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Happy New Year everybody! Here's my latest off the bench, completed in December 2022 actually: A few words about the aircraft, before going into the model details: F-4ETM 68-0403. 112th Sqn "Seytanlar", TuAF, Eskisehir 2011 - this specific bird was delivered to the Turkish Air Force from the 110TFS, 131 TFW Missouri ANG in 1991, under Peace Diamond VI operation. It was the first of 16 F-4Es to be upgraded to the F-4ETM "Simsek" (Lightning) standard in 2010. I could gather very few info about this upgrade, which has nothing to do with the TERMINATOR version; I did found an article from a Turkish aviation journalist mentioning that this upgrade mainly consisted in integrating digital avionics with analog instruments, so very few differences were noticeable in the IP layout. I couldn't find any photos, though, so I just kept the original F-4E instruments panels. About the model: this was part of a double build, together with a Finemolds F-4EJ kit that I converted (well, still in progress, actually) to a Hellenic Air Force F-4E. The idea was to complement the Hasegawa build with parts copied form the FM offering. The WIP thread can be seen here: Aniway: KIT: HASEGAWA F-4E Phantom II "Phabulous Phantom", #00790, 1/72, kindly donated by my friend @Gene K Aftermarkets: - Aires Exhausts - Master brass pitot tubes - Eduard #73201 PE set, for cockpit and airframe - Quickboost resin seats - HI-DECAL dedicated decals set HDL 72058 Scratch-building and improvements: - resin outer wings, cast and adapted from F-4F Revell kit parts (original parts kindly lent by Silvano @phantom61 ) - seamless intakes, @Gene K method - door 19 area (the "hunch"), resin copy cast from the corresponding Finemolds part - resin splitter plates, again cast from the original FM parts, since they offer an incredible detail in terms of the thousands of holes beautifully reproduced. I had of course to adapt the overall shape to fit the Hasegawa kit, but I think they came out good - tail fuel dump, from brass pipes - AoA probe, from brass rod - slime lights, from aluminium tape and spare decals - RBF tags, printed on regular paper using an EDUARD set as a template - tail chute, from styrene foam - drop tanks joint, using copper wire - various cabling ad wiring using copper wires, in the cockpit mainly - canopies opening arms, from steel rod and brass pipes - drooped ailerons, cutting through the kit plastic and manually bending them - fuselage pressure gauge. from clear sprue and a leftover decal - canopy masks, cut with my Silhouette Curio but from design provided by @Gene K Painting: Lifecolor paints for the camouflage, airbrushed. Tamiya acrylic Flat Black was used as primer/base. AK Extreme Metal, MM metallizers and Vallejo Metal for the various metallic hues. Lifecolor again for the interiors, both airbrushed and brush painted Weathering: kept to a minimum, since the only pic I found of the real thing shows a well kept airframe. I used black tempera washes for the wheel wells and a few other areas, and oil washes for the panel lines (black, dark grey and light grey according to the base color) Weapons: this aircraft was used in the Air Defence Role, normally equipped with AIM-9 L or P; I opted for using two AIM-9Ls, leftovers from an Airfix Harrier kit I'm pretty sure I forgot something, but enough blah-blah. here are the pics: Here you can appreciate the detail of the splitter plates, with the holes showing up only when viewed from close distance, just like the real thing - hat's off to Finemolds for brilliantly reproducing that detail! Tail chute detail Seats Cockpit details Tail and exhausts details Seamless intakes resin outer wings Ordnance and drop tanks Underside: The drooped airbrakes are from the Eduard PE set, with scratch built actuators (from copper wire and its plastic sleeve, which happened to be red ) The Auxiliary Air Intakes (the two small rectangular doors in the middle of the bottom fuselage) were instead cut off and scratch built from styrene sheet, using my Curio cutter. Exhausts detail Nose U/C bay Some bonus pics "in full sunlight" All comments welcome Ciao

Hi-Decal will soon release two decal sheets (1/72 and 1/48) for the legendary T-Bird: HD72062 & HD48032 - T-33A Shooting Star with markings for five colorful aircraft: - T-33A "2-161", Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF), Training Detachment at TFB.1 Mehrabad, 1963 - target tug scheme wth orange uppersurfaces and NMF underside; - T-33A "2-8002", Islamic Republic of Iran AF (IRIAF),85th AWTS, TFB.8 Baba'ie, 1987 - pale grey uppersurfaces and light grey underside; - T-33A "2-8005", Islamic Republic of Iran AF (IRIAF),85th AWTS, TFB.8 Baba'ie, 1995 - light blue and dark blue uppersurfaces and light grey underside; - T-33A "UB-531", Union of Burma Air Force (UBAF), N°502 Air Base HQ, Mingaladon AB/Yangon Int'l, 1971 - NMF with nose and entire rear fuselage in day-glo orange; - T-33A "703", Cuban Fuerza Aérea Revolucionaria (FAR), BA San Antonio de los Baños, 1961 - camouflaged in dark green and grass green after the FAL bombing raids of April 15th., 703 was one of only tree operational Cuban T-33s during the Bay of Pigs invasion and was credited with the downing of two FAL B-26 Invaders on April 17th and the damaging /sinking of the transport ships Houston and Rio Escondido. The decals are scheduled to be available during March. greetings Diego

Hello! As a late christmas gift, let me introduce my finished F-4ETM. Actually its done for a while, but I had no time to shot some almost good pics and write this text, thanks for my exterminations examinations. Whatever... Some of them made with and without flashlight, I can not decide which tone is closer to the real.

Goood evening ppl! My brand new project is this Turkish ETM Phantom. While I waiting for get the correct color for my Sparviero I started something different. As can be seen on the photo, I going to use the HDL's decal sheet. I was thinking about buying a resin cockpit and ome whatever but I guess that'll do for a good and quick joybuild. I want to build this one: My plan is to load it to the maximum. What is for sure is the two underwing droptanks and four AIM-9 on the underwing pylons and I am thinking about to put on the centerline frop tank and two or four Sparrows. Three drop tanks and eight AAMs imposing, isn't? As I see they useing the same drop tanks, that the Revell includes. Anyway the quality of the moulds remembers me to the old Heller and Kovozávody Prostějov kits... And so on. Flush everywhere. I dont know what happened to the Revell. Anyway fits well thanks God.