Academy F-4B notes

[modelbillder]

I received the outstanding Academy F-4B last week. I was a maintenance officer in the USAF. 2 of my assignments were in F-4 units; D's and TISEO E's. I spent a lot of time around Navy/USMC jests too. Since I was a serious model builder in those years, I studied and photographed this airplane extensively. I'm not a rivet counter or measurement nut; let's face it, plastic kits are largely stand-off scale and just where does a kit manufacturer get an "accurate" set of drawings? I've owned every model of the F-4 and built multiples of many. Anyway, here are my two bits worth because I want you all to go out and buy this model. Hey by multiples it's that good!

Here we go. First, the packaging is awesome. Theres an inner "lid" with a nice color picture of the built model staring you in the face when the box top comes off and the sturdy box will allow you to stack them in your "to build" pile without the boxes going all mushy like the "Monovell" ones with the flip up lid do! Needless to say, everything is nicely packaged. The first thing I noticed was the one piece main fuselage which goes from the radome hinge to the drag chute housing the benefit being no center seam to fiddle with!!!!! All those fuel probe access panels won't have to be re-etched either. I was anticipating mushy, deep engraving with big fastener heads on the various panels. I guess i was anticipating Kinetic style external detail but not so. This baby is finely engraved with razor sharp panels and fine fastener detail like the real jet, and believe me, the F-4 had a jillion screws in scores of sizes, That's why you used to see some jets wit the screw heads painted different colors; so the troops had an easier time putting them back together. All the panels, hinges and doors look right by my memory as well. I've seen commenets online regarding the aft keel section and blast panels being one piece as well. Once again this is a benefit since there won't be a seam to mess with plus this section on the real jet was really discolored a bronzey color when not covered in soot. I think painting here will be made easier with this feature. The exhaust nozzles are adequate; the earlier style for the -8 and -15 J-79 have nice interior detail but you might want to plop the Aires ones in as they are awesome in detail. The kit comes with the longer nozzle from the E/J/S series as well, an indicator we'll see more versions in the future. Along with the nozzle detail, Academy gives you one piece a/b liners with their characteristic scalloping and a nice flame holder/spraybar/t-wheel piece to glue on the innermost end. By the way. The real a/b liner was really a light bronzy green color with tan streaks from the flame pattern, not burnt metal nor sooty. The sooty aft section on the F-4 got dramatically better in the 80's when the Air Force fitted re-designed combusters to the engine hot section. This eliminated the soot and the characteristic "rooster tail" smoke plume. Academy has made the fuel vent mast a separate, detailed piece and it's the right shape. Academy includes several fin caps fitted with various ecm antenna suites and all are correct depending on service and period. Academy really did their research here.

Externally, Academy has control surfaces correctly streamlined except the ailerons which are rightly drooped. Occaissionally a rudder would kick one way or the other depending on how windy the ramp was. The kit includes speed brakes extended and they sometimes were. I never saw ANY F-4 with the speed brake and speed brake well interior being anything but insignia red. The same thing applied to inside the aux air doors on the fuselage center underside. By the way, these are molded open. On the real F-4, these were open on the ground and held open with a safety strut. When hydraulic pressure came on, they closed...firmly. Between the aux air doors on the centerline is a nice aero-27 ejector rack just like the real MCoy.

Moving to the cockpit we find a very nice effort to capture the nuances of this super busy place; and it got busier as the F-4 marched on. The vertical panels look right to me and have nice engraving but the RIO's panel is missing the radar control handle and mounting but this is easy to fix. The rear cockpit is also missing various computers, gyros and other avionics that crowded the rear 'pit on ALL F-4s but again we can cobble all that up depending on how much time you want to spend and you could spend an eternity getting all the stuff in an F-4 cockpit. Academy did get the right hand rear sidewall bang-on for a Navy jet replete with arm rest, LABs timer and insulation. The plans call out installing a stick mount in the rear along with rudder pedals. In the B/N/J/S, RAF/RN they were not present. There was however a foot operated mic switch in the right hand rear footwell though. Or was it the left? Wrapping up the cockpit, I want to add that the console detail is superb and generally correct except there are no throttles, another easy fix. The seats are good representations for the MB H-7 and include well detailed bucket and main beam assemblies along with a personnel parachute support arch, chute, survival kit, catapult and face curtain. The detail on the side of the beam is not real pronounced. This would include the substantial drogue gun on the left and the time release mechanism on the right. These can be made easily from scrap. You'll need to add harnesses and other details such as personnel connections depending on the service; those details varied. Also note that the F-4 had a metal 'chute housing and soft chute before about 1966-67 so the seat was noticeably different in those days.

Being a B model, the wing is the appropriately thin version with the thinner main tires and wheels with holes. The struts are excellently detailed and even include "shrink links", a first in any F-4 model I think. Gear wells are boxed in and detailed. The real F-4 didn't have that much stuff anyway except the center-most beam which had hydraulic connections for the two systems and an intercom ground control box in the right well. These are little details probably not woth fooling with. The nose gear well is nice and has the rear bulkhead appropriately corrugated as this was an access panel to the CNI (comm nav instrument I think) bay where avionics was located under the rear cockpit.

Academy gives us the Navy style refueling boom and the Air Force slipway for the backbone. This stuff looks accurate and adds interest and my big hot button, will eliminate re-scribing! One tiny detail omitted near the boom is the refuel floodlight adjacent to the leading edge of the door. No biggy as you can replicate this however you do external lights. Interstingly, Academy included other exterior lights including the little known Roll Rate light found on Navy/Marine jets adjacent to the "A" in "Navy" on the left rear fuselage. It appears as a little circle and would be green in color. It gave the LSO a reference during night traps. He could judge roll by comparing this light to the red nav light on the left wing. This would be absent on USAF jets. The lower position lights on the intake undersides appear as undersized pips but give a reference point to add as you see fit.

Academy gives us a cornucopia of stores including nice Sargent Fletcher 370s and a c/l 600 tank, loads of missiles including several AIM9 types, AIM7s, a MER, 2 TERs, 500 lb bombs and an ALQ 119 ECM pod

OK. I'm almost done. The Decals are Cartograph (my favs), registration and color is right and every stencil in the world is included. With time both services got away from stenciling everything. Since the Sundowner is c.1970 or so, I imagine these jets had been repainted and might not have all these markings...I'm speculating.

This is just a spectacular kit, is the best in 48th and maybe any scale. Don't throw your Hasegawa kits out, they've served us well for 30 years but it's time for a new age model and here it is in all of it's exciting and relatively inexpensive glory.

Edited November 27, 2012 by modelbillder

[Av8fan]

Thanks for the review, and welcome to the forum.

[Tailspin Turtle]

"Interestingly, Academy included other exterior lights including the little known Roll Rate light found on Navy/Marine jets adjacent to the "A" in "Navy" on the left rear fuselage. It appears as a little circle and would be green in color. It gave the LSO a reference during night traps. He could judge roll by comparing this light to the red nav light on the left wing. This would be absent on USAF jets."

Thanks. I did not know that. I went looking for it right away and found a good picture of it in an F-4J walkaround by Howard Mason on Prime Portal.

For more on approach lights, see http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2012/04/night-carrier-landings-in-beginning.html

[Jennings]

Thanks for that review. Whew!! Extensive :)/>

One note on the stencils - as comprehensive as the kit decal stencils are, they're nowhere near complete for a factory stencil job. There are no panel numbers on them. The decal would have had to be about three times as big as it is to get all those on there, and they'd have to have you committed if you tried to paste them all on. :)/> Fortunately those went away in most cases at the first major repaint.

J

PS: BTW, isn't that forward canopy opening handle scribed about three times as long as it should be??

Edited November 27, 2012 by Jennings

[Rex]

TT, if you look at something like the Double Ugly book,,,,,you will see that the "NAVY" service designator sure moved around a lot, the light shows as your photo sometimes, sometimes the A is down covering the light with the cross bar,,,,,,and sometimes as extreme as just inside of one leg or even, outside of the A

just one more fun little thing to watch for, the moving "NAVY" stenciling (I would think the "MARINES" got around just as much)

also, on operational aircraft, those two large holes on each side are covered, and the covers are painted the same as the surrounding airframe area

Edited November 27, 2012 by Rex

[Vodnik]

One interesting thing I discovered in Academy F-4B is that F-4 canopies were blown... Somehow I never realized that. But they certainly were, subtly, and Academy is probably the first model to show it! But this means that we have our beloved seam line to remove from the top of all canopy parts...

[Richard J]

One interesting thing I discovered in Academy F-4B is that F-4 canopies were blown... Somehow I never realized that. But they certainly were, subtly, and Academy is probably the first model to show it! But this means that we have our beloved seam line to remove from the top of all canopy parts...

IMHO, they shouldn't really be blown. How blown are they on the kit?

Edited November 27, 2012 by Richard J

[Joe Hegedus]

"Interestingly, Academy included other exterior lights including the little known Roll Rate light found on Navy/Marine jets adjacent to the "A" in "Navy" on the left rear fuselage. It appears as a little circle and would be green in color. It gave the LSO a reference during night traps. He could judge roll by comparing this light to the red nav light on the left wing. This would be absent on USAF jets."

Thanks. I did not know that. I went looking for it right away and found a good picture of it in an F-4J walkaround by Howard Mason on Prime Portal.

For more on approach lights, see http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2012/04/night-carrier-landings-in-beginning.html

I'm having a hard time seeing how that light could be of use to the LSO on approach, once the jet has turned onto final. The wing and flap look like they'd block the line-of-sight between that location and the LSO. Can someone elaborate please?

[Vodnik]

IMHO, they shouldn't really be blown. How blown are they on the kit?

Just very, very, very slightly. Just like on the photo you posted.

[mrvark]

I'm having a hard time seeing how that light could be of use to the LSO on approach, once the jet has turned onto final. The wing and flap look like they'd block the line-of-sight between that location and the LSO. Can someone elaborate please?

To monitor the turn from downwind to final...

[alessio]

Is it possible to fold the wings???

Regards

Alex

[Scot M]

Must.Have.

[metroman]

Is it possible to fold the wings???

Hi Alex - I have had this kit for a few days and can say that the outer wing panels are separate pieces but do not come with any optional parts to show a folded wings details, you will have to scratch that part for now or wait for the AM guys (this should be a no-brainer to see in resin very fast (lookin' at you Steel Beach! or Harold!)

Regards

Alex

[galfa]

Hi Mate,

when and were did you work on the Rhino?

Best,

Edited November 27, 2012 by galfa

[alessio]

Thanks for your answer

Looks like i have to buy that kit:-)

I like to build all my us navy birds with wings folded.

Regards

Alex

[11bee]

Very nice review (and factoids on the F-4). Thanks very much for taking the time to pull all this together. Welcome to ARC and thanks for your service!

[JackMan]

I hope you don't mind; I edited your post for easier reading :)/>

******************************************************************

I received the outstanding Academy F-4B last week. I was a maintenance officer in the USAF. 2 of my assignments were in F-4 units; D's and TISEO E's. I spent a lot of time around Navy/USMC jests too.

Since I was a serious model builder in those years, I studied and photographed this airplane extensively. I'm not a rivet counter or measurement nut; let's face it, plastic kits are largely stand-off scale and just where does a kit manufacturer get an "accurate" set of drawings? I've owned every model of the F-4 and built multiples of many. Anyway, here are my two bits worth because I want you all to go out and buy this model. Hey by multiples it's that good!

Here we go.

First, the packaging is awesome. Theres an inner "lid" with a nice color picture of the built model staring you in the face when the box top comes off and the sturdy box will allow you to stack them in your "to build" pile without the boxes going all mushy like the "Monovell" ones with the flip up lid do! Needless to say, everything is nicely packaged. The first thing I noticed was the one piece main fuselage which goes from the radome hinge to the drag chute housing the benefit being no center seam to fiddle with!!!!!

All those fuel probe access panels won't have to be re-etched either. I was anticipating mushy, deep engraving with big fastener heads on the various panels. I guess i was anticipating Kinetic style external detail but not so. This baby is finely engraved with razor sharp panels and fine fastener detail like the real jet, and believe me, the F-4 had a jillion screws in scores of sizes, That's why you used to see some jets wit the screw heads painted different colors; so the troops had an easier time putting them back together. All the panels, hinges and doors look right by my memory as well. I've seen comments online regarding the aft keel section and blast panels being one piece as well. Once again this is a benefit since there won't be a seam to mess with plus this section on the real jet was really discolored a bronzey color when not covered in soot. I think painting here will be made easier with this feature.

EXHAUST AREA

The exhaust nozzles are adequate; the earlier style for the -8 and -15 J-79 have nice interior detail but you might want to plop the Aires ones in as they are awesome in detail. The kit comes with the longer nozzle from the E/J/S series as well, an indicator we'll see more versions in the future. Along with the nozzle detail, Academy gives you one piece a/b liners with their characteristic scalloping and a nice flame holder/spraybar/t-wheel piece to glue on the innermost end. By the way. The real a/b liner was really a light bronzy green color with tan streaks from the flame pattern, not burnt metal nor sooty. The sooty aft section on the F-4 got dramatically better in the 80's when the Air Force fitted re-designed combusters to the engine hot section. This eliminated the soot and the characteristic "rooster tail" smoke plume. Academy has made the fuel vent mast a separate, detailed piece and it's the right shape.

Academy includes several fin caps fitted with various ecm antenna suites and all are correct depending on service and period. Academy really did their research here.

Externally, Academy has control surfaces correctly streamlined except the ailerons which are rightly drooped. Occaissionally a rudder would kick one way or the other depending on how windy the ramp was. The kit includes speed brakes extended and they sometimes were. I never saw ANY F-4 with the speed brake and speed brake well interior being anything but insignia red. The same thing applied to inside the aux air doors on the fuselage center underside. By the way, these are molded open. On the real F-4, these were open on the ground and held open with a safety strut. When hydraulic pressure came on, they closed...firmly. Between the aux air doors on the centerline is a nice aero-27 ejector rack just like the real MCoy.

COCKPIT

Moving to the cockpit we find a very nice effort to capture the nuances of this super busy place; and it got busier as the F-4 marched on. The vertical panels look right to me and have nice engraving but the RIO's panel is missing the radar control handle and mounting but this is easy to fix. The rear cockpit is also missing various computers, gyros and other avionics that crowded the rear 'pit on ALL F-4s but again we can cobble all that up depending on how much time you want to spend and you could spend an eternity getting all the stuff in an F-4 cockpit. Academy did get the right hand rear sidewall bang-on for a Navy jet replete with arm rest, LABs timer and insulation. The plans call out installing a stick mount in the rear along with rudder pedals. In the B/N/J/S, RAF/RN they were not present. There was however a foot operated mic switch in the right hand rear footwell though. Or was it the left? Wrapping up the cockpit, I want to add that the console detail is superb and generally correct except there are no throttles, another easy fix.

SEATS

The seats are good representations for the MB H-7 and include well detailed bucket and main beam assemblies along with a personnel parachute support arch, chute, survival kit, catapult and face curtain. The detail on the side of the beam is not real pronounced. This would include the substantial drogue gun on the left and the time release mechanism on the right. These can be made easily from scrap. You'll need to add harnesses and other details such as personnel connections depending on the service; those details varied. Also note that the F-4 had a metal 'chute housing and soft chute before about 1966-67 so the seat was noticeably different in those days.

WINGS & GEAR WELLS

Being a B model, the wing is the appropriately thin version with the thinner main tires and wheels with holes. The struts are excellently detailed and even include "shrink links", a first in any F-4 model I think. Gear wells are boxed in and detailed. The real F-4 didn't have that much stuff anyway except the center-most beam which had hydraulic connections for the two systems and an intercom ground control box in the right well. These are little details probably not woth fooling with. The nose gear well is nice and has the rear bulkhead appropriately corrugated as this was an access panel to the CNI (comm nav instrument I think) bay where avionics was located under the rear cockpit.

Academy gives us the Navy style refueling boom and the Air Force slipway for the backbone. This stuff looks accurate and adds interest and my big hot button, will eliminate re-scribing! One tiny detail omitted near the boom is the refuel floodlight adjacent to the leading edge of the door. No biggy as you can replicate this however you do external lights. Interstingly, Academy included other exterior lights including the little known Roll Rate light found on Navy/Marine jets adjacent to the "A" in "Navy" on the left rear fuselage. It appears as a little circle and would be green in color. It gave the LSO a reference during night traps. He could judge roll by comparing this light to the red nav light on the left wing. This would be absent on USAF jets. The lower position lights on the intake undersides appear as undersized pips but give a reference point to add as you see fit.

LOADS

Academy gives us a cornucopia of stores including nice Sargent Fletcher 370s and a c/l 600 tank, loads of missiles including several AIM9 types, AIM7s, a MER, 2 TERs, 500 lb bombs and an ALQ 119 ECM pod

OK. I'm almost done. The Decals are Cartograph (my favs), registration and color is right and every stencil in the world is included. With time both services got away from stenciling everything. Since the Sundowner is c.1970 or so, I imagine these jets had been repainted and might not have all these markings...I'm speculating.

This is just a spectacular kit, is the best in 48th and maybe any scale. Don't throw your Hasegawa kits out, they've served us well for 30 years but it's time for a new age model and here it is in all of it's exciting and relatively inexpensive glory.

[Joe Hegedus]

To monitor the turn from downwind to final...

OK.

[dagger00]

I received mine today and I must say it is a gem, the best F-4 in 1/48 scale, rendered all the others obsolete, the only thing I don´t like are the white color of some parts, but that´s all, a personnal preferecnce of me, the kit is 10/10 in my book!.

Just my 2 cents!

[USAFsparkchaser]

2 arrived tody also for me from S. Korea ordered Nov 16 11 days that is pertty good. 2 more on the way as well and I will be ordering more. I FREAKING LOVE THIS KIT! Tamuya F-16 and this one 2 of the best kits for the types of aircraft I build. So I wonder if Academy has plans to redo other airftames?

[Jennings]

Re the wing folds - the kit is not set up for it, but as the outer wing panels are separate, it seems only a matter of time before someone does the required resin. Of course I've been saying that about the Hasegawa kits for nigh on 30 years, and nobody's done it yet....

J

[Pete]

Re the wing folds - the kit is not set up for it, but as the outer wing panels are separate, it seems only a matter of time before someone does the required resin. Of course I've been saying that about the Hasegawa kits for nigh on 30 years, and nobody's done it yet....

J

Wolfpack did it:

click me to see the Wolfpack wingfold set

Edited November 27, 2012 by Pete

[modelbillder]

"Interestingly, Academy included other exterior lights including the little known Roll Rate light found on Navy/Marine jets adjacent to the "A" in "Navy" on the left rear fuselage. It appears as a little circle and would be green in color. It gave the LSO a reference during night traps. He could judge roll by comparing this light to the red nav light on the left wing. This would be absent on USAF jets."

Thanks. I did not know that. I went looking for it right away and found a good picture of it in an F-4J walkaround by Howard Mason on Prime Portal.

For more on approach lights, see http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2012/04/night-carrier-landings-in-beginning.html

I'm here to help!

[Scott R Wilson]

The long review was very well done. I do have a minor quibble with one thing though. All of the F-4Cs and F-4Es I worked on from 1980 through 1986 had red inside the speedbrake surface but the speedbrake wells were painted the same color as the paint surrounding the speedbrake. I've not seen any photos of in-service Phantoms from any service, any time frame, with red speedbrake wells. If anyone has such a photo I'd love to see it. The speedbrakes were rarely all the way open on the ground, but would sag open a few inches after the Utility Hydraulic System depressurized.

The aux air doors were controlled by the landing gear handle with J79 powered versions. The doors opened when the gear were down, and closed when the gear were retracted. But if electrical power was interrupted the aux air doors snapped shut. This happened during engine shutdown as the generators dropped offline but there was still hydraulic pressure in the Utility Hydraulic System. The doors didn't stay closed for long as we'd pry them open and install the downlocks while putting the gear downlocks and other safety devices in place. The engine oil is serviced through the aux air doors, and the centerline stores safety pin is also installed through an aux air door opening (I forget which side) so we needed the doors open. The aux air doors on Spey powered Phantoms appear to be controlled by the flaps switch from photos I've seen.

To expand on the OP's mention of painting the edges of panels different colors to ID the particular screws, there were several lengths of 10-32 screws used in the nose access panels. If you put too short a screw into a location needing a longer screw, it might thread into the nutplate enough to torque, but not deep enough into the nutplate to engage the thread locking portion of the nutplate. Over time the screw could work its way loose and end up going down an intake. Too long a screw in the wrong location could hit structure or wiring and was also undesirable. In the late 1970s a number of USAF Phantom units had the edges of access panels on the nose painted blue, red and yellow to show what length of screw was used in each of those locations. This practice was very shortlived. I think it started around 1975 and by 1983 it was very rare to see. None of the three Phantom units I was assigned to used the color coding and being a comm-nav avionics type I never had to remove any of the nose panels, so I can't tell you anything more about the various screw lengths and which panels used what.

CNI is Comm Nav and INS (Inertial Navigation Systems) by the way. Did you ever get to remove and install the CNI Bay door? It was hinged in the middle and there was a trick to it. It was always fun to watch a newby trying to install it the first time. We'd wait until the guy or gal was totally frustrated after some minutes of trying to fit the door in place, then we'd take it from him and have it installed in a few seconds. Always the reaction was "How'd you do that?!!?"

Scott Wilson

149 TFG, Texas ANG 1980-1982 (F-4C)

35 CRS, George AFB CA 1982-1983 (F-4E)

526 TFS, 86 TFW, Ramstein AB, Germany 1983-1986 (F-4E)

Edited November 28, 2012 by Scott R Wilson

[Finn]

Hi Scott, looking around the Prime Portal site i came across this pic:

http://data3.primeportal.net/hangar/mark_hayward/f-4j/images/f-4j_18_of_24.jpg

it kind of looks like at least the side walls of the speed brake well were red in this example.

Jari