed as ovals on the kit.

 

49331345671_790d771918_b.jpg20200105_110117 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

All for now and thanks for looking!

Cheers,

Hoops

 

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I'll be following your build closely. Last week I got the 1/72 GWH F-15E Strike Eagle as a Christmas present. Rather by coincidence, I was lucky to find Twobobs' decal #72-081 "F-15S Khamis Mushait/Anaconda Eagles" on ebay, also last week. I'll probably build the KSA version if I can find a way to get the text "God Bless You" in Arabic/English.

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  • 5 months later...

Work has continued on both of the aircraft, but a few other builds have taken priority. Those have wrapped up for the most part, so it's shifting back onto the F-15s.

 

Aires Resin Exhausts were added, as I had a set available for this build. Attaching all those actuators was very fiddly!

 

There were some minor changes to the antennas for the F-15D that I replicated with sheet styrene.

 

-Addition of Radalt antennas on the bottom of the nose (two white squares) This necessitated moving one of the blade antennas further forward.

-Addition of small blade antennas on the top of the nose in front of the windscreen, and one forward right of the SATCOM antenna behind the cockpit.

 

Decals were a mix, and proved to be difficult to source right. The stencils are Hasegawa kit stencils from a normal white box F-15C. While not 100% correct for this aircraft, they went in the right direction, and created the right impression. I don't think that there are decals anywhere in 1/72 that match what's actually painted on this aircraft for stencils. The AGM-142 stencils are from the GWH F-15I kit they were sourced from.

 

The Israeli unit markings, ejection triangles, and roundels are from a old Sky's decals sheet that I've had for probably close to 18 years. They proved to be a bit brittle and tricky, but with some special care I was able to make them work.

 

The serials and nose art script were drawn in Inkscape and custom ALPS printed. Waiting for those to get printed and arrive put this build on the back burner for a while. The custom printed decals turned out really nice, I think are a great touch on this build.

 

50004410558_f6cd7a753c_b.jpgP1030562 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

50005191947_614947da68_b.jpgP1030566 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

50004933561_62b97b2fe2_b.jpgP1030564 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

50004410593_1ecd49cabd_b.jpgP1030559 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

50005192192_a476b1cc6e_b.jpgP1030567 by J Hooper, on Flickr

 

I still need to do a few little touch ups, but this is very close to being complete.

 

If I had some oil paints, I'd like to experiment with streaking and staining on the bottom of the aircraft, but I'm not quite there yet.

 

Some more work has been done on the F-15SA as well, but I save that update for the next time.

 

Cheers,

 

Hoops

 

 

 

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