David's Eagle

[kurnass77]

Ehi guys,

with the Fishbed finished, its time to move to the next model,taking advantage ( unfortunately) of the current situation.

I opted for one of the planes actually confronting the MiG-21 ( and the MiG-23) over the Bekaa,the mainstay of the IDF/AF fighter force,the F-15 Baz.

The subject is more than know and don't need any introduction by me, so I'll only add that will be Baz 695 of The Twin Tail squadron, adorned with four kill roundel.

So,the mandatory pics,first the box...

 

 

 

...some of the goodies,Aires exhaust, Eduard PEs,Paragon Python3 and Magrefa rails and ,despite not in the image, Master brass AOA probes.

 

 

 

The markings are courtesy of Isradecals.

 

 

And finally the reference books.

 

 

 

That's all for now, stay tuned guys for the next updates.

Thanks all for watching, and please, stay safe 

 

Gianni

[Thadeus]

Nice! Can't wait to see some progress!

[Aigore]

Ooooooh....neato projectm mate 😄

[my favs are F`s]

+1 🙂 You're off to a good start! Make it real good. I'll follow with interest . 🙂

[kurnass77]

Thanks guys,and about the start, I decided to begin replacing the air vents in the kit with the Eduard's ones.

The problem is that in the real plane, these vents are flush with the fuselage and not as suggested from Eduard,so with a very sharp blade I've carved the plastic in preparation for the PEs and opened the four small holes in the tail area.

 

 

So after gluing in position the parts ( and a pair of fingers cutted)  I've sanded smooth the PEs with the help of the CA glue used to paste the parts and refining all with some Gunze Dissolved Putty

 

 

 

Still need to add these on the upper surface of the air intakes.

In the meantime I've replaced the ACES seat with an Escapac from Quickboost.

In real, the IAF ordered the birds with the Escapac IC-7 in place of the ACES 2 ( probably for lower the price ) , but after a fatal ejection in the early '90s decided to replace the IC-7 and by 1993 all the fleet was upgraded with the new seats.

My model will be a late '80s Baz,so here the necessity of the change;anyway the closest 1/72 rendition for an IC-7 is an Escapac designed for an A-4 at which I've slightly raised the headrest and added a new bottle and a pair of cable on the rear and one on the right side of the headrest.

 

 

And painted,miss only the ejection handle between the pilot' legs

 

 

 

That's all for now guys, see soon with more updates

 

Stay healty friends,

 

Gianni

 

 

[Aigore]

Outstanding! That's friggin tiny...

[kurnass77]

Yup!

But is normality for me, between 1/72 bird and commission for 28 mm and 54 mm figures, well, I'm a minipainter!

I've finished add the PEs grills more ppics soon.

 

 

Gianni

[kurnass77]

Good day all guys.

I made some little progress;in these strange days I focused my attention on the pit and avionic bay areas and added the last air grills, in particular on the air intakes and the rounded one  behind the cockpit,as visible here .

In order to assure a good fit,instead of carving the plastic and left a little edge to assure the PE to grip into,I've glued the grill to a section of brass tube of the correct diameter and holed the plastic. At this point the grill-tube combination simply slide in place without problem.

All was sanded smooth flush with the fuselage with the help of some Mr Dissolved putty.

 

 

In the meantime I've bought a old , extra sheet of Eduard PE ,as here the PEs for the air intakes vari-ramp is more correct in lenght,I don't understand why Eduard modified this details in the more recent set...

The avionic bay, and in minor measure the pit required a good amount of work to have something of decent to show.

The bay,especially the bulkhead, received some scratch details in plasticard, lead wire and Eduard PE, as for the pit.

Here I added a new oxigen hoses and microphone cord out of a guitar string and lead wire, new seat rails and throttles from plasticard.

 

 

One extra advantage of the old PE sheet is the presence of a no painted IP;this mean that I don't need to match any colors already present...

Anyway I added some of the bigger switch out of stretched sprue and Archer rivets.

 

 

One of the big effort about the avionic bay involved the right side; here the three relay boxes was detailed with plasticard and the punch & die,the circuit breakers with some Archer rivets,all finished with lead wire for the electical cables.

The rear bulkhead of the bay received a similar treatment.

 

 

Finally,I reworked the canopy oleo and control stick ( not in the image), scatched the canopy remover and builded the PE avionic boxes( these little, damned handles...),detailing all with a combination of lead and electrical wires.

 

 

 

That's all for now, I think that very soon I can add some color  so stay tuned.

 

In the meantime I wish a happy Easter to all and stay safe and healty guys!!!!

 

Gianni

[BLACK_MAMBA]

Looking very good thus far!

[kurnass77]

Thanks Mamba!

I shot some primer so more pics soon

 

Gianni

[Aigore]

Really nice!  The spicing up of the pit is  awesome!

[The Underdog]

Gianni,

From what we've seen from you before, this is going to be spectacular. "No pressure"

because we know you've got this! I'm looking forward to seeing what and how, you're

going to be able to do with this project - in "Rocking the Eagle!"

[Gremlin]

On 4/2/2020 at 2:24 PM, kurnass77 said:

 

Still need to add these on the upper surface of the air intakes.

In the meantime I've replaced the ACES seat with an Escapac from Quickboost.

In real, the IAF ordered the birds with the Escapac IC-7 in place of the ACES 2 ( probably for lower the price ) , but after a fatal ejection in the early '90s decided to replace the IC-7 and by 1993 all the fleet was upgraded with the new seats.

My model will be a late '80s Baz,so here the necessity of the change;anyway the closest 1/72 rendition for an IC-7 is an Escapac designed for an A-4 at which I've slightly raised the headrest and added a new bottle and a pair of cable on the rear and one on the right side of the headrest.

 

 

That's all for now guys, see soon with more updates

 

Stay healty friends,

 

Gianni

 

 

 excellent project and good step by step mode for this F-15A IDF. I have the same idea in the future and I really do not know that IDF use Escapac instead ACES II. Thanks!!

 

What another changes it s need from F-15C? I know the wheels are different  and maybe some things on cockpit, but if you can say all the changes to do,  it would be highly appreciate.

 

Thanks in advance

[kurnass77]

Thanks all guys!

I put some primer on the pit parts, just to see how the details pop out,and think isn't too bad.

 

 

Tomorrow in the morning, I'll start with the "real" colors...

And now, Gremlin more about the change depend from timeframe and aircraft' Block, but for a -C, externally you need the remove the ECM fairing on top of the port fin and replace it with an harminic balancer,like the one already present on the starboard fin.

If you will do a Block 35-36 bird ( recognizable by the serail number in the 5XX range for the Cs and 2XX for the Ds), the planes had rounded domes similar to those of the ALQ-135 mounted on USAF F-15C on the tail boom.You need also the repositioning the blade antennas under the nose area and remove the rounded one  behind the NLG.

For the new position of the antennas is better you choose a precise bird and simply work with relative references ( pics!).

The pit are pratically as per USAF standard at the time of delivery,the difference are for the two-seater tha had the rear office modified with additional MFD as was destined from the beginnig as operational plane with a attack vocation ( PGM ),and after tha Improved Baz upgrade, was painted for both one and two seater in black,I think for NVGs compatibility.

 

Gianni

[Aigore]

Really popping!:D

[Gremlin]

excellent Gianni, grazie millie

[kurnass77]

Hi all guys, a quick update, but first of all, I hope you're all fine!

Ok,I've sprayed some Gunze H-317 on the  pit, slightly desaturated for a scale rendition, and some gloss black on the avionic bay

 

 

With the colors dry,I've used some Alclad White Aluminium on the avionc bay,followed by some Armoured Glass darkened with a bit of Smoke,both Alclad.

I'm sorry for the bad pics,but the metallic are a bit too shiny actually, and with the strong light of my workbench the color isn't show properly,but in the last image you've a decent feel of how look in person.I think to use some matt on this area to have a more dull apparence.

 

 

In the meantime, waiting for the colors to be perfectly dry to begin paint the details, I've glued,sanded and rescribed the first wing and lowered the ailerons as per pics.

 

 

That's all for now, thanks for stop by and stay tuned for more progress!

 

Thanks all,

 

Gianni

 

[kurnass77]

Hi all guys,hope you're all fine!

I've made some progress with the pit.

Now all the main details are painted.

 

 

 

Now the details of the front bulkhead of the avionic bay was more visible...more or less.

 

 

The avionic boxes of the  starboard sidewall

 

 

And the PEs boxes;in reality here the contrast of the colors are more subtle, the strong light of the workbench show the things more "hard" that by naked eye...

 

 

So, I can assemble all the elements and glue together the forward half fuselage.

Stay tuned and healty my friends

 

Gianni

[BLACK_MAMBA]

Looking very good Kurnass! Hard to believe this is braille scale...!

[Qian]

Nice work so far, Gianni. Hard to believe that its 1/72!

[kurnass77]

Thanks guys,you're too kind, in reality I think seriously that here around is plenty of great modeller.

As said, the pit is complete now.

 

 

As visible,the contrats of the avionic boxes are less stark that in the previous post,also note the missile-like' canopy remover is already glued in place

 

 

I've also added a small panel on the upper left corner of the IP;in reality it will be attached to the lip of the IP glareshield but there I've no room.

I assure that anyway when the pit is in place look good.

In the meantime I reworked the 2nd wing and started to work the resin Python 3 and jet exhaust and oredered a Res-kit wheel set,so stay tuned for next progress.

 

Thanks all,

Gianni

[ChernayaAkula]

Wonderful work!

[kurnass77]

Thanks my feirnd!

I've actually  little drama,as I've pratically finished the Tamiya green cap glue and all is left are CA glue,and with the shop closed I can't obtain too soon.

 

Gianni

[kurnass77]

Hi all my friends.

Without styrene glue I've made very few progress;I know that in some areas join the parts are a little tricky,so I proceded with a dry fit and some problem surfaced, with the more evident the forward fuselage-main body creating a important step.

 

 

I added some stryrene strip to have more plastic to "bite" for gluing,with the benefit to reduce the step between the parts

 

 

With this done I moved forward and glued the two half forward fuselages and the pit; when all was dry I decided to improve the IP glareshield that are devoid of details in the kit.

 

 

Ok ok, not the cleanest  and clear job to watch...

 

 

...but a bit of dark grey helped to check if the added details look ok or not. I'm quite happy how turned out, what do you think guys?

Obviously the HUD itself and the projecting lens will be added!

 

 

I'm currently working on the Python 3 and rails,as I've only CA glue now,so next time probably I'll post some update about the weapons.

4 May is the date for the first re-opening of activity here in Italy,hope that the modeling shop will be one of the activity to open...

 

In the meantime thanks all gents to stop by and stay safe!

 

Cheers,

 

Gianni

[BLACK_MAMBA]

That glare shield looks just fine to me!😉