| McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagle Family | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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About the models: The Revell F-15 is typical of Revell kits: decent instructions, decals, and engineering. This one is a bit more complicated to build because it has a few more parts than some of the other Revell kits. It's a good kit, but should probably wait until the builder has a few other kits under their belt. NOTE: the kit DOES NOT include Massachusetts Air National Guard decals. I had not done that good a job painting or decaling this plane originally, so I later redid it with these aftermarket decals (from Bare Metal). I don't recall too much about the Italeri Strike Eagle. The engineering and detail was OK, but there were a few fit problems, and the weapons mix left something to be desired. It only includes markings for the prototype Strike Eagle, rather than squadron service markings. The AMRAAMs are from an F-22 kit, and are just wrong. THe Eagle doesn't carry weapons on those pylons, but I decided to put them there anyway. About the F-15 Eagle: Designed to replace aging F-4 Phantoms, and now now in widespread service with the US Air Force and across the world, the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is rivalled only by the Grumman Tomcat and Sukhoi-27 Flanker in the air superiority role, and is regarded as one of the most sophisticated combat aircraft ever created. The heart of the Eagle is its phenomenal performance. The greater than one-to-one thrust-to-weight ratio generated by its two Pratt & Whitney F-100-PW-229 afterburning turbofan engines enables the aircraft to achieve speeds in excess of 1600 mph (greater than Mach 2.5) which lets Eagles accelerate out of any trouble they may encounter. F-15s are operated by the USAF, as well as by Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Israel has flown the F-15 in action in various conflicts with its Arab neighbors, and in the 1983 Lebanon campaign. Eagles have so far claimed 96.5 confirmed victories with no losses, its kills including MiG-23s, MiG-25s, MiG-29s, and Iraqi Mirage F-1Qs. In the skies over Lebanon, Eagles and F-16s were outnumbered but easily defeated the Syrian MiG-21s and MiG-23s. Saudi Arabian F-15s also won victories over Iranian aircraft in 1984. Armament carried consists of AIM-9L Sidewinders, AIM-7M Sparrows and AIM-120A AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles) , as well as the internal 20 mm rotary cannon. The F-15 has appeared in both single and two-seat versions, and there is also a strike version, the F-15E. Eagles carry specially designed conformal fuel tanks on the fuselage sides. CFTs do not produce the drag normally associated with external tanks and actually produce some lift. They also have three hardpoints for mounting weapon's pylons. F-15Es have the same air to air capability as the F-15C, but include special avionics systems for ground strikes (with up to 24,500 pounds of ordnance), such as synthetic aperture radar (a mode of radar operation that can produce highly accurate ground maps), and the LANTIRN (Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night) system contained in two pods under the fuselage. The LANTIRN system includes a laser range finder and designator, two FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) sensors, one for targeting and one for navigation, and a ground mapping radar.
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Copyright ©2003 David Jong [Jong Productions, Ltd.], All Rights Reserved. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Updated: December 8, 2003. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
