I thought I’d start a second thread since I got going on this quicker than I thought and have some photos to add. Basically I’m a big fan of the E and since the only kit out there is the older Dragon I wanted to see if I could take and LS or Arii kit and merge them together. So far it looks promising. I found that I can use the rear cockpit “hump” , canopy, and fuel tanks from the Dragon kit and with a little work add them to an Arii C model. It’s obviously a wip so little things may come up that need to be modified. I’m going to try using the cockpit from a Revell F-14 that I no longer need and build this with the canopy open.
Here are some more photos. The cockpit is a combination of Revell F-14 tub with Dragon ejection seats and instrument panels. You can see the rear section of the cockpit is going to be a section of a Dragon F-15E so the canopy fits correctly. The conformal fuel tanks took a lot of work to fit the LS fuselage since they are from A Dragon kit. The big hurtle right now is getting the right side to fit correctly around the gun area. I really like these planes when they are loaded for bear so I will most likely need to scratch the hard points that mount to the fuel tanks. My plan is to also have the canopy open so not sure yet what to do about canopy thickness. I am a total novice to Vacc forming. Can I use the kit canopy as a mold or will it melt? My thoughts are that it should work.
