1/48 Hasegawa F-4E Phantom  

by Keith Money

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The Verlinden book - On Plastic Wings has a beautiful Vietnam F-4E Phantom depicted within its pages wearing the Superscale decals of "Spunky VI".  After searching for many years I discovered a this decal sheet in a bargain-box at Hannants, it had no instructions, no wrapper and was partly torn.  Not bad for £1.00!

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The Hasegawa F-4E kit and Verlinden detail set was already lying in wait for the decals to turn up, and the whole project went together as per the instructions.  The only tricky bit was trying to create the gun barrels so that they tapered (Stretched sprue in the end).

Now I am sure that many purists are by now shouting out…  An aircraft would never be worked on with weapons hitched up.  True, but the Vietnam conflict saw many rules thrown out the window.  Officially the F-4E Phantoms based at Korat were not allowed to have shark teeth and plane names painted on them…but they did.   Many USAF aircraft were cannibalised between missions to keep others flying.  At times last minute faults were detected prior to take off and these were fixed on the spot, weapons on or off.

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The Hasegawa F-4E is a good kit and by using various Hasegawa figures and accessories a nice little scene can be created.  A few scratchbuilt items add further interest and help create the visual link between real life and the scene depicted.

Keith

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Photos and text © by Keith Money