Reviewed by Dave Williams

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Black Box’s new cockpit improves the looks of the big Tamiya Strike Eagle kit. Cast in tan resin, the replacement cockpit consists of new cockpit tubs, sidewalls, control sticks, center deck, rear bulkhead and ejection seats. A new rear instrument panel is provided, however you are to reuse the kit front panel. The only other kit parts reused are the rear cockpit side controllers, rear instrument shroud grab handle, and a subpanel that goes on the lower right side of the rear instrument panel.

Like most modern fighters, the F-15E cockpit is fairly “clean” with little of the clutter seen on earlier fighters like the F-4. For example, the F-4’s cockpit sidewalls were littered with boxes and wires, while the Strike Eagle’s sidewalls consist simply of a coupe of levers and switches in the front and circuit breaker panels in the rear. Most of the added detail in the set consists of the hoses and cables for items like the crew’s oxygen masks and microphones and various details on the inside of the cockpit tub vertical walls under the instrument panels (out of the way, but still visible).

Another area of improvement is the rear instrument panel shroud, which also covers the center deck. Black Box’s replacement shroud includes the rear of the instruments, which are visible under the center cutout, and the center deck includes additional detail that is lacking on the kit parts. All the parts were perfectly cast in my set, an impressive achievement considering that some of the hoses and wires stick up away from parts and might be good candidates for damage during demolding. Packaging is very good, with no damage evident in my set. The new rear instrument panel retains the use of the clear CRT screen part from the kit. One minor nit is that the eject mode select handle is missing from the lower right corner of the rear instrument panel, as it was missing on the kit part.

Two detailed ACES II seats are included, with slightly different belt patterns for a more natural look. These seats appear to be newly molded for the kit and are not carryovers from the BB F-16 cockpits.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

One minor error is that no canopy breakers are included, nor mentioned in the instructions. However, this may just be an instruction sheet error as the kit canopy breakers are separate parts and can as easily be used on BB seats as they were on the kit seats.

In summary, this is a nice set to improve the cockpit of your Beagle.

Recommended.

Review sample kindly provided by Jef of Black Box

Dave Williams
IPMS/USA 19050

Black Box and Combat Series products are available online from the Black Box web site.

Text and Images Copyright © 2004 by Dave Williams
This Page Created on 30 August, 2004
Last updated 31 August, 2004

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