1/32 Tamiya F-15I

Gallery Article by Andrew Ludwig on Sept 13 2003

 

1/32 Tamiya F-15E Converted to Israeli F-15I

Hey everyone, it’s been a while since my last post on ARC, so I figured I better make up for lost time with a mammoth project. This kit took about 6 months to complete, a couple hours here and there, but it’s finally done. The buildup includes the Tamiya 1/32nd F-15E kit, the CAM F-15I conversion Kit and the Eduard F-15E and F-15C photo etch kits. I have to say that the Tamiya kit was an absolute pleasure to build from start to finish, the airframe connects to the fwd fuselage with screws as well as the wings and the airframe itself use screws. The metal landing gear uses screws as well. This was a heck of a lot easier than smearing gobs and gobs of glue to secure the big parts. 

 

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The Cam resin set was alright but if I had to do it again I would use the Cutting Edge set. The reason is that the Cam set had imperfections on the afterburner cans and the chaff/flare dispensers were not that great. I am not trying to give Cam a bad name, they even sent me a second set for free but that set also had the same imperfections on the turkey feathers, I give Cam credit—they wanted to model the cans in the open position, (the Cutting Edge cans are in the closed position), so it was difficult to achieve the correct look of the two layered turkey feathers in the open position. 

I also got a hold of some pitot and probe covers from the Cutting edge web site; I forgot the name of the company that makes them, but I am sure it was from Europe—France or Belgium. I used the Tamiya RBF tags and some Reheat tags to dress the Ra’am up a bit. I tried to use the Cam Python 3 missiles but I messed them up—they were really fragile. However the Cutting Edge AAMRAMs went together alright, they were a little softer and a little bigger too. But don’t get the impression that I am singling out Cam; they are a great company and I will continue to buy their products, I just didn’t have any luck this time around. All in all this was a long tedious project, I will build several 1/48th models before I embark on my 1/32nd Academy F/A-18C with the CE cockpit set—already cut off the pour stubs and everything survived the cutting process. I am now babbling so I will end it here. One last word of advice: have a couple of 1/48th or 1/72 models going when you build one of the “superkits” so you can at least finish something in the interim!!!!!

Andrew Ludwig    IPMS-Seattle

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Photos and text © by Andrew Ludwig