Military Channel's "Top 10 Fighters of All Time"

You may have noticed that I have been building a lot of fighters lately, many of them jets. I watched an interesting program on the Military Channel on the subject of the top 10 fighters of all time. Since I already had a model of a few of them, I decided that I wanted to build all of them and have a display of them on my blog. The following is a listing of the fighters in descending order, with a discussion of whether I agree with the Military Channel or not. Just click on the plane's link to go to my blog page on that model.

10. F-22 Raptor - The Military Channel chose this aircraft because of its new technology. However, the Raptor has not, as of yet, been battle tested. I would not have put it in the top 10 because of this. It may be a fast, maneuverable, and stealthy fighter and perhaps will be a great fighter, but many potentially great fighters in history have failed when put to the test.

9. Harrier - Again, the Military Channel chose this one because of its uniqueness. It has been battle tested, unlike the F-22, but mostly in ground support missions. There needs to be a disdinction made between a dogfighter or multirole fighter. As a multirole fighter the Harrier has been superb and definitely in the top 10; as a dogfighter, probably not.

8. Sopwith Camel - A great fighter in its short service-time, the Camel had more kills than any other Allied fighter in WWI. However, it nearly killed as many of its own pilots as it did enemy pilots because of its poor stability. I feel the Fokker D.VII was a better, more stable fighter from that era and should have been in the Camel's place.

7. Me 262 - Another short-lived fighter which got its inclusion because of its first jet fighter status. However, I don't disagree with the choice. When compared to its contemporary jet fighters (the Gloster Meteor and P-80), it was still far superior in speed, firepower, and manueverablility.

6. Supermarine Spitfire - Along with the Hawker Hurricane, the Spitfire staved off sure doom from the Nazi Luftwaffe air attacks on Great Brittain despite inferior numbers and less experienced pilots. Of course I would put this aircraft in the top 10 of all time, and I'm a little surprised that it wasn't ranked higher.

4.5. F-86 Sabrejet - A sure choice for top 10 status, the Sabre brought air superiority back the the Americans in the Korean War. Tied with the MIG-15 in rank, these two aircrafts' histories are tied at the hip.

4.5. MIG-15 - A devastating fighter for the early American jets, the MIG-15 owned the skies over Korea until the appearance of the F-86. Many say that the MIG-15 was the better fighter but the F-86 had better pilots. It's difficult to say either way.

3. F-4 Phantom II - As a multirole fighter, the F-4 was one of, if not, the best. As a dogfighter, the F-4 was middle-of-the-pack. Having said this, however, one cannot argue with the longevity and war record of this venerable behemoth. It is definitely a top 10 fighter of all time.

2. F-15 Eagle - The first air-superiority jet-fighter built to be maneuverable as well as fast, this aircraft is an excellent dogfighter as well as multirole fighter with the advent of the F-15E. An easy choice to make as a top 10 fighter.

1. P-51D Mustang - Not suprisingly, this aircraft is considered the best-ever fighter. Using the same engine as the Spitfire and a laminar flow wing, this aircraft escorted Allied bombers deep into German teritory were it faced the best of the Nazi fighters including the Me 262 and performed admirably. This would be my choice for #1 as well.

F-15J Peace Eagle "Shiro Ruyu"

This is a Tamiya kit with some updating to the intakes and exhausts. I used some vacuform intake trunking that my dad gave me a long time ago for a Monogram kit to carry the intakes behind the main wheel wells. I also modified the Monogram exhaust cans (w/o the turkey feathers) to fit the Tamiya kit and used them. I cut some quilting pins to length for the actuator rods on the exhausts to give them a better look that the flat surfaces on the Monogram parts.

The kit went together well with some minor fit issues in the main wing halves and the intakes to the fuselage. The cockpit was a bit sparse with a flat instrument panel and consoles and little detail in the avionics compartment behind the seat. I decided to use the stock cockpit with the canopy closed since the instrument panel and console decals were decent and I wouldn't have to worry about the avionics compartment.

I originally wanted to make an Israeli F-15, but the available markings were so expensive, so I decided to do this beautiful Japanese Air Self Defense Force show bird with markings provided by Two Bobs Decals. The decals were excellent for their size, but there was one significant problem with the size of the large white dragon - it was too big. I had to cut down and overlap the three pieces quite a bit to get them to fit on the wings. I'm not sure if Two Bobs or Tamiya got the size wrong but I think things turned out OK in the end.

This was a fun kit to work on and if one does not want to update the intakes or exhausts, the kit can go together rather quickly. However, if you do want to do some heavy detailing, it is a good platform to do so.