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The FG.1 Phantom II in Royal Navy, Fleet Air Arm and A&AEE Service


Mike

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The FG.1 Phantom II in Royal Navy, Fleet Air Arm and A&AEE Service

by Geoff Coughlin

KLP Publishing

 

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KLP is an online publishing house that is run by one of our very own members, producing books of interesting subjects of relevance to us modellers.  We’ve reviewed a number of their varied releases already, and this one is a new release from them that is intended to be the first in a series of books to assist you with building an accurate British Phantom FG.1, and eventually the FGR.2, detailing all the various differences between individual airframes, even between the same airframe at different stages of its career.  Clearly, it’s a bit of a minefield, so this book might just be what the doctor or rivet-counter ordered. 

 

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It's a digital book in .PDF format, so there’s no physical cover or pages to curl, crease or tear, and it takes up no space on your bookshelves, just a little room on your computer’s Hard Drive (HDD/SSD), device’s permanent storage, NAS or cloud account.  Very modern and forward-thinking.  It also means that anywhere you’ve got a device, you’ve got almost immediate access to your book, and you’ll need to access it, because it’s packed full of useful information.  On my iPad, PC screen and iPhone it’s 366 pages long, although whether that would vary if you were using a different kind of device or Acrobat Reader, I have no idea but suspect it should remain constant.  You can also zoom into the pictures, which to be fair are all pretty large on a decent-sized device, just in case your eyes aren’t picking up the details as they used to when you were younger.  I’ve not used digital reference material much in the past, but these last few years I’ve found it incredibly convenient not to have to leave my desk if I want to look something up, and the ability to perform a full-text search of a book is an absolute boon to someone with a less-than-stellar memory like myself.

 

 

 The book is broken down as follows:

 

  • Introduction - Page 7
  • About Geoff Coughlin - Page 11
  • The Model Builds  -Page 13
  • Scale Model Gallery - Page 97
  • Colour Profiles - Page 255
  • FG.1 XT864 Walkaround - Page 269
  • Evolution Of the British Phantom - Page 282
  • FG.1 Key Features - Page 35
  • Special Markings: Something Different? - Page 345
  • Resource Centre - Page 361

 

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After a brief introduction to the type and then to the author Geoff Coughlin, the book moves on to the meat of the subject with a vengeance.  A number of contributors also get a mention and brief biography to explain their relevance to the subject along the way, and these folks have also contributed photos to the book as well as their anecdotes.  The introduction of the type, where it was deployed, and some of its operations are discussed alongside the photos, which all have detailed captioning that are of relevance to us modellers, especially those that prefer to get the details correct, such as panel line locations, access hatches, even auxiliary exhausts that are unique to the British Phantoms that were fitted with bespoke avionics and Rolls Royce Spey engines, making them substantially different from the US airframes, and providing a lot of work for the British aviation industry, plus a lot of soot expelled into the atmosphere, as they were a bit smoky when the throttles were firewalled.

 

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There are six models of the FG.1 documented within the pages in 1:48 and 1:72 scales, including Airfix, Fujimi and Hasegawa kits, with a brief lament that there are no British Phantom models in 1:32, although there once was a conversion set available, but it is long-gone and on the rare occasion that the Wild Hare set appears, it fetches admiring glances and serious prices.  Your own projects will be helped by these examples of how to build a Phantom, as will the comprehensive Walk Around pages that are distinctly targeted toward the modeller, giving the kind of detail that any modeller would struggle to find from general walk arounds.  The Profile section will give you ideas of decal options, as will the Special Markings section, with side profiles showing some interesting schemes that are hopefully available on decal sheets somewhere.

 

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The last section gives you a contemporaneous list of other interesting volumes on the subject of the British Phantom that you might also be interested in to broaden your knowledge even further.  We understand that the second volume of this series is intended to cover the FGR.2, so watch out for another review in due course.

 

Conclusion

This is an interesting book for the Phantom enthusiast, and will doubtless come in handy for anyone building one, whatever the scale.  There are a few typos here and there, but the meaning is still clear, and the photos are too, with a lot to entertain the eyeball as well as the mind.

 

Highly recommended.

 

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Review sample courtesy of

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Thanks for the review, Mike! Just a couple of clarifying points. Firstly, the page count will remain constant no matter what device you view the book on, though how much of each page (or pages) is visible on screen will depend on your device's screen size, and how the software handles the displaying of the book.

 

Secondly, and most importantly, one of the key features of our digital publishing model is that when mistakes are found in any of our books, we correct them and release an update. Building the British Phantoms Volume One has already had 3 revisions since the initial release featured in this review, and is currently at v1.3. So hopefully we've taken care of any typos! These updates are free to download for anyone who has already purchased the book, while new purchasers will always receive the latest version.

 

Kev

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10 minutes ago, KLP Publishing said:

Secondly, and most importantly, one of the key features of our digital publishing model is that when mistakes are found in any of our books, we correct them and release an update. Building the British Phantoms Volume One has already had 3 revisions since the initial release featured in this review, and is currently at v1.3. So hopefully we've taken care of any typos! These updates are free to download for anyone who has already purchased the book, while new purchasers will always receive the latest version.

Nice one!  They joys of digital production, eh? :clap2:

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