1/32 Tamiya F-4B

VF-111 Sundowners

Model by Paul Cherriman

Photos by John Wilkes

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Originally this was Tamiya's 1/32 F-4J which has been converted into an earlier F-4B. Firstly I had to discard the upper wing sections, saving the flaps and slats and rebuild a new "flat" wing from scratch, including re-scribing and drilling the rivets to match the rest of the airframe. This had to be done because the F-4J like all other F-4's in this scale have the bulged upper and lower wings which have to be removed to replicate an accurate flat wing F-4B. The sides of the fuselage had to be made good where the removal of the large bulged sections left a gap between wing and fuselage.

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New burner cans were added from an old Revell kit with some extra detailing to represent the earlier J79 GE-8 short afterburners opposed to the J79 GE-10 long afterburners supplied with the kit. The AN/APA-157 CW Illuminator under the nose was created from a 1/72 Mig 19 drop tank with some re-shaping, the tail top front and rear mounted APR30 Radar Homing/Warning System were built from scratch. Some moving around of components plus scratch building to represent an accurate F-4B cockpit, plus Paragon seats.

Painted and weathered to represent the CAG aircraft of VF-111 (Sundowners) aboard USS Coral Sea during the last weeks of their 6 month combat tour in South East Asia during 1972. This particular aircraft had new drop tanks for the last weeks of the tour after dropping the originals over Haiphong during a CAP mission.


Paul 

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Photos and text © by  Paul Cherriman