FineMolds 1/72 F-15 at the Tokyo Hobby Show

[ya-gabor]

The eagle has landed on my workbench! It took some time for MN Modelar to stock them but at last it is here!!! I believe it had spent several months on high seas in a container before getting here in Europe.

I would like to thank Pali for this kit, since Christmas came early (after Easter) this year and this kit was in the stockings!

 

What can I say about the kit? Everything has been mentioned on pages above! All I can add it looks simply great! Bravo to FineMolds designers!

 

Best regards

Gabor

[MoFo]

Much like the FM Phantoms, I've done a bit of plotting of the F-15 sprues.

 

A few interesting things to note:

We've seen vertical tails marked H1, H2 and H4, meaning there's at least one unreleased sprue for H3.  It could be an 'early' USAF tail without the reinforcement strips at the tip of the leading edge (basically the USAF version of H1), which would be necessary for the A/B and early C/D, and seems the most logical guess.  At an outside shot, though, I guess they could be F-15E tails, with rudder reinforcements.

We're also 'missing' sprues P and Q (Japanese companies usually skip I and O).  There are a few possibilities - one could have an A instrument panel and wheels, the other could be could be cockpit details for the B.  More ambitiously, they could cover the E...

Something that really struck me is that most of the parts that would need to be re-tooled for the E are all on Sprue D.  Old Crew Dog posted a great list of differences here: 

 

 

Looking through his list, #1, 6, 9, 10 and 12 are all accounted for with existing sub-sprues (radome, tailplanes, airbrake).  #2 and 13 are already tooled.  And #5, 7, 8 and 14-20... are all on sprue D.  I doubt that's a coincidence, and really the only reason for some of the breakdown decisions is that they have pre-planned for a Strike Eagle.  Given that they've already tooled somewhere between 27 and 30 sprues for the kit (and upwards of 38 for the Phantom), doing one airframe sprue and one for the CFTs and pylons doesn't seem like much of a stretch.  They may never release it, but I'm convinced they designed the kit to accommodate it.