Rich F

Wow, what a brilliant finish to a very striking paint job! That will definitely stand out in the display case. Great job 👍

I've been slowly plugging away on this one again, lets hope i don't lose my mojo and shelve it for a another 10 years. Anyway after rescribing the fuselage and wings after a vigorous sanding session, I added a few panel lines and filled a couple that where either not present or were fictitious. I also added the intake vanes, i looked at using the kit offerings, but after a couple of dry fitting/reshaping attempts i gave up and decided to make my own from plastic strip, not perfect but i think they pass muster. Once these were done i drilled out and filed the cartridge ejection chutes. Not sure how I'm going to represent these yet as the holes are minuscule, still looking pretty rough me thinks! Then on to the booms, I was dreading this as these really don't match up. To help with alignment i first drilled 2 holes through each boom where the elevator would sit and using 0.5mm plastic rod as pins i glued these through the booms into the elevator section. Before this was allowed to dry i offered up the boom assembly to the fuselage with a feeling of trepidation fearing the worst! After much cursing and fiddling i managed to get them aligned, sort of. I think they are out slightly in every plane of axis but when i tried to straighten out say the vertical axis it would throw the horizontal axis out, very frustrating! Anyway its set now just hope its not to noticeable once shes on her pins. This is where i am at now, where the booms join the wing there is much filling and sanding to be had! I've used Tamiya putty for the large gaps and Mr Surfacer 500 for the smaller gaps. I have a feeling i am going to need a few rounds of this before i get close to blending the two together! That all for now. Cheers

Hi Noel, I'm afraid i chickened out of weathering it to replicate a 'really dirty' Greek line bird. I thought if i went to far it would just look unrealistic and probably beyond my skills anyway!

Hi Mark, glad you like it! In answer to your question, looking at photo's of the ground locks i noticed that there were grooves running along the length of them so i simply added 3 pieces of 0.3mm rod to each strut and painted them red, pretty simple really!

Thanks exdraken, I was originally going to go with a full load out, litening pod, LGB's and AMRAAM's etc, but during my research i found out that the aircraft i was representing from Mira (squadron) 339 was mainly employed in the air to air role and its sister unit Mira 338 was air to ground so it wouldn't really have been accurate to hang loads of mud moving stuff off it. Plus most of pics i have seen of these jets have similar loadout to the one i did, probably from airshows me thinks.

Very Nice, lots of attention detail 👍

Thanks for the kind comments guys, much appreciated 👍 Unc, the travel pod was pinched from my Hasegawa F-16B kit, not sure which other kits have them?

After just finishing my F-4E I've decided to dig this one back out from the shelf of doom. I can't believe its been over 10 years since i last worked on this! 😮 Looking at Hendie's Vemon thread has inspired me to give it another go. I love this video aswell, lots of great shots of two seats Vampires and Harry Enfield narrating whats not too like! Infact the whole series is great, best of British when we were world leaders in the aviation Industry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brzT-3G40_k I can't even remember why i gave up on this one, which is a bit worrying! Anyhow this how she looks at the moment, still lots of work left do... Here's what i am aiming for, an RN T.22. I'm not sure which one i will be doing yet as i need to check the decals stash for the appropriate serials. (Photo's are from Adrian Balch's book 'De Havilland Twin Booms') I'll take them down if anyone has any objections. Updates to follow in the not too distant future, give a decade or two! 😄

Beautiful work Hendie I'm blaming you for inspiring me to dig out my CA Vampire 😀 Hope you don't mind but I'll be stealing sorry adapting some of your techniques for my build and probably be adding a few 'Greeblies' of my own! Keep up the good work! Cheers

Finally got around to uploading a few shots of my recently completed HAF F-4E AUP. WIP is here This was the 1/48 Hasegawa F-4E with a few modifications... Scratch built cockpit with Verlinden seats as nobody does an AUP pit replacement Eduard brassin exhausts Royale resin wheels Master pitot tube Eduard 1/72 RFB flags Verlinden canopy frame details Paints were custom mixed from GSI and Tamiya acrylics and weathering was a mix of oils and pastels. Decals came from Icarus for the stencils and Model Alliance for the national/sqn markings. If anyone is planning on building one of these a/c i thoroughly recommend using Eagle Aviation's 'Phantom under the skin' book. Lots of great hi-res photo's from just about every angle. Thanks for looking!

Great looking Rhino!👍

Well I've finally finished this one, managed to grab a few days to get this one off the workbench Not sure if I've overdone the weathering and I'm not 100% happy with it but these birds do get really dirty! Anyhow it done now, on my next project. I'll upload some better pic in the RFI section over the next few days. Thanks for looking

Ah yes, the rarest elements known to mankind!

Great photo's AD, thank you for sharing! They have encouraged me to dig out my HAF phantom from the shelf of doom! Steve, the Big H has the Model Alliance World Air power No.2 sheet in 1/48 which features 'F-4E Phantom 71-743 339 Mira Greek Air Force 2008' Also Icarus decals do a Hellenic Air Force Jets sheet which features R/F-4E's in the latest 'ghost' scheme if you can find it!

Thanks Bill, you may have saved my bacon I need to look into this further as when i checked the position of the roundel i was looking at a 338 sqn jet, so maybe your right. Here '01525' looks about the same as mine... http://www.airliners.net/photo/Greece-Air-Force/McDonnell-Douglas-F-4E-AUP-Phantom-II/1412156/L I haven't found a good closeup photo of 71743 and i have a feeling it maybe retired now as 339 sqn has been disbanded. Regarding the stencils, it is a lot work but i think it will pay off in the end. Although I'm thinking of giving some of them a thin coat of base colour to tone them down once I'm done as looking at the real thing (see link above) some of the stencilling is very faint and in some cases almost worn away. Thanks again. Rich

Good idea, cheers guys. Just need to work out how to cut the smallest circle as my compass cutter wont cut that small. Hi Nikos, thanks for the input. Am i right in thinking your talking about the framing around the windscreen? I was aware that some ex-USAF machines had 'frameless' windscreens, but I don't think 71743 was one of them. see link below... https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/6286879

Hi Zach, Thanks for the interest. Not much to report at the moment as I've lost my mojo on this one a bit. I've made 2 big mistakes, firstly with the roundel placement and secondly with over zealous use of Mr mark softer which has made the colour run on one of the roundels. After seeing that the colour run on one of the decals, which i thought i might be able to fix. I then realized to my horror that they were too far forward by about 5mm. It should be sitting on the second vertical panel line. So i have 2 options Pay for a new set of decals (Model Alliance World Air Power Update No 2.) which Hannants has for £17.40. A bit expensive as i only need 2 HAF roundels Somebody kindly donates them or i swap something for them, hint hint fellow BM'ers As i said earlier i have started with the decals, all the Model Alliance decals are on and i have started on the plethora of stencils, I am using these... As you can see there are alot! Anyhow, progress so far... Still lots of decals to apply, roughly 300-400! Hopefully i will either get some roundels donated or i learn to live with my mistake so i can put this one to bed! Thanks for looking!

Thanks for the kind comments guys, I just hope i can do it justice. Looking at photo's on Airliners these bird can get really dirty! Like this one I'm going for somewhere halfway between pristine and '01530' as shown above. So plenty of weathering to do. No time at the workbench for at least a week as it holiday time tomorrow, for a week of Lakeland beauty and hopefully not too much rain! Cheers

Finally finished in the paint shop... Next up a coat of klear and decals, then a spot of weathering. Cheers

Stunning work, i have an Academy F-4J that i plan to do same with. This has inspired my to move it up the 'to do pile'

Wow, can't believe it's been nearly six months since i last updated this thread, but as usual life has gotten in the way. I'm still working on this albeit at a glacial pace due to working away from home on a regular basis. Anyway onto my progress so far, I've managed to decide on the loadout, so I've gone with 3 drop tanks, a CATM round on 1 pylon and a baggage pod on the other. I've rescribed the wing drop tanks and the pylons and added chaff/flare buckets, nicked a baggage pod from my Hasegawa F-16B and added another access door to the other side and modified one of the kit's sidewinders into a CATM Added some detail to the wheel wells And the undercarriage legs I made some intake blanks from magi-sculpt and lead foil After i added a black base coat of Mr surfacer i added a thin coat of GSI Aqueous JSDF grey for the light grey I'm now in the process of adding the Blue Grey FS35237, again I chose GSI but I found this was too grey and not blue enough so i added a drop of bright blue and lighten it with white. I think this looks about right. I'm still painting the blue/grey at the moment but am also working on the exhausts, still a work in progress Hopefully it won't be so long before the next update. That's all for now.

Not much progress done this week folks, work has rudely gotten in the way! Still working on the fuselage, nearly there and i can move onto the wings. Managed to finish the HUD and instrument coaming, i added some reflective film to replicate the HUD glass... IMG_5257 IMG_5258 Canopy with rivet detail added, polished and dipped in Klear with the green tinted armoured glass front panel. IMG_5259 Rivet detail and stiffener plates added to the tail planes, also re-positioned the rudder and added the RWR aerials on the tail-cone as i managed to sand the kit ones off when i was blending the fuselage halves. IMG_5260 IMG_5262 I have replaced the probe on the tail plane with metal tubing as i had to remove the kit one to fit the anti-collision light. IMG_5263 Lastly i have reshaped the cooling intakes opening on the cooling intakes under the nose as i think it's a weak point on this kit, This was quite fiddly but worth the effort. IMG_5264 That's all for now and i wont be able to do any work on it next week as I'm off the Lake district next week for a spot of hiking and mountain biking with the family, hope the weather's kind! Cheers

Hi Folks, Thanks for the heads up whiskey, I may do something similar to Jon's solution as i think the Airscale handles are a bit underscale. Anyhow got a bit more progress done, pit is now firmly in the fuselage, i inserted some 'strengthening' rods made from sprue along the spine as i know this is a weak spot especially as i was going to do re-scribing and riveting along here. Next up after sanding and filling the fuselage halves with Mr Surfacer 500 i moved onto the riveting itself. Here i used MDC's riveting tool and Hasegawa tri-tool riveting templates, to keep it steady i like to stick some old style Dymo tape to the kit as a guide. Once this monotonous task was complete i moved onto a bit of detailing. IMG_5104 First up I noticed some of the Greek birds had a slightly raised panel near the tail i replicated this with some very thin evergreen sheet. I also cut out the anti-collision light on the tail and replaced it with some clear red rod cut and sanded to shape. IMG_5183 Then the fun bit, after adding the nose i did some more rescribing and riveting then i drilled out the gun vent and made a new raised one from plastic stock. Part of the AUP upgrade was a IFF system which meant adding 'bird slicer antennas' to the nose. These are still not finished yet as i need to reduce the height of the blades and shape them but so far I think they look pretty good. IMG_5181 And finally the instrument coaming/HUD, this is also a lot different from your average F-4E firstly the HUD is bigger and i needed to cut out the coaming so i could add the pilots MFD. The HUD is also where the upfront controller sits, you guessed it, in front of the pilot! The hardest part here was trying to not interfere with the windshield, i can tell you there's not a lot of room in there! IMG_5182 IMG_5178 See link below for the real thing; https://www.airliners.net/photo/Greece-Air-Force/McDonnell-Douglas-F-4E-AUP-Phantom-II/2098373 Lastly I've added the GPS antenna on the spine and i noticed a raised ring just behind the WSO's cockpit so this was added also. IMG_5184 Until the next time... Cheers

Hi Dennis, I didn't know the HAF had these ex -USAF aircraft with the frameless windscreens, gladly '71743' isn't one of them. I came across a few shots on google that confirms it. Didn't fancy sanding my windscreen back! Anyhow, I have painted the pit and am In the process of gluing into the fuselage... IMG_5077 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr IMG_5078 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr IMG_5079 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr IMG_5080 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr As you can see I've knocked off the RIO's ejection seat handles, me and my fat fingers! The seats will be coming out anyway as they are bound to getting knocked about during the sanding phase when I join the 2 fuselage halves together. Cheers Rich

Hi chaps, I've had this one in planning stage for quite some time as I have always liked the HAF ghost scheme. When I got my hands on the Bible that is 'Phantom under the skin Vol 1' by Ioannis Lekkas and Ilias Gkonis I knew I had to give it go. Heres what I have to work with... IMG_4779 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr IMG_4780 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr IMG_4781 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr IMG_4783 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr Already done some work on the pit, for those that don't know much about the Greek Phantom's, they were upgraded in the late 90's/early 2000's with a new radar, new avionics and a cockpit with MFD's and are able to employ smart weapons and shoot AMRAAM's. I'm going to with a 339 Sqn 'Ajax' bird which luckily doesn't have all the DECM lumps and bumps that their sister squadron (338 'Aris') birds have. Less work for me! Since there isn't a cockpit that represents the AUP birds I have had to scratch most of it myself. I've used the kit cockpit as a starting point and added Verlinden seats, and Airscale PE (great help) copper tape and lots of styrene strip! IMG_4784 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr IMG_4785 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr IMG_4788 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr IMG_4790 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr All important MFD's and upfront keypad. IMG_4793 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr IMG_4792 by Richard Farndon, on Flickr That's all for now folks, just need to put it together and get some paint on it next. Cheers Rich