Revell 1/48 F-15E Strike Eagle

REVELL 1:48 F-15E STRIKE EAGLE

Reviewer: Trevor Boxall (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 4 February 2002

Aircraft:
The F-15E Strike Eagle was developed as a two seat strike and interdictor version of the F-15B and initially totally company funded on the anticipation their venture would be accepted by the USAF and subsequent orders placed. It first flew in 1982 and later evaluated also against the F-16XL with large wing area. The USAF were impressed but their order was to be based on the F-15D, and 392 examples were placed on the order sheet, even though only around 200 were actually built.

At the end of 1988 the F-15E first flew and entered service soon after for deep penetration interdiction and strike missions in all weather conditions. The avionics package is advanced and allows the rear seat navigator to depend fully on the navigation and attack system, and allowing the pilot to concentrate on tactical flying using the HUD. The F-15E served in Desert Storm and proved itself a deadly adversary.

The Kit:
This kit is numbered 04550 in their quarter scale range. Inside the box sits some great looking sprues of medium grey plastic with engraved panel lines. There are about 170 parts in what appears new tooling technology and another four clear parts bagged separately.

Instructions:
Fourteen pages of A4 sized sheets covers the instruction aspect of the kit and in the main this is pretty good. The exploded assembly views are straight forward but there are some vague positioning guides. Painting notes are provided as you go along and it does its best to provide construction options during the sequence. Additionally, a sprue diagram, history and decal and marking guides are also included.

Construction:
There is not much to construction, it was very straight forward and I had no real hiccups along the way given the finesse of Revell's new tooling engineering.

The cockpit is adequately catered for with seats, panels (with raised detail), sticks and HUD provided. Given the tear drop canopy reveals a fair bit of what work you have done inside there is scope to super detail it with an aftermarket set or two. I added in some generic details from spare brass etched sets like seat harnesses.

Remember to keep one eye on the construction steps ahead of you all the time as various decisions made early on affect the outcome and version of the model you want to complete. There are holes to drill out before you put the fuselage halves together, for instance. The aircraft needs noseweight and there is plenty of room (comparative to other projects recently) to cram some fishing weights and ball bearings in. The main wings are broken down into standard upper and lower components and fit well, as do the tailplanes and rear dorsal fins.

The main concern with this particular kit is the number of parts and some of the fiddly aspects of construction. In all other respects I encountered no hiccups along the way and didn't need to use any filler. The afterburner cans have more than a dozen small actuating arms to attach and the undercarriage construction is a bit fiddly. On this, the wheels are supposedly weighted, but they reveal no bulge so they just look "flat". A boarding ladder is provided as well as various stores options including drop tanks, bombs, ECM pod and sidewinders. I left off all these and the small external antennae until the end. In particular, you should leave off the small bomb racks if you want to display the Tiger scheme option, as I did. I would suspect the scheme would be difficult to apply if you add them on first.

Versions & Decals:
Two colour options are provided in overall FS36118 dark grey - not that there is any other choice. You can choose the stock standard Nellis AFB example, USAF or Lakenheath AFB, USAF wearing the toned down but effective Tiger scheme. I chose the latter. The decal sheet is huge and it will take you longer to apply all the stencilling than it did to build the darn thing!! With so many decals you would almost expect some for the sidewinders, drop tanks and so forth but these are not included. Colour register is excellent and the fuselage grey did not come through tiger scheme once applied - although the tiger stripes are large and tricky to apply. They are striking and these are excellent decals.

Accuracy:
I couldn't spot any obvious flaws or faults whatsoever, it looks and breathes a Strike Eagle in every regard. For those keen on measurements you will be happy to know the kit is overscale by exactly two inches in both span and length - that's when converted to full size, so it is very acceptable.

Overall:
New Tooling Revell of this calibre is about as good as it gets. There are no hassles building the kit other than the fiddly components and sheer number of parts, as well as the large tiger scheme decals that are tricky to apply. In every other respect this is a gem and would strongly recommend to all but the novice.

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