RocketSurgeon

Thank you MM. Unfortunately, as Andy said, the shark mouth is quite different. This aircraft also wears the large bird on it's tail. This is the only (not so great) picture I've found of this ACM bird: Andy, thank you for the link, but they don't carry the sheet I'm looking for. Platz JD48-13 is the one I need and it's out of production. It's listed on their site, but you can't add it to your cart.

Thank you Andy. I bend the belts back and forth with my tweezers, this softens up the brass and makes it easier to form. You can also anneal them with the heat of a lighter, be careful not to heat it too much or the brass will become too soft and hard to work with. I kept twisting and bending the belts till they fit the seats the way I wanted. Lot of dry fitting is needed if you want to get it right. I tacked the belts in place with a tiny drop of gel type CA, than used extra thin CA to "flood" the parts. I soaked up the excess glue with a piece of paper and scraped up any remaints with a sharp blade once the glue completely cured. I looked around for decals and found two sets I like. Form the DXM set I could build this bird: I could also build this TAC meet Kai, but the price they are asking for the out of print Platz sheet is ridiculous. I really like the sharkmouth tho. I hope I can get more done on the model next week, till then enjoy this amazing Japanese Phantom video:

Not yet Si, but it more than likely will be a low vis bird, like the one in my second post. Little progress on the Phantom: I dressed up the Aires seats with the PE harnesses included in the kit. Attaching the PE parts was quite tricky and they kept popping of the resin. I tried to add some variation by twisting, bending and trimming the brass belts. The PE ejection handles were way too flat so I separated them from the top piece and bent new ones from copper wire. Thanks for looking.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the Wolfpack nose is just a copy of the Hase part with added static dischargers. The kit nose has the same width from radome to fuselage while the nose of the real thing has a slight taper. I thought the Wolfpack nose corrected this (barely noticable) issue, but it didn't.

Some more progress on the Phantom: I replaced the solid plastic tail nav light with a piece of clear red plastic. I previously knocked off the pitot tube so I went ahead and sanded off it's base, drilled a hole in the leading edge and inserted a new tube made from hypodermic needle. The spine piece is now faired in. I'll still need to add a small antenna to this part. I glued the Wolfpack nose in place as well. The fit of this was very good with only minimal sanding required. I was thinking about buying a seamless intake set for the model, but since they cost as much as the kit itself I abandoned the idea. I don't like the look of FOD covers, so I had to improve the intakes a bit. Whit the use of some plastic card I filled in the holes in the lower section of the intake channel. This is how the Kai looks at the moment. Wings and intakes are dry fitted only. That's all folks. Thanks for looking.

Great work so far. I received the KZ set today, aaaaand it came with a vac formed canopy... I have no idea how I'll work with that. Vacuform canopies give me nightmares.

Thank you guys! Tiny update on the cockpit. I painted the instrument panels. Normally I'd add decals to the dials, but again, not much will be visible once the canopy is in place.

Thank you guys! I'm aware of the problems with the Model Alliance sheet. The color of the wave on the splitter plate is also the wrong color and the shark mouth is inaccurate too. These are the main reasons that put me off building the Okinawa Phantom. DXM decals look great and I really like the Air Combat Meet special schemes. I'm still undecided, but I'll probably go for one of these: Nothing fancy, but still a good looking bird. I did some more work on the cockpit. The etched Aires IPs are really great although painting them properly is not that easy. They came out ok and they look a lot better to the naked eye. I gave the control stick skirts a leather color. I'm not sure if this is accurate, but I think it looks cool. I drilled through the spine fairing and added a white strobe light I made from stretched clear sprue. The resin nose came from Wolfpack. There was a large step between the resin part and the kit gun muzzle so I added a styrene spacer. After some sanding the parts lined up perfectly. Somehow I managed to lose the resin gas purge door. I blocked off the opening with a piece of plastic card as the door seems to be closed on most of my reference photos. The radome came with a damaged static discharger. I used a piece of stretched sprue to fix it. As you can see the resin part is a bit short shot. I'll probably need some Milliput to fair in the metal pitot tube that came with it. Thanks for looking.

Thank you Exdraken! I know, Hasegawa got that part wrong. I'll try to adjust the angle when I get there.

There's a Trumpy Su-24 on it's way to me from China. I ordered a KZ nose set from Germany, judging by their photos it's old stock with the clear resin canopy parts (fingers crossed). I'll have to order the rest of the KZ resin sets from Russia.

Hasegawa's F-4s have been around for a while now, but I think they are still beautiful kits. I'm building mine with an Aires cockpit and exhaust set. I also have a Wolfpack nose correction set for the EJ variant. I'm still undecided on the color scheme. Tempted to finish it as a colorful 'Okinawa Phantom', but it might end up as a simple low viz bird. I really enjoyed working on the Aires pit. This is my first resin cokcpit set. Painted with Tamiya acrylics followed by an dark oil wash. Unfortunately most of this will be hidden once in place. Exhausts More to come (hopefully). Thanks for looking.

After a long break I finally made a start on this one. I had this kit in my stash for nearly a year now. AMK's giant Mig is an absolutely beautiful kit. I'm building it OOB, gears up and refueling probe extended as it would appear lining up behind a tanker. I used AKAN 73005 for the interior. I'm not really satisfied with how the pit came out, but not much will be visible once the canopy is closed. Cockpit in place. I still have to finish the instrument panels and seats. After some careful dry fitting, the gear doors closed up beautifully even though they were designed to be built in the open position. I tried to simulate carbon deposits on the exhaust. This is where I'm at with the beast at the moment. Thanks for looking.

This is awesome! I've always loved the Japanese Phantoms and now I want one in this scheme. The Wolfpack nose is actually an improvement over the kit part. If you look at the Hasegawa E/G models' nose from above you can see that it's almost a perfect cylinder, while the nose of the real thing has a slight taper. The WP nose correct this error, as far as I can tell from your pictures.

Hard to believe it's 72nd scale! My 48th cockpits don't look that good.

Looks really nice. I really want one, but I'm poor.