Big Texan

It's not a bad kit, just not a great one. Needs the Bang Seats replaced and you can dress up the pit with Eduard's photo etch. You can also replace the wheels, as well, with some resin jobs. Missiles can be doctored or replaced with some Hasegawa jobs. All in all, not that bad. I can't speak for all the decal versions, but the Luftwaffe version isn't bad. You can easily airbrush those large white triangles and plop in the red triangle decals. Like I said, not a bad kit, just not a great one. I just picked one of these up and I have a Hasegawa 1/48 RF-4E on the way from Japan as we speak. The Hasegawa kit is old as well. Be nice to compare the two. I plan on doing the Italeri offering in the Luftwaffe scheme. The Hasegawa, in the two tone grey scheme of the IDF. I have the necessary photo etch sets for each. Should be fun!

Well, not to sloppy, but still sloppy. I found this pic of 2 Luftwaffe RF-4E's on take off of the unit in question. The serial numbers do not have bold white borders. Also, the walkways are of the later type that are yellow accented with red. Italeri has omitted the red triangles with big white borders however. And, you are correct, there are no slime lights on these aircraft.