Inaccurate FROG 'Toom?

[Fifer54]

I've got a FROG 'Toom and I'm not happy with it.....

It's F.262 "McDonnell Phantom F-4K or M" and in tiny lettering on the bottom of the

box, it says "Moulded in Japan". From this I take it that it's early Hasegawa plastic in the box. The kit's

fuselage looks to me to be the wrong shape for a Brit Phantom in that it's the size for a J-79-engined kite,

not the wider, squatter rear end of a Spey 'Toom.

BUT, the nose end looks like a Spey 'Toom. It certainly isn't a USAF or USN bird's nose. And the exhausts....

look like a Spey hot end, but they seem the size for a J-79.

The most annoying thing about this is that a couple of years ago, I wouldn't have cared! I'd have built it from the box,

in the kit's decals, and because I knew no better, I'd have been happy with it.

I don't want to bin the kit, but I don't know what type of F-4 it represents.

Part of me says "you'll always know it's wrong!!" but another part says (in the immortal words of the late Al Superczynski)

"Build what you want, the way you want it"...

On top of that, a browse through "Phantom from the cockpit" shows a photo of the Navy bird depicted in the decal sheet

and it's captioned as the first of the YF-4Ks, not even a production-standard plane!

Excuse my rant, I'm just a bit frustrated with this, cos even though Google is my friend, I can't get to the bottom of this.....

Does anyone know about this kit? Is it inaccurate? What type of 'Toom is it?

Perhaps I'll build it and give it to a young nephew..............

[Test Graham]

You are right that it is the Hasegawa tooling. I believe that the K/M nose was the same as that of the USN Phantoms, and the closest version to the kit is the F-4J. I wouldn't bet money on just how close.

Frog did retool and produce an F-4K/M that was much closer to a Spey Phantom.

Just to get things in perspective, for many years my daughter loved a Sundowners F-4 that started life as a Matchbox F-4K/M, but I couldn't stand to make as it was supposed to be.

[Jennings Heilig]

That is the Hasegawa Spey Phantom. It was the only game in town when it came out. As Graham noted, the Spey birds were identical structurally to the F-4J aside from the aft fuselage (wider & deeper for the Spey). Everything forward of the aft end of the cockpit was the same. Of course the intakes were a little wider too, but the fwd fuselage was the same.

The Matchbox kit came out in around 1975/76 and eclipsed the Hasegawa kit (but not by much), then in the mid-80s along came the Fujimi kits and blew everybody else out of the water. And 20+ years later they're still far and away the best 1/72 Phantoms of any kind on the market.

J

[Fifer54]

You are right that it is the Hasegawa tooling. I believe that the K/M nose was the same as that of the USN Phantoms, and the closest version to the kit is the F-4J. I wouldn't bet money on just how close.

Frog did retool and produce an F-4K/M that was much closer to a Spey Phantom.

Just to get things in perspective, for many years my daughter loved a Sundowners F-4 that started life as a Matchbox F-4K/M, but I couldn't stand to make as it was supposed to be.

That is the Hasegawa Spey Phantom. It was the only game in town when it came out. As Graham noted, the Spey birds were identical structurally to the F-4J aside from the aft fuselage (wider & deeper for the Spey). Everything forward of the aft end of the cockpit was the same. Of course the intakes were a little wider too, but the fwd fuselage was the same.

The Matchbox kit came out in around 1975/76 and eclipsed the Hasegawa kit (but not by much), then in the mid-80s along came the Fujimi kits and blew everybody else out of the water. And 20+ years later they're still far and away the best 1/72 Phantoms of any kind on the market.

J

In that case, I'll build it as the YF-4K, until I can get a better one......

Thank you for clearing that up for me, gentlemen!

[Howard of Effingham]

gaz!

throw the damn thing away into a fiery furnace [preferably extra hot]!

i palmed mine when i'd bought it by mistake off to a trader and decided NEVER again.

[John R]

Ah, the loss of innocence! I remember when I used to be able to build kits straight from the box and then one day the thought occurs 'surely that can't be right?' and life is never the same again.

"Perhaps I'll build it and give it to a young nephew.............. "

Better still - get together with the young nephew and build it and another young soul will set forth on the road to hell.

[Jennings Heilig]

Contributing to the delinquency of a minor is a crime

[English Electric]

I've got a FROG 'Toom and I'm not happy with it.....

It's F.262 "McDonnell Phantom F-4K or M" and in tiny lettering on the bottom of the

box, it says "Moulded in Japan". From this I take it that it's early Hasegawa plastic in the box.

Just in case you're wondering how a Hasegawa tooling got into a Frog box Gaz, Hasegawa & Frog had a (relatively) short-lived agreement in the late 60s (68-69) to release some of each other's ranges but in their own boxes. The kits were manufactured in the respective countries - i.e. Japan and the UK, but the packing was done at home so to speak. Hence, you get such exotic additions to the Frog catalogue as the 1/72 Kawanishi 'Emily', Nakajima 'Rita' and things like the B-47, Phantom, Intruder, Mohawk plus several 1/32 WWII fighters... while the Japanese were releasing kits like the Blenheim I and Vengeance. They also put out the EE Lightning F6, but whether that was their own tool or the later re-jigged Frog one I'm not sure, I'd say the former, but I'm sure someone else on here knows more!

It's all intriguing stuff, more so as no one really knows why the Hasegawa/Frog deal went to bits - in the Lines/Hellestrom book on Frog they do say they tried to dig deeper into what went wrong, but that Hasegawa was one of the few companies who wouldn't play ball and assist.

HTH

Chris

Edited December 16, 2010 by English Electric

[marty_hopkirk]

Hasegawa & Frog had a (relatively) short-lived agreement in the late 60s (68-69) to release some of each other's ranges but in their own boxes.

Chris

The deal ran longer than that, from memory the respective companies were still cross boxing kits as late as '72/'73. Although, it became a more spasmodic affair as it went on.

I don't think the deal went wrong per se, it just ran it's course.

Marty...

Edited December 17, 2010 by marty_hopkirk