Manufactured for the Republic of Korea air force, the F-15K Slam Eagle is an export version of the F-15E Strike Eagle.
Academy's F-15K is a re-release of its F-15E with newly tooled parts and decals. The light-gray molding features fine, delicately recessed panel lines. You can pose the canopy and speed brake open or closed, intake ramps raised or lowered, and position the rear stabilizers. Weaponry includes AIM-120C and AIM-X missiles, GBU-31 and GBU-38 JDAMS, SLAM-ER missiles, 600-gal. fuel tanks, and AN/AAQ-13/14 LANTIRN targeting pods.
The canopy left a lot to be desired: Along with thick moldings, panel lines molded on the inside, and a prominent mold seam down the center of both sections, on my sample the rear canopy came up slightly short at the top of the front. Also, there were dark specks in the plastic that I could not remove with sanding or polishing.
The cockpit featured nice raised detail for the side consoles and instrument panels, but it lacked sidewall detail. The multi-part ejection seats had molded-on shoulder straps and were missing the lap belts.
Landing-gear bays were surprisingly devoid of detail. However, the molded detail on the targeting pods and missile sprues was impressive.
The intakes challenged me with their prominent seams and ejector-pin marks. I skipped correcting them and installed them "as is." To hide the ducts, I installed the lowered intake ramps. They, too, had pin marks on the inside surfaces and needed sanding to fit. (After I had them fitted and installed, I learned the intake ramps are lowered when the engines are running!)
The nose section joins the rest of the fuselage just forward of the intakes, and that join seam needed sanding to get the mating surfaces flush for a strong construction. The separate main wings fit the fuselage perfectly, needing only a swipe with a sanding stick to hide the seam.
Directions are to cut off and replace the aft-most fairings on both sides of the rear stabilizers, as well as the center fairing between the burner cans. I used a razor saw and had no issues removing the fairings and attaching the replacement parts.
The fuel tanks have delicate edges; be careful removing them from the sprue. These needed careful test fitting to minimize fit issues and filler.
The conformal weapons pylons did not match the shape of the fuselage very well. I ended up gluing the back of them first, waiting overnight, then super gluing the fronts. The rest of the pylons fit perfectly.
I used Xtracolor FS36270 dark ghost gray; the glossy enamel eliminated the need of a gloss coat for decals. Natural metal areas on the rear fuselage were painted Alclad aluminum. The burner cans were amazing one-piece moldings that looked nice after a coat of Alclad steel.
After letting the paint dry for a couple of days, I was ready for decals. The comprehensive decal sheet has all the tiny stencils for the AIM fins as well as the weapons pylons and targeting pods. When I started applying the R.O.K markings, I realized that the dark ghost gray called for in the instructions was too light; it should have been FS36118 gunship gray, which would have produced a better contrast with the markings. Also, decals No. 67 are labeled 127 on the sheet. However, the Cartograf-printed decal sheet impresses with perfect registration and fine details, and includes numbers to model any of the first 40 aircraft in the R.O.K's inventory.
I found the rear stabilizer mounting holes were oversized, so the stabs had to be butt glued to the fuselage. The vertical fin tab slots were oversized, too, making alignment more worrisome.
I spent more than 35 hours on my Slam Eagle, mostly sanding and test-fitting the fuselage, tanks, and weapons pylons. The rest was devoted to all those wonderful, hard-to-see decals. The model measures almost perfectly to scale and renders an accurate R.O.K. bird. However, I would recommend it only to experienced builders.
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