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McDonnell-Douglas
F-4E (early) Phantom II

by Ingo Degenhardt

 

F-4E Phantom II

images by Lutz Degenhardt


Tamoiya's 1/32 scale F-4E is available online from Squadron.com

 

Background

        

I had plans to build an Israeli Phantom of the early 70’s in 48th scale since the early 1990s. I had even started some preparations – paints were bought, decals were sourced, etc. But somehow the project was postponed again and again and so never came to life.

With the appearance of Tamiya’s F-4E in 32nd scale I finally made up my mind. So it would be an Israeli F-4E bomber in 1/32.

 

 

Construction

 

The known shortcomings of this kit are still present with it’s now fourth release after the C/D and J versions. So I started with the laborious task of removing the notorious raised patches on the one-piece fuselage, by now well known as “BDR-patches” (BattleDamageRepair). These were all sanded flush to the fuselage surface and then the panel lines were rescribed. Studying scale drawings revealed that not all of the panel outlines correspond with the original fuselage panel lines. So these had to be changed.

Another weak point of the kit are the intakes. Looking down the intake trunks assembled as Tamiya made them, there are very large seams inside that are very unrealistic and a real nuisance. I spent some money to fix this problem and got myself the ‘seamless intakes’ by Cutting Edge. They are not cheap, but were especially made to deal with the inside of the intakes. This they do quite well though not perfect and I paid for the improvement inside with a very poor outside fit of these parts. A lot of filler was required here.

The complete nose section comes in clear plastic. The idea behind this is to allow a view into the fuselage to behold the Radar and Gun assembly. There is a nice example on the box art of how it could look but I could not make friends with the idea and went for a completely painted nose and the Radar and Gun displayed separately. They were not yet ready when the pictures were taken.

 

 

For the Cockpit I used the ejection seats by Verlinden which are a lot of work but worth the effort. A few parts of Eduard’s etched-metal detail set for the Revell F-4F were used also for the cockpit.

The kit supplies the usual ordnance as before with the F-4C/D release: two 370 gal. Wing tanks, four Sidewinders, four Sparrows, twelve Mk82 bombs, two MER and two TERs.

Six of the Mk82s are equipped with fuse extenders but I didn’t want these for this F-4, so I ‘reduced’ them to standard Mk82 by removing the extension and completing the bomb bodies with fuses. Before that the bomb bodies received a treatment with plastic glue to give their skin a more rough appearance. Except for two Sparrows and one MER all of the available external load was used.

 

 

Painting and Markings

 

Painting

With so many years between the first planning and the final starting of the model my XTRA-Colors for this project were well over ten years old. In fact there was even rust on the cans but they worked very fine without any problems. I had several colour drawings for Israeli F-4 camouflage schemes of the period and finally had to decide between two possible patterns. I finally went for the scheme used on the model after I found this on all my rare colour photographs. Anyway information about Israeli Phantoms from the time of the Yom Kippur war is very hard to find – even now. My books were nearly useless and even searching the net did not bring up the amount of information I expected so part of the model’s appearance is no more than a good guess.

I definitely wanted my F-4E with this oversized sharkmouth found on some (or may be only a single one) Phantoms. I bought CAM Decals’ No. 32-083 for the purpose but had to find out that the sharkmouth was so large that it even covered the front of the air intake scoops on the forward fuselage sides. There was no chance to use the decals. So the complete sharkmouth was sprayed on which required extensive and careful masking.

 

 

As also seen on photographs, I simulated oversprayed US-national insignia on the fuselage and wings. This seems to have been done not always very carefully, but more in a quick-and-dirty way. So for example there is a large gap in the red fuselage band on either side. I cut out the US star&bar decal from the kit’s decal sheet and used the sheet as a spray mask. The colours used were slightly darkened.

One of my colour photographs shows a flight of three Israeli Phantoms with at least the nearest aircraft carrying wing tanks of a significantly darker green top colour compared to the light green on the aircraft itself. To me it looked like the wing tanks were painted US-style of FS34079 over FS36622 although there was no visible difference in the underside colours of tank and aircraft. But FS36622 Light gray is not so very far from FS15622 pale blue...

May be my imagination ran a little wild but I thought it possible the Heyl’ Ha Avir may have received some 370gal. fuel tanks painted in USAF colours during the hastened deliveries from the US after the Yom Kippur war started. Unlikely? Impossible? I decided otherwise and happily painted the tanks US style. One more guess on this model...

FS30219 Tan is prone to deteriorate fast and heavily. I mixed it with a little white and red to give it this slightly pinkish hue.


 

Decals 

This Phantom is  Serial No. 187 during 1972/3 and the mentioned CAM Decal sheet plus TIGER WINGS’ Phantom stencils were used for the model. The stencil sheet includes some of the major warning stencils in Hebrew as can be seen on some of the images.

No. 187 was exactly the aircraft shown on my only real good close-up picture of a sharkmouthed Phantom. CAM Decals state on their instructions that ‘there is no proof’ of the use of the included kill marks and squadron insignia on this aircraft.  So they had some difficulties too, gathering information...

Definitely 187 had the long gun muzzle and formation lights – provided by CAM as glow-in-the-dark decals – it works...

The sharkmouth is clearly seen on this photograph and so it was used as a painting guide. Unfortunately it does not show  if the fuselage band and squadron insignia were on the aircraft or not so I had to decide on my own.

 

 

I could not resist using one of the kill marks too.  It’s location on the model, the left splitter plate,  on the photograph is covered by a ground crewman...

It is hardly visible, but it looks like 187 did not have the ECM acorn on the fin tip. The model provides both fin caps and so I used the one without the acorn.

The CAM Decals are very thin and quite nice to work with, but their tendency to ‘suck’ into the panel lines was very limited, despite the proper use of Micro Sol/Set. So I was even more glad not to have tried to use the sharkmouth decal. The TIGER WINGS decals went on without problems. I suffered only very little silvering.

 

 

Conclusion

 

This was No. 3 of Tamiya’s 32nd Phantoms I built and the first one on which I removed the BDR-patches – this adds a good deal of work to the whole thing. Also this is not one of my cheapest models with all the aftermarket stuff used although the Eduard parts are still nearly complete and wait for Revell’s F-4F.

 

 

I didn’t expect to find so little detailed information about an aircraft that was brand new to the IAF over 30 years ago but I would have had even less without the help of the people mentioned below.

May be I went a little too far with the wing tanks but building this big Phantom was fun as it always is and finally I have my Israeli Phantom. 

 

 

Acknowledgements

 

Thanks for information and pictures 

  • Anders Svennevik

  • R.J. Goldman

  • Yoav Efrati

  • Tom Patterson  (all rec.models.scale)

  • and Dave Williams

 

 

Additional Images

 

Click on the thumbnails below to view larger images:


Images and Text Copyright © 2003 by Ingo and Lutz Degenhardt
Page Created 22 May, 2003
Last Updated 17 March, 2004

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