Review by: Geoff Coughlin (Dec 2011)
Our thanks to Revell for supplying our review sample.
A little bit of inspiration…
The Kit
Revell are certainly on a roll these days with plenty of new-tool kits being released, such as their Panther Ausf D in 1:35 scale and Arado Ar-196A-3 in 1:32 to mention just two.
But it’s not just these larger scales that are attracting interest, with the Eurofighter Typhoon F2 single seater one of a growing number of models appearing in 1:144 scale.
Box and Contents
The box artwork is usually very good and it’s impressive here with an F-15E climbing at speed resplendent in its Tiger Meet of the Americas scheme in 2005!
The light blue-grey sprues are packaged well as part of this starter set and no damage is apparent.
Taking the main components first, they are quite well tooled, feeling quite hard and brittle-like. No distortion was apparent and a dry fit of the fuselage promises a decent fit and overall shape looks pretty good. Moving to the wings, they are reasonable and the wheel wells are detailed and a realistic scale depth.
Detail Sprues
The components feature recessed panel lines, although they may appear a bit over scale for some; the trick in this scale I think is to not go overboard on the weathering and start accentuating the panel line detail too much as it may look unconvincing.
The cockpit is spartan when compared to references and the seat only really bears a passing resemblance to the original design. Disappointingly, there are no decals for the instrument panels. Undercarriage detail is subtle and delicate, reflecting the original units quite well.
You get some stores for your F-15E, plus two wing fuel tanks.
This kit sits in the pocket-money bracket it’s fair to say that it is one aimed at the junior and novice market.
Clear Parts
The clear parts look clear enough with a separate front windscreen and rear hood. In this instance, it may be better closing the canopy and just creating a decent overall impression of an Eagle cockpit through careful painting of the kit parts and adding some scratched seat belts and a harness.
Instructions
The Revell instructions follow their usual exploded stages format. Location of parts is clear but colour paint coding is for Revell paints only. However, the colour names are provided and this will help you to match your own choice of paints to the overall Gunship Grey scheme.
This is a basic model and so should present little difficulty in working out where all the parts are located, even for inexperienced modellers.
Decals
The decals seem good. Certainly colour saturation and register is good and all markings are accurate and sharp in their detail.
This is probably the best part of the package; good quality decals will make a world of difference to your completed model, although you’ll have to watch that carrier film on all those ‘tiger stripes’ applicable to the “Tiger Meet” scheme included.
Conclusion
Basically, if you are into small-scale modelling this kit is definitely worth a look, especially as given the low price you could build a whole squadron of them!
FEATURE STAR RATING (out of five)
Quality of moulding ***
Accuracy ***
Instructions ***
Decals ****
Subject choice ****
Overall ***
Geoff C.