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F-15E Strike Eagle (03841) 1:72


Mike

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F-15E Strike Eagle (03841)

1:72 Carrera Revell

 

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The F-15 was designed as an Air Superiority fighter by McDonnell Douglas in the late 1960s as the eventual winner of the F-X programme, entering service at the end of 1974.  Since then, it has undergone many changes, upgrades, and adaptation to additional roles, and gained an envious reputation for ruggedness and survivability, as well as dishing out missiles and bombs by the thousand in service with the US Air Force and other foreign operators.  The B and D models are the two-seat variants that were designated as trainers and built between 1972 and 1985, graduating from B to D in 1979.  A full set of pilot controls is duplicated in the rear seat for the instructor, but the ECM package is not installed, which means that the aircraft can still be used in action, and has indeed been used by the Israelis who fielded Bs during the Lebanon war.


The following E and SE (Silent Eagle) made two seats the standard with the rear-seater taking on the role of weapons officer, the latter utilising fifth generation technologies to leverage the success of the basic airframe into the modern battlefield at a reduced cost over a genuine fifth generation fighter like the F-22 or F-35.  The E is known as the Strike Eagle, and has been upgraded to use conformal fuel tanks as well as an advanced avionics suite for defence and attack purposes, which allows it to fly over enemy territory without other aircraft types covering it.  It’s darker camouflage sets it apart from the standard Eagles, and many of them have been tasked with missions over enemy territory since introduction in the late 80s, with additional capability upgrades to its avionics and radar, and a long out-of-service date due to the more rugged airframe of the E.

 

 

The Kit

This is a brand-new modern tooling from Revell, which will please a great many 1:72 modellers with a fondness for this extremely capable US fast jet.  It arrives in a shallow end-opening box, and inside are five sprues of light grey styrene, two small clear sprues, a decal sheet trapped inside the instruction booklet, which uses spot colour throughout, and has colour profiles to the rear for its special decal sheet, which has been designed for Revell by DACO Products, a well-respected researcher, publisher and modeller.  The detail is thoroughly modern, and it looks to be well-engineered to minimise pitfalls during building.

 

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Construction begins with the ejection seats, which are each made of a cushion with headbox, two side panels, and a rear frame, with detail painting called out in Revell’s usual letters-in-flags style, which cross-refers to a table near the front of the booklet.  The two cockpit tubs are linked together on top of the nose gear bay, and each side console has a decal for the instruments for extra detail.  The seats and control column are slipped in between the consoles, and each crew member has an instrument panel with more decals situated in front of them, adding a coaming over the top, plus a HUD glass for the front seat, and an extra detail part for the rear.  The rear cockpit is completed by adding a central control column, plus two short sticks, one on each console, after which the completed assembly is trapped between the two nose halves, drilling small holes in the sides for probes that are fitted later.  The nose is then put to the side while other assemblies are made up.

 

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The F-15 is driven by a pair of powerful Pratt & Whitney F-100 engines that are fed a prodigious quantity of air through the intakes that are found either side of the cockpit, through long ducting that slows the air down and leads it into the crushing compressor blades at the front of the engines.  The left and right trunks are moulded as top and bottom, linked together by a pair of cross-braces that hold them at the correct angle, and assist with the joining of the upper and lower halves by providing a greater mating surface, as well as pegs on which to mount the wings.  At the rear of the intake trunking is the front face of the engine, which might just be visible in the right light.  Once the glue is cured, the lower wing halves are glued under the cross-braces, then they too are put to one side for a while so that you can build up the underside of the fuselage, which also has the elevons moulded into it, and needs some small holes drilling in it before it goes any further.  It’s worth noting at this stage that there are some shallow sink-marks toward the trailing edges of the wings where the thickness of the trailing edge moulded into the underside has shrunk, so it’s best to smear a little filler over those before you progress further.  The intake trunking fixes into the upper fuselage/wing part, and should be left to set up before you close the fuselage by adding the newly minted underside. Two small conical fairings are then glued to the sides of the fuselage in front of the wings, and the semi-conformal tanks are laid against the open sides of the fuselage to close them over.  The variable intakes are each made from two parts, one with an internal E-shaped panel that fits flat against the inside of the top of the intake, and these are slotted over the trunk extensions once the spine behind the cockpit has been fitted into the “neck” of the Eagle.  The nose/cockpit assembly is then slid in between the intakes and the nose cone added, although no mention of nose weight is made, but you may want to add some.  The exhausts begin with a deep trunk that has a representation of the rear of the engine at the very end, and five segments are inserted into the lip at the rear to create the exhaust petals, adding ten actuator rods into the outside of the finished assembly for extra detail.  There are two of them of course, and they slide into the empty fairings between the tails, adding a pair of vertical stabiliser fins in the slots to the sides, which are handed to ensure you put the correct one on each side.  Under the tail is a small arrestor hook, and the extensions that hold the elevons have tiny pointed tips added to complete them.

 

The main gear legs are straight struts with perpendicular axles and a short retraction jack to the side, adding the two-part wheel to the axle before inserting it into the shallow bay and installing the single bay door that remains open on landing, hanging down.  The nose gear strut is based on an A-frame at the top, with a long retraction jack added to the front and a gear bay door out to the rear, plus the small wheel slotted onto the axle.  The last assembly relating to the airframe is the canopy, which consists of the fixed windscreen, plus the large opener, which in the modern style has been made with a three-part mould to depict the blown shape of modern canopies, so you will either need to squint so you can’t see the faint seamline, or sand it away and polish it back to clarity, as you see fit.  Two inserts fit inside the lower frame, and it can be installed closed, or opened by adding a jack that sprouts from behind the pilot, and props against a socket in the curved support on the midpoint of the lower frame of the canopy.  The two small probes mentioned earlier are actually the last parts of the airframe.

 

No modern fighter can go very far without additional fuel tanks, and this kit includes three.  One for the centreline, two for under the wings, each made from two parts.  Two sensor pods (AN/AAQ-13 & AN/AAQ-14) and six mounts for munitions on the fuselage sides are made up, plus a shallow triple-rack for just under both sides of the fuselage.  Six ‘dumb’ and four guided munitions are included, the former two parts each, the latter two main parts plus perpendicular fins that are made to hang from some of the pylons, and four Sidewinders can be hung from rails added to the sides of the wing-mounted fuel tanks.  You are given locations for all the weapons, although whether they would all be carried at once in a real-world situation is down to you to research if you are planning on depicting an accurate load-out.

 

 

Markings

There is only one decal option on the sheet, but it’s a special scheme, and it has been designed by DACO Products, and specifically tailored for this model.  From the box you can build the following aircraft:

 

4 Fighter Wing, 75th Anniversary, Seymour Johnson, 2017-18

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Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness, and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.

 

 

Conclusion

A new tool F-15E in 1:72 is bound to get some excitement going, and this fancy scheme will doubtless appeal too, with its stylised eagle motif on the side of the nose and wings on the…err, wings.  I like the Strike Eagles with their dark grey schemes, so it gets my vote.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Carrera Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit

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Not a big fan of single-scheme boxings, especially when it's a special scheme. And no idea why revell added four AIM-7 instead of AIM-120. But it seems to be a nice kit, thanks for the review!

 

By the way, I think the "dumb" bombs are actually GPS-guided GBU-38.

 

Alex

 

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3 hours ago, alex said:

By the way, I think the "dumb" bombs are actually GPS-guided GBU-38.

The 6 x dumb bombs are on the left side of the last full sprue pic.  3 per identical sprue, and they've just got standard impact fuses.

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  • 2 months later...

Just picked up the U.S. boxing of this kit (No. 15995), which features identical plastic but - somewhat ironically - decals for two USAFE options, specifically the 48th Wing "D-Day" commemorative schemes with invasion stripes and checkerboard nose bands, with choice of yellow (494th FS) or red (492nd FS) trim.

 

A few notes for consideration:

- Overall fidelity of panel lines is excellent, on par with most of Revell's other "modern era" 1:72 kits such as the Tornado or F-16 (fortunately *not* the F-14)

- Engineering is very clearly set up to allow for future releases of "albino" single seaters, with Strike-specific features including CFTs and pylons, rear cockpit, targeting pods, nose strut, and lower central fuselage plate (including main gear wells) all on a single sprue (E, appropriately enough 😄)

- I wouldn't call it a "major" flaw, but as others have noted elsewhere the wing trailing edges are inexcusably thick. Sanding down the rear edges is fairly simple, but adding the corresponding taper to the cambered wingtips would be a tricky operation.

- Another relatively minor fault is the AIM-9 "shoulder" rails, which are the LAU-114 type only used on the air-to-air types prior to fleetwide introduction of AIM-120s.  To the best of my knowledge, all production F-15Es have used the later LAU-128 rails on ADU-552 adapters.  The rails are available aftermarket from Hasegawa in Weapons Set V but this is an unfortunate miss by Revell to not provide correct rails considering they seem to have caught all the other Strike Eagle details accurately

- While inclusion of a full load of three drop tanks is welcome, it's disappointing that Revell molded all three with integral pylons - fine if you want to load the tanks, but if you want anything else on any of those pylons,or just want them empty as is often the case, some delicate cutting will be necessary (and you'll likely be unable to salvage the tank afterward for use on another Eagle or an F-4 centerline).

- Armament seems to be exclusively geared toward an early-service load, with AIM-7s, AIM-9Ls, and Mk 82 "dumb" bombs but no AIM-120s, AIM-9X, or JDAMS.  LANTIRN but no Sniper is also consistent with this philosophy.

- Speaking of ordnance, the quantity of Mk 82 bombs provided is somewhat odd: six total, so OOB you can only fill up one CFT or the other, not both.

- Another time-dependent detail is the small intakes on the CFTs beneath the wings (part D75, one each side). These weren't present on the earliest production batches (as served in Desert Storm), so check your references to confirm if the parts should be left off.

- Another small post-Desert Storm detail to remove for early aircraft is the GPS "dome" molded on the upper fuselage, just to starboard of the airbrake.  Small and subtle enough that a few swipes of a sanding stick should take care of it if backdating is needed for your subject airframe. (I prefer having this feature molded in since it's been there for most of the Strike Eagle's service life).

- The undernose antennae group seem to best match a modern F-15E, with a long, swept "sharkfin" style at the forefront and another "straight" blade in the 3rd position.  Earlier configurations had the shorter, "square" blades in those two positions (as on the original F-15A-D models) so once again check your references.

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A bit thick on the edges but definitely a must-have for any F-15 collection.

 

Aside from this, who is "Carrera?" Have I missed something here? Did a company named Carrera bought Revell Germany?

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11 minutes ago, Shalako said:

Aside from this, who is "Carrera?" Have I missed something here? Did a company named Carrera bought Revell Germany?

From their website, https://www.carrera-revell.com/en/:

 

About the Carrera Revell Group

The Group is a leading international toys and games manufacturer that includes Carrera Toys GmbH and Revell GmbH.

Carrera Toys GmbH is a globally popular name featuring brands such as Carrera, Carrera RC and Pustefix. The company develops, produces and distributes its own products around the world, as well as great licensed items with partners like Disney and Nintendo.

Revell GmbH is a globally-active best known manufacturer of plastic model-building kits and remote-control articles, 3D puzzles, and toys and games in general.

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Yes, I know what you mean John. There are so many companies these days that you can easily lost count. You've got companies that are the star for a few years and then suddenly they disappear or in worst-case scenario declare bankruptcy .

 

It's hard to keep up. 

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