Reviews : Tamiya McDonell Douglas F-15C Eagle

The Tamiya 1/48 F-15C Eagle is an excellent kit with quality molded parts that have deep recessed panel lines that will readily take a panel wash. Each landing strut has an internal metal rod installed inside of them to increase the strength of these parts. A full complement of Aim missiles, Sidewinder missiles and three external fuel tanks are provided. Unfortunately, the wheels are not molded in a weighted configuration, so the builder may opt for resin after market wheels. The decals are thick, but will adhere to the model with some Microset decal setting solution. I opted for the Gulf Spirit version of this aircraft because I liked the Eagle head decals on the inner surfaces of the vertical tail planes. Unfortunately no black stripe decals are provided for the missles and so I manually painted them on. I used light ghost gray and dark ghost gray Vallejo Acrylic Paint which was applied using an Iwata HPC airbrush with a 0.3 mm needle. A panel wash was applied to the model with Tamiya Black Panel Liner. My go to glues are Tamiya Extra Thin liquid Cement and Regular Tamiya liquid Cement which has a slightly slower curing time. I also added the 1/48 Aires F-15C Late Exhaust Nozzles set that is designed for the Hasegawa F-15C kit. Therefore, additional sanding and fitting of the Tamiya kit parts was necessary. In my opinion these after market resin parts make this kit into something special. Overall I highly recommend this kit due to it's reasonable price point and ready availability.

This is a pretty nice kit that's not too expensive. It went together fairly easily and with very few problems. The only fitment issue I found was in assembling the nose as the radome did not line-up perfectly, probably because the nose section didn't fit together quite right. But after assembly and painting, it is not noticable unless you pick-up the finished model and look at it closely. The other issue I found was that this kit uses the older style exhaust nozzles with the turkey feathers instead of the later style nozzles I was hoping for. The cockpit detail was created by the use of decals and is thus pretty sparse, but with the pilot figure in the cockpit and the canopy closed, it's not really visible anyhow. I was pleasantly suprised that the kit included parts to build the model with deployed or retracted landing gear and included parts for closed gear doors. I wish all companies would do this as I'm one of those that builds all my kits with closed canpies and gear doors and uses flight stands. I used four AIM-120C AMRAAMs from a Hosegawa weapons set to replace the four AIM-7 Sparrows included in the kit for the under fusilage mountings and an aftermarket decal set to build an aircraft from the 159th FS/125th FW FANG out of Jacksonville IAP (my hometown ANG unit when I was growing up) and am very happy with the final results.

I was fortunate in my AF career to work with the F-15s, both stateside with Eglin and Langley and overseas with Bitburg and Soesterberg. Needless to say I think its a beautiful jet and Tamiya's kit is an accurate example of this air superiority fighter. The kit is molded in gray and has very good instructions for assembly. I have been told that if you open a tamiya kit and spill it out on your workbench it will build itself. Well, it might not be that easy, but the fit of the parts and detail is outstanding. During construction I only had one issue - the pilots seat. The instructions show the seat placement but when I installed it I couldn't put the excellent pilot figure in the cockpit. This could be operator error (i.e. modeler error) but no matter what I did the only way to make it work was to put the pilot in the seat and then install the seat. I wanted my Eagle to have all of its fangs so the stores include the jamming pods, AIM-7s and AIM-9s. This kit does not have AIM-120's but I am sure you could find those. I chose decals from the 33rd TFW at Eglin (I was the liaison officer between my unit and the 58th TFS)and the finished kit really looks great even with my average modeling skills. I would highly recommend this kit to modelers with some experience through master modelers as it is a joy to build.

I was a little apperhansive when I first opened this kit. I was expecting more detail in the cockpit area, being that this was a Tamiya kit. Overall the detail in the rest of the kit was very good, with nicely engraved panel lines and rivets. I used the photo-etch cockpit detail set for the Academy F-15C kit, as there was no Tamiya set. The Photo-etch fit like it was made for this kit,with no problems encountered. This set really brought the cockpit to life. The parts fit was excellent. The decal sheet was excellent and offered several aircraft. As I live near STL MO. I chose to use a STL Cardinals commerative aftermarket decal sheet on the model. Overall I am very happy with the way the kit turned out. I would recommend this kit. I would invest in a PE or resin cockpit, as it adds so much to the overall appearance of the model.The kit cockpit offers decals for the instruments.

I've had good luck with Tamiya in the past but I'm pretty disappointed with this model. There are some pretty big fit issues with the fuselage that will take a significant amount of putty to fix. Second, the cockpit detail is pretty horrible - just decals with almost no plastic detail. Also, they forgot to put a notch for the throttle to be placed into (not a huge issue but indicative of the lack of overall quality). They also spend a lot of effort to give detail that will be covered up in the body and nose of the plane. All and all, not that great of a model.

I had some major fit issues with the forward fuselage. The rear fuselage went together okay. However there was a major gap with the upper and lower halves up front. Yes you can fill the gap with putty. But then you end up having to fair the radome into the upper fuselage. Quite a bit of work is needed to make this area even presentable. Not quite what is expected from Tamiya. Tamiya, you need to go redesign this.

This example of the f-15c is one of my favorites. Fit and detail were great. There's a pretty detailed radar behind the nose cone, but no way to display it. Ordinance loads are either eights AAM's and three fuel tanks, or four AAM's and two ECM pods. Decals were generous, both common and build specific.

The Tamiya 1/48 F-15C is a high ranking kit in itself. Although the cockpit and exhaust are somewhat sparse, with some care it can build up to a great kit. The fit is excellent. The decals are also pretty high quality.

The Tamiya 1/48 F-15C is a high ranking kit in itself. Although the cockpit and exhaust are somewhat sparse, with some care it can build up to a great kit. The fit is excellent. The decals are also pretty high quality.

In the process of building this kit now. Best thing about it is cost. I was a little disappointed in the external detail. The panel lines are shallow and sparse compared to other Tamiya models I've built.

another one of my favorites and I have one there's a lot of detail in this kit!!!