Modelling the F-4 Phantom II
By Geoff Coughlin & Neil Ashby
Osprey Publishing, ©2004
ISBN 1-84176-746-8
82 pages
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I just purchased a copy of this new book by Geoff Coughlin and Neil
Ashby. Having worked on F-4Cs and F-4Es for five years back in the 1980s
I believe I have a somewhat unique perspective on modeling this airplane.
The book has six chapters plus a foreword by an RAF Phantom
pilot, an introduction that suggests different modelling tools and materials,
a section on weathering, duplicating the bare metal areas, displaying
the completed model and photographing the model, a biography and reference
section, and a list some of the currently available Phantom kits with
some comments about each. One possible problem for American purchasers
of the book is the liberal use of British brand-name paints, materials
and chemicals, calling for the use of such materials as "Rotring
air brush cleaner" and "Halford's screen wash." I have
no idea of what the US equivalents of these would be, but of course with
the internet I'm sure we can get that info readily from our British friends.
The authors also describe using different gauges of "fuse wire"
for cockpit details, but as an American, even being an electronics tech,
I'm not sure what fuse wire is nor what an American equivalent would be.
I've found several gauges of lead wire at a fishing tackle shop (for tying
flies) that work very well for detailing. Perhaps this is the same stuff?
The book doesn't give many insights about the F-4 and it's unique characteristics;
rather, it shows several models in three scales, 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32,
discussing construction, detailing with resin and photoetch, painting,
decaling and weathering with washes and pastels. If you are looking for
a project as super-detailed as Pierre Greutert's superb 1/32 F-4S (those
of you who are members of the Yahoo! groups F4sForever and F-4Discussion
know the model I'm referring to), you'll be disappointed. This book has
each subject model built more-or-less out of the box, with the addition
of detail parts in the cockpits and other areas but no major surgery or
scratchbuilding (with one exception). One item I noted being on most all
of the models in the book but not mentioned in the text is the little
coiled silver wire that goes from the backs of the seats to the canopies.
Most people don't know what these wires are, so it seems. I even recall
seeing these wires called "canopy heater wires" in one article
about a model F-4E (in a 1983 issue of FineScale Modeler). These wires
are actually for the "canopy interdictor block" which keeps
the seat from ejecting until the canopy has jettisoned. In an F-4, if
the canopy doesn't leave the airplane, the seat won't go through it, contrary
to how it works on some other fighters. When the F-4 canopy jettisons,
the wire pulls out the interdictor block on the top rear of the seat,
which allows the ejection sequence to proceed. All production Phantoms
use Martin-Baker seats (Mk-H-5 or Mk-H-7) and have this feature. I do
not know if the first prototype Phantoms which used McDonnell designed
seats had this.
The first project is an 81st TFS (Spangdahlem AB, Germany) Hill Gray
painted F-4G in 1/48 scale by Hasegawa with Eduard photoetch, Aires exhaust
nozzles, and AirDOC decals. There are a couple of very minor errors in
this chapter, referring to AGM-88 HARMs as AGM-45 Shrikes in a couple
of places for one, as well as mentioning cutting and dropping the "molded-in
flaps on the main wings... just inboard of the wing-fold", the "flaps"
which of course are the ailerons. I would have hoped a book on the F-4
would have mentioned the unique-to-Phantoms (as far as I know) characteristic
that when the stick is deflected one aileron goes down while the opposite
side has a spoiler that comes up (with that side's aileron traveling upwards
only a couple of degrees as the spoiler comes up). As the book says, when
the hydraulics aren't pressurized, both ailerons tend to droop over time.
The F-4G is shown with the left side aileron fully down, which was possible
but rare to see. Generally the ailerons would droop to a maximum of only
30 degrees or so, and most often the ailerons on each side would be at
noticeably different angles from each other.
Interestingly, in this chapter the authors describe a mistake they made,
planning to use the Aires resin exhaust nozzles but failing to make sure
they fit before gluing the major assemblies of the aircraft together.
Because some plastic structure inside the rear fuselage of the Hasegawa
kit should have been cut away for the nozzles but wasn't, the author had
to cut the nozzles much shorter so they would fit. I liked that they so
readily admitted their mistakes and how they compensated; who among us
has never done something similar?
The authors also heavily tint the center windscreen green on this and
the other models in this book, which is incorrect. The three-piece windscreen
on a Phantom consists of the side panels which are Plexiglas plastic roughly
1/2 inch thick, and the center panel which is laminated glass, roughly
an inch thick. Glass is less transparent than plastic (compare a large
acrylic aquarium with a glass aquarium of similar capacity at a pet store
if you want to see this for yourself), and really thick glass takes on
a very faint green tint when viewed from an angle, such as that of an
observer on the ground next to the aircraft. I had seen many models of
Phantoms with tinted center windscreens before I joined the Air Force,
so when I was working on the real jets I took a good look to see if this
was accurate. In most lighting conditions, the center windscreen looked
absolutely clear, but perhaps VERY slightly darker than the side panels.
You'd really have to be looking for it to notice it. However, in certain
lighting conditions (hazy no-shadow days as I recall) the glass could
appear a beautiful shade of green, but nowhere near so dark as on the
models in this book. If you are going to tint the center windscreen glass
on your models, make it VERY subtle!
The second chapter in this book illustrates the Revell RF-4E in 1/72
scale, using Eduard Photoetch, part of the Aires Cockpit and afterburner
nozzles, and AirDOC decals to finish the model in AG51 marking in the
two dark greens, dark gray Luftwaffe scheme of the 1980s. This is a short
chapter, but does a nice job of showing the detail that can be incorporated
in this small scale.
The third chapter details the 1/48 scale Hasegawa FGR.2 painted light
grays in 23 Squadron markings, using the Aires F-4E/F cockpit with modifications,
Airwaves seats for British Phantoms, and AeroMaster decals. The authors
show the difficulties involved in getting the Aires cockpit to fit, and
have a few good detailing ideas. One minor quibble I have is that the
author deflects the rudder and rudder pedals (correct) and the nose wheel
is turned to match (maybe not so correct). On the Phantom (as with most
other aircraft with hydraulic nose wheel steering) the nose wheel position
is independent of the rudder pedals with the hydraulics depressurized.
The rudder is mechanically, as well as hydraulically, connected to the
rudder pedals, but the nose wheel steering is hydraulic only with a small
hydraulic motor and gears. Whatever position the nose wheel is in after
engine shutdown or after the tow bar is disconnected is where it will
stay. The rudder and rudder pedals will go to a neutral position, unless
a stiff breeze blows the rudder off to one side in which case the pedals
will deflect accordingly.
As an addendum, on the Phantom when the hydraulics are depressurized
the control stick goes to the centered neutral position no matter what
deflection the stabilator was set to during shutdown. The stab will retain
whatever position it was left in when the hydraulics were depressurized
even as the control stick goes to centered neutral. The ailerons were
always at neutral and the spoilers closed when the jet was shut down in
my experience. The spoilers could be pried up by the crew chief during
his preflight inspections. Normally they'd close themselves after he let
them go, but sometimes they'd stay up a little. Still, it was extremely
rare to see them open even a little without the hydraulics pressurized
and the stick deflected. Do note that Phantom spoilers were used in conjunction
with the ailerons only; the left and right wing spoilers couldn't be raised
simultaneously like you might see on an airliner or cargo aircraft.
Anyway, it is possible that the nosewheel, rudder pedals and rudder
would all be in alignment off to one side on a parked Phantom, but it's
much more likely that the nosewheel would be centered. If you want to
throw contest judges for a loop, cock the nosewheel off to the opposite
side from the rudder and pedals; you'd be just as correct but it'd sure
look unnatural! This is the only model in which the auxiliary air doors
("aux air doors" for short) are mentioned. These doors opened
automatically when the landing gear handle was selected "down"
on J79-powered Phantoms, and opened automatically on Spey-powered Phantoms
when the aircraft's speed was below a certain limit. The aux air doors
allow cooling air to circulate around the engines when the aircraft is
at slow speeds or sitting stationary, and should always be open when the
aircraft is parked. On the J79-powered versions, the doors snap shut with
the interruption of electrical power when the engines are being shut down
as the generators drop offline, but as soon as the engines have spooled
down completely a ground crewman will pry them open and insert a safety
strut to keep them open. Parts of the engines and the centerline keel
structure are visible through the doors. J79-powered versions have only
the pair of aux air doors on the belly while Spey powered versions have
a second pair on the sides of the aft fuselage. With the engines shut
down, the aft fuselage aux air doors drooped almost closed.
The next chapter features the 1/32 scale Tamiya F-4J in the RAF's 74
Squadron markings from Yellow Hammer, Eduard PE, Cutting Edge Sidewinders
and Navy Wheels, a CAM SUU-23A gunpod on the centerline, and Reheat seats
and intake covers. This model features a scratchbuilt Ram Air Turbine
and landing gear downlocks made from thin plastic tubing. Most Phantom
models I've seen don't have the downlocks in place, which clamped over
the rod (silver) portion of the gear retraction actuators. Those downlocks
were in place until just before the crew "stepped" to the jet
when we maintenance folks would remove them, and reinstalled by us while
the aircrew was still getting out of the jet after they'd shut it down.
Accurate downlocks would be a nice thing to have Cutting Edge or someone
else market. The authors did an excellent job depicting the worn paint
on the canopy sills from personnel getting in and out of the aircraft.
The only problem I see with it is that they have the left and right sills
equally worn. In reality the right sills were never badly worn, as we
entered and exited the cockpits from the left side only. The right-hand
sills got only very minor wear from the crew chief standing on them as
he polished the interiors of the open canopies. A heavily weathered Phantom
would usually have the paint worn on top of the intake by crewmen entering
and exiting the rear cockpit, and the top of the left vari-ramp would
be bare metal from crewmen walking on top of it.
This model also has an open drag chute door with a chute packed inside.
This is inaccurate, as the door would be closed as soon as the chute was
stuffed in the canister, or the door left open with no chute inside. You
could display a model with the chute inside like this if you also position
a maintenance stand under the rear of the jet and have a crewman on the
stand who is about to close the door. This model uses the Cutting Edge
wheels for Navy Phantoms which are bulged to represent aircraft weight.
The True Details Company started this trend as far as I know, but the
tires on a Phantom (and many other high-performance jet fighters) simply
don't bulge with weight. The tires have extremely strong sidewalls to
withstand the stresses of takeoffs and landings. As weight is added to
the aircraft, the area of the tire on the ground gets flatter and flatter,
but the sidewalls don't bulge at all. As a side note, forgetting to move
the chocks away from the tires before we refueled and loaded up the jet
would mean the jet would settle onto the chocks with all its additional
weight. Once the aircraft was started and the pilot gave the signal to
"pull chocks", we'd discover the error. We'd have to pound,
kick, cuss and otherwise struggle to get the chocks out. I personally
ruined a couple of pairs of boots from kicking out stuck chocks! If you
could get one chock loose, you could use it to knock the others loose.
Sometimes it was a real battle! We tried not to forget to move the chocks
away from the tires before servicing the jet.
The authors include a photo of a real Phantom in which the three access
panels on the sides of the intake bulge out slightly. The caption points
this out and says "Tamiya accurately represented these panels...
contrary to some views". These are the panels that some modellers
have mistakenly called "Battle Damage Repair patches". They
are NOT BDR patches; they are maintenance access panels. I have similar
photos I took of other Phantoms in which these same panels were flush.
I don't remember them bulging out like this on any of the Phantoms I worked
on. Why are they bulged out on this particular aircraft (and the Tamiya
model)? Darned if I know. Perhaps they had a thicker than normal layer
of sealant on the lip around the inside of the opening that the panels
mount to. Personally, when I finally get around to building a Tamiya Phantom
I'm sanding those panels flush.
The last model featured is another 1/32 scale Tamiya model, this time
the F-4E. The authors also used several Eduard photoetch sets, Reheat
seats and intake covers, Cutting Edge resin leading edge slats and wheels,
and decals from CAM, AirDOC, and Superscale. The model is finished in
Greek Air Force markings; interesting to me on a personal note, 68-0408
is the tail number they picked. I worked on this very tail number at Ramstein
AB, Germany in the 1980s when she belonged to the 526TFS. This model is
painted in the Hill Gray scheme that 408 was in when it was received from
the USAF, and is depicted by this model as very faded. Paint touchups
are represented by darker gray, including the spot where the American
"star and bar" was painted over by the Greeks when they received
the jet. The authors show a number of "faded paint" and oily,
greasy stain weathering techniques. This model is very well done. The
paint and weathered finish is spectacular.
There are a few extremely minor errors, though. One is that the author
put on all the correct downlocks and REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT flags, but they
put the 370 gallon wing tank safety pin RBF flags on the outboard sides
of both pylons. The pins should be on the left side of both pylons, so
on the right wing the RBF flag ends up on the main landing gear side of
the wingtank, not the outboard side. The second minor error involves the
little antenna at the rear of the panel directly behind the rear canopy.
This is the antenna for the SST-181X rendezvous beacon. The Tamiya Phantom
was first released as an F-4C or D version. On the F-4D, the SST-181X
antenna was mounted on the aircraft centerline as you see here. On the
F-4E version, it was relocated to the right-hand side of the same panel
(Door 19). Tamiya didn't make this correction in their F-4E release, and
the authors didn't catch it either. Another error is that the wing root
walkways are painted too far to the rear, extending on to one of the honeycomb
panels that cover the wheel wells. Those honeycomb panels were definite
"NO STEP" areas! The last error I spotted is that 68-0408 had
the modification done in approximately 1984 while it was at Ramstein in
which the upper UHF comm antenna was relocated from inside the cap at
the top of the vertical fin to the right side of the upper fuselage. The
authors didn't add this antenna to the fuselage. There is another antenna
on the top fuselage centerline between the SST-181X antenna and inflight
refueling receptacle that I'm not familiar with; it wasn't on 408 when
I worked on her. Navy Phantoms have an antenna located there, so I think
it was more likely a mistake on this F-4E and should've been removed.
For the cockpit, the authors used the new pre-painted Eduard photo-etch
set, and the effect is outstanding. I was interested to see that the authors
added the gunsight video tape recorder on the front cockpit right console.
This is the first time I've ever seen this on a model. This was added
to real F-4Es and Gs to replace the old film gunsight camera approximately
1985. It was great for smacking your right elbow against when you were
reaching for switches on the right console.
No mention was made of the "gun gas purge door," which is
the small scoop on the top right side of the nose. Modellers should be
aware that on nose-gun equipped F-4Es and Fs this door is always locked
open when the hydraulics are depressurized. As the engines are started
and the hydraulic pressure comes up, this door closes and stays closed
except when the gun is fired when it opens briefly to purge the gun bay
of gases. Upon engine shutdown it opens again. Again, scratchbuilt downlocks
are put on the landing gear actuators, greatly enhancing the authenticity
of this model. I would have liked a written description of how those were
constructed, or perhaps a step-by-step series of photos.
The authors chose to modify the Cutting Edge leading edge slats set
to depict the slats retracted. For those who would want to model the slats
extended, bear in mind that the slats are extended on the ground ONLY
when the flaps are lowered. And it is impossible for the inboard slats
to be extended with the outboard slats retracted. The inboard slats travel
up and out, away from the wing, while the outboard slats merely pivot
leading edge down. The correct angle of the extended outboard slat puts
the trailing edge of the outboard slat at the top of the wing fence.
There is another detail often seen in photos of the real aircraft as
well as on most of the models in this book which is not explained in this
book or other reference books I've seen. That would be the little white
rectangles in the inside of the right side canopy rails. On the real aircraft
those were small cards that had compass error corrections and UHF preset
frequencies typed on them. The radio could have 20 "channels"
programmed to various frequencies, and those particular cards listed what
frequency each channel had been programmed to. There was a card for the
main UHF comm radio and another for the auxiliary receiver/UHF-ADF, and
a compass correction card for the "whiskey" (standby) compass.
Finally, most of the available Phantom models have the option of posing
the speedbrakes open, under the wing behind the main landing gear. It
was very rare to see a parked Phantom in normal operations with the speedbrakes
all the way open. Almost always the jet would be shut down with the speedbrakes
closed, and immediately after shutdown they'd sag open about 6 inches.
That was as far as they opened. They wouldn't sag more over time like
the ailerons did. So to pose your model in a normal operational condition,
pose the speed brakes open just a fraction.
The last chapters suggest ideas for displaying Phantom models, for
weathering and painting, for photographing the models, and a bibliography
of good references.
This book relies more on photography than text to show modeling techniques
such as cockpit detailing and weathering. It appears geared toward an
intermediate modeller, one who has basic construction and painting techniques
down, but needs to learn weathering techniques.
Scott R Wilson
Phormer Phantom Phixer
Comm-Nav Avionics
149 CAMS, 149 TFG, Texas ANG, Kelly AFB, Texas 1980-82 (F-4C)
35 CRS, 35 TFW George AFB, California 1982-83 (F-4E)
525 AMU, 86 TFW, Ramstein AB, Germany 1983-86 (F-4E)
Our sincere thanks to Motorbooks
for the review sample!
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