gavman

Has anyone heard anything about The Danbury Mint (DM) offering diecast fighter jets in 1:72 scale? I would assume that they would do one-shots of different fighter models, rather than have different paint schemes of the same fighter type.

It is my understanding that they are taking reservations for a USAF 33rd FW, 58th FS "Gorillas" F-15C Eagle at US$99, payable in three monthly installments (but you will also be charged a $7.80 shipping and service fee).

If DM will be offering a comprehensive lineup of models, I would further suspect that they would be intended to be "museum pieces," such as the US$195 1:48 scale diecast AH-64D Apache Longbow from The Franklin Mint.

As far as I know, DM has NOT posted this model on its website...

gavman

The Danbury Mint F-15C Eagle: Brochure Panel 1

gavman

The Danbury Mint F-15C Eagle: Brochure Panels 2 & 3

gavman

The Danbury Mint F-15C Eagle: Brochure Panel 4

gavman

The Danbury Mint F-15C Eagle: Brochure Panel 5

gavman

The Danbury Mint F-15C Eagle: Brochure Panel 6

David Hingtgen

Overall, looks nice. Love the realistic retractable gear, and all opening/closing things. Now, let's nitpick:

1. WTF is up with the engines? Shiny black tubes with white interiors? Wrong color, shape, style, everything. It's like they messed with an F-14A's engines and stuck them in....

2. Hmmn. I suspect the nose gear door may be linked to the gear position, due to being functional. F-15's close all their gear doors after the gear's down--nose gear door shouldn't be open. (I cite this because it may be impossible to close it after the gear's down, due to the mechanism--main gear doors might also have this problem).

3. Due to being in mod-Eagle paint, and having AMRAAM's, it's obviously portraying a recent F-15C. Then why does it have the tailhook housing? Those were removed decades ago, F-15E's weren't even built with them. And the tailhook appears to be on the TOP of the shouldn't-be-there-anyways housing.

4. Those are pretty piss-poor AMRAAM's (both shape and color). And they appear to be mounted wrong--they look like an "X" head-on---they should be a "+" head-on.

5. Raised lines. Huh? Behind the ailerons, and on the stabs. F-15's are amazingly SMOOOOOOOOTH. Should be nothing visible in those areas, much less obvious raised areas (as opposed to the rather heavy engraved lines everywhere else).

6. Nose-cone, especially the tip, is off.

7. Right tailboom---missing the ALQ antenna. Can be either dome-shaped or rectangular depending on exact year/plane, but it should be there regardless.

8. Color's off--there's not enough contrast. Even a B&W photo will show the high-contrast of a freshly-painted current F-15C. (C'mon, there's no way this is a weathered faded scheme--they simply don't do that for diecast models, and look at those chrome-shiny engines)

9. Don't like the drop-tank shape.

10. Sidewinders aren't bad, but they're certainly nowhere as good as DW's.

10.5 All the external stores seem to match the main fuselage paint--they shouldn't. That worked for the previous scheme, but not this one.

11. For 100 bucks, I expect it to be a CURRENT F-15C, not an F-15A painted like a C with really weird engines.

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