F-15 Eagle Group Build 6/01/06 - 1/17/07

Hello all sorry for the long time no talk. Job and school keeping me from building.

As too your questions on the pins at the begining of each day all -21 execpt the intake covers are removed. When your super or expiditer pull up and says pilots are steping in ten mins thats the cue for you too remove the intake pulgs and tail hook pin. When you see the pilot van pull on the taxi way you then can remove the seat pins, emerg canopy jet pin, and the canopy initiator pin. Only after the pilot is in the seat can you remove the canopy strut or if the canopy is flat wait untill #2 is started and stable then ya can remove it after hydro powers up"Seen a few guys in back of the mud hen and D  get wanged in the head by the strut" . For the landing gears the nose pin is removed and the AIM-9 nose cover is removed "used too put the gear pins in". Then #1 is started and jfs is shut down then you remove the main gear pins. "rember the pc1,2,and utily pnls are left lose so when bolth eng are started and warm  you can check the hydro fluid levles".

E.O.R. pulls the chaff,flair,tank and plylon pins. Then arms the fireworks.

Hope this helps you guys any more ques just ask I should be home all week.

Jimmy

 Ex D.c.c. 86-167, 86-171

              493 F.S. R.A.F. Lakenheath 1998-2005   

blkhwkmatt wrote:

I have a question for you F-15 experts out there - if the bird is ready to fly a mission but waiting on the pilots to show, how many Remove Before Flight flags would there be and where are they located?  Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks for looking, Matt

Here are some WIP pics, I have her almost ready to get gloss coated and thought I'd share what she is looking like right now.

I preshaded, painted the base color, and then post shaded the panels, and then sprayed a slightly lighter mix of the base gray to give the bird more depth and detail, I love the way it looks but I would like other opinions on the painting, did I over do it?  And now looking at the pics I see that the vert stabs are a bit more "weathered" looking than the rest of the bird, I might have to fix that, maybe.

I will be adding the 2 external tanks, painted light grey, kinda like the war reserve tanks that you see in some pics, as well as 2 AIM-9's and if I can find some 2 AAMRAM's.  (Think that I can steal them from my Eurofighter kit) 

 I am going to put the intake covers that were provided in the kit on after I paint them Red so dont panic about the overspray on the intake trunks. 

I have a question for you F-15 experts out there - if the bird is ready to fly a mission but waiting on the pilots to show, how many Remove Before Flight flags would there be and where are they located?  Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks for looking,

Matt

Zone V Afterburner wrote:

gervaisrobert wrote: Although I am not part of the GB, I am building a 1/32 F-15E.  You guys are an inspiration and wealth of knowledge and ideas. Thanks You are more than welcome to join if you like..... I probably won't make the Jan 17th deadline, but it won't be too far off.I am gettin' the first week of January off for vacation and it will give me alot of time at the bench.I have been concentrating on the nose gear assemebly lately. Max, sorry to hear about your vertical stabs...I have mocked up my Eagle with the stabs and I think everything will be OK on my end.I hope things work out well for you.Also If you need some ideas for loadouts for your Eagle this is where I got mine: F-15E Operational Loadouts BlkhwkMatt,I'm glad to hear your still a part of this build.I can't wait to see yours.

Awesome site... wish you'd posted it sooner!!

I'm doing a Hornet next, do you know of a site like that for the F18? 

gervaisrobert wrote:

Although I am not part of the GB, I am building a 1/32 F-15E.  You guys are an inspiration and wealth of knowledge and ideas. Thanks

Maxpower,

Sorry to hear about the vert. stabs.  I tackled the painting the same way as you on my 1/48th mud hen, and was really worried about the same thing happening after you mentioned it.  I attached them today with a bit of gap filling superglue and am glad to say that I can live with the results.  I have begun attaching most of the smaller peices in preparation for sealing it all with future and a wash.  I am waiting on the "da heath" decals from TwoBobs to arrive and then i should be done.

Just keep plugging away, it'll come together!

Matt

Sigh...

I put my vertical stabalizers on tonight after a bunch of sanding to try to get the fit good. I'm not that happy with them and one isn't aligned right. In hindsight I would have put them on before painting. There is a crack under one that is going to need putty.

I'm going to start painting weapons to take a break from the plane.  

Well you are more than welcome to join. It's no biggie, just for fun. All you have to do is talk about your build and post the odd picture. Did you see mine? They don't even have to be good!!

Are you doing the Tamiya? 

Although I am not part of the GB, I am building a 1/32 F-15E.  You guys are an inspiration and wealth of knowledge and ideas.

Thanks

Maxpower,

Looking good!! 

I have made some progress on my F-15E, it has the base paint on it along with a bit of panel shading along with the metalizer areas for the engines.  I will try to snap some pics and post them soon.  I should have it sompleted for the 17 jan deadline!!

Matt

Odds and ends bud... odds and ends.

It's getting hard to work on it because there's a million things to be done but none of them big enough to give me a solid direction. All the little details now. Oh and of course weapons.

And deciding what weapons to put on! Ugh I wish I could use them all!

I have some painting woopsies to clean up, the canopy is masked and ready for paint, most of the weapons are built but not painted and some not sanded, lots of small detail painting. I hope to get a lot done over the hollidays. I think I'm getting the Academy Hornet for Christmas with a black box detail set and custom decals so I need to get moving! I have a 737 I want to get started too.

Thanks for the good words. Looking foreward to seeing some pics from you too.

Sorry these pics are poor quality. It sucks at night trying to take a close up without a flash. There's one from a little further back that I used the flash for. My landing gear is done but for weathering.

But you can see the metal finish looks good. Well good enough... I think...

MaxPower wrote:

Cockpit looks awesome!I had my first go with a metalizer tonight. I painted the aluminum on my bird using MM metalizer non-buffing aluminum. It looks awesome I think.

Thanks Max!  I can't wait to see pics of yours...That part of the paintjob has me really nervous.I definatley dont want to muck it up! I bought Alclad to use on those parts.It will be the first time I have ever used the stuff.I wanted more variences of color between the sections.And Alclad seems to be very popular.Please post some pics as soon as you can!.I agree with working nights.I have done it before several times and it screws me all up.I have since found out that between 1 or 2 in the morning till sun-up is the worst time of driving for me......so I try to stick with day jobs.Anyhoo... thanks for the kind words on the cockpit!

Cockpit looks awesome!

Mine was ok I think for my experience level and building OOB.

I had my first go with a metalizer tonight. I painted the aluminum on my bird using MM metalizer non-buffing aluminum. It looks awesome I think. It when on great. It sure stunk the place up though, I'm glad I invested in a mask.

I'm wiped out but I'll try to get some pics up a little later. Gah I start nights again tommorow so I guess I'm finished for the week. 

After going through and re-reading the thread,I noticed I never posted any real close pics of the cockpit.So I figured I'd take the time to post those now.Comments welcome.....Enjoy!

Take care......

Thanks for the response Maxpower...I think your right,it was probably more trouble than it was worth.As far as paint is concerned? That is a good question.I am going to guesstimate and say probably another couple of weeks? I still have some rescribing to do around the tail chines.The engraved detail in the area in between the wings and horizontal stabs has been lost because of sanding.So I need to rescribe that.I've been working on the nose gear alot lately..so the paint prep has been put on hold.I still plan on adding a strip of plastic to replicate the rubber gasket in between the conformal tanks and the intake.And I think I am going to fill in the engraved detail on the CFT's and rescribe it with more narrower lines.The pics that I have seen...the panel lines on the CFT's are not that obvious.I have other things that I want to do before I start shooting paint.Besides when I do paint it will have to be outside.because I don't have a spray booth.Anyway....I will have to keep a steady pace to make the deadline but it's going to be a close shave.Take care...

Sorry I didn't say anything sooner, I had some internet connection issues... but I'm all better now.

They look awesome but it's more work than I would have gone through. I didn't touch mine but at best I might have drilled out the originals. 

When are we going to shoot some paint on that bad boy?

I'm on nights at work and I'm working weekends for Christmas cash so mine is at a little bit of a standstill.

17th of January is looming. 

Bump

willuride wrote:

Zone, it's not abandoned.  I check for this thread everyday I'm on here.

blkhwkmatt wrote:

I'm still around as well, just been way too busy to post anything or even work on any of my builds.

That's good to know.I was starting to think everyone had shelved their projects.

Mr.Chex and BigJac have both been added to the group build tally.....you both are more than welcome here and please feel free to post your progress.Were all interested in seeing it.

I myself am still plugging away.I have the wings on now and lately have been concentrating on paint prep and such.Trying to eliminate seams and deepen the panel lines and rivets for paint.Here is where I am at so far:

Now on this project,since the molding detail was so good on this kit,Tamiya molded the drain tubes and vent tubes on the bottom of the aircraft.This is a pic of how they look OOB:

 I wanted to make my F-15E as accurate as possible without going nuts on it so I cut off the blobs of plastic that represented the vents and drains...and substituted them with small diameter steel tubing.:

 After getting it done,I am wondering if it was worth the trouble of it all.What do you think?

Respectful replies are welcomed.....

Chris_in_Japan wrote:

Welcome to the board.. I am not far from you here in Fukuoka Japan.. When you get the rain, it follows its way here to us!.. And must say, I have had enough of it also...Thats when we are not having to put up with the yellow sand that you guys send over to us also!.. Anyways, glad to have someone else on in this part of the world.. ps: Cobra.. I tried building that same F-15E kit, but tried to build it with the vents down.. Well lets just say it has been tossed.. Great job on yours!  Chris

Hey guy,

 Glod to see the first reply so quickly. Back to the sand problem, if the sand does really come from my places originally, u guys should pay for that as it could make islands bigger! :-)

Ok, Fukuoka is quite close with Shanghai, just about 1 hour flight, right?

Jackson

Welcome to the board.. I am not far from you here in Fukuoka Japan.. When you get the rain, it follows its way here to us!.. And must say, I have had enough of it also...Thats when we are not having to put up with the yellow sand that you guys send over to us also!..

Anyways, glad to have someone else on in this part of the world..

ps: Cobra.. I tried building that same F-15E kit, but tried to build it with the vents down.. Well lets just say it has been tossed.. Great job on yours! 

Chris 

Hi Guys,

Last night, my daughter select F-15E(1/32 Tamiya) to be my next article from the stocks. I was searching some pics through internet just right now, and google linked me here. It's a fantastic place! A lot of fans are making F-15 with me world wide! May I join with u? Is it too late? I still have 40% workload for a 1/72 Revell Rescure Ship. Anyway, I will keep an eye in the team!

Good Luck to every body here!

 Jackson from Shanghai, raining 2 weeks already after a long long dry fall.

Cobra,

Looking good, cant wait to see the finished product on both!!!!

Matt

Hey guys! 

Well, here are two of my Eagles.  The first is the 1:48th Revell F-15E in Eagle Strike 48th FW markings.  This kit is unbelieveable!

and my Hasegawa F-15D with Eagle Strike 48th FW decals and some custom ones I cobbled together for the squadron flashes.

I'm still around as well, just been way too busy to post anything or even work on any of my builds.  I am hoping that this long weekend I'll be able to finish setting up the workshop and begin to build again.

All that I have seen so far lookg outstanding, thanks for the pics!

Matt

Hey max, That looks real good.

Zone, it's not abandoned.  I check for this thread everyday I'm on here.  I'm still working on mine.  I didn't detail the cockpits at all.  I just painted them gray, some black, then drybrushed black on the rest of it.  I'm not too concerned with the cp on these planes, as much as I am on the outside.  I'm going to add a little yellow for the eject handles and future on the screens.  These Revell C's are a real pain and sparse on any cp detail anyway.  I'm still plugging away, while also finishing up the 67 chevelle for my friend.  I'll post pics soon.

Looks good Max....not exactly sure what would cause your paint to do that other than maybe holding the airbrush too far away/too close.But it all looks good to me.Nothing much to add.But I think that this thread has somewhat been abandoned.It's probably my fault though,since I am the host and I havn't really kept up with it.Anyway,nice work Max...I hope I do as well as you have.

Mr. Chex,I'll add you to the group build tally..

Take care...