KLP Publishing Building the British Phantoms Volume 1 Modeller’s Monograph Digital Book

[Mike]

Building the British Phantoms Volume 1 Modeller’s Monograph

KLP Publishing

 

 

The Phantom bears a familial resemblance to the F3H Demon due to the origin of the type, which was intended to be a Super Demon with a modular nose for different mission profiles, but in typical military procurement style the world over, the specification was changed completely at the last minute, and resulted in a two-seat, two-engined beast that could carry a substantial war load, a large, effective radar in the bulbous nose, and the workload spread between two crew members to prevent confusion of an overwhelmed pilot in the heat of battle.  The type was adopted by the US Navy as the F-4A, and as the F-4C by the Air Force, with a confusing (to me) allocation of letters throughout its career, with more confusion (again for me) when it came to the British airframes, and don’t even mention the engines and other equipment.

 

During the late 50s, replacements were needed for the ageing aircraft then in service with the RAF and FAA, replacing the Canberra, the Hunter, and in the FAA’s inventory the Sea Vixen, and following the forced amalgamation of most of the British aero-industry companies into two unwieldy creations by the British Government, the situation was far from ideal.  The Royal Navy took the decision first to go with an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution rather than wait for the supersonic Harrier that was in developmental purgatory, justifying in the cancellation of the type by the incoming Labour government, who also took out the potentially world-beating TSR-2 with the same axe, amongst other promising projects.  The RAF wasn’t entirely convinced, but took the Phantom on the basis that it would be configured to better meet their needs than the base airframe.  The newly-formed BAC took the F-4Js that had already been built with some British equipment integrated as part of the contract, replacing the GE J79 engines with home-produced Spey engines that required some serious modifications to the airframe, obliging them to re-design the entire aft portion of the fuselage to accommodate them.  These modified portions and components were then shipped for final assembly in the US, and were so different that they were given the new designation F-4K and sent back across the Atlantic again where they received their FG.1 designation.  The RAF and FAA wanted 400 between them, a number that was curtailed to 140 by cost factors, and two additional carriers that were commissioned to fly them from were also cancelled, with the view that the FAA would wind-down their fixed-wing aviation in due course, while further cost over-runs eventually resulted in only 50 airframes that were shared unevenly between FAA and RAF.  There’s a lot more going on with the British Phantoms at this point, but as Volume 1 of the book deals with the FG.1, we’ll leave it there.

 

 

The Book

This is the latest issue from Australian KLP Publishing that is written by Geoff Coughlin and covers the British Phantoms as they first arrived and throughout their service before the remainder were converted to FGR.2 standard to simplify maintenance of the newer FGR.2 fleet.  The book is available in digital format only, and that’s going to save an awful lot of paper and physical storage space amongst its readers around the world.  Purchase is completed from their website, and will be delivered once payment is received, and it should arrive as a .PDF file, which is the de facto standard for digital documents these days, having originally been developed by Adobe back in the early days of the internet.  You can find out a little more about purchasing their digital books here if you’re new to this.  There’s no physical binding to prattle on about, but there are 366 pages that would be in it if there were, and it takes up about 113,000kb or 111mb of your mechanical Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or Solid-State Disk (SSD) storage space, so not too taxing on your available disk space, as you can store around 9 such books in 1GB.

 

 

 

The pages are laid out as follows:

 

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

 

Once the book gets up and running on page 13, there is a wealth of information about the development of the concept, then the type and the totally frustrating procurement process that saw a buy of 400 dwindle down to a meagre 50 through the various shenanigans and delays that seems to accompany virtually every single military contract the world over.  The text is accompanied by a deluge of photos, some of which are more personal than most of the photos you’ve seen before, and includes a Bond Girl that happened across the deck of the Ark Royal at some point in her service with Phantoms embarked.  There is also a lot of detail on the service of the FG.1, again with more photos throughout, and tables of tell-tale differences between the airframes, their equipment and antenna fits, which also includes the more numerous FGR.2 that was eventually procured, based on the F-4M and a very different aircraft.  As is usual with this range of books, the photos are accompanied by informative captions that point out unusual or individual details of an airframe, discussing colour variations, how the weather and use affected various surfaces, and the colours of those pesky radomes that seem to be some sort of chameleon.  If you want to get the sensor fit correct for your choice of airframe, look no further as there is much discussion of these small but important detail that will add realism and accuracy to any model if depicted accurately. 

 

 

The next section details the builds of six Phantom kits in 1:72 and 1:48, as follows:

 

• FG.1 Phantom XT864 ‘BJ’ No. 111 Squadron Armament Practice Camp – RAF Akrotiri 1988, Airfix 1:72 by Craig Boon
• FG.1 Phantom XT597, Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) Airfix 1:72 by Geoff Coughlin;
• FG.1 Phantom XV582 ‘B’ No.111 Squadron, Hasegawa 1:48 by Biff Vivian
• FG.1 Phantom XT864 007 ‘R’, 892 NAS Royal Navy, Fujimi 1:72 by Adam Waistell-Brown
• FG.1 Phantom XT859 006 ‘R’ 892 NAS Royal Navy, Revell / Hasegawa, 1:48 by Andrew Terrell
• FG.1 Phantom XV574 ‘B’, No. 43 Squadron Royal Air Force, Airfix 1:72 by Mal Sleight

 

Each build first recounts a little of the history of the airframe it is based upon, then summarises the build, with a group of photos of the finished model for your entertainment.  Some of the builds are more detailed and include in-progress photos, as well as the various aftermarket parts, paints and so forth that were used to create the model.  There is perhaps a little bit of product placement here and there, but it doesn’t jump in your face, so isn’t a problem.

 

 

After the modelling is over, which ends with a gallery, there are pages of profiles by Simon Hill from prototype onwards, each one with a caption giving additional information on the subject matter, and they include an American F-4B that was zapped with the Omega motif from their FAA counterparts.  The next section is devoted to a walk around of XT864 that can be found on display at the Ulster Aviation Society, consisting of dozens of photos broken down into aeras of the airframe, and getting into the guts of the machine, where the age of the aircraft shows in the amount of dust accumulated in areas that aren’t often seen.  The penultimate section concentrates on the unusual markings that the FG.1 wore throughout its careers, and includes plenty of text to accompany the photos.

 

The final part is a hybrid bibliography that also includes links to Facebook Groups, online magazines and model companies, some of which you will no doubt recognise.  With the publication being digital, the links are as live as the URLs they lead to, but if any of them change or disappear in the future, they will give you the dreaded 404 error.

 

 

Conclusion

The Phantom is close to many British aviation enthusiast and/or modeller’s heart, as it served for a long period with the RAF and FAA when many of us folks of a certain age were young and enthusiastic about such things.  The detail of the book is impressive, giving the modeller a massive helping hand if building an FG.1, and in Volume 2 the FGR.2 and the later third Volume covering the F-4J(UK) variant.  All of this will take up zero space on your bookshelf, and can be viewed on PC or Laptop, Mac or Macbook, tablet or phone wherever you do your modelling.

 

At time of writing, there's a special offer of purchasing Volume 1 and 2 together, with a substantial discount on the price.  Volume 2 is even larger than this one!

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

 

[Tailspin Turtle]

As far as I know (I was a flight test engineer on the F-4K/M program and only arrived at McDonnell in time for the first flight of the F-4K) BAC was simply a subcontractor for the aft fuselage and had little if anything to do with its design and the integration of the Spey into the fuselage. My understanding is that the Brits wanted their Phantom to have 50% UK content. Since the airframe, engine, and avionics were each about 33% of the production cost, that was accomplished by BAC providing the aft fuselage, Rolls Royce the engines, and some odds and ends of substituted avionics (I've read that Ferranti was to produce the radar under license to Westinghouse but I don't know if that actually happened).

 

The transition of the F3H Demon to the AH-1 to the F4H-1 is an oversimplification but there's an excellent monograph available on that if I do say so myself (to say more might get me banned again by an overzealous admin).

[Mike]

12 minutes ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

The transition of the F3H Demon to the AH-1 to the F4H-1 is an oversimplification

That's exactly as intended, as it wasn't an introduction to the history of aviation as a whole, just a broad brush-strokes preamble to the book, without making buying the book superfluous.

 

14 minutes ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

(to say more might get me banned again by an overzealous admin).

You do realise that we "overzealous admins" read these forums too, don't you?  There's a book you might also be interested in - it's called "how to win friends and influence people"

[Julien]

Even overzealous site owners read the forums !

[treker_ed]

I can safely say that parts 2 and 3 are just as good as part 1. Very comprehensive in their approach to the subject.

Part 2 goes into the usage and history of the type in RAF service, and part 3 is the elusive F-4J(UK) and has in depth analysis of those mythical paints! A definite must buy for any fan of the Phantom in British service.

 

If you set up an account with KLP, they will supply updates on the books, with no further purchase needed. So if any links chang, or go away, they are updated as needed, along with any updates to the books as any new information gets added or changed. Definitely worth doing.