Luftwaffe1/48 F-4F Phantom

[ghodges 441]

Our club is having an F-4 Phantom build, so I built this one. This is based on a color rendering by Lou Drendel in his 1977 SS book "Phantom II". I used a Hasagawa 1/48 F-4EJ kit for the build, leaving off the optional recce pods and later ECM gear. The German F-4F was essentially a stripped down F-4E without Sparrow missile capabilities when they were first bought. Since the drawing in the book shows an unarmed plane, I built mine that way, and saved some work too! I had a spare True Details F-4 resin tub and some resin seats, so I added those. I also scratchbuilt some intake covers which not only block off the too short intakes, but add some color too. Steel tubing was used for the pitot tubes in the tail fin and on the nose.

The camo was done using paper masks with bits of tape on the back which lifted the paper just off the surface. That helps give a soft, tight edge; though some touch up was needed from getting the airbrush too low and spraying a bit under the paper masks in spots. The markings came from spares box. The only trick here was many of them were 30-35yrs old and didn't have much adhesive left! I had to "Future" many of them in place, which not only set them, but also help suck them down into the panel lines. The panel lines were done in pencil, while the grills were accented with Tamiya wash. The NMF areas in the rear were done in Alclad Dark Aluminum and Titanium, while the exhaust cans were simply sprayed with Metalizer buffing Jet Exhaust.

I've been meaning to build this Phantom for a couple of decades, so it's fun to have gotten this one done! Comments, critiques, and questions welcome. Cheers!
 

GIL

 

Edited July 11 by ghodges

[dmorrissette 69]

Great looking color scheme. Nice

Dave

[WildBill50 50]

Cool scheme!  I remember that drawing in that book.

Still one of my favorite all time aircraft.

Bill

[1320Wayne 9]

Awesome build Gil. Love the camo and technique used.