Everyone
knows by now what a sucker for special schemes I am, and 2004 was a bumper year
with the JASDF celebrating it’s 50th anniversary. Having already
built the Sakura Eagle using an old Hasegawa kit bought from ebay, when I saw
this release from Fujimi on HLJ, it just had to be bought!
The
following is not a blow-by-blow technical review, but just a précis of the
build in general terms.
As
soon as I opened the box, my heart sank – not anything to do with the quality
(or otherwise) of the kit, but the fact that Fujimi had made this release in
bright red plastic! That means that it’s very brittle and anything that’s
not meant to be red will take many
coats of paint to cover. I also noticed that some of the panel lines on the top
half of the fuselage and wings were raised, whereas everything underneath was
recessed. Odd.
I
replaced the seat with a resin one – really the kit Fujimi seat is appalling
and quite possibly the worst single part of this kit. I also noticed that the
exhaust nozzles were of the early petalled type whereas I needed ones without
petals. I had an Aries set of F15E nozzles that are really lovely, but decided
instead to nick the petal-less nozzles from one of my Academy F15’s and use
the Aries set on this when I get around to it. This is due to the difference in
build between the two kits. I have to say I was WELL impressed with these
Academy nozzles – they are easy to build up (with care and patience) and they
really look the business after some appropriate painting.
The
build went together reasonably well with not too much use of filler (no more
than I had used on the Hasegawa kit), the worse area being the fitting of the
intakes to the main body, but even this was nothing too terrible. I was
beginning to wonder just why the Fujimi kit is such a shocker.
I
usually hand-paint everything I build (I don’t have an airbrush), but I
didn’t want to do this with such a solid all-over colour, so a trip to
Halfords (car accessories chain in the UK) got me a big can of primer and the
tone of red I thought best matched the real thing. This was a very tricky task!
I have seen many photos of the ‘Red Eagle’ but of course never seen it ‘in
the flesh’. On the box, the photo is in full-on sunlight and, with the print
process looks to be a very vivid red, whereas the photos I had seen on the net
and in books I have suggest it is a darker red than, for example, that used on
the Red Arrows. So I settled for ‘Citroen Venetian Red’ and I think it works
rather well.
Having
sprayed the whole thing and feeling happy with the result, the biggest test was
upon me – how well would the decals work? The sheet is very impressive: large
and very full indeed with all the white line-work as well as the multitude of
grey-backed stencils. The white looked thick enough to prevent bleed-through of
the red colour, but I had chosen a fairly dark shade of red and I would NOT want
to have pink rather than white lines! I started with the underside of the
horizontal stabilators and was very relieved that there was no bleed-through
whatsoever. Not only that, but the decals bedded in really well when helped with
a little microset. All systems go – again!
The
next problem remains unresolved. The undercarriage doors are completely wrong
and the instructions demand that they all be glued in the open position which,
of course, on F15’s does not happen unless the undercarriage is actually
moving from up to down (or down to up) position. Only 3 doors remain open when
it is on the ground – one for the nose wheel and one each for the main wheels.
So I ignored Fujimi’s instructions and went about it my own way.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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To
sum up: it took me a very long time to complete this kit, mostly due to my
insecurities about deciding how to paint it. Once I had overcome that, it was
quite an enjoyable build. Yes, there are some inaccuracies and there are
probably a whole host more that I, not being an F-15 expert, am blissfully
unaware of, but it looks like Red Eagle to me and that’s what I bought the kit
for. Having built both the Hasegawa and the Fujimi, I’m now keen to have a go
at the Academy. But I need some kind decal company (like Platz) to create 1/48
F-15J JASDF 50th Anniversary decals to put on it…hint, hint….That
nice blue-splinter one also from Komatsu would do rather nicely.
Steve
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