1/72 F-4K

[Giorgio N]

Speaking of Revell's old 1/72 Phantoms, I just saw a Thunderbirds set for sale last saturday at a local market. It included 4 F-4E kits with a stand and markings for the aircrafts of the team. I was tempted but when I opened the box I noticed how the parts were terrible, with plenty of flash everywhere. That set must have been made when the moulds were well worn...

[Panoz]

Tempestfan, to say that the Revell 1/72 F-4K has a Spey exhaust representation is putting it quite kindly. They seemed to just make a tube look like a Spey. Since they didn't modify the fuselage, the diameter is not for a Spey but more for a J-79.

I also remember the Revell F-4B "Jolly Rogers" kit. The decals were a bit lacking compared to their F-4E kit.

Modelldoc, was the YF-4K a Spey or J-79 powered Phantom? I remember the H-129 boxart. One of the better ones for the F-4K (being ready for launch off a carrier).

The YF-4K was Spey powered.

Of course we know that the old Revell Phantom is a joke and the Matchbox one is .

I built all three of those horrors (F-4B, F-4K & RF-4E) in 1988 and I do remember how disappointed I was after finding out that the F-4K was just the F-4B kit molded in a different colour. I never noticed that the exhausts of the -K had been modified from the ones on the -B. I just wanted confirmation that some changes had been made on the tooling.

Regarding the F-4B "Jolly Rogers" and the F-4E kits, I don't think these were ever sold by Revell Germany. (Could be wrong though; not that it will be the first time. )

Edited April 15, 2014 by Panoz

[aerofan]

Giorgio N, yeah I think that was near the end of the mold life time when they released the 4 F-4E Thunderbird and 4 F-4J Blue Angels sets. They really milked that mold for all they can get out it.

Panoz, yep they did slightly modify the tooling of that one tree for the exhaust; one for the F-4K and then again for the F-4E / F-4J. Hasegawa/Frog/Novo was even more clever in that the exhaust was just on a tree by itself separate from the rest of the parts. The Jolly Rogers F-4B was a US release but I think RoG released the F-4E as a F-4F.

I remembered how excited I was when I was a wee lad getting a Matchbox F-4K/M and seeing that it was a Spey powered Phantom. Of course that was well before the Fujimi ones. That Matchbox kit has since been gone but not missed at all.

Edited April 16, 2014 by aerofan

[tempestfan]

Tempestfan, to say that the Revell 1/72 F-4K has a Spey exhaust representation is putting it quite kindly. They seemed to just make a tube look like a Spey. Since they didn't modify the fuselage, the diameter is not for a Spey but more for a J-79. Same with the old Hasgawa/Frog/Novo F-4K/M kits. These would all be best avoided for any attempt at a 1/72 F-4K/M.

That's exactly what I meant with "representation" - a featureless, slightly tapered ring instead of a ribbed, otherwise featureless, conical affair as used in the B, RF-E (IIRC) and C kits. Fortunately, I bought enough Fujimi Brit Phantoms to keep me occupied for the rest of my life when distribution was good and they could be had cheaply. My H-129s, Hase and Frog F-4Ks are purely for collecting. I am a perverted masochist regarding building ancient kits but not so much that I'd consider building one of those- you have to draw a line somewhere.

The T-Birds set was in the German/Continental catalogue at least by 1975, and the mould was used for a couple of years afterwards. The F-4E (H-179) was also made by Revell Bünde (don't recall clearly if it included Luftwaffe decals, but I think not - there was an F-4F boxing of the 1/48 kit, though), but I think only the B and RF-E made it into Revell "grey photoboxes", the RF-E even having at least one blue box issue (04338). Incidentally, as they continued producing the B with thin wings into the 80s, this would indicate that they either had more than one set of B moulds, of which one was modified with the wing bulges, or produced a duplicate mould for the bulged versions.

Edited April 16, 2014 by tempestfan

[Geoff_B]

Would be nice to see some new FAA Phantom decals come out, the Model Alliance ones are long gone and they only covered 892 sqd, so were rather lacking in the Prototypes, the 700 sqd and 767 sqd markings to go with them.

[SAU]

Here are what i have in pictures

Boxart, that's the reason why I bought it.

Even if the nice boxart shows an extended nose strut, there is none and the main wheels look toyish.

The seats are half moulded in the fuselage and there are some nasty extrusion marks at the inside of the canopy

I really like the Phantom riveting..not... and here you have an almost perfect replica of a Spey

The plan was to make a what-if of it, that was 7 years ago