Phantom engines

[burner12]

I'm currently working on a 1/48 F-4J of Lt Curt Dose and his engagement on May 10th. But I was looking at an issue of Fine Scale and saw that for a Phantom most of the time the exhausts were stained black. And I know he went into afterburner during that engagement, so i was wondering does afterburner produce more smoke or less?

Edited March 15, 2011 by burner12

[ghodges]

Phantoms were smokers! They were famous for their long trail of black smoke that could actually be used by an enemy to track them. In general, you'd want to first metalize the rear underside of the F-4J with its various metallic panels, along with the inner halves of each stabilator. The exterior of the burner cans can be painted in very dark metallics (Metalizer Exhaust works very nicely!). The interior of the burner cans, along with the underside of the metallized areas (including the tail hook) can be painted flat black. Also, the smoky soot flat black extended out onto 3/4s to 4/5s of the metallic undersides of the stabilators. consult some pics of built models and also in flight pics of F-4'as and you'll see what I'm describing. Hope this helps!

 

GIL

[TimDarrah]

I crewed RF-4Cs at Bergstron AFB, TX in 85/86. During that time, we were converting from "normal" engines to "smokeless" engines. I'm not sure how early they came in service, but I did see some flying out of Nellis as early as '79 with smokeless engines.

 

The area of "natural metal" behind the engine exhausts were Titanium, so paint all of that area that colour paint (Model Master has it) first. Then you could over-paint it with black as Gil suggests, but I would suggest that you take black pastels and rub it in. I saw very little staining on the stabs during my times on the Rhino.

 

I hope that this helps.

[burner12]

Thanks helps a lot.