Hasegawa

1/72 F-4J Phantom II VF-31 Tomcatters

Kit Number: 00858

Reviewed by  Joe Hegedus, IPMS# 33868

MSRP: $33.95 Most of you are probably at least familiar with the F-4 Phantom, used by three US services and several other nations around the world. Almost 50 years after its initial flight, some are still flying in active service around the world. This kit is a straight reissue of the standard Hasegawa F-4J, first released in 1990 as the initial version of a "Phamily" of Phantom kits. It's hard to believe it's been that long! For as many releases of various versions of this kit as have been issued, the molds are holding up very well, with almost no evidence of flash except a couple of fine strings on the rudder and a bit on one of the instrument panel parts in the review sample. These parts are on trees common in every version of the kit family. Previous experience with the Hasegawa F-4 kits has been overall very good. Fit is generally very good, but there are still some areas that will require attention. In particular, I've typically needed to spend a bit more time with the fit of the lower forward fuselage that includes the nose landing gear well; I've needed to use filler on the seams there and also on the seam between the forward and the aft fuselage. The horizontal stabilizers will need some attention, too, as they include the arrowhead-shaped reinforcement added to Air Force Phantoms but not used on Navy or Marine versions. Sanding and a bit of rescribing lost detail is the order of the day here, probably about 20 minutes work total for both stabs. One thing that is still a bit of an irritant to me with all the Hasegawa Phantoms in this scale is the lack of outboard wing pylons suitable for use with weapons. The kits only include the outboard wing tanks with the integral pylons, but Navy Phantoms rarely used outboard wing tanks, particularly on carriers. As has been typical of Hasegawa jet kits since the late 1980s, no weapons are included although missile rails for the inboard wing pylons are included. The highlight of the kit is the decal sheet, which is superbly printed by Cartograph. This means that the white areas of the decals are actually white, rather than the curious off-white that is common on Hasegawa kit decals. Markings for 2 different Tomcatter Phantoms are included. The first is the squadron commander's aircraft from the late 1972/1973 period in the gull gray over white scheme. While not a MiG-killing aircraft, this airplane carries a marking signifying the kill made by the crew assigned to the airplane during the Vietnam War. The second scheme is for the CAG jet from c. 1979, in the overall gloss gull gray scheme with multi-colored checks on the rudder as the special "CAG" jet markings. The instrument panel decals responded very well to Superset and Supersol and were nicely opaque; I have no reason to suspect that the rest of the decals will offer any difficulty in use. I'm looking forward to finishing this one up! Thanks to Dragon USA for the review sample.

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