I have a desire to build an Israeli F-15C and trying to decide how to go about it. I’m not talking about the F-15I, the two seaters. I’d like to do their current air defense fighter. I found a Hasegawa kit that’ll cost about $150 for the kit and shipping. I’m hoping to do better than that. It appears the Israeli jet has the same vertical stabilizers as the F-15J, the small probes on top of both. I’m wondering how difficult it would be to use a “J” as a starting point. Adding Israeli weapons for one visible difference. I’m sure the cockpit is very different and that’ll take more research. I have some books that show aircraft both with and without the conformal fuel tanks depending on the mission. I am hoping for info and opinions from the group about how to go about this project. Thanks.
Are you sure you aren’t looking at the GWH kit at $150? The Hasegawa kit should only be about a third of that price, and possibly even cheaper on the secondary market since it’s an older kit. Although the GWH kit is newer and very nice, the Hasegawa kit still holds up IMHO, especially for the single seaters. Fortunately, both kinds of tail boom pods are in all of the Hasegawa F-15 kits since they are on a duplicated common sprue. Although Tamiya makes a F-15, it’s an old kit and not very detailed. Nothing like any modern Tamiya kit. The Revell and Monogram kits are also old. I’d put the Hasegawa kit over all of them, except the expensive GHW kit, so that would be my recommendation for the base kit.
You’ll need to find decals and some Israeli stores, like Python missiles, and they usually carry an Elta 8222 ECM pod on the port forward Sparrow station.
Thank you for the info Dwill104! This is one of the reasons I posted this. Having never built a Hasegawa F-15, I was unaware that the kit offers both tails so that’s good to know. I have a couple of Israeli weapon sets and decals as well. Yes, unfortunately, there is the one kit on eBay and he wants $117.00 for it and $20.00 shipping. It would be great to go with that but I can get a Hasegawa F-15C for a lot less now that I know about the tail probes in those kits. Again, thanks for enlightening me!
