Phantom FGR.2 Hasevell 1/48

[Mark V]

After seeing David H's progress on his new Tamiya 1/48 F-4B I decided to get to work on my F-4 stash to make way for the Tamiya kit.  Maybe, someday, when I save up some $$.  I have 8 1/48 Hasegawa F-4 kits of various types, 2 of which are the RAF FGR.2.  I have one Hasegawa and one Revell rebox of the same kit.  I started on the Revell since I wanted to trash the crappy box anyway.  Somewhere over the years I picked up some aftermarket including a set of Aires seats and the Eduard photoetch cockpit upgrade. I also have a couple of reference books and some additional decals.  I want to build these jets as they may have looked serving in 23 Squadron.  One in green/gray and one in the grays (Falklands deployment). I think I have enough decals to cover any standard RAF Phantom.

The Eduard cockpit set was fine.  Sorry, no photos at this time, but I'm not convinced it's a huge upgrade over a well painted kit cockpit here.  The seats were another story.  The Aires resin is very nice.  A huge improvement over the kit seats.  But the PE belts are a nightmare.  I finally got them in some semblance of order and attached where they should be, but they look a bit oversized.  I have another set for a second kit and will probably leave off some of the belts just to make it less complicated.  I did use the kit face curtain pull rings since the PE versions don't look right (flat).

The kit itself is well known to most cold war modelers since this is the only FGR2 in 1/48th.  

The main components are together and ready for gloss for decals and weathering.  My daughter and family are coming for a 10 day visit so I'll be away from the modelling desk for a bit.  Hope to update this in a couple of weeks.

 

 

 

Paints are Testors Model Master, since I still have a lot of them.  Green is RAF Dark Green, Gray is Medium Gray FS36270, and the lower gray is Light Gray FS36492.  

 

The white patches forward of the main gear wells are the pylon sway brace arms.  Since I'm painting the pylons white I figured these should be white also.  They are part of the pylon, even if Hasegawa didn't make them part of the pylon on the sprue.

 

The belt sticking up vertically on the right seat will be bent over the cockpit side console once the seat is in place.  I did not add the leg restraint garters to the lower front of the seats.

[David H]

Wow i love the execution of the camo pattern, and the seats look great. I threw up my hands in disgust at the Tamiya decal seat belts, so i placed an order with Sprue Brothers for the Eduard belt set. No reason why they shouldn't be carried forward to completion.

Plus, my Eduard F-4B seats just arrived so when the smoke settles we'll have a legitimate 3 way comparison.

 

A little bit apples and oranges, i know.

 

-d-

[Phone Phixer]

Great start and very nice painted seats.

I have the same (Revell) kit and due to be my next build. Just waiting on the arrival of the aftermarket bits I will be using.

It's a coincidence that mine will be a 23 Sqn Falklands jet, from 1988, when I was down there on them.

 

Look forward to more updates.

 

Rob.

[jumbojock]

Nice. I have a Hasegawa F-4 that's been sitting half built for more than 15 years.  Watching with interest.

 

The pilot on the decal sheet is a mate of mine I used to fly with many years ago. They also did a 1/32 scale set to turn the Tamiya F-4J into an RAF variant. Not sure it's available now.

[CJP]

Nice & those ejection seats look great

CJP

[Mark V]

I'm back in business.  My daughter, son-in-law, and 5 year old grandson visited from Florida for 10 days in mid-May.  It was a great time and I even bought the grandson a couple of easy build diecast and plastic models.  A C-130 (his father is an Army airborne type guy) and a C7 Corvette that looks a lot like mine.

Unfortunately once they left I picked up a slight cold so between sneezing, coughing, and cold medicine I didn't do any model work for over a week.  I finally got past that and back to the model desk.

 

I completed the decals and an initial dark wash on the FGR.2.  I used decals from most of the sheets shown above, plus I had to buy a white letter set off of ebay just for the "J" on the tail.  I didn't have any in the correct size or style.  So it was about $5 per "J".  It's made up as XV434 with 23 Squadron in the late 1970s.  I found several photos of the actual 434 but I had already painted the camo, so it doesn't follow the photos exactly.  But close enough for most of us.

Next up is some weathering, finish and install the canopies, finish off the landing gear and wheels, and attach all of the remaining parts.

Sorry for the slightly out of focus photos.  I'll get better ones later.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lord Riot]

Absolutely brilliant looking Phantom! I’m planning on building one in these very same markings at some point. If it turns out anywhere near as good as this I’ll be delighted.

 

Did you ever get the chance of a trip in the back of an RAF one?

[Mark V]

6 hours ago, Lord Riot said:

Absolutely brilliant looking Phantom! I’m planning on building one in these very same markings at some point. If it turns out anywhere near as good as this I’ll be delighted.

 

Did you ever get the chance of a trip in the back of an RAF one?

Thanks, Be sure to inventory your decals. If you want to do a 23 Sqd the tails stripes and eagles are available but the XV numbers are in several locations and sizes. I didn’t have enough “434”s between the XtraDecal and Airdoc sets so had to print some on clear decal film for the top of the vertical tail. Hard to see in the photos. 

As for a ride in an FGR, no, not a chance. I’m not sure that I ever even saw a British Phantom. Our squadron did do an exchange with the Tornados of 617 Squadron, based at RAF Marham if I remember correctly. Would have been 1986. They were flying the green and grey camo jets then. I didn’t go to their base, was a different flight in our squadron that went. And I went to Karup, Denmark the year prior when we did an exchange with the RF-35 Drakens. So that was my “good deal” TDY. 

[Mark V]

On 5/9/2022 at 5:42 PM, Phone Phixer said:

Great start and very nice painted seats.

I have the same (Revell) kit and due to be my next build. Just waiting on the arrival of the aftermarket bits I will be using.

It's a coincidence that mine will be a 23 Sqn Falklands jet, from 1988, when I was down there on them.

 

Look forward to more updates.

 

Rob.

I still plan on doing a Falklands jet next. I already have collected some aftermarket and the decal sets I have include a Falkland option. I may have several questions for you soon, concerning those deployed jets. My questions may have already been asked and answered so I’ll do a search first. 

[Mark V]

I didn't think through getting the canopies ready, or even off of the sprues, until I finished decaling.  I wanted to use the Eduard canopy frame photoetch details that came with the cockpit set.  There are a bunch of other airframe details in the set but I'm saving those for the next model.  Anyway, I started gluing the etch parts to the canopies with Testors clear parts cement (white glue).  I have to let them dry overnight, and one piece ended up sticking out into the airstream so had to be removed and reset.

Meanwhile, I did some mild weathering to give it a slightly dirty used look.  Photos of the jets early in their careers show that they're pretty clean.  I did spray some dark exhaust staining behind the engine nozzles and on the inboard areas of the stabs per photos that I found.

 

 

 

I went ahead and added the gear just to feel like I was getting something done.

The stabs are not permanently attached yet.  The closer one is a loose fit and is propped up with a paint jar.

 

It was time for a glass of wine to reflect on how to complete the canopies.  It will probably take 4 - 5 days to paint, gloss, decal, flat, install.  

 

 

Next up spray a flat coat to even out the finish and seal the decals.  Add some more pieces, uncover and complete the cockpit, and of course get the canopies done.

[exdraken]

Wow, looks  phantastic!!

 

[Mark V]

Several months ago I was ordering some bits and pieces from The 48ers online shop.  They have lots of detail sets that aren't readily available elsewhere.  Also their shipping from Cyprus is very reasonable and relatively quick.

I saw a set of LP Models RAF F-4 Phantom ladders and thought that they'd look good hanging off the side of the model.  I don't remember the cost but I'm generally looking for cheap deals so it couldn't have been too much.

 

 

I opened the box when I received the set just to make sure they were intact.  They were.  Yesterday I did a test fit to see how they looked.  

 

 

Well, it looked like the backseater would have to get a running start to jump up onto the first rung.  The pilot's ladder looked normal, although it just barely fits, which is almost like the real thing.

I found a few pictures of the actual ladders and it looks like LP left off 3 lower rungs of the rear ladder.  The forward ladder should have 7 steps, it does.  The aft should have 9 steps, but there are only six.  And neither have the little wheels at the base to help the crew move them around.  

I assume they were 3D printed.  It looks like they got lazy and didn't bother to actually confirm what they designed.  The top ends look and fit ok.  Bottoms, not so much.  And the side rails should be rectangular cross section, not tubular.  At least according to the pictures I found.

I thought about cutting off the bottom 3 rungs of the forward ladder and grafting them onto the aft, but they're not the same width.  I probably have forward ladders in other Hasegawa Phantom kits to replace the LP one.  But since I won't chop up the LP ladder I guess I'll use it as is. 

Has anyone else bought these LP Models ladders and were they different than the ones I have?

[Mike]

 

Looks good - who stole the stem off your wine glass?

[Mark V]

Got the canopies dipped in Future/Pledge to gloss up the clear parts and to reinforce the glue joints with the photo etch parts. Not sure if that will work, but couldn’t hurt. Could paint them tomorrow but...

I spent a couple of hours looking for the Eduard canopy mask set I bought a while ago. Can’t find them in any of my Phantom boxes. I had to order a couple of new sets off of eBay. Hopefully I’ll get them in a couple of days from Southern California. 

I could have just used tape and masked the canopies the old fashioned way but the pieces are hard to handle so as to not bend or break off the photo etch. I think the pre-cut masks will be easier and safer. 

While waiting on the masks I can finish off a set of missiles for this one.  Sky flash and AIM-9J or G?

[Mark V]

Probably final WiP entry...

I received the canopy masks after a few days.  While waiting I painted up a set of missiles, kit AIM-7E and Hasegawa Weapons Set AIM-9G.

Once the masks arrived I painted the canopies and applied the yellow dashed stripe decals.  I sprayed a final dull coat this morning and will unmask them later today.  Hopefully all will be well for final installation later today or tomorrow.

I took a couple of photos of how she sits now.  Just a few parts left.

 

The seats are just placed in the cockpits loose for now.  I had to put some scrap plastic under the rear seat to raise it up to a more normal looking height.  It sat very low, almost 1/4 inch, so that the headrest barely rose above the canopy sill.

 

 

I read that UK-based air defense QRA jets were fitted with 3 external tanks for range and 4x4 AIM-7/9s.  

 

 

Hopefully I will finish it off in the next day or so.