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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