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Airfix 1/72 Phantom FG1


Rob P

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Reading through the past few pages of this thread, it is disheartening to say the least... :mellow:

 

As a casual modeller (now a uni student with little-to-no free time during term times) I'm not too fussed regarding the smaller details that may have been omitted; the aircraft is British (well, sort of), a jet, in 1:72 scale and from the cold war so it appeals to my personal tastes. However I understand (although I personally disagree with) the views of others who find the lack of the vents disappointing (I did a 1:72 Academy F4J as a what-if camo RAF F3 and despite costing less than the Airfix kit will, that had vents and an incredible level of surface detail).

 

But each to their own; let's not let this descend into vitriol

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1 hour ago, ocatlub said:

The Phantom that Jadlam has for sale on Ebay  is a FG1 not an FGR1 and it is a pre order which will be avalable in the new year if you scroll down to bottom of the ad. When I last looked there had been 10+ sold!

Didn't think there was an FGR.1 - it's a FG.1 and an FGR.2.

Edited by Tbolt
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And the 74 squadron a/c were F-4J (UK) not F.3.

 

I'm just working on a Fujimi FG.1 and I have to say that the Airfix one will have competition. The recessed panel lines are excellent, the grill just above the burners is there and discrete as are the grills above and below the air intakes. I suspect the Airfix kit bill be better at showing everything hanging out as well as having the front of the engines showing and the decals will probably be better.

Despite the 34+ Fujimi UK Phantoms on the shelf and the unmade ones in the loft I'll stil get a few Airfix ones.

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25 minutes ago, iainpeden said:

And the 74 squadron a/c were F-4J (UK) not F.3.

 

I'm just working on a Fujimi FG.1 and I have to say that the Airfix one will have competition. The recessed panel lines are excellent, the grill just above the burners is there and discrete as are the grills above and below the air intakes. I suspect the Airfix kit bill be better at showing everything hanging out as well as having the front of the engines showing and the decals will probably be better.

Despite the 34+ Fujimi UK Phantoms on the shelf and the unmade ones in the loft I'll stil get a few Airfix ones.

Well it's a what if, so I don't see why you can't change the designation in a what if situation.

 

I've  got a couple of Fujimi phantoms in the stash with Cartograph decals and wish I bought more when they were easy to get hold of for a reasonable price.

Edited by Tbolt
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43 minutes ago, Tbolt said:

Well it's a what if, so I don't see why you can't change the designation in a what if situation.

 

I've  got a couple of Fujimi phantoms in the stash with Cartograph decals and wish I bought more when they were easy to get hold of for a reasonable price.

https://hlj.com/product/FUJ72272 

 

and

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10341050

 

 they are still out there to be had .......

 

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2 hours ago, gavingav said:

https://hlj.com/product/FUJ72272 

 

and

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10341050

 

 they are still out there to be had .......

 

Thanks I know they are available, but I did say for a reasonable price and getting them in to the UK is not cheap.

 

When the pound was a lot stronger and we were aloud £18 VAT free I bought quite a bit from HLJ but now it's too expensive.

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8 hours ago, lasermonkey said:

it looks like that old Hasegawa F-4K/F-4EJ kitbash project which I've had since 1984 will actually get built!

 

I remember attempting that same kitbash, IIRC there was an article in SAM which took you through how to do just that, I ended up knackering two kits and no discernible output (apart from a lot of expletives and scapel wounds), whilst attempting it!  I'm not saying it can't be done, it's more a testament to my poor modelling skills.

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Yeah, that's the article! I still have the photocopies of it. I did actually build one, which I remember looking better than the Matchbox offering, although that doesn't really say much!

 These days I have a few more Phantom spares, so maybe it's possible to get something passable out of it........

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I wonder if those that use "company xyz managed this 30 years ago" to make their point, consider the difference in technology used to attain the differences in the level of detail. I would expect in this case, that the cost of these vents finding their way onto the tooling these days is something that Airfix could not justify in passing onto us mere modelers. 

Arabest,

Geoff.

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1 hour ago, Jazzie said:

I wonder if those that use "company xyz managed this 30 years ago" to make their point, consider the difference in technology used to attain the differences in the level of detail. I would expect in this case, that the cost of these vents finding their way onto the tooling these days is something that Airfix could not justify in passing onto us mere modelers. 

Arabest,

Geoff.

 

And yet plenty of companies have managed to do this without charging modellers that great amount of money... Esci did it and their kits in the days were not particularly expensive. Monogram did it and their kits sold for peanuts in their home market. Fujimi and Hasegawa did it and again, their kits may have been expensive in Europe but they were not that expensive in their home market. And there are several other companies that may not have Phantoms in their catalogue but can offer this level of detail without charging massive prices. Now some will say "ehi but Hasegawa kits are bloody expensive here etc etc...". Fair enough, look at Academy then ! Their F-8 has plenty of similar detail and yet retails for £20 at Hannants (that is a great shops but hardly the one with the lowest prices).

If really Airfix is employing a technology that does not allow to achieve certain details, that's something to be worried about, more so as the Phantom will be a relatively expensive kit. If the situation is that adding those details would have resulted in a higher price, it's even more worrying as it means that Airfix has no way of competing against a number of manufacturers and will have to adapt to being a second tier name, basing their success more on the choice of subjects and the strong distribution to achieve profit rather than on quality.

However it seems to me that while it may be true that Airfix does not use the same moulding technologies as others, they are perfectly capable of adding a couple of vents and grilles to an aircraft kit without a huge impact on the cost of the final product. I hope that the lack of these is only a small overview from the design team rather than a deliberate choice due to the limitations of what they can do. Should there be limitations of this kind in their manufacturing process, I'm going to be way less enthusiastic about any future announcement from Airfix

 

 

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I cant believe you countered with a company thats not been around for 26 years in its own right! That would more than likely put their newest moulds in the 30-35 year bracket, and i was one who was able to buy the kits when they were new. Since then, research can be better but more expensive, tool making can be better but more expensive, and all the raw materials and manpower is more expensive with the greedy man at the top wanting something for his money as well. Prices for everything in the background have soared, even since the 2004 Academy F-8. I could also argue that the Esci moulds more that likely produced an initial run in excess of 10,000 units, where i expect this Phantom run will only go to 5,000 units in a second run.

Never been one to ignore the reason why prices over here are so much more expensive than whatever home market, but i have suspicions that other forces are at work here as well. But the way our world market works, i have never paid a UK price for Hasegawa or Fujimi since they became hiked as they did. 

Im not worried in this case that we appear to be getting decals for some vents that are at the wrong end of the aircraft to worry too much about. I along with a good few others will build it and use the decals, others will buy some Eduard and the cream of our crop will add the details themselves. 

Arabest,

Geoff.

 

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On 11/27/2017 at 12:17 AM, Rabbit Leader said:

Without trying to dip this thread back into the 'below the belt zone' - how many new tool Test Shots that have had 'suggested' errors were actually fixed by the time the full production kit run occured? Personally, I cannot think of any. I was under the impression that this Phantom kit was actually delayed due to weather related events in the Far East, rather than possible kit corrections being made.

 

Cheers.. Dave  

Airfix retooled the cowl and added a fuselage spacer to the Martlet IV kit after it was pointed out that their initial effort was wrong. That is why there is a spare unused (unusable?) cowl in the kit.

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Whilst Airfix haven't made any announcements I wonder if there is any significance in the fact that Hannants are listing an Xtradecal sheet containing markings for both the FG Mk.1 and FGR Mk.2 versions of the RAF Phantom as a future release.

Edited by Richard E
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Been watching this for ages and I must say the amont of moaning from kit assemblers is amazing, and thats what most of you are, some of the most out spoken are only moderate at the art of kit making. Actually  try making a kit from scratch then you  may moan. Most real modellers dont make kits cause the kit makers dont or cannot cater for us.. Just off to the Anderson for a cuppa and a laugh I might be awhile:P

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5 minutes ago, grahamwalker said:

Been watching this for ages and I must say the amont of moaning from kit assemblers is amazing, and thats what most of you are, some of the most out spoken are only moderate at the art of kit making. Actually  try making a kit from scratch then you  may moan. Most real modellers dont make kits cause the kit makers dont or cannot cater for us.. Just off to the Anderson for a cuppa and a laugh I might be awhile:P

I will bring my popcorn and pull up a seat............you little tinker..........

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7 hours ago, Jazzie said:

I cant believe you countered with a company thats not been around for 26 years in its own right!

 

I think you'll find that's the point.  It was possible 35 years ago, by a not-very-high-end model manufacturer, so why isn't it on a modern, 21st century kit.

 

I also think you'll find that the costs of research, development and production have plummeted substantially, not risen.  It is far cheaper to tool a model kit in 2017 than it was in 1987.  Which is why you're seeing a proliferation of new model manufacturers - the kinds of companies that were producing vac or resin kits 20 years ago are producing injection moulded kits today.  It is vastly cheaper to use CAD/CAM and spark erosion to machine a set of tooling than it was to have craftsmen manually grind steel with a pantograph.  It's vastly cheaper to e-mail some guy on the other side of the world for reference photos than it was to fly a team overseas to measure museum aircraft.  Of course inflation means that the number on the price tag is bigger, but in relative terms, the costs are a fraction of what they once were.

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On ‎2‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 10:30 PM, cathasatail said:

 

 

As a casual modeller (now a uni student with little-to-no free time during term times) I'm not too fussed regarding the smaller details that may have been omitted; the aircraft is British (well, sort of), a jet, in 1:72 scale and from the cold war so it appeals to my personal tastes. However I understand (although I personally disagree with) the views of others who find the lack of the vents disappointing (I did a 1:72 Academy F4J as a what-if camo RAF F3 and despite costing less than the Airfix kit will, that had vents and an incredible level of surface detail).

 

The detail may be missing, but I hope Eduard can rescue it with their dedicated photo-etch sheets for the Phantom when they are eventually released and put the missing details back in.

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39 minutes ago, Mick4350 said:

 

The detail may be missing, but I hope Eduard can rescue it with their dedicated photo-etch sheets for the Phantom when they are eventually released and put the missing details back in.

That's basically where my hopes are on this. 

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13 hours ago, Jazzie said:

I cant believe you countered with a company thats not been around for 26 years in its own right! That would more than likely put their newest moulds in the 30-35 year bracket, and i was one who was able to buy the kits when they were new. Since then, research can be better but more expensive, tool making can be better but more expensive, and all the raw materials and manpower is more expensive with the greedy man at the top wanting something for his money as well. Prices for everything in the background have soared, even since the 2004 Academy F-8. I could also argue that the Esci moulds more that likely produced an initial run in excess of 10,000 units, where i expect this Phantom run will only go to 5,000 units in a second run.

Never been one to ignore the reason why prices over here are so much more expensive than whatever home market, but i have suspicions that other forces are at work here as well. But the way our world market works, i have never paid a UK price for Hasegawa or Fujimi since they became hiked as they did. 

Im not worried in this case that we appear to be getting decals for some vents that are at the wrong end of the aircraft to worry too much about. I along with a good few others will build it and use the decals, others will buy some Eduard and the cream of our crop will add the details themselves. 

Arabest,

Geoff.

 

 

ICMF has already well expressed my same thoughts on cost of moulding today versus 35 years ago. I may add that regarding this and other Airfix kits the countries mentioned are China and India, not exactly places that are well known for high cost of labour...

Speaking of Esci, they never made any mould, they always paid others to make the mould, pretty much the same as Airfix is doing today. Esci's best kits were made by companies in Japan and South Korea that were in those days the benchmark in terms of quality and costed more than others as a result. When Airfix issued theit 1/48 Lightnings and late mark Spitfire/Seafire they also had the moulds made by this kind of companies. Today many get moulds made in China at a fraction of the cost that Esci used to pay for the services of companies like Suntak, so where's the higher cost today compared to 35 years ago ?

As for the numbers... 5,000 units in two production runs is very close to short run kits territory, is this number coming from Airfix or is it only your assesment ? With similar numbers it's very difficult to run a mainstream kit company...

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Probably gonna order a few of these!! Regardless of vents missing or otherwise, half hoping maybe at Christmas they'll announce RAF variants. They'll only need to chuck in new decals and maybe a new sprue with a Vulcan gun pod and other under-wing goodies

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