Hello yall!
Here is an F-15E
Strike Eagle which I completed some time ago without the weapons and now
it's finally done with an assortment of laser-guided bombs and air-to-air
missiles.
Just a short history
of the F-15E. The F-15E is an air-to-ground version of the F-15 Eagle, designed
for long range interdiction and strike deep behind enemy lines. While designed primarily for ground attack, the F-15E still retains the air-to-air
lethality of the F-15 Eagle and can still defend itself against enemy fighters.
Besides the USAF, the F-15E is also used by Israel - known as the F-15I
Ra'am (רעם - 'Thunder') - , Saudi Arabia - known as the
F-15S - , South Korea - known as the F-15K Slam Eagle -, Japan and lastly by Singapore -
known as the F-15SG.
Click on
images below to see larger images
Ok back to the kit.
This kit was basically problem-free except for the fit of the CFTs which was
a bit troublesome. Other than that, the fitting was good. It was built OOB
except for the weapons and LAU-129 A/A launchers which were robbed
entirely from the Hasegawa weapons set as the kit didn't provide good
Sidewinder missiles and launchers plus I thought of giving my F-15E a
laser-guided bomb load. I chose to arm it with 4 GBU-12s, 2 GBU-24s, 2 AIM-120
AMRAAMs and 2 AIM-9M Sidewinders as seen on recent F-15E weapon configurations.
But the kit provides a wide range of weapons for you to choose your own loadout.
But it was the LGBs that I was looking for so I ditched the kit weapons and went
for the Hasegawa set.
As the
cockpit and ejection seats were poorly moulded, I decided to assemble the
plane with the canopy shut. At least it doesn't look so bad with the canopy
closed. Hehe.. Painting was done without an airbrush and in fact all my models
you see here on this website are finished without using an airbrush as I do not
own one. But it still looks good!
Weathering was done
by smudging pencil dust to add to the realism of an F-15E, locked and loaded
with live munitions and ready to take names and kick a***. Panel lines were
highlighted using a sharp pencil with the excess dust smudged in the direction
of flight. Yes, it's a very basic weathering method but it's very easy and
effective and always gives realistic results!
The decals provided
were extremely poor in quality but they went on just fine without giving me a
lot of problems. I didn't use all the decals as the F-15Es of today don't have
as many markings as the earlier ones. Yes, I know my model depicts an early
F-15E but I'll try as much as possible to recreate an F-15E that looks as close
to the actual plane.
After the decaling,
a layer of gloss was sprayed over the completed model to protect the paint and
the decals. Overall, this is a good kit and I'll highly recommend it.
Ok, I shall stop
here for now. I hope you'll like my model! Photos were taken under the hot
afternoon sun so as to make use of as much natural light as possible.. I'm
environmental-friendly you see.. Haha..
Comments and
questions are most welcome.
Xue
Qian
Click on
images below to see larger images
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