Italeri

1/48 F4-J Phantom II

Kit Number: 2642

Reviewed by  Rick Marshall, IPMS# 40362

MSRP: $35.95 Review kit provided by Model Rectifier Corporation (MRC) (www.modelrectifier.com/) History: Many people have written excellent histories of the F4, with over 5000 built and the aircraft in service for some 45 years and still going, there is not much to add. Pretty darned good for an aircraft that looks to have had the hanger doors shut on it while it was still on the drawing board. I can't recall where I first heard that line but rest assured it was not me that can lay claim to the comment. First Impressions: When I opened the box the first thing that I noticed was how big this model was going to be. Usually I build 1/48 single engine prop models, needless to say they are small in comparison, the dimensions of the model surprised me. There were a couple of other surprises also, the box was not very sturdy and it would appear not to be up to the US Postal Service either. There were a couple of broken parts and both pieces of the left wing were warped. I attribute this not to the manufacture but rather the shipping. The Cartograf decal sheet was huge and in what appears to be perfect register, nice. There was some flash on the sprues and some parts had some soft edges on the mold seems. This was most noticeable on the landing gear parts, these pieces were going to need some careful clean up. It looks like the molds are getting old. Test fitting of the major components revealed no major fit issues. Construction: As with most aircraft models the work starts with the cockpit, with the seats composed of 4 parts with molded seatbelts and very little cockpit detail to speak about it went very fast. Including the seats the two place crew compartment was comprised of 13 parts and 6 decals. This combination might have been passable in a 1/72 scale model but in 1/48 the lack of details is noticeable. As a result I decided to close the canopy. The fuselage assembly was easy and only small amounts of MR Surfacer 500 was all that was required to eliminate the seams on the assembled fuselage. I did my best to twist the bent wing back into shape and cemented the wings together, as with the fuselage no filler was required. The wing and fuselage assembly was also trouble free however there was a small gap between the assembled wings at the front of the fuselage. I used a strip of styrene to fill the gap, this with a small amount of filler had the wings on and looking good. I did not put on the rear stabilizers, they were left off to make painting the metal parts on the stabilizers and lower rear fuselage easier. I also filled the front nose cone with small lead fishing weights and attached it, a small amount of filler and sanding was needed to get a nice smooth joint. I am not sure if the completed model would sit on its gear with out the weight but I goofed on an earlier project so I took no chances. The next stage in assembly was the landing gear as I mention earlier they did require quite a bit of careful sanding but the plastic was soft and very easy to sand. The gear on the Phantom was pretty short and very sturdy Italeri captured this look but to be honest as with the cockpit the detail on the gear and the gear wells is lacking. Italeri has supplied single pieces for each of the gear doors if you build the model with the gear extended these must be cut apart. Not a big job put in order to get the front of nose gear door into position give the top a couple of extra swipes of the sanding stick to get it to fit. After I had cleaned up the gear tail hook and other bits and pieces I they were test fitted and painted. Next was the Canopy. This was not fun, if you recall the kit arrived with some broken bits, what I had no noticed earlier was that the hinges for the main canopy sections were broken off. One on the front section and one on the rear were gone. As it turns out this was not much of a problem as I was going to close the canopy, but I should mention that the hinges on the clear canopy were much smaller than the corresponding parts that they were to fit into. To be honest I am not sure that it would have been possible to use them without modification. This was the kits major weakness, the canopy sections are not the best and would pose a problem if the canopy was open or closed. As I decided to have mine closed I will let you know how that went. The Front section fit onto the model OK however the clear piece that was to be the HUD was not usable as a result I just filled the hole that it was to go into. Next I carefully placed the rest of clear parts on the model. The purpose of this was to get part 39b rear cockpit into the best position and try to eliminate gaps between the canopy sections. This worked nicely the main problem with the canopy was the 3 remaining pieces did not fit together and the result was the worse fitting canopy I have ever assembled. The front of the Pilots canopy was higher than the back of the front canopy and lower than the middle section. The middle section was a tad higher that the front of the rear canopy I tried to sand the bottom of piece 72e to help this but as I did so the it affected the fit when seen from the side. After a couple of attempts I tossed in the towel took out the odorless super glue and glued the pieces together. I used white glue to fill the gaps and masked the canopies. Painting: I opted for the RAF version of the Phantom the principle reason was that my son said he liked that one better and it looked like a nice scheme so that is what I choose to paint. The first thing I painted was the metal parts on the front of the stabilizers for this I used two colours of Alclad, steel on the front and aluminum on the rear sections. I used 3 colours on the rear fuselage, Exhaust on the rear of the engines, a mix of steel and burnt metal on the fuselage closest to the engines then steel then dark aluminum. The instructions called out for model master Aluminum for all the sections. After the metal was done I masked it off. The instructions call for the lower sides of the aircraft be painted with Model Master FS35237 Medium Grey. My references had this a wrong the topsides were Model Master FS35237 Medium Grey with the inner section of the wing Neutral Grey and the undersides were Light Gull Grey. This is what I choose to do. The Model Master FS35237 Medium Grey has a distinct blue tint to it and this looks to be very close to the colour the aircraft were when first delivered. After being in the UK for some time the aircraft were painted Barley Grey this did not have a blue tint to it. As this model was not going to weathered I opted for the Model Master Medium Grey as it did have a blue tint, which is how the Phantoms would have looked when first delivered. The moral of the story is check your references carefully before following he kits painting instructions. The decals were as good as they looked they went down easily using with Microsol and Microset. The only trouble I had was with the wings no step marking they were done as a thin line with no carrier as opposed to a thin line on a big piece of carrier. Mine exploded on contact with the water. So my model has no lines on the top of the wing. What I should have done if I had looked carefully was to paint the no walk lines and mask them with thin strips of tape before painting the neutral grey. Final Assembly: The wheels and landing gear went together without any trouble at all the drop tanks and weapons pylons also fit well to the wings and with some test fitting and sanding I got them to conform nicely with the wings. The same cannot be said for the missiles. The Sparrows were two pieces the main missile body has a slot into which you slide the front rocket fins into, these parts did not fit well and a large gap surrounded the slot in the missile. Some of the fins were broken off the side winders as a result I left all the missiles off. Conclusion: This was the first jet I have ever built and I am happy to say it will not be my last, despite the lack of detail and horrible canopy the finished model looks good on the shelf. However if I was big fan of the Phantom I would not have been happy with detail and the canopy would have driven me nuts. Who would this kit appeal to? I think that for about 25 dollars this is an excellent choice for a novice or a junior. There is not a huge pile of parts to intimidate the inexperienced builder it is easy and fun to assemble. My thanks to Italeri and MRC for review sample.

Information, images, and all other items placed electronically on this site are the intellectual property of IPMS/USA ®.