This is my
conversion
of the Revell Monogram F-15E in 1/48th to an Israeli F-15I. Most people are
familiar wit the Revell kit so I won't go into detail there, but suffice it to
say it builds into an excellent model and has excellent fit. There is a set
available from Cutting Edge to do the conversion, but I decided to do the work
myself as it's not difficult. An excellent resource for those considering
the conversion is "The Kfir's Lair" website, located at http://kfir.hobbyvista.com/raamconvert.htm,
I used the article there for all of the information related to the conversion.
The ARC Walkaround page also has some excellent photos available that I found
useful in the process.
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Rather than re-hash
everything listed there, I'll just go into some of the details of my specific
build. I used the burner cans from one of my Hasegawa F-15C kits as I wasn't
going to use them anyway. A little bit of trimming and sanding and they go right
onto the inner part of the exhaust supplied in the Revell kit. I did choose to
drop the ailerons on my model, as well as the horizontal stabilizers. I used the
Squadron scrbing tool to free them, and proceeded to re-position per the
reference photos. As the kit cockpit is quite good I decided to use it, with the
only substitution being a set of nicely detailed resin seats from Legend of
Korea. Regarding the conversion, I highly recommend removing both the ECM
fairing at the top of the port tail, and the mass balance on the starboard side
of the kit to assure your replacements are the same size.
Paints were a
combination of Model Master and PolyScale acrylics, airbrushed freehand.
Although reference photos of the cockpit of the IDF jets are hard to come by, I
knew to paint it black. Details followed the standard "E" model as
supplied in the kit. A coat of Future was followed by the application
of the Sky's decals, which went on very nicely. The final finish is Polyscale
flat. To load-out my Ra'am I chose to use the kit supplied Sidewinders, and air
to ground weapons from Hasegawa's weapons set D. These consisted of two
GBU-10's on the wing pylons and four GBU 12's on the fuselage.
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This was an
enjoyable build and the conversion was easily accomplished without the
aftermarket set. I hope you enjoy the pictures!
Joe
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