A tale of 4 tails

1/72 Revell F-15E & Academy F-15E

Gallery Article by Pablo Angel Herrera on Mar 8 2018

 

      

About 2 years ago I was thinking one day that I should get me an F-15E. Back in 1996 I got myself Jane's Combat Simulations F-15E PC simulator which I eventually mastered; strangely enough I didn't build an F-15E until now but has since then been one if my favorites. So I went on to look for a 1/72nd scale kit and came to the conclusion that Hasegawa was the one to get so I got one cheap at my LHS repacked by Revell of Germany with the 391st Bold Tigers decal option. What I didn't know was that that kit is based on the prototype (I wanted to kill myself, burn my house, you get the point) so the upgrade kit from Wolfpack had to be purchased along with Hasegawa's armament kits to get the GBUs and missiles (kit doesn't provide them) and why not some ejection seats by True Details. Once I started the kit it came to my attention that the kit's afterburners didn't fit well so Aires ones were ordered. At this time this was becoming my own F-35 project in terms of expense as you might expect.

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Then suddenly, Bang! Academy releases their new tool kit and 1 month after Great Wall did. I went from anger to frustration to accepting the new kits and said to myself "if you already have spent the cost of both those kits in a single subject why not get them and compare them?" So I got the new tooling Academy kit and built it along Hasegawa's issue and can say boy that kit is great. The only problem was the terrible afterburners Academy made but since this is a snap kit it is understandable they made them that way. So I switched them and adapted the Hasegawa's which fitted perfectly. I always liked the 333rd Lancers (from the PC gaming days) and thankfully Academy had that version as a decal option.

The Academy kit went out of the box except for the swapped afterburners and JDAM center bomb. This kit is awesome in every way. The only plus I can give Hasegawa is the overall shape as it looks more corpulent and the nose shape is slightly better. I represented the Hasegawa as a bird in service during Operation Enduring Freedom with a heavy loadout and weathering based on references and the Academy as a training bird with lighter loadout

Oh, didn't I tell you? I also got the Great Wall kit which is on my stash at the moment and that thing is on another league on it's own. The three of them will be looking real nice side by side.

Cheers!

Pablo Angel Herrera   IPMS Guatemala

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Photos and text © by Pablo Angel Herrera