Academy F-4C

[JonMW]

This will be my entry for the GB, looks like a nice kit with good detail. The only things missing is seat belts and it would be nice with decals for some of the instruments. I might end up getting some of the Eduard PE sets.

[NAMBiohazard]

HOLLY CRAP
Thats alot of decals.........good luck

[rwsmith14]

Gotta love the one piece fuselage !

[UKguyInUSA]

That's a nice looking kit, will look forward to watching you work you magic with this one!

Cheers

Martin

[JonMW]

Thanks! Yea the one piece fuselage is going to save on some filling and scribing. I had to do a bit of a mock up late last night to check the fit of some of the parts and get a feel for the look and size of the plane. The fit seems really good and it will only need a little filler.



It will be a bit of time before I start this as I have another build I want to get done (or at least get some more done on) and I need to wait for the Big Ed set and Brassin parts that I for some reason "had" to order last night.

[Lee]

I wanted to do this model, but just didn't have the time! Nice one Jon

[AlkaSeltzer]

Great kit! My God it's going to take months just to put all those decals on. Good pick.

[bluebottle]

that's a lot of stencils.....

[JonMW]

Its only about 360 decals, plus the ones for the weapons. So if I can do one decal per minute (should be possible) it's only a six hour decals session . Will probably need to spread that over more then one day.

[felisbarcinonensis]

Wow! Such a cool kit! Never seen so many decals

[eightfooticeman]

Man you can't go wrong with this kit that's for sure. I have the Sundowners but can't bring myself to take on the decals!

[snappercity]

Looking forward to this.

[MikeyKb]

super sexy kit. I want one, and now I want one even more!
good luck on the build.

[JonMW]

Had a bit of change of plan, I canceled the order for all the PE and resin. I want the challenge to add the details myself and not just buy stuff, so it will be a bit more work will most likely not look as good but should be more fun. But for now a bit of background.



MCDONNELL DOUGLAS F-4C PHANTOM II

First flown in May 1958, the Phantom II originally was developed for U.S. Navy fleet defense. The U.S. Air Force's first version, the F-4C, made its first flight in May 1963, and production deliveries began six months later. Phantom II production ended in 1979 after over 5,000 had been built -- more than 2,600 for the USAF, about 1,200 for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and the rest for friendly foreign nations.

In 1965 the USAF sent its first F-4Cs to Southeast Asia, where they flew air-to-air missions against North Vietnamese fighters as well as attacking ground targets. The first USAF pilot to score four combat victories with F-4s in Southeast Asia was Col. Robin Olds, a World War II ace. The aircraft on display is the one in which Col. Olds, the pilot, and Lt. Stephen Croker, the weapons system officer, destroyed two MiG-17s in a single day, May 20, 1967.

In its air-to-ground role, the F-4C could carry twice the normal load of a WWII B-17. The armament loaded on the aircraft on display is a typical configuration for an F-4C in 1967. It consists of four AIM-7E and four AIM-9B air-to-air missiles, and eight 750-pound Mk 117 bombs. The aircraft also carries two external fuel tanks on the outboard pylons and one ALQ-87 electronic countermeasures (ECM) pod on the right inboard pylon.



TECHNICAL NOTES:
Armament: Up to 16,000 lbs. of externally carried ordnance
Engines: Two General Electric J-79-GE-15s of 17,000 lbs. thrust each
Maximum speed: 1,400 mph
Cruising speed: 590 mph
Range: 1,750 miles
Ceiling: 59,600 ft.
Span: 38 ft. 5 in. (27 ft. 6 in. folded)
Length: 58 ft. 2 in.
Height: 16 ft. 6 in.
Weight: 58,000 lbs. loaded



More info can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_ ... Phantom_II

The plane I'm building was piloted by Robin Olds.



Robin Olds was a remarkable man who passed away at a ripe old age on 14th of June in 2007. Olds served his country flying in the U.S. Air Force — his first fighter was the P-38 Lightning and his last was the F-4 Phantom II which is now on display in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force — in between these aircraft he flew P-51, P-80 and F-86 fighters — and is the sole USAF ace with aerial victories in WW II (14 victories) and the Vietnam War (4 victories). Olds’s style was to lead from the front and he pushed Air Force bureaucracy whenever he felt that it was obstructing its mission of protecting citizens of the United States and the Constitution. He followed the tried and true — though increasingly rarely to be seen demonstrated — credo of earning loyalty by giving it. It takes a brave person to subscribe to this credo since bureaucracy does not usually reward such a follower, though it should. Always the first to protect those under his command his loyalty is, perhaps, best exhibited in the naming of the aircraft assigned to him. He named them all “Scat” after his room mate in the academy whose eyesight prevented him from continuing through flight school. Olds did not shy from carrying weight.



Robin Olds had swagger, he lived the Hollywood fighter pilot archetype, but he was also possessed above average intelligence and this enabled him to see the big picture. A student of many things, including history, he brought whatever was needed for mission success. One example of many are the lessons first written down from Hannibal which inspired his Operation Bolo. This operation resulted in North Vietnam curtailing its MiG interception activities for several months during the Vietnam War.



Olds was also warrior with a humane streak as in the case during WW II when he made a strafing run on a train in occupied France. He had the presence of mind to disable the train on his first pass by aiming into the engine without striking the cab — disabling the train but allowing the captive French engineers to escape. Of course, this meant making a second strafing pass, and increased exposure to anti aircraft fire because of it, but he accepted the risk. The great leaders usually think outside themselves.

He also flew in times when aircraft entered into the fray to seek out targets and destroy them. Warfare today has changed with stealth aircraft, increasingly asymmetric warfare, UAV and UCAV aircraft as well as longer ranging smart munitions. I would never say war has become cleaner but it is becoming more of a remote experience for many who now fly. Commanders may not be like Olds again — not because good commander types will no longer exist, because they will, but the events today that forge them are now so different from the past. Scat XXVII may represent the last of an era in the USAF as the new one continues to open.

More info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Olds

[rwsmith14]

Great Pics !! will be a great build.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Good pics and story about Olds
I watched the History Dogfights Air Ambush episode last night. cool stuff

[generalgrog]

Nice choice of kit!!

Subscribed.

GG

[JonMW]

Haven't really done much to this for the past month, only got back to it this past weekend and have made some progress.


Painted the impellers in Alclad airframe aluminium and gave them a wash of AK Engine and turbines wash.


Painted the cockpit in FS36231 from Vallejo model air, the dials and panels where then hand painted with flat black.






It was then given a light wash of Ultimate concrete, followed by dryrushing a light gray over all the buttons and switches. And the finally picking out a few details in red, blue, green and yellow with a fine brush.




To add a bit more depth to some parts of the gray I applied a thin wash of oil paints. Since I didn't clear coat the parts I started by brushing on some odorless turpenoid. Then I applied slightly thinned oil paints to the corners and details the turpenoid helped to make it more or less a pin wash. Most of the paint was just plain black with a slight bit of dark rust and starship filth mixed in to get some color variation.


The fit of the wings and fuselage is really good.


The rest of the parts attached, the fit of the intakes was a bit tight in some places and left some gaps in other places so it will need some filler and sanding.

[rwsmith14]

cockpit look great !!

[UKguyInUSA]

She took shape nicely so far and the tub looks fab!

[JonMW]

Thanks for the comments!

The canopy had a small seam line down the middle.



To remove this I first taped the sides to not sand too much of it.



Started off sanding with a worn Ultimate 220 grit sander.



This was then polished using the green side of the Ultimate buffer.



And finished with the white side.



If this was one year ago I would have used the Micro-mesh cloths that come in grits 2400 to 12000 and work well for polishing clear parts as well as clear coats on car models.

I was going to mask the canopy for starting the painting, but as the edges on the parts where a bit small it would be hard to cut them by hand so I went ahead and ordered the mask set from Eduard.

But I have managed to get some painting done, started with a coat of Ammo grey primer.





I then started pre-shading using Vallejo Model Air, this didn't go to well and I couldn't get any consistency from it. So I tried the AK black that I got yesterday, the problem with this was that it was thin out the bottle and I had to set the compressor the the lowest pressure I could get and I still got spider legs.



So put down a new coat of primer and started over. This time using Tamiya X-18 and got a result that I was happy with. It's not the best pre-shading seen on this forum but I think it works.





Also got the grey on the bottom using the excellent Akan paint.



Now I need to wait for the masked so I can start spraying the camo on the upper surface.

[grover]

Great build so far Jon. If you're going to put Alclad around the rear, can you share some pics of your process please? Im trying to learn for a future build. Keep up the build mate. Really enjoying it.

[Jamesday1998]

great work on the phantom so far!
the underside looks great....i cant wait for the top side to be painted as i like the viewtnam tri tone camo
kutgw:)

[JonMW]

Been really slow going the last few weeks. Have gotten the seats almost done, just missing some small details and maybe a light wash to tone down the colors a bit.


The seats assembled


Painted the seats flat black and the cushions a mix of Vallejo Model Air Us Interior Yellow, Green Zinc Chromate and RLM 71 to mach the Eduard PE parts.


Added some dark grey dry brushing.


One seat done and the other one just painted.

[JayCub]

Those seats are sublime, the pre shading works for me, some great information to go with the build log
Tom

[JonMW]

Thanks!
Had a pretty good painting session today doing all the camo. I started last weekend with the tan color. The plan was to do all the painting and then add some chipping with brush/sponge, but after doing some test I didn't like the outcome.





So I decided to go a different rout and repainted some parts in Alclad aluminium and then added some random patterns of steel on top of that to add some variations.



This was then covered in AK worn effects followed by the camo colors. The pattern was done freehand with the Infinity and Akan paints.





When the paint was dry add started adding some chipping by first brushing water in the part to be chipped and then chipping away with a toothpick.



Now that this is done I'm now sure it was the right thing to do. I think the chips looks a bit too big so I'm not sure what to do. I might repaint those parts and try to add some smaller chipping, but I'm not sure as I would like to get this done as well.

[Jamesday1998]

awesome work on the camo!
i think you maybe should repaint over the chipped part as it looks a bit over done but its your decision not mine!
KUTGW!

[JonMW]

Not too much has been done on this so I really need to get some work done now with only three weeks left. The chipped parts where repainted and I have started on the almost endless amount of decals. All the stencils on the top are done and most on the bottom right wing, this has taken three nights to do and there is still quite a few to go.

[UKguyInUSA]

That's a bucket-load of stencils! But, she's starting to come together nicely and looking sweet. I think it was a good idea to repaint over the original chipping, IMHO it did look too heavy for the scale.

[Gav0909]

Looking good mate. The chipping was a touch heavy perhaps, but that can be toned down I am sure.

[JonMW]

Thanks for the comments!

So after a few more hours the decals are done! Only problem, two decals where missing from the sheet, but it's only a small one so I'm skipping that. And I have at some point chipped some paint off the top all the way down to the plastic. Luckily it's far away from any decals so I can repaint that pretty easy.

[UKguyInUSA]

She's looking pretty sweet so far!

What are the 4 colors you have used for the three top camo colors and the underside grey? I have a Monogram 1/48 Phantom to make, so it would help me, cos they look good to me!

Cheers

Martin

[rwsmith14]

she looks good !!

[DBMiller]

I don't know about this; I think it needs more decals.

[JonMW]

Finally getting close to the end of this. This thing have been fighting me lately with things like the yellow stripes for the bombs not fitting at all. But I just want to get this done so it will be the way it is.




Added another coat of clear after the decals followed by Ultimate dark dirt wash and finally a coat of flat clear. The landing gear was painted in white and then given a AK landing gear wash.




Masked off and painted the metal parts in Alclad alu and steel.


Also got all the weapons done, same process as the rest of the plane.

Next thing to do is to add the last few decals and then attach the last parts and it's done.

[Iceman]

Love the look of this! Good work on the seats. Really need to get my finger out and get a 1/48 Phantom, been wanting to build one for years.