Yellow F-15 ARF Assembly Thread
I'm doing a group-build on a few of these babies and thought I would do a pictoral while I go. If you guys are interested, that is. I'm excited to get to work on the assembly of this jet because it's the nicest ARF I've ever seen. Everyone is saying that these days, I know, but it really is. I call it "assembly" because I always laugh when I see "build" written in reference to ARF's. This one requires no building, just adding my stuff, but I thought some of you might be interested. I'll start posting pics in the next couple of days. I gotta give a shout-out to my buddy Shaun for his help, advice and good service.
I'll post some general pics of what came in the boxes first. I am really impressed with the gear. Everyone's making good landing gear these days, it seems. These came with all the odds and ends like tubing, spare screws and clips, and metal t-fittings. They also included adjustable valves for the gear, brakes and speed-brake--though I plan to use Ultra Precision gear/door sequencers.
I'm also very impressed with the pipe. I was told it was of better quality than the Tam pipes I've bought previously, and a side-by-side comparison has me in agreement. This pipe was $50 less, too. It came with mounting tabs for the back, too, which my Tam pipes didn't come with. They shipped it with little graduated wood rings taped to the back to protect the exhaust end from crushing which was a thoughtful idea.
Shaun suggested I shim the landing gear in because the mounting plates leave the gear stance more splayed out than scale. I used a 1/4"x 2.5" piece of 1/8" lite ply and glued it to the outer rail. This step added about 5 minutes to the assembly, but I can already see how much better it looks without the gear split out to far.
More to come!