1/48 - McDonnell Douglas F-4E & G Phantom II by Meng Model - F-4G & E released

[Ben Brown]

I guess there's a third new F-4E-specific sprue somewhere that has the TISEO? All three aircraft depicted on the decal sheet had the TISEO and ARN-101 mod.  

 

Ben  

[Muzz]

What are the three schemes, obviously the box scheme and then, is it a couple of SEA?

[Filler]

56 minutes ago, Muzz said:

What are the three schemes, obviously the box scheme and then, is it a couple of SEA?

Looking at the decal sheet in the photo above it looks to me like you have the Spangdahlem jet in its mid 80's Euro1 scheme (as per the box art), a 3rd TFS aircraft in 90s Hill Grey(?) scheme and a ROKAF aircraft, also in lo-vis grey.

[Masinissa]

5 hours ago, Ben Brown said:

I guess there's a third new F-4E-specific sprue somewhere that has the TISEO? All three aircraft depicted on the decal sheet had the TISEO and ARN-101 mod.  

 

Ben  

Looks like there is no TISEO in the box. Right now if you want to do an F-4E slated wing proper, is to get the set from Hypersonic Models and use the 1/48 ZM F-4E early. There may be an after market strap and TISEO coming later for this kit. It's a nice kit otherwise.

 

TISEO not shown on build. 

[Stefan Buysse]

11 hours ago, Ben Brown said:

I guess there's a third new F-4E-specific sprue somewhere that has the TISEO? All three aircraft depicted on the decal sheet had the TISEO and ARN-101 mod.  

 

Ben  

Hi,

 

Is there a list of USAF F-4E's that had the TISEO?

I'm wondering about that because "House of Phantoms Decals" from Germany just released a sheet with Ramstein F-4E's.

The profiles in the instructions have the wing deleted for clarity, so it is not visible there if the subject had the TISEO.

I gather that 71-0237 was the first one built with TISEO. I'm not sure if all subsequent ones were built with TISEO, if TISEO was retro-fitted to earlier ones or if the TISEO was sometimes removed later in the life of these Phantoms.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

[Ben Brown]

What little bit I can find, TISEO was installed starting with 71-0224, which was also the first F-4E with the thicker wing skin and therefore no reinforcement strap. I can’t say “all” F-4Es after 0224 had TISEO, because I’ve never seen anything saying so, and there were possibly exceptions. I do have a list of ARN-101 jets, courtesy of the F-4 Google Group, if anyone is interested.

 

Ben

[Boman]

10 hours ago, Ben Brown said:

What little bit I can find, TISEO was installed starting with 71-0224, which was also the first F-4E with the thicker wing skin and therefore no reinforcement strap. I can’t say “all” F-4Es after 0224 had TISEO, because I’ve never seen anything saying so, and there were possibly exceptions. I do have a list of ARN-101 jets, courtesy of the F-4 Google Group, if anyone is interested.

 

Ben

All USAF F-4E from FY71 onwards had the TISEO

[Ben Brown]

1 hour ago, Boman said:

All USAF F-4E from FY71 onwards had the TISEO

Thanks! Usually when I say an absolute like that, someone will post 20 photos proving me wrong. 😂

 

Cheers!

 

Ben

[Muzz]

22 hours ago, Filler said:

Looking at the decal sheet in the photo above it looks to me like you have the Spangdahlem jet in its mid 80's Euro1 scheme (as per the box art), a 3rd TFS aircraft in 90s Hill Grey(?) scheme and a ROKAF aircraft, also in lo-vis grey.

Thanks for that. Slightly disappointing but have found this sheet which looks good.......

 

https://www.shopofphantoms.com/product-page/hopd-48003-usafephantoms-part-1

 

 

[Boman]

For the USAFE, different units flew different blocks of F-4E's; 

 

86TFW / 512TFW / 526TFS RS tailcode: FY68/69 (and possibly some FY67) jets, non of which carried TISEO 

32TFS CR tailcode: Mostly FY74 jets with TISEO from what I've seen, but cannot rule out FY71/72/73 jets at some point. Switched to F-15A/B's and send their jets mostly to 52TFW

52TFW / 81TFS / 23TFS / 480TFS SP Tailcode: FY71/72/74 jet with TISEO

401TFW / 612TFS / 613TFS / 614TFS TJ tailcode: FY68/69 jets, no TISEO. 

50TFW / 10TFS / 496TFS / 313TFS HR tail code: FY68 jets, no TISEO 

 

From what I have been able to find out, the USAF didn't mix FY68 with FY71/72/73/74. I don't have the perticulars on the block differences, but apparently enough to not mix them? 
There is one "famous" photo of a FY68 jet with the TISEO installed, but blanked off. Apparently it had a wing substituted with a TISEO equipped replacement wing, but didn't or couldn't operate the TISEO. 
  

Edited January 14, 2023 by Boman

[Stefan Buysse]

5 hours ago, Muzz said:

Thanks for that. Slightly disappointing but have found this sheet which looks good.......

 

https://www.shopofphantoms.com/product-page/hopd-48003-usafephantoms-part-1

 

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for the replies about the TISEO, Ben and Boman.

That sheet in Muzz's link is the one that had me wondering about the TISEO. The sheet has tiny 2 stencils that are described as "for ASX-1 TISEO equiped aircraft only".

The subjects are indeed all FY68 or FY69 aircraft, with one exception: 74-1649 at the William Tell meet in 1978. It has the 86th TFW badge, but no band at the top of the tail. All the other subjects have a band there. 

I think they  might not have deployed their F-4's to Florida, but were provided with late production aircraft for the excercise.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

[Boman]

I checked my references, and I stand corrected; 

 

86TFW 526TFS had atleast some FY74 jets in 1978, I have photos of 74-1648, 0650 and 0652. Red tailfinn, white RS tailcode, later in 1978 changed to black. 

[Ben Brown]

There was a 74-0649 and a 74-1649 that were both with the 86th TFW before being transferred to the 4th TFW in the early ‘80s (LINK). They kept them in different squadrons in the 4th until -0649 caught fire during a cartridge start and was written off. I was told it was the last cartridge start of an F-4 in the USAF. 

 

 

Ben

[Nocoolname]

Ooooh…no… we’ve moved from news to ‘minutiae’ again 😞

 

Can someone please wake me up when we’re back on news again? Ta! 

[Ben Brown]

51 minutes ago, Nocoolname said:

Ooooh…no… we’ve moved from news to ‘minutiae’ again 😞

 

Can someone please wake me up when we’re back on news again? Ta! 

D’oh! Sorry about that.

 

So, how about that new 1/48 F-4E kit Meng is releasing? 😉

 

Ben

[nickc]

Can someone tell me what folks gain from criticising what are otherwise really great kits?  I mean; we're talking commercially available plastic model kits out of boxes. If scale and accuracy are that important, why are you even bothering with plastic, how come you're not building to scaled plans from metal, I mean anything else is just going to be wrong isn't it?. 

 

It seems to me that folks are judging these kits to a standard that Meng and others are not holding themselves to, it 's like criticising someone for getting a great grade in GSCE History by suggesting that the mark isn't good enough for A-level economics. It just makes no sense to me

 

It's less than £70 for perhaps one of the best F4 kits on the market, and all folks can do is have a downer on it. it's weird, like some odd competition to be the most Judgey Mcjudgy pants

 

[tony.t]

For the Fiscal Year 1971 and up USAF jets (and some FMS, e.g Iran, Israel) TISEO is essential but I expect Aires Quickboost or similar will soon come to the rescue. 

 

It looks to be a very nice kit indeed. When somebody does TISEO and a vinyl strap for the Fiscal Year 1966-69 jets I'm inclined to get this and the Meng F-4G for a double-fun build. 

 

Tony  

[Missick]

On 27/12/2022 at 14:33, Homebee said:

Box art - ref. LS-017 - McDD F-4E Phantom II 

Sources: 

http://www.moxing.net/2022/1227/12171.html

https://www.luckymodel.com/scale.aspx?item_no=MG-LS-017

 

 

V.P.

Now we talking, 💋 

Will buy and build one in a second,  love the markings option. 

[JeffreyK]

10 hours ago, nickc said:

Can someone tell me what folks gain from criticising what are otherwise really great kits?  I mean; we're talking commercially available plastic model kits out of boxes. If scale and accuracy are that important, why are you even bothering with plastic, how come you're not building to scaled plans from metal, I mean anything else is just going to be wrong isn't it?. 

 

It seems to me that folks are judging these kits to a standard that Meng and others are not holding themselves to, it 's like criticising someone for getting a great grade in GSCE History by suggesting that the mark isn't good enough for A-level economics. It just makes no sense to me

 

It's less than £70 for perhaps one of the best F4 kits on the market, and all folks can do is have a downer on it. it's weird, like some odd competition to be the most Judgey Mcjudgy pants

 

Where is that “slaps hand against forehead” emoji again…

[iainpeden]

14 hours ago, Nocoolname said:

Ooooh…no… we’ve moved from news to ‘minutiae’ again 😞

 

Can someone please wake me up when we’re back on news again? Ta! 

There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and that you can never get enough Phantom Phacts.

[alt-92]

17 hours ago, Boman said:

For the USAFE, different units flew different blocks of F-4E's; 

 

32TFS CR tailcode: Mostly FY74 jets with TISEO from what I've seen, but cannot rule out FY71/72/73 jets at some point. Switched to F-15A/B's and send their jets mostly to 52TFW  

That's the second batch, before the FY74 birds they flew FY68 ones. 

 

 

11 hours ago, nickc said:

t's weird, like some odd competition to be the most Judgey Mcjudgy pants

 

Now who's the Judgey Mcjudgy pants again?

Clearly you have not delved into Hurricane, Spitfire or Bf.109 variations yet  

 

[Mascota]

Hello!. This is my first post in this awesome Forum.

Can I use this model to make an Israeli 1973 Yom Kippur plane? I've seen a beautiful DXM sheet whith IDF markings.

Thank you!

[Phoenix44]

20 hours ago, nickc said:

Can someone tell me what folks gain from criticising what are otherwise really great kits?  I mean; we're talking commercially available plastic model kits out of boxes. If scale and accuracy are that important, why are you even bothering with plastic, how come you're not building to scaled plans from metal, I mean anything else is just going to be wrong isn't it?. 

 

It seems to me that folks are judging these kits to a standard that Meng and others are not holding themselves to, it 's like criticising someone for getting a great grade in GSCE History by suggesting that the mark isn't good enough for A-level economics. It just makes no sense to me

 

It's less than £70 for perhaps one of the best F4 kits on the market, and all folks can do is have a downer on it. it's weird, like some odd competition to be the most Judgey Mcjudgy pants

 

I gain a bit of knowledge about the actual aircraft and I get to judge whether the errors - if there are any - matter to me or not. And then I can gauge whether aftermarket will correct and if so, how much I'm wiling to pay for a kit and whether I'll wait to get it on eBay when I can snaffle a bargain. If these threads were just endless posts saying how great a kit is, I wouldn't bother with them. If that's what you want in a thread, why bother reading the ones herer?

[Ben Brown]

3 hours ago, Mascota said:

Hello!. This is my first post in this awesome Forum.

Can I use this model to make an Israeli 1973 Yom Kippur plane? I've seen a beautiful DXM sheet whith IDF markings.

Thank you!

Welcome!
 

Others who know more can chime in, but it looks like you’ll need the Zoukei-Mura “early” F-4E to build the 1973 #125 on that decal sheet. The “early” F-4E had the original wing with leading edge flaps. You’ll probably see modelers refer to the early F-4Es as “hard wing” jets. The other two (175 and 680) were post-war jets that had been modified with leading edge slats, so you could use the new Meng kit for those.
 

Ben

[Masinissa]

3 hours ago, Mascota said:

Hello!. This is my first post in this awesome Forum.

Can I use this model to make an Israeli 1973 Yom Kippur plane? I've seen a beautiful DXM sheet whith IDF markings.

Thank you!

 

If you are referring to this DXM 1/48 sheet, then the answer is yes. The first Israeli F-4E #125 is an early F-4E, so you'll need the Zoukei Mura F-4E early hard wing for that subject. The other two are the F-4E late slatted wing and they don't have the TISEO. You can use the Meng F-4E late for both of these subjects. You won't install the ARN-101 dorsal antenna on the Israeli F-4E late.

 

 

The Meng kit has the ARN-101 on the spine.