F-4E Phantom II `30th Anniversary´

Jonkka
Originally I acquired this kit a little by accident. I had ordered Hasegawa's F-4G Wild Weasel but dealer said it was sold out and offered this instead to complete my order and avoid refund. I took it and juggled for a long time what to do with the kit, sell it, donate it or - gasp - build it. Now I finally did to continue my modern jet planes series.

Kit wasn't bad but there's plenty of room for improvement. Panel lines are very thin, like they in Hasegawa kits and I am not fan of those. Instruction sheet is big foldable sheet of paper and that's damn difficult to manage at times. Some detail paint instructions were only in decal part of instructions and I didn't note that early on. Cockpit is quite basic although not much is seen after kit is completed.

I made two mistakes with this kit. First is visible on right side of rudder where I used Tamiya's Super Strong decal solvent and it ate right through the paint and ripped part of the decal, therefore small portion of serial number is missing. Second mistake I noticed only after looking at the pics - front canopy is ever so slightly tilted to right.

Other than these, I am quite pleased with the kit. It's damn big plane, had some difficulty adjusting it into my collection cabinet. Colors came out nice, decal blue matches the Tamiya's varnished blue almost perfectly.