Jump to content

A question for Phantom Phanatics


MikeOberholtzer

Recommended Posts

I'm working on a Hasegawa F-4E and decided to replace the kit intakes with some KMC/True Details intakes I had on hand. The fit was good and the modifications to the fuselage were fairly easy. I brought the fuselage in to show my fellow club members with one kit intake and one KMC intake taped in place. Much to my surprise the KMC intake is much smaller than the kit intake! Back at home I pulled out the unused set of intakes from the kit and found out that they match up well with the KMC intakes. After much research I now understand that Hasega's F-4 E/G/F/EJ kits all include these extra larger intakes, and several aftermarket intake makers also follow along with the bigger replacements.

 

So here is my question: can anyone point me to references that show that the E/F/G/EJ intakes are any different on the actual aircraft? I can't find a thing online or in my many reference books. None of the photos or drawings I've seen indicate a difference either. So what gives?

 

Thanks for any light you can shed on this question!

 

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Funny, I don't recall any "extra" intakes when I built the Pro-Modeler release of the Hasagawa F-4E kit; but then maybe that release doesn't include them.

 

The only thing that comes to mind is that Hasagawa has released English Phantom kits, and I do believe that since they have Spey engines, they also have larger intakes. Are the larger intakes numbered with the parts on the trees that are NOT supposed to be used in this release, according to the instructions?

 

If that's not the case, then I'm not sure what would account for the size differences. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will be here soon!

 

GIL :smiley16:

Edited by ghodges
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the reply Gil. I wondered if I had used the wrong intakes but I used the correct ones, and all three of my E/G/EJ kits have the same instructions to use the larger intakes. I'm just baffled!

 

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I worked on F-4s and they all had the same size intakes except as Gil pointed out, the British ones. With the American ones, you had to go in sideways to get past that probe on the wall about a yard back. Last time I "shot the tubes", about 2-3 years ago, I had a hard time getting my fat belly past!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When Hasegawa started making 1/48 Phantoms back in the 80s, the first ones were the F-4J, B, and C/D (the ones that had raised panel lines). When they tooled up the F-4E kit, there were changes in the dimensions of the wing and fuselage in the kits around the area of the intakes - the F-4E kit was wider in the area than the previous kits. I know this because I used an original F-4J and an F-4E to build an F-4S before Hasegawa released that version, and the Sparrow wells on the F-4E wing did not line up with the wells in the J fuselage (when Hasegawa released the S, they retooled the fuselage to match up with the F-4E wings and add recessed panel lines).


So, it's possible that the different intakes reflect the different fuselage toolings from the original kits maybe? Does one set of intakes have raised panel lines?


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Joe,

 

You got it! The other intakes in the kit do have raised panel lines. They are on a sprue with cockpit and gear well parts which were probably never changed when the kits were retooled. The change in size of the intakes must have something to do with the new wing. Thanks for clearing this up for me.

 

Mike

Edited by MikeOberholtzer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...