Is this the most important postwar twin? The mighty Phantom in USMC colours

[Giorgio N]

I named my thread with a question, is the Phantom the most important postwar twin engined aircraft? I believe it is as all the types that followed took its formula and expanded from it. IMHO its legacy is still in every modern aircraft in a way that no other type did. Actually I believe that the Phantom was the most important postwar combat aircraft of any kind!

I may reflect more on this and I'll be happy to hear everybody's opinions on the matter, in the meantime let's see what I'll build...

There is one clear winner when it comes to Phantom kits in my preferred 1/72 scale: the Fine Molds series. It is one of these I'll build and it's the latest in the series, the thin wing F-4N

 

This issue comes with VFMA-531 decals and a Phantom from this unit is something I've wanted to build for a long time. For this I had bought a Hasegawa kit and a couple of Superscale sheets, none of which was convincing enough... now I have everything in one box. 

I've not opened the sprue bags yet to avoid losing any part, here's what they look like at the moment 

 

Since there is another Fine Molds Phantom build in this same GB many of the steps will be familiar. The B and N kits however seem to have introduced a few more options, like open airbrakes. We'll see how these work during the build

 

[Dennis_C]

Nice choice! And I'd like to watch how this FineMolds kit will go together.

Although I suspect that the most important (and most produced post war twin) is... Boeing 737 

But from military perspective Phantom is indeed the most important one. Strictly speaking Il-28 was the most produced twin-engine military post war design and MiG-19 was the most produced post war twin-jet fighter but none of them were any nearly as important. 

Edited August 12 by Dennis_C

[Parabat]

Did someone say VMFA-531?! Will be watching this. 😉

[Chrisj2003]

2 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Actually I believe that the Phantom was the most important postwar combat aircraft of any kind

@Giorgio N I agree. 😀

 

I am interested to see what sprues are new in this boxing and whether with thinner wing the fuselage/wing root gap isn't there on this FM F-4.

 

Chris

[modelling minion]

Welcome to the GB Giorgio and with a superb choice, I have to agree with your statement about the Phantom being the most important post war twin, such an iconic aircraft. The Finemolds kit looks to be a good one and the scheme on the box is a great one.

Looking forward to seeing how you get on with this one.

[81-er]

Welcome to the GB Giorgio  The Phantom is certainly a very important post-war twin and it's good to see it being so we represented in the GB

 

James

[Giorgio N]

Glad to see this subject is raising some interest! Not that I ever doubted it... a very important aircraft in striking markings is always going to deserve interest from us modellers. 

I've started to remove a few parts from the sprues and I'm now very curious... in the past most kits were designed in a very similar way but things have become much more complicated and many recent kits feature quite unusual parts design to allow more detailto be included. Thinking for example of the Airfix Buccaneer or the GWH Eagles. This kit also features a design quite different from past kits of the same aircraft, I'm curious to see if this will result in an easy enough assembly

[Giorgio N]

On 8/12/2025 at 1:51 PM, Chrisj2003 said:

@Giorgio N I agree. 😀

 

I am interested to see what sprues are new in this boxing and whether with thinner wing the fuselage/wing root gap isn't there on this FM F-4.

 

Chris

 

I've played a bit with the main parts and I believe that a good fit should be possible. 

 

The fuselage part may benefit from a spreader at the front for a perfect fit, I'll find out during the build

[Beard]

I've got several Fine Molds Phantoms in the stash, although I'm waiting for the F-4B to arrive, so I'll be tagging along.

[modelling minion]

That looks like you should get a good fit Giorgio. 

[Anatol Pigwa]

On 12/08/2025 at 10:49, Giorgio N said:

I named my thread with a question, is the Phantom the most important postwar twin engined aircraft? I believe it is as all the types that followed took its formula and expanded from it. IMHO its legacy is still in every modern aircraft in a way that no other type did. Actually I believe that the Phantom was the most important postwar combat aircraft of any kind!

ok I shall be the devils advocate: The importance of the F-4 is vastly overstated. It build on the legacy of the Demon and tge Voodoo. While a certain war in SEA (and to lesser extents some shenanigans in the middle East)  contributed towards building it’s myth it is worth noticing that there was no Phantomski. It was for a time the only heavy twin-engined multirole fighter in the world, while othet nations focused on single mission (Lithning, Arrow, TSR. 2 m. Buccaneer or) or single Engined (French/Soviets) or small double engined (F-5, Jaguar) planes. 
 

It is also worth noting that the areodtnamical layout of a low wing prevailed only on Delta aircraft nowadays with everyone else preferring the high/mid wing.

 

in terms of Postwar Aircraft the F-104 had a much bigger influence on future designs culminating in the F-16 which brough a bevy of firsts on it”s own (HOTAS, p/w ratio >1, bubble canopy, FBW). 
 

The Ohantom has it”s place in history for sure, but more due to the operational history than revolutionary design features. 

[Giorgio N]

On 8/16/2025 at 4:53 PM, Anatol Pigwa said:

ok I shall be the devils advocate: The importance of the F-4 is vastly overstated. It build on the legacy of the Demon and tge Voodoo. While a certain war in SEA (and to lesser extents some shenanigans in the middle East)  contributed towards building it’s myth it is worth noticing that there was no Phantomski. It was for a time the only heavy twin-engined multirole fighter in the world, while othet nations focused on single mission (Lithning, Arrow, TSR. 2 m. Buccaneer or) or single Engined (French/Soviets) or small double engined (F-5, Jaguar) planes. 
 

It is also worth noting that the areodtnamical layout of a low wing prevailed only on Delta aircraft nowadays with everyone else preferring the high/mid wing.

 

in terms of Postwar Aircraft the F-104 had a much bigger influence on future designs culminating in the F-16 which brough a bevy of firsts on it”s own (HOTAS, p/w ratio >1, bubble canopy, FBW). 
 

The Ohantom has it”s place in history for sure, but more due to the operational history than revolutionary design features. 

 

Thanks for your 2 cents, I'm glad to hear the various ideas about the Phantom and those contrary to mine are the most welcome since they are what keeps a discussion alive

 To reply, I agree that the Phantom came from McDD experience with the Voodoo and the Demon, although the final result was quite different from both: in terms of design there's quite little of the Voodoo (only the arrangement of the rear fuselage) while the rest came from various developments of the Demon, although by the time the final AH-1 design was frozen it didn't look like a Demon at all. The later developments that brought to the F4H brought the shape even further from the Demon.

Again in terms of design the Phantom did not pave any particular way for the types to follow. Yes the wing of the F-15 was derived from the Phantom's (not surprising since they came from the same company) but that was it.

 

In fact the importance of the Phantom to me is not in the design features, it was in the philosophy behind the aircraft and this is where the importance is still felt today. The Phantom was the point in aviation history where the developments in engines, airframe design and on-board systems came together to define a new type: an aircraft capable of performing multiple missions thanks to a combination of performance and, most importantly, a growing set of more and more advanced weapons. 

Now clearly things like radar and missiles existed before the Phantom. The idea of a powerful radar controlling a number of missiles however was mainly seen for use in interceptors (F-102/F-106, Lightning, Su-9). These could be single seaters because operated as part of complex defence systems and their role was to carry the missiles close to the target as instructed by someone on the ground. Other current fighters fought in a way not really different from WW2. Even the original F-104 concept was of a "day fighter", a type that had to engage the enemy visually and manouver until a gun or a short range missile could get a kill. While these aircraft may have had radars, these were not particularly powerful And then there were the last of the "night fighters", aircraft with a crew of 2 meant to find their targets independently thanks to a powerful enough radar (F-89, Javelin). And of course there were aircraft meant really as bombers even if designated as fighter like the F-101A/C and the F-105 and then the attack aircraft proper.

Enter the Phantom in 1958 and here is a fighter with enough power and aerodynamics to be able to dogfight, maybe not as well as a Sabre or a MiG-15 but still well enough while at the same time carrying a radar as powerful if not more than the specialised night fighters and interceptors. All with an armament more powerful in terms of both quantity and quality than any specialised fighter, allowing the Phantom to move awat from the concept of the day fighter. And that was not all.... the Phantom could also drop more AG stuff than many specialised bombers with an accuracy that while not as good as that of these types was much better than what was achieved by the more generic fighter-bombers of the day. All without having to modify much if anything so that the same aircraft could shoot down enemy aircraft in the morning and bomb their bases in the afternoon. 

Even more important... here was an aircraft designed from the start with a huge potential for development, with room for additional systems and plenty of fuel, something that most of its competitors never managed to achieve at the same level. The Phantom designers had acknowledged that at that point the weapons hanging under the pylons were as important as the airframe and would have become even more so. To exploit this to the maximum they made the aircraft capable of accepting more and more systems, something that the many users exploited to the extreme. It was this room for growth that allowed the Phantom to be continuously relevant from the era of the early SARH missile and iron bombs to that of AMRAAMs and stand-off GPS guided bombs. 

There's a reason why most Western air forces used the Phantom! The few ones that didn't were prevented by budget constraints.

 

Regarding the other aircraft you mentioned... Lightning, F-104 and Mirage III predate the Phantom in conception. Interestingly the F-104 started having success only when it became a proper multirole aircraft with the G variant... and the best was the S that introduced those same Sparrow missiles used on the Phantom as a low-cost alternative. 

Types like the TSR.2 and the Buccaneers were the kind of specialised attack aircraft that remained in use on those air forces that could afford them. Ironicall the TSR.2 role was for a few years covered by the Phantom, that operated in the RAFG as a strike aircraft. Those same Phantoms then replaced the Lightning.

The F-5 is a different story, it was an aircraft aimed at a different market. Morocco or Honduras could have never been able to allow something like a Phantom but something had to be offered to replace the Sabres. Richer air forces used the type but always as a second-tier addition to a fleet of higher performance fighters.

The F-16s.... now this is an interesting one! Clearly the replacements of the Phantom all had to take into account the lesson and both USAF and US Navy went for 2-engined heavy fighters taking the Phantom idea to the extreme. The Hornet is also very much a Phantom in concept (albeit with lower performances but a even higher level of multirole capabilities). The F-16 on the other hand was a return to the "day fighter" of several years earlier. At least in the beginning because very soon the Falcon started to become less of a day fighter and more of a "tactical fighter", that in USAF lingo means pretty much a ground attack aircraft. Hence the proliferation of sensors and the additions of systems capable of completing a very different set of missions compared to the original ideas behind the LWF competition. Really over the years the F-16 has been "Phantomised" into a multirole aircraft.

 

Let's talk about the Soviets... It is not true that there was no "Phantomski", actually there have been 2: the MiG-29 and, even more, the Su-27. Yes the immediate development in the Soviet Union was the MiG-23, a light fighter with a more powerful radar than the MiG-21 and SARH missiles. However this was replaced after relatively few years by a couple of 2-engined heavier types with a good degree of multirole capabilities. That the Su-27 has been the more successful of the 2 is no surprise, the Su-27 is the one with better room for growth, the more powerful one capable of carrying more and more diverse armament... that is exactly the formula of the Phantom.

 

Last but not least, the French.... France actually tried more than once to develop something along the lines of the Phantom. That this country relor many years on single-seat/single-engine light fighters is due to the choice of favouring export potential over the desires of the air force. When the Mirage F-1 was introduced the AdA actually wanted a heavier fighter and Dassault flew a number of these. It was with the Rafale that finally they went for a heavier 2-engined proper multirole type.

 

Of course the Su-27 is a single seater and really most aircraft developed from the concept of the Phantom were single seaters. This has been made possible by the advancements in avionic systems that have made a second crew redundant, although this is still debated today and there are proponents of the advantages of a 2-men crew.

 

Well, hopefully I've not bored anyone too much... the next posts will show some plastic, I promise !

Edited August 18 by Giorgio N

[Chrisj2003]

Agree @Giorgio N It’s the conops not the physical details that make the F-4 so important and that idea of adaptability and multi role is getting taken further with the 6th generation proposals. 
 

Looking forward to seeing some plastic progressed. 
 

Chris

[Giorgio N]

So, let's see some plastic bits put together.. starting, as most often happens from the cockpit

Fine Molds offer a very nice cockpit from the box, with a choice for instrument panels and consolles of either raised details or flat panels and decals.

I want in a slightly different direction, applying in some areas the decals over the raised panels. This can only be done effectively if the decals are designed exactly to fit the panels with raised details, something that is not true of all kits. In this case fortunately this happened for most areas and the final result is quite good, particularly on the pilot instrument panel. Other areas were just painted. Once put into the front fuselage side parts the cockpit looks pretty nice

 

 

Now while this is a very nice kit, there are some things that I don't like... where mind, the things that I don't like are more nitpicking than else! This remains a very high quality kit! When I bought my first FM Phantom I also bought the Airfix new tool Buccaneer, a kit in the same price range and I was surprised to see such a difference: these Japanese kits in terms of details are so much nicer, particularly in the cockpit.

So, things that I like... well, the final result is pretty impressive and didn't require much work at all. The way the cockpit is trapped inside the fuselage halves is also very well designed and the fit of all bulkheads is great (at least this is what a dry-fit seem to show).

Things I don't like: while the cockpit is great, I'm not sure this actually is an F-4N cockpit! At least in the rear station, there seem to be a few differences between the parts and my references. I wonder if FM simplified the production by putting an F-4B cockpit in both issues of their thin-wing Phantom. Again I should repeat that the differences are mostly in the configuration of some controls in the instrument panels, the kind of detail that only the most obsessed Phantom Phanatics would notice (or those who use a picture of the real thing to paint theh cockpit). Of course I may be wrong and it may be that some F-4Ns had the same instruments...

Edited August 19 by Giorgio N

[Giorgio N]

While waiting for the various paint in the cockpit to dry I started looking at one area where the FM kits improved a lot on the existing competition: the intakes. FM are one of the few companies to offer full length intakes, an area that on the Phantom is quite visible. Of course these are a bit simplified but the final effect looks very promising.

I deviated a bit from the instructions here and I glued the intake ducts to the reletive outer intake part instead of gluing them to the other half. In this way I can sort of the various surface defects and then prime everything together. I used white Mr. Surfacer 1000 to prime the intakes, I may this way not have to spray a further coat. The compresso first stages were painted using Vallejo Model Air Steel, followed by a black wash

 

Now again there have been things I liked and things I did not like...

Things I like: well, there are full length intakes and IMHO these are a must on a kit of a Phantom, this area is really too visible to just have a plastic wall painted in black

Things I do not like: there were a couple of ejector marks on the intake duct halves and removing them was a bit of a pain. And more, the ECM antenna fairings above the intakes require holes to be drilled in the parts. These holes are then visible from the intake, so ruining the effect. I had to work a lot to sort the ejector marks and these holes before priming.. and then I had to do some more work as the first coat of primer showed that I had not filled everything correctly. Quite annoying...

Edited August 19 by Giorgio N

[modelling minion]

Off to a great start Giorgio. The cockpit looks really good, the decals are indeed a very good fit to the kit plastic, definitely not always guaranteed. The intakes and engines look very nice too and I'm sure you will sort out the annoying holes for the ECM fairings.

[81-er]

You're off to a really good start with this one, Giorgio. I'm not a Phantom expert at all so I have no idea if the cockpit is accurate. What I do know is you've made a great job of it. It's nice to see the full length intakes in the kit as well

 

James

[Giorgio N]

This kit looks complicated in the box and sure it isn't a simple one, however the parts actually seem to go together fast and easy enough and it wasn't long before I had the front fuselage assembled:

 

One thing to keep in mind when building a Phantom is that the intakes cover part of the fuselage, it is therefore necessary to prime and paint some of it before adding the intakes. Here I primed with white Mr. Surfacer and then sprayed a coat of Gunze Acqueous Light Gull Grey

Today I mostly use water thinned acrylics and the plan was to use AK's colour as IU have this in the paint stash and looks pretty good. However since I had to partially prime certain areas and I may have to prime close to the prepainted parts I decided to go for something more robuts. Since I also had the Gunze paint in the stash, I decided to use this. 

I then turned my attention to the wings. These come in several parts that fortunately all fit pretty well. There are also a number of holes to be drilled for the pylons and various antennas, better not forget them...

Unfortunately I forgot to take all the pictures I wanted, this is the only one I have

 

With the wing ready, I couldn't resist putting everything together...

 

Here I should mention that my idea of assembling the intakes out of sequence did not work well and I had some very slight steps between the outer intake parts and the fuselage. Personal advice: follow the instructions here!

Next step, adding the outer wing sections and the rear fuselage

Edited September 1 by Giorgio N

[81-er]

She's coming along well, Giorgio

 

James

[modelling minion]

Thats very good progress Giorgio,very neat work getting all those parts aligned so nicely, she's looking very much Phantom like now. 

[Giorgio N]

On 9/1/2025 at 1:18 PM, 81-er said:

She's coming along well, Giorgio

 

James

 

Thanks James!

23 hours ago, modelling minion said:

Thats very good progress Giorgio,very neat work getting all those parts aligned so nicely, she's looking very much Phantom like now. 

 

Thanks! Actually most of the merit for the good alignment goes to the kit: while the way the parts are designed may look complicated, the fit is pretty good. The main problem area is, as often happens, where the front fuselage meet with the rest, here some filler is needed.

 

The model now looks even more like a Phantom: with the rear fuselage,  the outer wing panels and radome in place the unique shape of the Phantom appears in all its fascinating bruteness 

 

 

I still have to glue the tail and a couple of details on the airframe before priming can start while the stabilators have already been primed and will be painted separately.

[81-er]

It's very definitely looking like a Phantom now

 

James

[modelling minion]

Excellent progress Giorgio, unmistakable as anything other than a Phantom. Looks like you got a very good fit and have a very neat build. 

[Giorgio N]

17 hours ago, 81-er said:

It's very definitely looking like a Phantom now

 

James

 

It's looking even more like a Phantom in this picture:

 

I couldn't resist and had to dry-fit the tail, stabilators and canopy. Beautiful!

The reason I wanted to check the tail is because I would have liked to glue this on the model after painting everything. Phamtoms have probes on the leading edge of the fin and these are invariably moulded together with it. I know by experience that it's very easy to break them while handling the model, hence the idea of gluing the fin at the very end.

Unfortunately it looks like my plan will not work, the fin fits well but needs to be pushed down a bit for a perfect fit, doing it on the painted model may damage the finish. I will have to be very careful with the probes...

In any case the fin will be glued as the very last thing before priming. Next to be glued will be the canopy, for which I bought this set:

 

I have a few sets by New Ware but haven't used any yet. I don't expect bad surprises but replicating the sealant lines may not be the easiest thing...

 

[AaCee26]

On 8/16/2025 at 5:53 PM, Anatol Pigwa said:

F-16 which brough a bevy of firsts on it”s own (HOTAS, p/w ratio >1

Already single-seater Folland Gnat, an exceptional design in many ways, had p/e-ratio greater than 1.

 

Cheers,

 

AaCee