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

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

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? 

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

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

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   

Lots done tonight. This is going to be great, I have more than a week off so I'm finishing this thing... hopefully before the new year! I'm getting my next model for Xmas so good timing there. 

I sprayed my canopy tonight and it looks awesome. All the lines are nice and crisp. Should be gloss coating in a few days. I have no idea how long this thing is going to take to decal though, at least a few nights. 

thanks for the kind words.  I took a long hard look at her and decided that the paint was fine the way it was so on went the coat of future and a artists oils panel wash followed by the landing gear and a buch of the smaller bits.  I have all the hard points completed, have to still do an oil wash on them and repaint the AIM-9s that I'll be mounting.  Still awaiting the decals from TwoBobs, but if they arrive today I should be able to finish it up this weekend, at least that is my plan!!

matt

Decals arrived yesterday and I am preparing myself to go crosseyed today!!!  Hope to have them on tonight and then I can finish all the other bits that I have decided to do.  I added the intake covers last night, added some Remove Before Flight tags to the bird, not sure if they are in the right places, but I like the looks of them so they are ok by me!!

Hope to post more pics again soon.

Matt

Chimera wrote:

Mine is still coming along.  Haven't done pics yet, but I have the major assembly done and the first coats of paint down (including the Alclad steel tail).

Wow Chimera.... I havn't seen you post in a while here.....I figured you dropped off the radar. Post some pics as soon as you can!

blkhwkmatt wrote:

Decals arrived yesterday and I am preparing myself to go crosseyed today!!!  Hope to have them on tonight and then I can finish all the other bits that I have decided to do.  I added the intake covers last night, added some Remove Before Flight tags to the bird, not sure if they are in the right places, but I like the looks of them so they are ok by me!! Hope to post more pics again soon. Matt

Glad to hear that Matt.Post some pics as soon as you can also.......

As for me I am now officially on vacation for a whole week.So after the New Year celebrating is out of the way I am going to spend alot of time at the bench.I think I am going to try to do some more work on the exhaust cans.I am really not happy with that seam line that is still there.If it gets to me too much I will start working on the landing gear assemblies.Well Take care guys.... and most of all I wish you the best for the New Year!

Update: I got the TwoBobs decals for the Lakenheath mud hens and decided to use the more colorfull markings on the sheet.  I guess that they represent the sqaudron commanders bird, not to sure on the Air force markings.  Any way, guess that I rushed it a bit too much because all of the two part decals and a bunch of the others silvered horribly!  To add a bit of insult to my injury,  I thought, wrongly, that if I sprayed the bird with the dull coat it would take care of the problem.  I have never used testors acryl dull coating, and guess that my airbrush wasnt as clean inside as I thought it was because when the dull coat dried i noticed a very thin grey dusting on most of the topside of the model.

At this point I almost tossed the kit across the room, but thankfully couldn't bring myself to do that.  I carefully ran a new razor blade across every offending decal and then applied a coat of solvaset to them.  Most of the decals required a few coats of the stuff to finally get all the silvering out.  Now I have taken a 3200 grit sanding film and am gently and very slowly trying to sand off the dull coating to re-apply it once I have ensured that my airbrush is completely clean.

Hopefully I'll be able to take some pics and post them this weekend.

Matt

First off let me say that I love solvaset!!!!  Settled most of the decals right down without any issues!!

May I present to you my Revell 1/48th F-15E Strike Eagle

Looks awesome!!

I'm not making the deadline.... but I will finish before ZoneV I betcha!   

MaxPower wrote:

Looks awesome!! I'm not making the deadline.... but I will finish before ZoneV I betcha!

 Yes, Matt it does look outstanding!  And no I won't be able to beat Maxpower....my week of workbench time was spent playing Mr. Mom,because the kids got the same week out of school due to the weather.And what time I did have left I ended up dealing with an illness...so I'm still where I left off.But I will get it done at some point.Glad to see so many Eagles completed.Can't wait to finish mine.I think after this I'll do a couple of simple weekend builds to take a break.Anyhoo... Take care.

well i finished my f15 last month and now that i've worked out photobucket may i present my f15j for your viewing pleasure

mick  

Chimera wrote:

Well, I made the deadline and delivered to the recipient two days after the GB deadline, but I hadn't posted pics.  Do I get the badge?   I -still- need to clean the pics up and post them.

Of course! No problems here...  Just find a badge right click on it... go to 'properties' then click on the and it will provide the web site address that you can get it from.I downloaded a badge to my computer then sent it to my Photobucket account then linked that in my signature... Thanks for joining the build!

biscuit3 wrote:

well i finished my f15 last month and now that i've worked out photobucket may i present my f15j for your viewing pleasure mick

That looks great Mick... good job.I'm still plugging away at mine,but I had to pack it away to move accross town and I havn't been able to get the hobby room set back up yet... someday soon though hopefully...at the rate I'm going this thing will have taken a full calender year to complete..

Thanks Zone...this was a great group build helped narrow down the stash

can't wait to see yours finished [;

   mick

I've been on vacation and was sick. I haven't worked on mine in at least a month.

But it's not forgotten! 

I do beg to differ the first Air to Air kill of the war was definitely the 17th of January but the victim was a Mirage F1 not a Mig 29  and it was brought down by Captain Steve Tate flying a F-15C Bureau #83017 flying with the 71st TFS out of Langley AFB but stationed at Dhahrahn Royal Saudi Air Force Base. My info is correct because my father supervised the prep work on 83017 as a Senior NCOIC for his maintenace group.

BTW the 71st also scored the first Air to Ground victory for a Tactical Fighter Squadron by shooting down an enemy transport with a Aim 9 sidewinder while the transport was taking off. 

Ok freak'n finally!!!

This is the second model I've finished since taking modeling up again. My first large scale and my fist time painting with an airbrush. There are lots of mistakes and I'm far from a rivet counter. If I think it looks cool I go with it.

So here is my 1/32 Tamiya F15E Eagle.

Here's the OOB intake. I think it looks ok. Nobody will ever pick my model up and shine a light in there so the visible seem doesn't bother me.

This is your SECOND??!!! Man, this is better than my 200th!! Way to go guy! The wash in the wheel wells looks very realistic. You are well on your way to becoming a Master builder!

Congrats on a very excellent and successful build. 

Mike,

Sorry to rain on your parade, but Steve Tate's victory was the fourth of the war.  That fact was determined shortly after all of the publicity with him getting the "first" kill.  In fact, it was the 33rd TFW that scored the first three kills, with John Kelk getting a single MiG-29 and Rob "Cheese" Graeter bagged two Mirage F1EQs.  Another kill was also unofficially credited to an EF-111A, but since they just out-maneuvered the Mirage, which flew into the ground, it didn't really count as an a-2-a kill.  This was all determined by extensive reviewing of gun camera footage for times, etc.  Tate just got back earlier than the others did, so he was the first to celebrate.

Jon
 

Duke Maddog wrote:

This is your SECOND??!!! Man, this is better than my 200th!! Way to go guy! The wash in the wheel wells looks very realistic. You are well on your way to becoming a Master builder! Congrats on a very excellent and successful build.

Just to mention I double posted this knowing not many would see it here so here's a link to the thread in the Aircraft forum.

/forums/774601/ShowPost.aspx 

It's update time !!  Woohoo!!

Well after what seemed like an endless amount of work I think I have the landing gear to an acceptable level.I used model railroad MV lenses for the landing/taxi lights on the nose gear.I used hypodermic needle tubing to run the various wires through.The 'WARNING' decal is actually a HobbyDecal dry transfer,transfered onto clear decal film then applied as a regular decal.I ended up breaking the brace in half that decal is on in a previous attempt.So that is why I decided to use decal film instead! The shimmy damper was scratchbuilt out of Evergreen rod and the clamps holding it on are a combination of solder that was flattened using smoothjaw pliers,and a couple of diameters of wiring and tubing.










Now onto the mains.....

Another update.....

 Here is one of the MANY pictures that I pulled from www.F-15EStrikeEagle.com and ran copies of at my local Fed-Ex/Kinko's.This website is an invaluable reference tool.



Here are a few pics of one of the main gears that I've been working on...



I opened up some of the lightening holes on the oleo scissors,and ran the main brake line around and through according to the pictures on F-15EStrikeEagle.com.In all of the pics that I have seen the brake lines were white,but I painted mine a very light gray,so that the lines would not get lost against the white paint of the main struts.The secondary wiring is a combination of different diameters of wiring and the insulation that covered them.The polished area of the strut is a strip of Bare Metal Foil 'Ultra Bright Chrome' and the clamp holding the lines on the lower part of the strut
is soft solder flattened with smoothjaw pliers and wrapped around the strut and painted.





And here are some shots of both of them together....





Getting there.....slowly but surely.