1/72 Academy F-15E Strike Eagle

by Chuang Xue Qian

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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.

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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

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Photos and text © by Chuang Xue Qian