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Airfix FGR2 Phantom


Farmerboy

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Just bought the above kit and was staggered by the amount of stencils shown on the airframe, a question to those who know, was that really the case on an operational aircraft or could I get away with just the most obvious ones?

Edited by Farmerboy
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The Stencils are there to help ground crews (aircrew too) as to what fuel, Hyd and engine oil. quantities. type of gasses to recharge things with as well as max pressures. Then there's the  walkways/no step areas. Not to mention the safety warnings/instructions.  

On my time on Lightning's I remember the first Grey jet coming back from repaint and they servicing stencils on the Stbd side had been copied from the port side...totally wrong.     

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In my opinion, it all depends on how much effort you want to spend on decalling. I've seen the decal sheet of the kit, and if I were to buy it, I'd ignore the stencils and just go for the national insignia, because I'm rather lazy. 

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They certainly love stencils at Airfix even the Me262 had  at least 45 of them...

I bought a Hunter last week and guess what that one is loaded with them and you even have choices on wich aircraft to put em on as this even differs...stencils take an even amount of space on that sheet as the regular decals..

 

cheers, Jan

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Don't know how were British Phantoms but the recon version we have in our museum have quite a bit of stencils. When you look at the aircraft from afar you do not notice it but once you start looking closer you start noticing all this stuff here and there. I am really glad that Airfix and Academy provide all the stencil: it is easier to say "I do not care about such detail and do not want to spend hours decaling it" rather trying to hunt down the complete stencil sheet or use toothpick or needle point brush to create your own stencil

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The British Phantoms were certainly well stencilled, the Navy even had an early example that had the stencilling done in white over the EDSG  areas to highlight them for training purposes.

 

I would sooner see all these decals in the box, but then I really enjoy decalling!

 

Edited by 71chally
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And British Phantoms had less stencils than their "American cousins". Many CAUTION and WARNING markings were left out as those things were so obvious (for example a sharp edge). I think it was a wise decision as the surface of American Phantoms looks like a "wall of disinformation".

 

Cheers,

Antti

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11 minutes ago, Starfighter said:

If you want to see lots of stencils then get the Daco decal sheets for the Luftwaffe F-104 . . .Hours of fun, but I just HAD to aply them all ! 🙂

Oh, yes! Those sheets are in the library, and there's a fresh Revell F-104G in the stash...

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I can remember stencilling an Israeli F4E in 1/72nd in about 1980 from a Microscale F4 Stencil sheet. Took a while, but liked it and it did win a prize at an early Newark show. All the British Phantoms I remember seeing at airshows were covered with stencils. 

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My 2p worth. I rarely put all the stencils on. To my eye and personal preference any model I have fully stencilled looks like it’s got a dose of measles !  I wonder if it’s scale effect at play?  If the stencil is in a “hard” black  and so is the decal does it appear too prominent to the eye when viewing as compared to the same stencil and colour on the real thing?

 

probably just me but I suggest you follow your desires as it’s your model at the end of the day 

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  • 2 months later...
On 2/3/2019 at 1:12 PM, JohnT said:

My 2p worth. I rarely put all the stencils on. To my eye and personal preference any model I have fully stencilled looks like it’s got a dose of measles !  I wonder if it’s scale effect at play?  If the stencil is in a “hard” black  and so is the decal does it appear too prominent to the eye when viewing as compared to the same stencil and colour on the real thing?

 

probably just me but I suggest you follow your desires as it’s your model at the end of the day 

I quite agree. If the model is 1/32 or bigger than the stencils don't look too out of pace, but the smaller scales might not look right, taking into accounr scale effect.  I guess the best answer is do as you think fit, after all, it's your model.  :cheers:

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I come down in the middle of this argument. I don't feel compelled to put on every stencil, esp the ones that can't easily be seen due to color scheme or location. But I do like to have an assortment of the larger and more prominent ones to give the flavor of the stenciling job. And Phantoms were notorious for their never-ending stencil jobs. I only work in 1:72 so can get away with not applying the tiny ones. 

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The Revell 1/32 Hunter I just completed has a shed load of stencils.  I put on as many as I could before my eyes went "squiffy" which is always a good time to stop!  I always wonder too whether stencils might be obliterated by repaint/touching up on the real thing & not replaced.

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  • 8 months later...
21 hours ago, PhantomBigStu said:

anything else I need? 

Different nose landing gear leg with double scissor links, and slatted stabs versus the unslatted ones on the FGR.2.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

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