Subscribers’ Gallery : aircraft F

Here’s my Tamiya F-4J Phantom II in 1:32 scale.

I spent a long time on the base using mostly AMMO of Mig Jimenez, AK weathering products and you can also see other small accessories like leaves, grasses etc.

Glad you like it.
Marco L.

This is the Tamiya 1:32 kit, which is starting to show its age, not sure why they include the screws for fitting, but anyway, she went together rather painlessly. I used resin ejector seats and engine cans, with quite a lot of Eduard brass in, the pilots were from PJ productions, again my thanks to Jenifer @ JS miniatures for the lighting rig, and programming the chip.

Main decals were from the colourful F-4J Phantoms, very nice, more than could be said for the kit decals, they were dreadful, and I had to delve into my spares box, good old spares.

The armaments were Eduard but only the Sparrow and Sidewinders, I was going to use the Eduard kit on the bombs but the kit ones worked nicely. She was all painted using Tamiya paints.

Mike T.

This is one of my own aircraft dioramas – it’s in 1:32nd scale. The F-4J Phantom is Tamiya’s lovely model of the US Navy variant.

The scene depicts an F-4 of VF-151 “Vigilantes” onboard USS Midway CV-41 circa 1979 about to be prepared – flighted etc, before being launched on a CAP mission.

Hope you like it?
Ian R.

Here are photos of my Fairey Battle target tug, again a Classic Airframes 1:48th kit. The shape of the nose on the kit was too narrow, and the tailplane was slightly offset on the real aircraft but not so on the kit so I used the Heritage Aviation resin correction set which required major surgery at both ends!! The hydraulic jacks for the undercarriage and the winch arm/propeller were Aeroclub white metal additions.

L5716 was attached to No.24 Bombing, Navigation and Gunnery School at Moffat, S Rhodesia in 1944. She was flown by my father several times on towline duties. The background really is authentic!! I went to Zimbabwe last year and took this shot of the veld (long way to go for one picture, but that’s dedication for you! :) )

Max W.

Firstly this is not the new 1:72 Airfix Fairey swordfish floatplane(2012, rather a conversion / build using the old Matchbox/Airfix kits as a start point – wow – impressive work Stefano, well done! Geoff

The Fairey Swordfish has been, to date, my favourite airplane. For its super detailed construction I started from the ancient Matchbox kit, but on the workbench I had an Airfix kit, not as good as the first.
I decided to build the floatplane version and construction began with the scratchbuilt floats. It was my first true “scratchbuilt” project and has presented many problems. The floats were carved in wood, soaked in resin and then moulded in silicone rubber for the two identical copies. At the time of construction I did not have a lot of technical skills and appropriate materials commonly used today, I did not even know the existence of Plasticard!
Cockpit construction continued without any problems with the interior detail being very complex considering the scale of the model. The fuel and oil tanks were built using the same technique of the floats with tubular structure made of Evergreen.
The wings have represented the real modelling challenge; the twenty-two tie rods, made with coaxial cable silver, were made to pass through the wings through the micro holes made by hand with a drill bit from 0.18 mm. The excess of the cable coming out at the top and bottom of the wing has been cut and joined with small amounts of stucco.
The staining was created with my usual colours – Humbrol, diluted with turpentine and applied with an airbrush. Peeling and dripping rust or oil were carried out with a brush with Humbrol colours diluted to ‘80% or with oil paint.
This project was rewarding but also very challenging.
Stefano De R.
See more of Stefano’s impressive work here

This is my second bird from last years “blue phase”.

As I already had to mix these curious Japanese blue tones, which are described in the F-2A article elsewhere in the Readers Gallery, I started this Hasegawa 48th scale kit of the F-4EJ Kai in JASDF 8 Sqn service, which was rereleased recently.

Besides the Hasegawa kit I used True Details seats, the Wolfpack flaps and slats and Cobra afterburner cans. Otherwise I added the small stripes on the radar nose peculiar to the “Kai” version. The two anti-ship missiles came from the JASDF Weapons set from Hasegawa, whereas the decals are out of the box. And these decals were the only nightmare on this build, as they insisted on silvering. I rarely have such problems with decals in recent years. My system of having a Klear gloss surface and applying the decals also with Klear normally works easy and perfectly. Not so with these Hasegawa “bastards”. I overcame this after making endless small holes in each decal with a small needle and applying Microsoft Sol on each of them. That took several hours/days, but in the end saved the work invested so far.
I hope you like the result.
Maybe a F-2 two-seater or a T-4 will follow soon.
Jürgen J.

Here is my Greek Air Force F-4 E

It´s a refurbished Hasegawa F-4 E with slatted wings.
The decals are from CAM pro.
Otherwise I did some weathering, added an exercise bomb disperser from a Hasegawa weapons set and a Sidewinder training round. The Sidewinder launch rails are from a Monogram F-4 kit, as they are a better representation of the real ones. Resin seats were also added.
Best wishes Jurgen J.

The F-4E Phantom is the 1:32nd scale Tamiya kit with an Avionix resin replacement cockpit. The figures came from Verlinden and PJ Productions – the latter was a conversion using kit crew parts and PJ legs.

I love the Tamiya Phantom kits – still the only really decent kits in this scale, they aren’t perfect but they fit together better and are most accurate for variants covered.

Ian R.

Hi

Hope you be fine.

I am “Mehdi Nader”, a professional modeler who is living in Iran, Tehran.
I am one of your website’s fan. As the matter of fact, recently I’ve finished
a Revell 1:32 F-4F Phantom II WTD 61 “Flight Test” kit. Actually it took around 35 hours to be made.

I just wanted to share its pictures to you too .

Thanks & Regards, Mehdi Nader

With the re-release by Revell of their large 1:32 F-4F Phantom II in these markings Thomas has been quick off the mark to create his model in these markings –and what a great job he’s done don’t you think?

Kit: 1:72 Revell F-4 Phantom 04615
This is yet another Revell F-4F Phantom in 1:72nd. This is my fifth model and is painted to represent aircraft F-4 IRIF (Islamic Republic of Iran). My opinion is the Iranian camouflage is one of the best colour schemes applied to any F-4. (What do you think?)
The ICE Phantom is a major upgrade for the F-4F, and finally gives the aircraft a BVR capability with its APG-65 radar and AIM-120 missiles.
Nice model of one of my favourite subjects, and I was very pleased with the results. Model was built in about 10 days in May and I built it with all restrictions.
In my country is lack of buying facility results in boycott. The boycott is unfair because that causes hurt to all people not to government. (Specially artists)

Mohammad Adl from IRAN 2013 Email address: sm_adl@yahoo.com

Hasegawa 1:48 scale

Here is another of the stunning pieces by Hong Hwan Jang. Some incredible weathering on show here. Note the incredibly subtle airbrush work to get that authentic US Navy low-vis finish. Simply inspirational work. Thanks Hong Hwan.

Hasegawa 1:48 scale

This is the beautiful1/32nd scale Tamiya kit. It’s almost entirely from the box, the only exception being the Eduard cockpit set. Paints used were a mixture of Vallejo, Xtracryllics and Tamiya. The decals are from the kit and I had not seen them applied to a kit in any scale until I used them on mine.

This is my 1:32 model made from the Tamiya F-4J kit.

This is the Tamiya 1:32 Birdcage Corsair

Aftermarket: Barracuda Studios resin wheels, Barracuda decals and cockpit stencils.
Painted with custom mixes of Tamiya acrylics. Weathered with oils and enamels.

See www.jimsmodels.com
James DiCesare (Dickerson)

An F-5A from Classic Airframes in scale 1:48 scale, built straight from the box as a bird from the South Vietnamese Air Force during its final days.
It is a former Iranian Aircraft being delivered to South Vietnam still in its desert camouflage and used in these colours. The scheme was taken from the book “Fall of the Flying Dragon” from Harpia Publishing.

See you! Jürgen Jaacks

Attached some pictures of an F-5 B I finished this year and also had at our Cologne Pirates stand at SMW (2012).

After having a bunch of F-5 kits laying around in my cellar for some years now the release of the wonderful AFV Club F-5 E/F in scale 1:48 triggered me to start an F-5 series; and here is the first one. It is an F-5B in a Canadian Aggressor scheme, which is included in the kit. The kit is no longer available, as Classic Airframes unfortunately disappeared from the market last year or so. Whereas the basic layout of the kit is more on the basic side, the resin parts included really make the difference and make effectively almost as good as the new Kinetic kit. Assembly took some dry-fitting of the parts, especially the resin parts. The colours are rather odd, but exactly that makes the difference of the scheme. I used Xtracolor paints: X39, X107 and X133.
After all the work invested was honoured by a medal from the folks from IPMS Winnipeg at SMW 2012. Thanks!
Jürgen Jaacks