Robin Olds 'Fighter Pilot' - Hobby 2000 1/72 F-4C. +++ FINISHED +++

[Johnson]

Hi Folks (or is it 'pholks' )

 

I'd like to join the STGB with a Vietnam Phantom F-4C. It's actually the old Hasegawa kit reboxed and released last year by Hobby 2000 as 'Vietnam Aces' Vol.1. And the subject is one of the great US Aces, Robin Olds.

 

The obligatory opening shots;

 

 

 

Sprues;

I made the Hasegawa F-4J several years ago, and these look very familiar. Nice plastic but I seem to recall some tricky alignment problems with the front and rear fuselages. And (being Hasegawa) no weapons! I'll have to see what I can find.

 

Decals;

They look OK, and printed by Cartograf so should be good. But compared with the recent Airfix 1/72 and Tamiya 1/48, fairly minimal and not a patch on the recent 1/48 Fundekals set for the same plane. Which they don't seem to be releasing at 1/72  (nor answering me when I asked if they would ).

 

Some aftermarket stuff;

The kit includes canopy masks but I bought a new Eduard set, I've used the black vinyl before (Montex?) - horrible stuff.

 

This is really good...

Fundekals may not do 1/72 but to their credit they have produced an absolutely amazing guide which is downloadable for free from their website.

 

Essential bedtime reading;

 

The legend and his aircraft;

 

Cheers.

[Chrisj2003]

Lovely. Got this one in the stash.

 

Chris

[Johnson]

4 minutes ago, Chrisj2003 said:

Lovely. Got this one in the stash.

I really recommend downloading the Fundekals guide for when you make yours Chris. Very comprehensive research and some differences to the Hobby 2000 colours.

 

Cheers,

[Bertie McBoatface]

The scope for weathering the USAF Phantoms is very exciting. Especially this one.

[Retired Bob]

On 07/09/2021 at 20:57, Johnson said:

The legend and his aircraft;

I notice in this Photo that the F-4C has Mk.5 ejection seats.

[Johnson]

8 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

the F-4C has Mk.5 ejection seats.

Yes, it’s going to be one of my first challenges.

[Retired Bob]

1 hour ago, Johnson said:

Yes, it’s going to be one of my first challenges.

In 1/72nd scale the easiest way to change the seats from Mk.7 to Mk.5 would be to make the parachute pack look fabric instead of fibre-glass and make the metal shroud around the parachute pack from some 5 thou plastic card.  The rest is not much different, the rocket pack that was the big difference in performance was attached to the underneath of the seat pan out of view.  The other difference between USAF and US Navy seats was the emergency oxygen bottle being in the seat pan survival pack of the Navy seats and behind that shaped cut-out of the back cushion in USAF (and RAF) Phantoms. There is some information on the seat differences in the "chat" pages.  It's one of those tricks of getting old that I can remember more about Phantom seats from 40 odd years ago than the Tornado seats I worked on only 20 years ago. 

[Johnson]

Thanks Bob. I’ll see what the kit seats are like though I suspect they’ll be rather basic. I’ve some  tatty (Aires Quickboost) resin Mk7s in the spares box which will probably be better. I’ll get started in a day or so, off on holiday to the Peak District, and Mrs J. has let me bring a kit! 

[Johnson]

OK, a bit of progress.

 

It's been a bit slow as we're on holiday in a tiny cottage and modelling conditions are not ideal. And there are the distractions of lots of walks, and a pub across the road. Yes! A pub! I'd almost forgotten what it was like, and they allow dogs - he's only one year old and didn't know about pubs. But the price of ale - you could buy a cheap kit for the price of a pint!

 

Anyway, I digress, a bit of progress on the cockpit;

 

 

As Bob @Retired Bob mentioned above, the MB Mk.7 seat is actually pretty similar to the Mk.5 with the addition of the metal covers each side replacing the fibreglass box. I reduced the size of the parachute pack of the kit seat (which is actually very good) and (the hard part) cut and moulded thin strips of 5 thou plastic to represent the Mk.5 metal covers. Once the Eduard etched detail is added they should look pretty good.

 

But before that I'm going to concentrate on paint and detail (more Eduard etched) in the tub.

 

Back soon(ish). Cheers! 

[Retired Bob]

1 hour ago, Johnson said:

But the price of ale - you could buy a cheap kit for the price of a pint!

Are there any cheap kits these days?  I haven't bought anything under £30 for ages!  err!  the beer wasn't THAT expensive was it?

Nice work on the ejection seats, they will look the part once in the cockpit.

[Johnson]

13 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

Are there any cheap kits these days?  I haven't bought anything under £30 for ages!  err!  the beer wasn't THAT expensive was it?

The cheapest kit I've bought recently was a 2nd hand 1/72 Airfix Spitfire Vb (old but still good, and still sealed in cellophane) for £3.99 which is possibly a London price for a pint, beer's still a bit cheaper up here! 

 

This build is going to be quite expensive for 1/72;

 

Hobby 2000 PhantomF-4C kit    £25.74

Eduard AIM-9Bs                           £7.17

Eduard AIM 7Es                            £7.20

Canopy Masks                              £3.70

Aircraft detailing sets (etched)   £13.99

Paint                                             £9.25

Phantom Ladder set                     £8.40

Total                                            £75.45

 

Yikes! 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Johnson
Forgot about the ladder set!

[Retired Bob]

1 hour ago, Johnson said:

Yikes! 

It's not the 1/6d that I paid for my first Airfix kit, the Auster Antartic back in the 60's. (even with inflation) 

[Chrisj2003]

@Johnson good price for the kit itself. The Fine Molds missile set due out this month may be a cheaper option to arm mine; but I'll probably do the Fine Molds E before this one; in beast mode with 3 tanks, sparrows and bombs on TERs.

 

Chris

[Johnson]

I was going to use the Edward etched detail set for the i/p and panels, but it was for the F-4J and wasn't really correct for the F4-C. So I've opted for the Hobby 2000 cockpit decals which aren't as realistic as the Edward but are more accurate. A dab of clear blue on the artificial horizon and clear red on the radar scopes livens up the i/p a bit. But I may dull the rest of the panels down very slightly with a dark wash as they seem a bit garish.

 

The Mk.7 seats that came with the kit were pretty good, I modified them to resemble Mk.5s and added the Eduard harnesses etc (which were a nightmare to add with CA glue as usual).

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking, any comments or suggestions most welcome - before the cockpit tub gets permanently fixed in the fuselage!

 

Cheers,

[PeterB]

Looking good Charlie, but I think you are right about a thin dark wash on the panels.

 

Pete

[Johnson]

A bit of a mega update on the jet intakes. This is where the kit is modified to allow seamless intakes to be added.

 

Gene @Gene K kindly sent me a template for the Hasegawa 1/72 kit. If you haven't already seen his seamless intakes they solve the rather obvious problem with Hasegawa (and other) kits that the intake stops at the front of the fuselage only a short and visibly unrealistic distance in from the jet intake lips and spoils the appearance from the front.

 

The first step is to open up the front of the fueslage;

 

This obviously needed cleaning up, hence the 10A scalpel, so that when the forward fuselage is mated to the rear, there is no lip. I should have taken a pic of the cleaned up hole, but forgot!

 

The seamless intakes are cut from plasticard sheet, Gene recommends .015" but I only had .010" and it worked OK.

 

 

The rear of the 'intakes' are then rolled to form the pipe to the front of the engine;

 

 

Next is to scratch some engine fronts for the back of the intake pipes;

 

 

And join them to the back of the intake pipes;

 

 

Then they (there are two of these, obviously) have to be inserted into the fuselage. 

 

This is where my build departs slightly from Gene's recommended approach as I joined the fuselage halves beforehand, which makes insertion of the intakes a lot harder. This will all make a lot more sense if you refer to Gene's excellent guide can be found here (I hope you don't mind @Gene K that I link your build in here):

 

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/251810-seamless-intakes-for-phantom/&tab=comments#comment-2505083

 

I had to insert the intakes from the rear so I cut an additional hole in the underside of the fuselage to allow me to push the intake into the right place;

 

 

Small cuts in the front lip of the intake enable it to be glued in place, some filler was required later to get a smooth intake;

 

 

 

It was a bit of work, but does give a much better impression from the front. AND, if you look down the intakes, you can just about make out the engine intakes! 

 

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that I forgot to drill the holes for the intake probes (temp sensors?) and will add them later).

 

A huge thanks to Gene! 

 

And on with the build. Back soon.

[Chrisj2003]

Charlie, obviously got a better camera than me because you can see the fans in yours. Very nice work. 
 

Chris

[Johnson]

2 minutes ago, Chrisj2003 said:

obviously got a better camera than me because you can see the fans in yours. Very nice work. 

Thanks Chris. Multiple attempts with the iPhone camera (amazing technology!), one out of five shots worked.

[Gene K]

20 hours ago, Johnson said:

The seamless intakes are cut from plasticard sheet, Gene recommends .015" but I only had .010" ... .

Actually, I use .010", so must have has a slip of the brain when I said .015".  

 

Great job, especially on the compressor faces.

 

Gene K

[Johnson]

1 minute ago, Gene K said:

Actually, I use .010", so must have has a slip of the brain when I said .015".  

I did think as I was rolling the rear intake tubes - this would be hard work using .015! 

 

3 minutes ago, Gene K said:

Great job, especially on the compressor faces.

 

Thanks Gene, I think they'll do, considering where they are and how much will be seen. But the painting was a bit rushed and I would have liked to spend more time on them. I can see from the photo you posted on the ARC Forum that they are actually more complicated than my hasty representation, but I'm becoming increasingly aware that October is running out and the end of the GB is looming. I always get bogged down in the detail, much of which no one sees, and I end up with a slow build and a rush to the finish.

 

Off to do some 1:1 painting (local heritage road signs that the highways dept have given up on - 'everyone uses Sat Navs these days'). Then some more F-4C construction later. The fuselage/wing fit leaves a bit to be desired, but more of that later.

 

Cheers,

[Dansk]

9 hours ago, Johnson said:

Off to do some 1:1 painting (local heritage road signs that the highways dept have given up on - 'everyone uses Sat Navs these days')

Now thats a service to the community. Good on you.

[DaveJL]

Lovely work! I also applaud your sign painting!

[Gene K]

9 hours ago, Gene K said:

Actually, I use .010", so must have had a slip of the brain when I said .015".  

 

Great job, especially on the compressor faces.

 

Gene K

 

[Johnson]

OK. I needed to find out if I could cut the 'bumps' (circled red) off the underside of the forward fuselage, under the intakes and on the underside of the wings.

 

 

And the answer is yes. These were USN bumps and specific to the F-4J. Hasegawa use the same part for the C and J.

 

I found the answer to this, and many other things, in Giorgio's @giemme quite amazing F-4C '1/72 McDD F-4 C Phantom II, Hasegawa/Monogram kitbash'. Initially it was just the rear two bumps that @Gene K Gene had indicated for removal, but later in Giorgio's build I see that they have all gone which concurs with the photo's I've looked at, including a photo of Col Old's actual F-4C;

 

 

(Though I can't see the starboard side).

 

But reading Giorgio's build has given me a bit more work to do 🙄. I'm definitely going to have to do more in the cockpit.

 

This is the plan, and the list is not exhaustive. I think the following would be good;

 

• Scribe AAR panel on spine.
• I'm planning to have the canopies open so some instrument backs and wiring for the GIB's panel really is needed.
• Circuit breaker panel for GIB's stbd wall.
• Beacon antenna behind cockpit.
• The air pressure window above the stbd jet exhaust.
• Fill the (radar?) sensor on the front of the wings (arrowed in the pic above)
• Convert the 'dork fairing' to a strike camera.

 

If any F-4 experts disagree with the plan, especially removing the F-4J bumps, please do let me know soon! Any other suggestions/additions gratefully accepted!

 

PS - and I just noticed that I didn't drill the holes for the inner wing pylons 🙄.

 

Cheers,

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Johnson
More things to do​

[giemme]

Definitely remove those bumps, Johnson. Your plan sounds good, I think you caught the bug!  What bug? You'll see...   

 

As for:

1 hour ago, Johnson said:

Circuit breaker panel for GIB's stbd wall

Are you using the Eduard complete PE set?

It should be included in the unpainted fret, it's one piece with the canopy opening mechanism for that side.  HTH

 

Anyway, nice job so far  

 

Ciao