RAF Phantom help

[Pappy]

 

 

I have a few q's ahead of the upcoming GB  since I don't know much about Brit Phantoms I have a few questions for the BM massif

I plan on using a Fujimi kit.

Not decided yet on green/grey camo or the later Barley grey scheme, but leaning towards the green/grey.....

 

1. For RAF, in an air to ground config. (gun on c/l, Matra rockets on i/board TWRs,  jugs on outers) - would the strike camera typically be carried? (fwd left Sparrow/Skyflash wellls

 

2. Recce jets - I realise the Fujimi pod is undersized and most suggest using the Matchbox pod instead. I don't have a MB kit and I can live with the Fujimi offering anyway. Recce jets used modified 'SGT Fletcher' tanks with what look like additional flare ports on the nose (spicy, attaching flares to a fuel tank!), would anyone have any refrence pics

 

3. When did the belly re-enforcement straps come into being? 

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited July 5 by Pappy

[dambuster]

One point - RAF Phantoms never had a wraparound camouflage scheme.

 

Peter

[RAGATIGER]

Pappy 

 

Let me look this weekend I think I have one Matchbox Reccon pod deep buried on the stash at the end of a box but that mean to look down 50 o so boxes, of cous in wonderrful 1/72 scale if you interested

 

Regards

 

Armando

[iainpeden]

The two recce squadrons were 2 and 41 and I don’t know if all the Phantoms used by those squadrons were wired for the EMI pod so photo evidence is useful. The wing flash tanks were, I think that; not flares but a high powered light so a bit less potentially explosive!
there is a picture of a 54 squadron a/c with a load of wing tanks, Sneb rocket pods on the inner pylons, sparrows and an EMI recce pod but I think it was a publicity shot only.

I think the strike camera was carried in the port front missile bay.

 

If you do the ad 3 grey scheme you don’t fit the recce pod 

[Hook]

5 hours ago, Pappy said:

- I realise the Fujimi pod is undersized and most suggest using the Matchbox pod instead

The Airfix EMI pod is pretty good in shape and size. 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[Jabba]

Odds and Ordnance do a set of all camera pods and the flash wing tanks:- https://www.scalemates.com/kits/odds-and-ordnance-oao72033-raf-f-4m-phantom-strike-camera-recce-pod-and-strobe-flasher-unit--1123602

 

The 3 Grey scheme was only used when the RAF Phantoms were in the Air Defence role.

[XV571]

Hi Pappy,

 

The two schemes are colloquially referred to as Tactical and Air Defence. As Pete 'dambuster' says there was no wraparound Tactical scheme, just the standard Dark Sea Grey & Dark Green over Light Aircraft Grey. This was originally glossy but was changed to a matt finish in the early 1970s, starting about 1971 with the roundels changing to red/blue; many kept the original three colour version on the lower surfaces though.

 

To answer your other questions:

1) Yes, the strike camera was often carried in the forward port well with the mud moving ordnance on the other pylons. A Sparrow is also seen in the opposite well.

 

2) As Jabba says, the photoflash tank/pod was part of a set released by Odds & Ordnance (later taken over by Alley Cat) Since ModelsForSale are currently down I don't know if they have any for available. The Airfix version should be readily available in the later boxings as it's on the same frame as the gun pod.

There are also pictures and diagrams of the flash pod in the Double Ugly British Phantoms Vol.1. While II(AC) and 41 Squadrons were the official recce units, 54 Sqn flew it as a secondary role. The pod continued in use after the Phantoms switched to Air Defence; there are photos of XV406 carrying the EMI pod and photoflash in 111 Sqn colours and also XV400 with 29 Squadron, both presumably being 'borrowed' by 41 Sqn while they were working up their Jaguar capability. Photos of the recce set up are here:

Discussion on the Fujimi vs Matchbox pod:

 

Also mentioned in the above is this one on LargeScalePlanes  which has a photo of XV406 with the recce kit: 

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/45752-132-raf-phantom-emi-photo-recce-pod-scratch-build/page/2/

 

3) The reinforcement strap was a late addition due to airframes running out of fatigue life. As I recall it was not before the mid 1980s so if you're planning on a 'Mud Mover' then it wouldn't have the strap. Some more information on the reinforcements used during the service life is here:

HTH,

Jonathan

 

[RichG]

8 hours ago, Pappy said:

I realise the Fujimi pod is undersized and most suggest using the Matchbox pod instead. I don't have a MB kit and I can live with the Fujimi offering anyway.

In addition to the EMI Recce pod in the recent Airfix 1/72 FGR.2 kit others have mentioned, Air-Graphics Models produce a resin 1/72 EMI Recce pod carried by RAF Phantoms; they also produce a shed load of other RAF Phantom stuff.  Having said that postage is not cheap even here in the UK... for Oz its probably cheaper to get an Airfix kit locally...

 

Rich

[XV107]

32 minutes ago, XV571 said:

The pod continued in use after the Phantoms switched to Air Defence; there are photos of XV406 carrying the EMI pod and photoflash in 111 Sqn colours and also XV400 with 29 Squadron, both presumably being 'borrowed' by 41 Sqn while they were working up their Jaguar capability.

 

XV406 started life as a recce trials aircraft with A&AEE/MoD(PE). It was issued to the front line at some point before 1976, to 111: there's photographic evidence of it at Malta on an APC in 1976, wearing the letter D. It also appeared at the 1977 Silver Jubilee royal review, but was wearing tail letter 'M' 

 

My assumption would be that some trial for the EMI pod needed to be carried out before 1977 (hence letter 'D') and probably in 1976 - 2 and 41 both still had Phantoms in 1976; the way the transition from Phantom to Jag was done was to set up a new Jaguar unit and give it the same numberplate as the Phantom squadron - thus we had 2 Squadron, 2 (Designate) Squadron, 41 Squadron and 41 (Designate) Squadron [the same approach had been adopted with the transition of 19 and 92 from Lightning F2A to Phantom, for example] The 'designate' squadron would reach operational capability at a certain date; at 23:59:59 hours that day, the 'old' squadron would disband and the 'designate' unit drop that suffix, so at 00:00:00 hours, the squadron would've re-equipped - at a different location with completely a completely different group of personnel.

 

My guess is that as there was a declining need for Phantom recce trials, XV406 was issued to 111 Sqn on the presumption that if any trials were required in the closing months of Phantom FBSA/Recce operations, a trials aircraft which had gone onto squadron service would be borrowed to conduct the necessary test(s); the ability to use a 'known' airframe for the tests providing a degree of consistency that could be assumed from previous use rather than wondering whether the randomly-borrowed XV999* from 41 Sqn had any foibles which might affect the outcome of the test being preferred if this were possible to achieve. As I say, a guess, but I don't think it's an unreasonable one.

 

 

(*there was no XV999)

[Pappy]

10 hours ago, dambuster said:

One point - RAF Phantoms never had a wraparound camouflage scheme.

 

Peter

Quite right, I meant to say the green and grey scheme

[Pappy]

10 hours ago, dambuster said:

One point - RAF Phantoms never had a wraparound camouflage scheme.

 

Peter

 Quite correct, I meant to say green/grey camo.

I have several Fujimi kits  to do so don't really want to buy the Airfix kit, I don't like the engineering. I will look into the AM options for the cameras.

 

Thanks gents, that is a massive help. 

 

To summarise:

 

For a  'Tactical' scheme jet,

 

• No belly strap
• Strike camera in fwd left missile well, missile opposite side common fit on A/G
• DSG / Dark Green over LAG (one of the Airfix instructions schemes suggests gloss white)

 

Final question:

 

Was Skyflash around in this era? I know that the it was used in the Air Defence era but assuming AIM-7 was used prior. What variant of AIM-7 was used in that case?

Edited July 5 by Pappy

[iainpeden]

Regarding the Sparrow; to add a bit of colour, and make it realistic because live missiles were for war and QRA, I take the fins off and paint them Oxford blue as ballast rounds. 

[Troffa]

10 hours ago, Pappy said:

 

Was Skyflash around in this era? I know that the it was used in the Air Defence era but assuming AIM-7 was used prior. What variant of AIM-7 was used in that case?

Good morning Phellow Phantom Phans!😀

 

According to "The Phantom in focus" by former Phantom.and Tornado F3 Navigator David Gledhill, the RAF Phantom was armed with the AIM-7E-2 Sparrow III until superceded by Skyflash. Edit: Skyflash entered service in the early 1980's but not in large numbers- Phantoms that had been modified to fire Skyflash had three yellow pennants painted on the ECS intakes on each side of the aircraft's forward fusleage, just aft of the Radome. 

(Hardback first edition, Chapter 12, page 217, edit: Page 232)

 

Thanks for an excuse to browse the book during a quiet Sunday morning in the kitchen with a coffee!

 

Troffa 

 

[Pappy]

On 7/6/2025 at 5:42 PM, Troffa said:

Good morning Phellow Phantom Phans!😀

 

According to "The Phantom in focus" by former Phantom.and Tornado F3 Navigator David Gledhill, the RAF Phantom was armed with the AIM-7E-2 Sparrow III until superceded by Skyflash. Edit: Skyflash entered service in the early 1980's but not in large numbers- Phantoms that had been modified to fire Skyflash had three yellow pennants painted on the ECS intakes on each side of the aircraft's forward fusleage, just aft of the Radome. 

(Hardback first edition, Chapter 12, page 217, edit: Page 232)

 

Thanks for an excuse to browse the book during a quiet Sunday morning in the kitchen with a coffee!

 

Troffa 

 

 

G'day Troffa,

 

Thanks very much for that.

I had noticed the three yellow pennants on the ECS intakes previously but just assumed that this was some sort of intake warning, so that is a great little titbit of knowledge! 

Happy to provide an excuse,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited July 8 by Pappy

[amos brierley]

Hello @Pappy.

 

Here are some heavily cropped pictures from my collection, I hope these help you along your journey……….

 

Here’s the strike camera fitted to a 6 Sqn jet. “Can opener’s “ it’s on the fwd left station.

 

 

This cropped image is a little bit cluttered, but, has a lot of interesting detail to salivate over. Firstly this 2 Sqn jet has black and red Sqn markings, the R/H Fwd station appears to be populated by a blue sparrow training round, finally the two inboard pylons are populated with CBL’s bomb carrier’s.

 

An older and simpler image, the figure/mechanic gives a sense of scale of this pod.

 

That’s me done.       😉

 

[Julien]

If the Sparrow is overall blue I though these were Ballast rounds?

[iainpeden]

2 hours ago, Julien said:

If the Sparrow is overall blue I though these were Ballast rounds?

I thought that’s what I said. I think they were simply ballast rounds and not training rounds; @Selwyn put us straight last time we had this discussion.

whatever, add a bit of colour.

[Pappy]

15 minutes ago, iainpeden said:

I thought that’s what I said. I think they were simply ballast rounds and not training rounds; @Selwyn put us straight last time we had this discussion.

whatever, add a bit of colour.

 

I am not an expert but, whilst the heat seeking  AIM-9 CATM rounds have ballast equivalents for the rocket motor and warhead sections, the seeker is 'live' allowing for them to be used to acquire (i.e ]ock-on' to) a target. Depending on the platform, the missile could be directed to 'look' where the radar is looking if slaved and within its FOV or just positioned by the pilot flying the jet into a position so that the heat source was detectable.

 

The AIM-7 was a SARH  missile so required the parent aircraft to lock onto the target  first with its radar and then it would ride the launch aircraft's radar beam to the target. As such, I don't believe there was any tracking ability available from the captive ('ballast') rounds and the training benefit they conferred was the load practive for the armourers and to convey the flight characteristics to aircrew as they were supposed to be the same weight and Cof G as the warshot rounds.

 

And yes thay add a bit of colour

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[Pappy]

21 hours ago, amos brierley said:

Hello @Pappy.

 

Here are some heavily cropped pictures from my collection, I hope these help you along your journey……….

 

Here’s the strike camera fitted to a 6 Sqn jet. “Can opener’s “ it’s on the fwd left station.

 

 

This cropped image is a little bit cluttered, but, has a lot of interesting detail to salivate over. Firstly this 2 Sqn jet has black and red Sqn markings, the R/H Fwd station appears to be populated by a blue sparrow training round, finally the two inboard pylons are populated with CBL’s bomb carrier’s.

 

An older and simpler image, the figure/mechanic gives a sense of scale of this pod.

 

That’s me done.       😉

 

 

Lovely pics Amos, thanks.

 

What colour was the EMI pod?

 

Assuming the underside is LAG then it would be logical that it was also painted LAG, but we all know the relationship between donkeys and assumptions!

It is hard to tell as there does not seem to be much contrast between the EMI pod and the nose gear/inside of the u/c doors whicg would be gloss white

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[stever219]

21 minutes ago, Pappy said:

 

Lovely pics Amos, thanks.

 

What colour was the EMI pod?

 

Assuming the underside is LAG then it would be logical that it was also painted LAG, but we all know the relationship between donkeys and assumptions!

It is hard to tell as there does not seem to be much contrast between the EMI pod and the nose gear/inside of the u/c doors whicg would be gloss white

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

The pod itself was Light Aircraft Grey but there is a large (radar transparent?) panel along each lower side which I've seen described as a darkish metallic colour, but I can't remember seeing a decent colour image of one to confirm this.

[Pappy]

8 minutes ago, stever219 said:

The pod itself was Light Aircraft Grey but there is a large (radar transparent?) panel along each lower side which I've seen described as a darkish metallic colour, but I can't remember seeing a decent colour image of one to confirm this.

 

Thanks very much Steve.

I noticed the darker panels which I presumed to be black but have now been edgemucated,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited July 7 by Pappy

[Buz]

Hope these will help a little - sorry about the watermark (to many photos end up on ebay these days) - if you want full size photos (they are quite large having been scanned from negs and slides at stupid DPI) send me a PM.   All images in my collection (may have one or two Phantom photos/Negs/Slides etc)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and this one I love, just very different - at least stores wise

 

 

 

Buz

 

 

Edited July 7 by Buz

[BarryB]

This is my 41Sqn Britphant. It's the 1/48 Hasegawa kit of XV495 "Brewers Droop" just after recovery from her little scenic excursion in Cyprus. I fitted the Aires cockpit upgrade and Flightpath ladder set.    Underside photo shows the camera pod and blue dummy ballast round to even things out.   The wing tank didn't have the flash modification as far as I could tell from my research for photos of that period.

 

ADDITION:  Forgot to say,  if you go down the Barley Grey root, the big-bottomed Spey versions are actually grey.  If you end up modelling one of the ten skinnier "J"s that filled in the gap while the Tornado was coming on strength then they are nearer pale blue. Apparently that batch of 10 were primered in chrome yellow etch and then told to be painted in Barley Grey for shipping to the UK.  They had no idea as to the correct shade and sprayed it very thin so the yellow bled through resulting in that almost pale blue finish until they got a proper repaint during maintenance.

Edited July 7 by BarryB

[iainpeden]

3 hours ago, BarryB said:

 

ADDITION:  Forgot to say,  if you go down the Barley Grey root, the big-bottomed Spey versions are actually grey.  If you end up modelling one of the ten skinnier "J"s that filled in the gap while the Tornado was coming on strength then they are nearer pale blue. Apparently that batch of 10 were primered in chrome yellow etch and then told to be painted in Barley Grey for shipping to the UK.  They had no idea as to the correct shade and sprayed it very thin so the yellow bled through resulting in that almost pale blue finish until they got a proper repaint during maintenance.

Good model but the issue with the F-4J(UK) colours is significantly more complicated than than and has been discussed on here a number of times. It's worth having a look at the British Phantom Aviation Group (BPAG) website.

[tempestfan]

2 hours ago, iainpeden said:

Good model but the issue with the F-4J(UK) colours is significantly more complicated than than and has been discussed on here a number of times. It's worth having a look at the British Phantom Aviation Group (BPAG) website.

And weren't they 15? There was a thread not that long ago with IIRC the official North Island (?) painting instructions.