My main interest is
WWII warbirds, but I dreamt to build a Vietnam war plane for a very long time.
This time, I settled down with an F-4 Phantom, and started to build this kit in
August, 2007 (and finished in late February, 2008). I didn't want to over-detail
the model, so I decided not to use any aftermarket detail sets - but you'll see
that I still had to do quite some of scratch building in order to have the plane
during its take-off procedure.
I added only a
minimal amount of detail to the cockpit area since the canopies are closed on
the model. One important thing about the cockpit is that the fuselage sides are
not flat from the inside, and this would result in a gap between the fuselage
side and the cockpit tub. This was easily cured with gluing some flattened sprue
in place, and then filled and sanded of course.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The gear bays
received the most prominent pipes and cables, and the oleos on the struts were
extended to represent them in a "weightless" state.
I also repositioned
the flaps and flaperons as well for a better take-off configution. I know that
it's not 100% correct, because I should have deployed the slats as well, but
that would have required a lot more work and as I said I didn't want to have a
difficult build now.
The pilot and WSO figures came from
a friend, Zsolt Kiss. I also received help on the AIM-9 and AIM-7 missiles. For
them, I have to thank Tamas Molnar the help.
Most of the intake air channel is missing on this kit, but I still wanted to
represent the GE J79 turbines somehow. I went with a lazy and simple solution,
and I designed the turbine faces on my PC and printed the design to paper. The
paper was then glued in place and end of story. :-)
The model received
full rivet detail based on drawings found somewhere on the Net. Then the model
was painted with Gunze acrilycs. Weathering was kept at a moderate level with a
fine wash of Tamiya black enamel, and black pencils for the fluid leaks. The
design for the decals were home made and then printed by my friend, Peter Toth.
The blurry runway was also designed on PC and printed at Office Depot. The
model's base has LEDs as well that illuminate the plexi rods that I bent with
a help of a hot air blower.
I hope you like my model.
Peter
Click on
images below to see larger images
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