North Star Models 1/144 F-15 Wheel Sets
By Matt Bittner
North Star Models has a unique line of wheel sets they call "no mask". That means the wheels/hubs are separate from the tires so you can paint each separately without having to mask one or the other. Ingenious. They have stretched that idea into their 1/144 wheel sets which is also amazing and very nice to have. One less model item you have to worry about masking.
This set of releases is for all marks of the F-15 in 1/144. There are 1/144 F-15s put out by Dragon (single-seat and double-seat F-15s, including a boxing with the Strike Eagle), Revell (their F-15E is considered the best-in-scale) and the older LS kit. I haven't heard if the Dragon kits are accurate or not but both the LS and Revell kits are, and the LS kit - being older - should not be discounted. Sure, there's no cockpit to speak of (in fact it's completely blanked over although RetroKit has released a resin cockpit for it) but it builds into a very nice F-15. North Star's wheel sets cover the two distinct F-15 lines:
| F-15A/B/C/D |
|
| F-15E/I/K |
|
There is a difference in hub designs hence the two separate releases. If you're building a 1/144 F-15 then you want these wheel sets not only to dress up your kit but also because painting them is easy without having to worry about masks.
I definitely thank North Star Models for sending these to review.