After
a 23 year hiatus, I decided to get back into plastic aircraft modeling
after recently discovering this site. My first project is the same
as my last model, a 1/32 Revell F-15E. This 1982 model kit is not
really an F-15E at all, but an F-15B prototype (71-291) that was the first
attempt at making the F-15 a fighter bomber.
Here
is my effort of 23 years ago, when all I had were the box photos to go by
for painting and decal location. There are lots of errors and I
hadn’t even heard of modeling putty back then, much less used any.
Still it’s an attractive jet….
Now
my latest iteration of this very same kit, utilizing many of the building and
painting techniques that I’ve found here….
The
biggest difference is the engine nozzles. The old kit has nozzles with
turkey feathers, whereas modern American F-15’s do not, so I bought a
corrected resin set from Cutting Edge and then deleted the tail hook faring.
This old kit is missing other stuff as well, like drop fuel tanks and modern
weapons. New WRM 610 gal. resin drop fuel tanks were also bought from
Cutting Edge and I raided an Academy F-18C kit for 2 AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, 2
GBU-10 laser guided bombs and 1 GBU-24 laser guided bomb.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The
Lantirn Navigation and Targeting pods are also missing, so thankfully a
set was available from
Flightpath
Gunsmoke
Range
to make this F-15E more accurate, especially with laser-guided bombs.
Unfortunately these pods do not come with mounting pylons, so I scratch
made a set from pylons from another kit.
A
new (to me) painting technique that I’ve found here is weathering, which I
think makes the aircraft look much more realistic, so I applied the popular
artist oil wash after a couple of coats of Future. Future also brought out
the clarity of the canopy, which was sanded to remove the center line.
Final decaling was done with the Twobobs “Saddam Hunters” decal scheme,
which goes with the WRM drop tanks used in the
Iraq
war in 2003.
Click on
images below to see larger images
There
are still lots of errors, but I hope you like the improvements that I’ve made
to a 25 year old Revell kit after being away from the hobby for so long.
My next project is the Tamiya 1/32 F-14A “Black Knights” kit, but I’ve
already purchased the very popular Tamiya F-15E “Bunker Buster” kit for a
future build. It’ll be interesting to see how well these much more
expensive but nicer kits go together.
Chuck
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