Reviewed by Jim Rotramel
 

HyperScale is proudly sponsored by Meteor Productions

First of all, before I start: I came up with this idea and have a close, non-financial association with Meteor Productions. While I’m truth telling, as you’ll note from the photos, I’m an average modeler who makes his fair share of mistakes. So, if I can do this, I bet you can, too!

As anyone who has built the Tamiya 1/32 scale F-15 kit will tell you, the intakes suck, and not in a good way—sink holes along the bottom, seams along the sides and, as if that isn’t enough, the USAF didn’t help things a bit by having the exterior color extend six feet into the intake. The solution is that the intakes needed to be cut laterally (six feet into the trunk) instead of longitudinally—something the injection guys haven’t figured out how to do yet.

This is (in principle) a simple kit with only three parts—you cut it off the casting blocks, glue it together and treat it like the kit pieces. They’re even cast in the right generic colors if you don’t feel like painting them (paint them anyway). The only trick is the alignment of the parts. Because of the (difficult) casting process, there are no alignment tabs, so you have to manually align the pieces so that they align on the inside—I recommend slow setting, gap filling CA. Also (this is IMPORTANT), don’t forget to drill out the small holes on the outside of the front portions for the air data sensors before installing the assembly in the lower fuselage.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Left outboard seam	Left inboard seam	Right inboard seam	Right outboard seam	Exterior seams
Filled, pre-painting	Left, pre-painting	Left, post-painting	The finished product

The fit of the parts is snug and no worse than the kit parts, but that doesn’t mean they are trouble free. There is a nasty gap where the intakes turn vertical. You can see from the photos that I filled them without installing the moveable ramps, but I don’t recommend that. Here is what I think will work best:

1. Paint everything before assembling the inlets.

2. After (or before) assembling the inlet pieces, check the fit of the air data sensors to ensure you’ve drilled the holes wide enough, but don’t install them yet.

3. Install the movable ramps.

4. Install the inlet assembly as per the instructions, but use gap filling CA on the bottom front of the inlets to secure them when you fill the gap. To fill the gap, I think you’ll find that CA works better than putty, just don’t let it set too long before sanding it down! Use compressed air to clean out the sanding dust.

5. Touch up the paint where you sanded it away.

6. Use tweezers to install the air data probes with CA (from the streaks you can see that were left by the zip kicker, you can tell that that wasn’t a good idea).

7. Install the compressor faces.

That’s it. I think you’ll find this kit a real enhancement to the Tamiya F-15 that is very simple to install.
 

Thanks to Cutting Edge Modelworks for the review sample

Images and Text Copyright © 2005 by Jim Rotramel
This Page Created on 04 May, 2005
Last updated 04 May, 2005

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