Here
is my Hasegawa F-4EJ in 1/72 scale, my fourth contribution to ARC. Overall, this well-known kit is very good, with finely engraved panel
lines and airframe details, nice landing gears/wheel wells and accurate
shaping/fit throughout. This build was largely out of the box - the
cockpit interior was completely replaced though, as the kit supplied tub
and ejection seats are really basic: no relief details and only decals as
representation of the instruments. Instead, I used the cockpit from the
excellent Revell F-4F kit and converted this by adding some scratchbuilt
items and Eduard photo-etch seat belts. This Revell cockpit includes two
very nice seats and instrument/side panels that look great when just
painted and drybrushed. As the front fuselage (nose) of the Revell kit is
slightly more narrow in shape, fitting the Revell tub in the Hasegawa
fuselage required some fitting and adjusting. Two nasty gaps appeared left
and right of the cockpit tub when testfitting it in the Hasegawa fuselage.
To solve this I added some sidewall details, just simple bits and pieces
of styrene/photo-etch to cover the gaps and to provide some relief detail
inside at the same time. Also the areas behind the two seats and on the
pilot's instrument cover received some scratchbuilt detail and wiring as
these are quite prominent. Photo-etch mirrors are also taken from the
Eduard zoom set. For the rest, construction of the kit was pretty
straightforward with no major fit problems encountered.
Click on
images below to see larger images
I
wanted to build an F-4EJ in an operational yet colourful scheme and choose
aircraft no. 87-8411 of the 302nd 'Hikotai' (squadron), based at Chitose
AB (Japan), during the early '80s. This is the period in which the
JASDF,
like other airforces, started working out training programs for improved
dogfighting capabilities of their pilots, and came up with this temporary
blue/white 'cloudy' adversary scheme. For this scheme I used Humbrol
enamels, on top of pre-shaded panel lines. Firstly though, the exhaust
area was sprayed using Humbrol Aluminium and Gun Metal shades (I use
Humbrol Leather & Black to create variations in panel colours) and
masked when ready. Next, the top and underside camouflage colours were
sprayed - colours are (Humbrol, as said) Mediterranean Blue, Sky Grey and
Light Grey. On the blue colour: my references showed both pictures of a
rather light blue (indicated as 'Medium Blue') and a rather dark blue
(nearly purple) - in fact, the 'Defenders of Nippon' book indicated for
this particular aircraft that 2 different shades of blue were used in 2
subsequent years. So, I improvised a bit and choose something in the
middle: Mediterranean Blue from Humbrol, which looked pretty good to me.
Paints
were covered with a coat of Tamiya gloss clear acrylic, for protection and for
application of decals. Decals came mainly from the kit, as numbers and data
stencils (a lot!!) for this particular airframe were included, although I also
sourced some (such as the eagles on the tail fin) from a spare decal sheet.
Applying all the decals was quite an exhaustive job, but Hasegawa did a clever
way of grouping various data stencils that are located close to each other.
This
avoids having to apply each and every tiny bit of stencil data separately and
ensures proper alignment between bits of stencils. However, this also results in
some decals being pretty big in size and pretty odd in shape requiring very
careful handling. I messed up one of these grouped decals, and had to replace
this with spare bits and pieces. The kit decals are typical for Hasegawa: well
printed, but a bit thick on the sheet. When applied they reacted very well to
Microset/sol setting solutions, and covered with another layer of gloss clear
(and the final flat coat) they sealed in really well. Panel line washes were
next with heavily thinned enamels, followed by a final flat clear acrylic coat (Mr
Hobby 'Top Coat' from a spray can - by Gunze).
Stores
are loaded with 4 AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles (taken from one of the
Hasegawa weapons sets) and some LAU-3 rocket pods (leftovers from the Academy
A-37) ... and there you have it: a Phantom in very colourful markings! I had
great fun building this nice little kit and would recommend it to all, as it
builds into an impressive kit - provided you rework the cockpit.
As
I now have the Revell F-4 remainings left (without a cockpit obviously, but for
the rest consisting of great detail and molding), this is one of my next
projects, I have the Aires replacement cockpit already ordered ... ;)
Hope
you enjoy the pictures!
Patrick
References
used:
-
'Defenders
of Nippon' - F-4 Phantom II (Kaburaya books)
-
'F-4E
Phantom II walk-around' (Squadron/Signal publications)
-
'F-4
Phantom in action' (Squadron/Signal publications)
-
F-4EJ.com
(unfortunately not always accessible)
Click on
images below to see larger images
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