Airfix 1/72 F-15A/B Eagle

Well normally this section is intended to give a short history of the object. In this case I quit this as you all most probably do know a F-15. Instead, how this all began: Back in 2010 I had the chance to get tickets for the Nuremberg Toy Show, as this show is only for professionals and not open to public. We, my wife and me, went there and within some hours spending there we evolved back to children. At this stage I saw my wife going “Ohhhh – look” and “Isn't that so sweeeeeeeeeeet” at almost every Hello Kitty stuff we saw there – and there were many!

And thats how this all began!

If I remember correctly you get some options with that kit, single and double seater with figures and two decal options as well. It's an old Airfix kit so there are recessed but very fine panel lines.

For all who want to do a decent F-15 in 1/72 I'd say get something else not this old Airfix one. To my eyes it looks like a F-15 but the fit is not the best especially at some areas where it is not that easy to be corrected. The main fit issues are the intakes inside and outside and the canopy. But then on the other side, if you know how to handle those, the end result does look like a F-15 and at least here in Germany you can get those kits very cheap at Internet auctions or swap meets. So this makes this Airfix kit worth a try for some special projects or just for exercising.

To be honest here I just glued it together, really! It was intended to be inflight so I did not bother with the landing gear but then I had to fight with the gear doors as those aren't thought to be inflight. I already mentioned the fit issues at the intakes which gave me a lot of sanding fun especially inside. It has to look smooth but for this project correctness wasn't an issue.

To be able to have it mounted on a stand I drilled holes into the exhausts and glued some tubes inside the fuselage behind the exhausts.

The base originally was a double CD box.

The complete bird did get two base coats of Createx Auto Air base to level out all that sanding. On top of that went the pink. The color I used for pink was originally a wall paint. It was left over when one of my daughters decided to paint one of her walls pink. It really felt strange while spraying :) I experimented a bit with it and found a solution to spray it with a 0.5 nozzle. It was a mixture of 1 amount paint to 1 amount water to 1 amount Future. I needed three coats.

After that the white areas were masked and sprayed. The white areas behind the decals were also masked and sprayed. As white I used Createx again.

The decals were all self made from pictures I found in the WWW.

Looking back, this project was one of the best I've ever done. Why? Well I had fun doing it and my wife was really happy to get this as a present. It is really relaxing to do a fun project from time to time.

I did get this special F-15 as a donation from my wife to take it to a model show. It was the star of our booth. Not because it did win anything just because of all the glowing eyes of the little girls accompanying their dads. 

Some Internet searches but not on F-15 :)

Martin Pohl

January 2013