Subject: Re: 1/72 Hasegawa F-15E build: usual comments on using home e-mail address, and these are the big photos
From: "Steve Bamford ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "Murphy, Thomas J" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 09:58:56 -0700

----- Original Message -----
From: "Murphy, Thomas J" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 8:43 AM
Subject: 1/72 Hasegawa F-15E build: usual comments on using home e-mail
address, and these are the big photos

THE AIRCRAFT

  Throughout its history, with the exception of a (thankfully) brief period
in the mid-1980's, U.S. F-15 A thru D models have been used in an
exclusively air to air role.  From its inception, though, it was always
recognized that the airframe had an inherent air to ground capability.  In
the early '80's the USAF started looking for a replacement for the F-111,
and in the resulting competition the F-15E won out over the F-16XL.  The
process of making the Eagle into a Beagle involved taking a perfectly good
fighter and ruining it by adding an intercom switch, a second seat, CFT's,
and green drag inducing devices.  Other changes were a new radar, HUD,
navigation and targeting pods, an upgraded internal jammer, and modified
landing gear to handle the increased weights involved.  While it didn't have
the range of the F-111 it replaced it had a vastly greater self defense
capability due to its maneuverability, excellent radar,  AIM-7, and, later,
AIM-120 capability.  I can remember flying the F-15C at one of the first Red
Flag's the F-15E took part in.  We put all the Eagles and Beagles out front,
the result was that all but two of the red air forces were "killed" in the
first 50 seconds of the "war." Despite its air to air capabilities, though,
the F-15E's mission is air to ground, and the majority of their training and
employment reflects that.  On the first night of Desert Storm there was a
"train" of 16 F-15E's striking targets around Basra, and a MiG-29 tried
running intercepts on them.  One after the other the MiG was unable to make
a stern conversion on the Beagles, who continued to press on to the target,
till the MiG had finally worked his way down to number 15.  The pilot of
that aircraft almost had the first kill of the war, when he took an AIM-9
shot at the MiG, but the missile failed to guide, and the MiG continued on
to the last aircraft in the train.  The MiG eventually crashed trying to
turn the corner at night and low level on number 16.  I bring this up
because the F-15E crews, being the professional bomber pilots they were, all
kept pressing to the target, rather than turning on the Fulcrum, once they
determined the MiG was no threat to them.  If that had been F-15C's there
would have been a "feeding frenzy" on the Fulcrum that would put great white
sharks to shame.  Since its combat debut the F-15E has fought in the
continuing campaigns in Northern and Southern Watch, Bosnia, Kosovo, and
most recently in America's operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The changes
to the F-15E since that time have been minimal as far as the aircraft
itself.  It's the weapons that have changed the most, as "dumb" air to
ground ordnance  and early LGB's have given way to more and better precision
weapons.

THE MODEL

   There is no really accurate kit of the F-15E in the one, true scale.  The
kits out there were based on the concept demonstrator, so they have some
combination of incorrect CFT's, lack various bulges, and don't include the
modified landing gear and doors.  That said, I used the Hasegawa kit as my
starting point, and resigned myself to some scratch building and kit
bashing.  The kit that supplied the spare parts was the Academy F-15E, from
which I took the main and tangential front and rear CFT racks and the
arresting hook.  Construction started, as always, with the cockpit.  Out of
the box it provides a reasonable representation, but I elected to use
aftermarket, white metal seats from Aeroclub.  One bit of trivia, post
flight the seat on the F-15 is left in the full up position, so it actually
sits about 1 foot off the floor.  Even in-flight the seat is only moved down
a couple of inches to provide the best visibility.  In addition do not drill
out the ejection handles on the seat sides.  They have a piece of flexible,
black plastic on the inside of them to prevent something on the pilot's
G-suit from snagging them and providing a short, unexpected, possibly fatal
ride.  The kit did not include the side sticks used to control the radar and
sensors, so these were added from the spare parts bin.  The coaming over the
Beagle's front cockpit instrument panel has a different shape from the
Eagle's because of the MFD's, but I elected to leave it alone other than
sanding off the molded on ridges.  I did use a replacement HUD from Teknics
to replace the kit one.  Clear acetate was tinted with Gunze H94 clear green
and glued onto the HUD frame.  The forward fuselage halves were glued
together with no major headaches, and while all this was going on I glued
the main fuselage and wing halves together.  The forward fuselage was then
mated to this assembly. The forward to main fuselage and wing to fuselage
joints both required a small amount of filler (CA glue in this case).  After
sanding rescribing was done using my standard tools: an old, dull X-Acto
razor saw for straight lines and a sewing needle in a pin vise and a
Verlinden template for curved lines. At this point the first major
modification had to be done, when the arresting hook fairing between the
engines was removed and blanked off using sheet plastic.  In addition the
gun clip fairing was made out of laminated sheet styrene and glued onto the
belly of the aircraft.  I elected not to widen the wheels given the small
amount of difference it would make in this scale, but the main gear doors
were modified to their bulged configuration using laminated styrene.  The
CFT's were added at this point and fit surprisingly well; some Elmer's white
glue was used to fill the few gaps at their joints.  The main CFT pylon was
glued on along with the tangential pylons.  Again these fit well; even
though, they came from a different kit.  The missing center, tangential
pylon was hacked out of a pair of F-18 pylons from the spares box.  They
were cut, sanded, and rescribed according to photos and seeing the real
thing, then glued onto the CFT's.  At this point the rest of the pylons,
vertical stabs, rear TEWS antennas, and windscreen were added with the
windscreen requiring putty to fair it in.  The windscreen on the F-15E is of
the bird resistant type, so the angle between the canopy bow and the base of
the windscreen is 45 degrees, not 90.  The navigation and targeting pods
were also added at this time along with chaff/flare dispensers in front of
the main wheel wells.  These were etched metal and came from the Airwaves
A-10 set.  While not totally accurate they are close enough.  One other
comment on these; a full load of chaff/flares can't be carried on the left
side because the targeting pod blocks them, so only two rather than four
dispensers are fitted on this side.  The most "fiddly" part of this kit is,
by far, the nozzles.  The nozzle sections were assembled onto the rings,
then the actuating struts were added.  These were added after all painting
was done.

EXTERNAL STORES

    At this tine USAF aircraft typically flew with symmetrical loads, but on
the first couple of nights of Desert Storm the air to air threat led to some
Beagles flying with an asymmetric configuration.  For this configuration I
used missiles from Hasegawa's Weapons Set III and resin Mk 82 AIR's from the
now defunct PP Aeroparts range (set #AC754).  The AIM-7's had to be
modified, because they are molded as AIM-7E's which have two external cable
fairings, while the AIM-7F/M only had one.  I sanded off both fairings and
replaced them with a single one made of sprue.  This work is now unnecessary
as Hasegawa Weapons Set V provides correctly molded AIM-7F/M's.  I also
drilled out the ends of the AIM-7's but not the AIM-9's.  The Mk-82's are
nicely molded and require the etched metal fins and base plate to be glued
on.  I also cut the fuses off of some spare Mk-82's and glued these onto the
noses of the PP Aeroparts items.  Finally I elected to use only two external
tanks rather than three.  These jets were pushing their maximum taxi
weights, so they rarely, if ever, flew with three external bags.  I did
modify one of the external tanks to look like a "nestable."  These are
pre-fabricated tanks that are not meant to be used over a long duration like
the normal external tanks on the F-15.  The only external difference,
besides the color,  is the tail end, which  is blunt (like the F-16).  I cut
off the end of the tank just forward of the tail end of the fin and used
sheet styrene to close the resultant hole.

PAINTING AND DECALING

     The first thing was to mask off the natural metal areas; these would be
painted last.  The canopy and windscreen were also masked at this time, and
the model was then painted using Gunze Sangyo paints.  The overall color is
H305 (Gunship Gray #36118), while the missiles and the "nestable" tank were
painted H308 (Light Compass Ghost Gray #36375).  The landing gear was added
(minus the wheels) at this point to give the model something to sit on while
drying.  For a touch of color I elected on one of the AIM-9's to paint the
fins white.  This was relatively common on missiles during Desert Storm,
when older AIM-9's (manufactured during the white to gray changeover) were
taken out of their storage bunkers. The radomes of the AIM-7's were painted
an off white, while the drilled out motor was painted red brown.  The wings
and fins were all painted a dark, matte metallic gray.  For the AIM-9's the
rocket motor cap was painted a light yellow, the nose graphite and the fins
metallic gray.  The extreme nose was painted silver and the seeker "glass"
dark earth. Finally the rollerons were done in matte aluminum.  The Mk-82's
received a coat of Polly S #505080 (ANA613 olive drab) on the main body,
while the aft section was painted Polly S #505370 (olive drab) .  Various
antennas on the wings and fuselage were masked off and painted in Light
Compass Ghost Gray, then a coat of Tamiya clear gloss was applied.  Decaling
was done using Super Scale sheets #72-468 for the stenciling and #72-617 for
the squadron markings, along with bits from the kit decal sheet, mainly the
formation strip lights.  The rear formation strip lights have been modified
by cutting them into two pieces.  On the real jet the electronic equipment
that support the rear TEWS antennas forced this modification. Since these
aircraft were relatively new at the time they retained a lot of their
original stenciling, so I went whole hog on those.  One thing to point out
here is the weapons.  Real air to air weapons are heavily stenciled; each
section (rocket motor, warhead, seeker, TDD, CGS) will all have info with
the serial number, manufacturer, and technical data on it in addition to the
usual brown and yellow stripes carried on live weapons.  This ended up being
around ten decals per AIM-7 and AIM-9.  One of the reasons I went on a long
WW II kit building spree was that I got tired of stenciling decals!
Incidentally the missiles are supposed to be AIM-7F's, so they only carry
two fuze windows rather than the four on the AIM-7M, and the tips of their
wings were painted matte RLM-66 to simulate the tip weights that the AIM-7F
carried.  The Mk-82's also carry stenciling on them that came from
Hasegawa's Weapon Set I, and the nav and targeting pods carry "radiation
hazard" warnings and various stenciling that came from Hasegawa Weapon Set
IV.  Once done a gloss coat was again applied to seal the decals and to help
prevent any silvering.  This was followed up by Testor's Dullcote to get the
appropriate matte finish.  The masking was now removed from the areas to be
done in natural metal, and the surrounding painted areas were masked off.
Testor's Metallizer was used for this, mainly Non-buffing aluminum and
titanium to differentiate darker areas.  The inside of the burner cans were
painted Gunze H336 (Hemp) and streaked with matte black.  The nozzle rings
were done with Rub N' Buff, and the nozzles themselves were sprayed with
Testor's exhaust.  Once all that was finished the masking was removed and
the engines glued on using liquid cement.  Finally the TEWS antennas (off
white), anti collision beacons (dark red), and position lights (dark red and
blue-green) were all painted.

FINAL ASSEMBLY

    The wheels were glued on at this point, and they were painted pure
black, not a scale black. Tires on modern fighters are replaced after only
four or five missions, due to the high landing weights and speeds involved,
so they usually look brand new with the exception of the tread.  The landing
gear doors, weapons, and finally the external tanks were added in that order
using CA.  The final bits to be added were the canopy and arresting hook,
both held on with liquid cement.  Since the aircraft modeled was relatively
new weathering was very light consisting mainly of streaking from control
surface hinges; this was done using a touch of black acrylic paint that was
streaked in the direction of the air flow using my finger.  To make a
relatively accurate F-15E with the current kits out there is not overly
difficult, and a totally accurate one involves just a little more work. It
amazes me, though, that one of the manufacturers hasn't filled this gap with
a really accurate 1/72 kit or that one of the aftermarket companies hasn't
jumped into the fray after all these years!

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