Francesco Blasi

Now the picture starts to take shape. Guess you are meaning that Italeri doesn't appear as an official TM assignee. But then they qualify their own brand as "sub-licensee". What does that imply? That they have got the copyright on aircraft kits featuring Italian markings? Curious to ascertain this very aspect...

Your views are enlightening. News about Italeri being the sole rightholder began to spread in 2016 if I recall correctly, under the centre-left government preceding the current day Lega-M5S administration. To my knowledge, but I can be wrong, there's no extant official document stating that the manufacturer holds the copyright on Italian air forces markings, past and present. I've just searched their web site in order to find out an explicit mention of that, but to no avail. A warning light of some interest to our question could be the logo present on some catalog's pages advertising and direct-selling aircraft kits with Italian decal options, such as the 1/32 TF-104G Starfighter: https://www.italeri.com/en/prodotto/2738/1/1 The blue square on the right side of the page next to the box-art illustration brings the AMI emblem on the left while on the right the manufacturer qualifies himself as the product's distributor as well as "Official Aeronautica Militare (AMI) sub-licensee". To me, this sounds a trifle obscure; its meaning maybe relating to the fact that AMI buys stocks of Italeri kits on a regular basis to give them away as propaganda and public relations material. At the moment I ignore what other, different conjectures could be done. On a final note, as you have already considered, it is doubtful that a such-termed TM , if any exist, would stand a court test if challenged since it is believable that Italian TM law matters have already been absorbed by EU higher-ranking legislation.

I think that your question incorporates all the necessary answers: no more than a few bucks, hence nonsense. I'd rather suspect that bucks are not involved that much, at least in the way we commonly intend them. Instead, I would say that that license seals a close cooperation between the two subjects in question. But it all sounds also like a violence perpetrated against the kit manufacturing world, especially small companies, as Italian air forces are more of a historic patrimony belonging to all whom for a reason or another have to do with them. And, as well, they are part property of the Italian taxpayer, who can't be forced to depend on a private business firm.

Listen to this: here in Italy someone has got one step further. Air force has licensed the main and only mainstream kit manufacturer to include Italian air forces markings in their kits as the sole licensee on the market. To this effect, no one -except that manufacturer- can produce and sell aircraft kits with Italian markings among the decal options. Even aftermarket decal brands are prohibited from doing so. Such license has given place, you bet it, to a true monopoly. I don't really know if a royalty-based fee system has been envisaged to allow other manufacturers to run a single production batch.., or either the prohibition involves uniquely Italian manufacturers. Recently, one small -cottage- company which has released a resin 1/32 scale Fiat G.91R has been forced to abandon the idea to include AMI markings in the box decal sheet, with a sensible prejudice to the their own income. Oh, and the license/monopoly covers also Regia Aeronautica of WWII fame...

I agree for the most part. I, for one, will go building the kit as it is since I find it beautiful, to express it in one word. Conversely, there's little an average modeller can do to carve and shape the real Phantom nose/canopies contours. But scale thcknesses are a completely different question: almost always you have to reduce them to some extent (trailing edges, etc.). That said, it is remarkable that Hasegawa in the quarter scale and Tamiya in 1/32 did much better years ago than ZM right today. The F-4 is among my absolute favourites, and I can't help looking at the forward area of the plane first whenever I see a Phantom model. It's simply me, though I know well that 99% of modellers won't even notice such a blunder.

I bought the F-4J shortly after its release, only to state that the nose/canopy complex is the wrong shape... better: they're not shaped at all, no contours as on the real thing. On the other hand, the detail is the forte of this kit and the same can be said of the overall fit, which is really state of the art. You can see what's wrong with the nose in Jumpei Temma's drawings at soyuyo.main.jp/f4/f4-1.html