PATRICK FROM THE SANDS Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 Hello Happy Modelers! I am almost of the end of my USAF Phantom saga with this the F-4C. For this version I chose the well known Hasegawa kit I had in stock since years but, quite disappointed by the level of details, I modified it quite a lot with PE, resin and other aftermarket goodies. So what I did: - Cockpit entirely reshaped with PE and some scratch build; - Resin ejection seats (forgot the brand); - Canopy from Taurus; - Resin wheel wells (AIRES), very difficult, needing heavy surgery! Quite a challenge to respect the correct thickness of the wing, the resin parts need to be sanded A LOT to be correctly inserted. - dropped airbrakes 🤬🤬; Shame on Hasegawa not providing this option! - dropped auxiliary belly doors; Shame on Hasegawa..... - Rear "hot area" reshaped to show extra metal sheets, riveting etc... - Resin wheels with the correct threads; - ...and obviously, a hard work to reshape the inner air intakes tunnels and front end of the engine... The whole kit was riveted slightly, I engraved the AAR receptacle and added/corrected some panels. I wanted to do a Vietnam-era F-4 and I found on the web a jaw-dropping series of F-4C/D color photos taken in Thailand and Vietnam airbases here: http://www.piccianiaircraftphotos.com/f-4c_phantom_page_one (highly recommended for Phantom Phanatics) and my choice was obviously this one, an old warrior/mig killer well worn from the 497th TFS: The old CONUS camouflage shows below the SEA scheme, which has been patched with different shade of green. Quite a challenge! After some investigations, it appears that the aircraft were ferried from US in their ADC camouflage then painted SEA "on the spot" with a disparate stock of poor quality paints, not necessarily the FS. Some sources said that the underside was kept white, but to my opinion, it is more on a case by case basis. Painting the model was time consuming as I wanted to reproduce as best as possible at the 72 scale the weathered effect depicted on the photo. I used various technics and I hope its OK! Markings are home made from surplus and Microscale sheets for letters, numbering and the owl emblem. For the ordnance, the bird is heavily loaded with bombs, missiles and ECM pods obviously not included in the Hasegawa kit 🤬 So I used aftermarket for that. the ECM pod comes from the Monogram kit and was also tweaked. It seems unrealistic or exagerated that the beast can haul such a large amount of stuff but the photo is the proof! Enough blabla, here are the pix, made by a poor photographer (me): I made a little and simple dio to put the beast in situation with two elements: a bomb trailer, coming from the Hasegawa Weapon set but heavily modified because it is too basic and a MC-1a High pressure compressor, also from Hasegawa but entirely modified because completely false! Hope you will enjoy that build, critics most welcome! 54 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HansReggelsen Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 Oh - I enjoy it a lot! What a great model - well weathered and very realistic in appearance - well done indeed. Cheers Hans J 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 That's excellent, all the work shows, fantastic result. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAT69 Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 That's a lot of work in 1/72 scale. Very very impressive! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 I can find nothing to criticise. You have done a great job of improving the old Hasegawa. The painting is very close to the reference photo, Well done for that difficult job. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 That is positively outstanding! And, in the gentlemen’s scale, too. My hat is off to you! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RidgeRunner Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 Very nice, Patrick Martin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vultures1 Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 Excellent work! You've done a great job of capturing the look of the original and your changes to the Hasegawa kit make a big difference - well done 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dolphin38 Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 Great looking Phantom, great work 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hook Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 Very nice, thanks for posting! Cheers, Andre 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Dyck Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 Very good job and superb display there! Thx for sharing Andy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrisj2003 Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 Phabulous. Love the weathering. Chris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PATRICK FROM THE SANDS Posted February 10, 2022 Author Share Posted February 10, 2022 Thank you all for your kind comments! not an easy build, but it was interesting to compare it with the old Monogram, which, despite its age, was excellent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky Keg Posted February 10, 2022 Share Posted February 10, 2022 Delightful and most pleasing to gaze upon. Mike 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-32 Posted February 10, 2022 Share Posted February 10, 2022 That really looks the part 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deano353 Posted February 14, 2022 Share Posted February 14, 2022 Excellent paint job there best looking variant of the F4 in my opinion. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Posted March 8, 2022 Share Posted March 8, 2022 Great job, today this Phantom its on exhibit at the Air Museum in Santiago, Chile. A true MiG Killer ex Bolo and ex Night Owl warrior. Phantom Museo by Rodrigo Loyola, en Flickr 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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