Cutting Edge 1/48
F-15E Strike Eagle Seamless Intakes

Those Intakes

Cutting Edge has been really stepped up their line of seamless intakes and this release is one of their latest masterpieces. Designed for the Revell's 1/48 F-15E Strike Eagle kit, this set provides a new set of intakes, new intake ducts complete with a molded-in-place ramp, and F100 engine compressor faces. While the intakes and engine faces are molded in gray resin, the ducts are molded in white to save you a step or two as you'd otherwise have to paint the ducts yourself.

While the intakes are drop-in replacements for the kit, they are designed to be up and locked on the Revell kit. If you've ever seen an Eagle come to life, those intakes tip down at low power settings (like this one) and again at high speed. The Academy 1/48 Strike Eagle kit was the only kit to capture that detail, but you can tweak these to do the same thing for the Revell kit - take a look at the Eagle in Action to see what I mean.

So why all the fuss with the Revell kit? It is the nicest F-15E in 1/48 scale and is bested only by the Tamiya kit in 1/32 scale. This detail set will save you from having to fill the seams down those intake trunks in the Revell kit and still give you a nice view of the Pratts at the end of those ducts.

Installation requires some thinning/trimming of the intake walls on the kit as they replicated part of the intake trunk as part of the exterior fuselage half. These will have to be thinned in order to accommodate the resin trunks. Otherwise, this set is a drop-in conversion.

The instructions clearly state that this set was designed for the Revell kit and not likely to fit into other 1/48 Eagles. You're on your own if you'd like to try...

Conclusions

This is a nice enhancement to the Revell 1/48 F-15E Strike Eagle kit and will ease your workload if you've been dreading the prospect of filling and painting inside those intake trunks.

Definitely recommended!

My sincere thanks to Meteor Productions for this review sample!