Hasegawa 1/72 F-15D 'Glamorous Glennis II'

The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is an American twin-engine, all-weather tactical fighter aircraft designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing). Following reviews of proposals, the United States Air Force selected McDonnell Douglas's design in 1967 to meet the service's need for a dedicated air superiority fighter. The Eagle first flew in July 1972, and entered service in 1976. It is among the most successful modern fighters, with over 100 victories and no losses in aerial combat, with the majority of the kills by the Israeli Air Force.

The Eagle has been exported to Israel, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. The F-15 was originally envisioned as a pure air-superiority aircraft. Its design included a secondary ground-attack capability that was largely unused. The aircraft design proved flexible enough that an all-weather strike derivative, the F-15E Strike Eagle, an improved and enhanced version which was later developed, entered service in 1989 and has been exported to several nations. As of 2017, the aircraft is being produced in different variants.

The first aircraft flew just over 47 years ago. As a note, there never was a YF-15. The first prototype was always just F-15A.

Hasegawa released an F-15 kit soon after the prototype flew. That kit had the square wing tips and other features of the prototype and was later modified to a near production standard. It became available as later variants as well. This was the old school raised panel line kit without the inserts and other bits one comes to expect from more modern kits. There was a later new tooling some 20 years after the original release that has seen dozens of limited editions. That is the basis for this kit.

This is basically the F-15D/DJ boxing with new decals. It comes with a cockpit tub than has two four piece seats control sticks and instrument panels. The panels will need to be painted as the usual decals are not on the new sheet. This is then attached to the nose gear well and then trapped between the forward fuselage halves.

The upper and lower fuselage is split horizontally and you will first install the intake pieces. The trunking is fhortened and ends in two compressor face blanking plates. Once the intakes have been constructed, then the upper and lower halves are cemented together.

Wings have a full upper half with part of the lower half molded into them. Then there are inserts for the rest of the lower wing. Pylon holes are already drilled. The nose gear is then installed followed by the construction of the exhaust. These are the current type without the 'turkey feathers' burner cans so there are separate petals and actuators, making for a fairly complex build.

Then all the previous subassemblies along with the stabs and fins are joined together. This is followed by the main gear. You can pose the canopy and speed brake open or closed as you wish. There are no weapons provided, but you do get the pylons and three fuel tanks. This boxing includes a neat extra. It has the fast pack fuselage mounted fuel tanks. These have additional pylons to hold the Sparrow missiles. When I was stationed at Keflavik, all of the 57 FIS planes carried these fuselage mounted tanks. Since all you need from the additional sprues are the pylons, you end up with a ton of cluster bombs to add to your weapons stash. As a note, the pylons do not have the proper attachments for the Sparrow missiles. If duplicating the box art plane, you will probably want to fill all the pylon holes in the wings and fuselage.

Instructions are for the standard F-15D/DJ so you will need to pay attention to the notes in the addendum sheet when building this one. The aircraft is painted in the Mod Eagle scheme. The small markings sheet has no data markings, just unique markings and a few stencils. It is nicely printed and should not be an issue if you use hot water.  The decals commemorate the 50th anniversary of the USAF and the plane was flown by Gen. Chuck Yeager.

Hasegawa's F-15s have possibly been superseded by other kits, but they are not difficult to find and do make into very nice models.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle

July 2020

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