The F-15C has been license built for and used by the Japanese Air Self Defence Force as the Mitsubishi F-15J since 1981 and is still a mainstay of that force. One unit, currently known as the Tactical Fighter Training Squadron, was formed in 1981 to act as an aggressor squadron and has been equipped with the F-15J for some years. This model is based on one of their F-15Js, airframe 903, with markings from the time when it was based at Nyutabaru Air Base in Miyazaki Prefecture from 2014 to 2016.

The Platz 1/72 F-15J has been around for some years now, first being released in 2015, and subsequently released in a bewildering variety of boxings – Scalemates lists 36! - the vast majority of which are unchanged except for special decal options.

Such a ubiquitous kit would seem to hardly need introduction, however, for those who have not seen one, the kit comes on five sprues containing a total of 187 parts, not all of which are used – these include multiple missiles that aren’t carried by the Aggressor Squadron and are great additions to the spares box! There’s one clear sprue with a two-part clear canopy that unfortunately has a prominent mould line across the top that takes a lot of careful sanding and polishing to remove. A tri-fold instruction sheet and decals for one aircraft round out the package – no PE or resin in this kit although a PE fret is offered by Platz separately. As mentioned, the decals, printed by Cartograf, are for a single airframe, no. 903, which have prominent blue special markings across the nose and wings – I have not been able to find out the purpose of these; please leave a comment if you know.

The parts are moulded in a darkish grey, quite hard plastic and feature engraved panel lines and detail – this is heavier than, say, the Hasegawa F-15 kit, and may be too prominent for some – I find the Hasegawa kit’s ones are a bit TOO fine, but to each their own!

Construction starts with the cockpit; this is nicely done with lots of fine detail and a four-part ejection seat. Decals are provided for the IP and side control panels. Once complete, the cockpit is enclosed in the nose halves and a separate nose cone attached. Construction then turns to the fuselage, beginning with the full-length engine intake and exhaust trunking with compressor fans and afterburner cans at each end. This assembly is enclosed by the horizontally-split rear fuselage/wing centre-section halves. The nose is attached to this with a very positive attachment point, following which the canopy, either open or closed, and air intakes are attached. A fairing covers the rear cockpit not used in this model and the ‘barn door’ air brake can be affixed either open of closed. Fit of all these parts is generally very good with just some minor filler here and there.

Construction then turns to the exhaust cans, which are made up of 21 parts each, including all the actuator rods – 15 each side! My poor eyes! Still, they look very effective once made up.

With those done, it’s time to attach the wings, which are two-part constructs, the tail planes and fins. All these fit nicely with just a little filler on the upper wing joins where the join doesn’t follow a natural panel line.

Construction ends with all the dangly, fiddly bits – undercarriage, drop tanks and assorted aerials. As mentioned, the Aggressors didn’t carry much, just drop tanks and an ACMI pod and I used only the specially marked centreline fuel tank.

Painting is very simple – the standard two-colour Ghost Grey scheme as used by the majority of interceptor Eagles, though the F-15J appears to have a variety of different greys for their radomes, so check your references. The panel lines are still quite prominent after painting, so I didn’t add any washes.

The decal sheet is extremely comprehensive – there are literally hundreds of stencils, many of which are fractions of a millimeter in size! Most are grouped into small areas of the air frame, which does cut down on the number of individual decals but does introduce a silvering issue. Rather than lose the will to live, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and only applied the most prominent of them – this still amounted to well over 50 decals for stencils alone.

Of course, the reasoning behind this boxing is the special markings applied to this airframe and these are comprehensively covered in a series of large decals for the wings, forward fuselage and centreline fuel tank. These all applied really well, with the notable exception of the fuel tank decal, which didn’t want to settle down over the raised ribbing of the tank. I ended up using Solvaset on it, which did the trick but with a little running of the colour that I had to touch up – be warned!

This is a very nice kit – it builds well, detail is good although the panel lines are a little prominent. The decal sheet is a little daunting, but I think my approach did it justice. In short, a very nice product and I can recommend it to anyone with a little experience. My thanks to the good folks at Platz for the review sample!