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Hi everybody! This is a long overdue RFI, since this build was completed in November 2023, so almost one year ago! The aircraft is and F-4E Phantom II of the 117th Combat Wing, based in Andradiva, here depicted in her 2014 "40 years Of Phantom II In Hellenic Air Force" livery. Let me start with a couple of pics, more to follow below. Here's one in natural light: Same subject, but using color auto-adjust from Irfan View A few words about the build: this was part of a double build, the WIP can be found here: The idea was to build two F-4Es with slatted wings, complementing the two kits with parts of each other, according to what is represented best in the two of them. The Hasegawa kit was used to represent a Turkish Air Force machine, whose RFI is here: For the Greek Spook, I used the Finemolds F-4EJ kit, converting it in a slatted F-4E by doing the following: Scratch built items: - Instruments panels, keeping parts of the kit ones and adding bits from stock styrene card, copper wires and spare decals - 3D printed exhaust cans and air brakes - air brakes actuators, from rigid copper wire and its plastic sleeve - canopy latches. from copper wire shaped up and hammered flat - resin outer wings, cloned from a set of Revell ones, with scratch built and re-positioned wing fences - drooped ailerons. cutting out and bending the kit parts - inner wings slat actuators, cloned from the Hasegawa kit - drop tanks from the Hasegawa kit, improved by removing the side welding strip and replacing it with thin brass pipe - rear fuselage air pressure gauge, by carving out its square hole and filling in with clear UV resin, and a generic gauge decal on the inside - DIAS ECM antennae, the intake shoulder ones using parts form the Hasegawa kit, the gun muzzle, tail fin and tail door ones from scratch, using various styrene bits and shaping them with standard sanding tools - IFF blade antennae (the ones sitting in front of the windshield) again using styrene sheet and sanding tools - home cut masks for the clear parts, designed by @Gene K and cut using my Silhouette Curio - RBF tags, printed on regular paper, soaked in Future and with copper wire glued to one end as connection wire/pin After-market items: - Quickboost seats - AIM120 and AIM9-L missiles from the dedicated Finemolds set - Pitot tube, fin sensor and AOA probe from the specific Finemolds brass set - Slime lights, canopy frames and gun compartment scavenger door from various Eduard PE sets - Decals and stencils from a Model Maker sheet for HAF special color Phantoms Paints and weathering: - Camouflage colors using Lifecolor paints - Metallics from AK Extreme Metal, Model Master Metallizers and Vallejo - Interiors painted using Lifecolor and Tamiya paints - Weathering done with tempera and oil paint washes, the chipping on the drop tanks was done with the good old salt chipping technique I'm pretty sure I forgot something, but I won't forget to thank everybody that followed my build, and especially -@Gene K for donating the kit, the 3D exhausts and air brakes, the masks cutting files and a ton of other Phantom related things that I'll be using in next builds - Silvano @phantom61, for donating Eduard PE sets and lending me a precious reference book for Greek Phantoms - Everybody else who gave advice, shared knowledge or just plainly cheered me up during the build You all wanna see some pics, now, right? There you go: Some interiors details Underneath views, from the WIP Last, a "Phamily" Photo As usual. all comments welcome! Ciao

Hi everybody; many of you may know about the recent releases from FineMolds of various Phantom subjects. My dear friend @Gene K was so kind and donated me this: This is going to be my first Long Nose Rhino; I thought (upon Gene's advice ) of throwing in also the Finemolds armament set and their pitot pipes brass set However, it just so happens that a while ago @Gene K had already donated to me another Long Nose Phantom kit, this one So I thought: why not a double build? Maybe trying to duplicate some of the features form the modern Finemolds kit and use them to improve the venerable Hasegawa kit? And maybe viceversa? Back then, I also acquired a few AM sets to spice up the HASEGAWA kit: Aires exhausts, Eduard PE set (full, not only the cockpit set) and Master Brass pitot pipes. And obviously, Gene's seamless intakes Right. Which subjects to represent, though? I don't really feel like I want to build a Japanese aircraft, at the moment; and I don't particularly care for the schemes proposed in the Hasegawa boxing too. So I ordered a decals set for an Iranian AC and one for an Hellenic Air Force Phantom. They're on their way from Poland and should hopefully be here soon. Both airframe have slatted wings, so the HASEGAWA kit is just fine, while the Finemolds one represents a model of the "hard wing" type, so the first challenge will be to upgrade that, copying the Hasegawa parts or sourcing stuff from other kits (a Revell F-4F, for instance - currently waiting to know from a friend if he has one to spare). This is going to be quite a long term project, also because I will put it on hold at a certain point, as soon as I receive my kits for the 453rd Museum build. It should hopefully be fun though. As usual, any comments, pointers and advice welcome. Ciao

Does anyone have any good shots/ drawings of the swordfish leading edge wing slats please? Thanks

OK, I know we are all getting pretty fired up to do FJ-2's right about now, and I'm sure this question isn't new, but selfishly for my benefit, could Sabrejet or Tailspin Turtle elaborate on this query? I want to get this one right! Regarding the FJ-2, on a natural metal VMF-235 Fury, would these colors be correct? Did Sword get the longer windscreen correct? Did I get this right? cockpit below consoles, seat: FS36231 dk. gull grey wheel bays, speed brake bays: FS 34151, chromate green landing gear doors, speed brake door interior, including edges: FS 31136, insignia red inner surface of slats, slat wells on wing leading edge: unpainted or dull, anodized aluminum Glad I have some spare Academy Sabre kits and Cutting Edge slat sets, as it looks like I'm going to need one of them! Mike To SJ- I'm betting the raised panels you illustrated on the kit fuselage are due to a non-original airframe being used for research, just like when they did their F3D kit. I'm looking through museum photos to see if I can find out which airplane, if any, matches the tooling on the kit.