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Reviewer: Mark B (SMAKR Webmaster)  (smakr1@optusnet.com.au)
Kit Built + Review Submitted:  20 January 2008

Kit Details:

Hasegawa #C1:900 - 00331 - F-4EJ Phantom II

Aircraft History:

The F-4 Phantom II is arguably the most significant warplane every produced through the 1960's and there are many reviews and other articles which documents its history very well, which I won't go into here.  Suffice to say though the original Phantom designed by McDonnell who were approached by the US Navy to develop a plane was subsequently used as a shipborne fighter for a short period until the Navy wanted something a bit better.  McDonnell's only ever single engined fighter was then produced, the F3H Demon which unfortunately did not live up to expectations and was outgunned, so it were, by the F-8 Crusader.  In spite of this set back McDonnell went on to produce a two seated, twin engined version of the Demon with a few other cosmetic changes of course, which became the F4H-1 Phantom II.  It was embraced by the US Navy and broke a number of records, along with demonstrating outstanding performance that had other US Armed Force departments having a closer look.  Not bad for a company that had not previously built planes before the original Phantom (only parts for planes).

By the early 60's the USAF could take it no more, it also had to have these planes in its inventory so thus was born the F-4B and F-4C variants, although initially the Phantom II was known in the air force as the F-110A (that designation still stands as being the Phantom II).  Obviously a range of changes were made to fit these variants out for non-shipborne duties.  

The F-4D followed on with significant changes in order to enable it to be a decent air-to-ground component with these aircraft flown by USAF, Iran, South Korea and Australian air forces.

The F-4E then followed with of course many other significant changes and performance enhancements, but most notably the rotary chin mounted cannon.  This version also introduced wing leading slats to enhance manouvrability plus the airframe was a little longer in length.  Many air forces, particularly NATO and other European countries, added this aircraft to their own inventories.

After being supplied with two aircraft from McDonnell (by this time now McDonnell Douglas), the Japanese decided that they should not only purchase the aircraft but licence build many themselves, and that contract went to Mitsubishi (or as my young son used to say Missus-bitchy).  Over 135 of these were built by Mitsubishi and the aircraft was designated as the F-4EJ in Japanese service as part of their frontline fighters in the JASDF.

The Kit:

This is one of Hasegawa's older molds but surprisingly looks great in the box.  I understand that there is a much newer tooling of F-4 Phantoms in Hasegawa's range (in an enlarged box) so be aware, if a newer tooling kit is what you are after.  I purchased this kit only a few days before building it, so it is certainly out there on hobby shop shelves.  As a youngster I remember parading the shelves of department stores and always getting agitated because the Hasegawa kits always seemed to only have Japanese subjects of American aircraft (Orion, Neptune, Phantom etc plus their F-1 & T-2) and there used to be a plethora of them rather than other more preferable subjects.  But of course here I am a much wiser person and more than happy to pick up something a little different in the Phantom range. 

Inside the sturdy top opening box are two cellophane bags, one containing approximately 66 light grey injection molded parts on four sprues, and the other containing the single piece canopy and decals.  There is a reasonable amount of surface detail although not up to today's hi-tech standards with raised panel lines.  There is a small amount of flash encumbering some of the parts, mainly on the wing edges, pilots and a few other parts which is no trouble removing with a scrape of a sharp #11.  There are some ejector pin marks on parts, but mostly internal areas although big marks inside the intakes.  The breakdown of parts suggests a quick build because one fuselage half already has fin molded onto it and the cockpit is pretty basic.  The clear part that makes up the whole two crew canopy section is showing its age as it is a bit distorted and thus also means no scope for having an open cockpit.  Stores options include basic shapes supposedly meant to represent 370 Gal tanks and a and presumably a smaller drop tank on underwing pylons, 600 Gal tank on centreline fuselage pylon and 4 recessed sparrow AAMs into fuselage.

Instructions:

No surprises here for Hasegawa builders as it follows their usual format.  Underlining the age of the kit, I do note the copyright stamp on the instructions is 1985.  There is a brief history in several languages on page one followed by a an external stores matrix and a diagram for mounting Mk 81/82 bombs and Falcon AAMs, neither of which are supplied in the kit.  Six standard and straight forward construction steps follow with some basic interpretation required on part numbers for starboard/port particularly the undercarriage doors but overall no problems were encountered.  On the rear of the instruction sheet are a sprue map and two examples in four-view diagrams which can be built in the kit.  A further two examples are shown only the tail section because these are the only decal changes to first version (if that makes sense).  I was a little confused as they are numbered 3 & 4 if they are supposed to follow example 2's colour scheme or example's 1 colour scheme as they both differ slightly, and examples 3&4 are drawn under example 1.  I couldn't really decide this in spite of looking in reference material so I would gladly welcome anyone who knows for sure so I can add it in here.

Construction:

Building this kit with my young son meant he was pretty eager to "help" which meant that a few small sub assemblies such as external stores were dealt with first, as well as cockpit interior to be set aside for painting up afterward (a little different to painting small parts as I went) but then didn't need to spend as much time on internal painting since it was going to end up being given regular test flights in a young son's bedroom later!  Daddy needs to keep that in mind, and remember the hobby is supposed to be fun!  

External stores go together without any problems, although need just some sanding over the join lines to blend in.  The cockpit components fit very well and the #11 blade was needed just to carve a little bit of flash off the crew members and around the fuselage edges (something that became apparent with a quick dry fit run).  I also added in the undercarriage doors for wheels up - these fit quite well but a touch undersized so some filler needed - also had some minor problems working out from the instruction sheet which door goes where and in what position.   For the record the undercarriage parts are pretty basic with one piece wheels, actuating strut and main legs provided and the instructions provide a front and side close up aspect to assist in correct positioning of all the parts.

A cockpit tub with very rudimentary raised dials on the side consoles is fitted to the top of the nose wheel bay that is devoid of any detail (no detail in the wings for main undercarriage either).  Two reasonable seat replicas are placed into the cockpit tub onto which you sit two crew members - be wary of their placement, I found (call it many years of experience!) straight afterward that the canopy wouldn't fit during a dry fit run so had to carve off a little of the back seat so it would.  Because the crew members needed cleaning up and painting, I didn't look at them closely enough and put the pilot in the rear seat!  Of course managed to spot this and swap them around before they were permanently there, as one figure clearly has a nav-map on his lap.  There are also two dashboards to add into one of the fuselage halves, also with very rudimentary raised dial detail.  Thankfully with pilot figures and small cockpit areas, it doesn't really matter that there are no control columns etc.  The cockpit section on top of nose-wheel bay is trapped within the fuselage halves which go together very nicely (but not before a dry run that revealed a small amount of flash to remove).

As per instructions an antenna mast on top of the fuselage was removed, then a panel added which fitted well along with the intakes.  I pre-painted the insides of these, and the internal intake strake has a huge ejector pin circle that needs to be removed although hard to see once intakes are in place.  The intakes also fit very well with only minor filling sanding where it joins to the fuselage.

The main wings are made up of a single underwing piece onto which two upper halves go.  Again, do the dry fit test and remove a little bit of flash and some ejector pin marks inside the wings so everything will fit nicely.  Wings go together well and clicked into place in the belly recess.  Again, minor amount of filling and sanding needed here.  The tail fin is already on one of the fuselage halves so did not need affixing, the tail planes were easy to affix although remember their sharp downward canter - hold in position to tack dry and then leave overnight to set.  I would have liked the instructions to include a small inset diagram showing correct angle here but you can use the frontview diagram above the weapons matrix in the instructions as a guide.  By this stage most of the aircraft assembly is done.

The last pieces were added onto the airframe including a very nice fitting nose probe but in contrast a terrible fitting underside chin gun muzzle fairing that needed subsequent sanding to get it the same size as the surrounding fairing area and in spite of what I mentioned about being careful with back-seat in the cockpit assembly above, the canopy did not fit very well at all, but with some trimming and carving eventually got it to fit okay.

Colour Schemes:

As described in the instructions section above there are four colour schemes that the kit produces and based on reading another article believe these aircraft are around 1970's period.  

1. A 302nd Sqn, 2nd Wing JASDF (Chitose AB, Japan) in the boxart scheme of light grey over white undersides [serial 07-8432].

2. A 303rd Sqn, 6th Wing JASDF (Komatsu AB, Japan) in the same scheme of light grey over white undersides but with the addition of dayglo Orange outer wing panels [serial 47-8351].

3. A 301st Sqn, 5th Wing JASDF (Nyutabaru AB, Japan)  [serial 07-8428].

4. A 306th Sqn, 6th Wing JASDF (Komatsu AB, Japan) [serial 37-8319].

Note my comments in instructions section re: examples 3&4 as I am not sure whether they have orange tip wing panels or follow only the basic boxart colour scheme.  Unfortunately my research did not turn up an answer.

I chose to simply do the boxart scheme with Humbrol matt white (H34) undersides and aircraft grey (H166 - not quite the right match as should be FS16440) and sealed it in with a gloss cote before applying decals and later finishing in a satin cote.

Later, after I had finished the aircraft and written most of this review I did find an interesting artist impression in a fighter book buried in my library. It might be worth noting that some 301 Sqn examples had an overspray of Dark Green (almost like Japanese WW2 green) over the upper Light grey surface as something a little different than the standard (sic boring) scheme noted above.  This includes the actual plane depicted as Version 3 in this particular kit  [serial 07-8428] and does not apparently include day-glo orange tip wings. You will need to refer to some reference for this as the dark green does not cover the whole upper surface - almost applied in a single rolling camouflage pattern with some of the light grey still exposed.  If I had my time again, I would have done this version in this scheme.

Decals:

A nice sized decal sheet that again you would comment as saying typical Hasegawa!  Colour register is pretty good although decals a bit on the thick side.  There are unit codes and badges for each of the four examples but only obviously one set of stencilling and hiromarus on the sheet.  There's a decent amount of stencilling provided also.  The decals went on without any dramas whatsoever, I know Hasey decals have their critics but I have always liked using them, and with Gunze Sangyo decal softener, they settled in very well (a dab with the tissue to remove excess & water) and sealed in with a gloss cote there was no silvering effect, and a satin cote to finish.  As often is the case with Hasegawa decals, a few need to be cut in half (as there is now a fuel tank in the way etc) to fit around assembled parts.

Accuracy:

An older non-state-of-the-art Hasegawa kit which has all the right shapes and pieces about it to look like a fairly convincing replica.  Initially I was concerned about the measurements on the side of the box as this would have the Phantom under-scale in length by 10mm, but thankfully it was a misprint.  Dimensionally the kit comes up within a mm of scale according to my reference sources.  It is not the definitive Phantom in my own opinion, I still rate Fujimi's kits better than this one but the newer Hasegawa mold from reports is about as perfect as you can get in this scale.  This older mold is still pretty good and will satisfy all but the bean counters.  There are a few little nitpicks, such as omission of tailfin nav light and the depiction of the nav lights on wingtips.  The gun fairing under the nose is a good effort but not quite there as is the area around the nose wheel door.

Overall Recommendation:

I enjoyed building this kit, as it was quick and easy and a reasonable replica is the result from a minimal amount of effort.  It's an older mold which I believe Hasegawa have now released in a new tooling, but either way for an older kit there is not a great deal wrong with this one, a few inaccuracy digs so if that is not your concern then recommended for all skill levels.

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