Royal Navy Phantom FG.1
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Like most aviation modelers my age, the F-4 Phantom is one of my very favorites. I currently have in the stash 7 Phantom kits, but as yet none completed. To rectify this, I pulled down the Hasegawa 48th British Phantom FG. Mk.1 "Ark Royal."
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While many air arms around the world operated F-4s (and a few still do!), the Royal Navy was the only one outside of the United States to operate them from Aircraft Carriers.
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British Phantoms were unique in that they were powered by Rolls Royce Spey engines instead of the typical J79s. It has been suggested that British Phantoms were the poorest performing F-4s, with shorter and wider Spey requiring 20% larger intakes as well as a boxeyer aft fuselage adding increased drag. However, Spey Phantoms better performance at lower altitudes.
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Another unique feature was an extendable nose gear which allowed the nose to be raised and increased the angle of attack for carrier launches.
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I intended to practice some scratch building, so first I wired the back seater's instrument panel. This turned out to be a waste of time since the extra wiring wouldn't let the fuselage halts come together
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Here are the True Detail seat before painting...
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...and here is after.
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Using the micro thin tape to mask off the ejection handles.
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The cockpit out of the box ain't bad. (Sorry about the glare...)
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Fit wasn't bad, but I also made an alignment mistake...
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The kit come with only Sparrows and drop tanks although there are sidewinder launch rails, so I stole 4 from an old Italeri F-15.
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She smoothed our pretty nicely.
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I wanted to try silver as a primer. This is Tamiya chrome acrylic.
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I have seen builders struggle with the Phantom tail. I looked a lot of images and decided there are no shortcuts to this, so.....
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...micro masking!
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This is round one...
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Since all operational Royal Navy Phantoms were Extra Dark Sea Grey on top, White undersides, I wasn't sure if my tried and true pre-shading technique would work, but I decided to give it a go anyway.
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Since acrylics are translucent, I have found that for cooler colors, middle stone and yellow give a nice contrast and breaks up single color schemes.
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Stripes on the missiles are painted. Done with using decals.
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TEST fitting the Sparrows. Pretty pleased with how the white belly came out.
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Have to be careful not to blot out the pre-shading.
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I am a true believer in Future floor wax!
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Ok. Ready for decals. The sheet is huge with what looks like hundreds of stecils!
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Whelp, ended up pulling an all nighter!
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Pretty happy, though.
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So I thought the little brown circle was a decal, but no. The instructions called for Mahogany, but I think NATO brown works for me!
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Sealing the decals...
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I have my cat Bucky conducting QA...
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Proper Phantom holding technique...
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burner cans.
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Reskit wheels. Oddly, the kit came with really nice white metal wheels but rubber tires.
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Even the canopies get decals...
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Almost there...
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45 8 September 2023, 00:21