I know this has been asked before but what is the best 1/32 F-4C,/D or E kit available. If money is no object what do you suggest? Plus aftermarket parts availability?
Tamiya.
I have it, and its definately the Tamiya Phantom. The huge one-piece fuselage is nice. But the detail overall is great. Evetually, when I feel my skills are there, I plan on conquoring this beast. I have the Big Ed set [anyone else only get ONE PE seat set in theirs?] as well as some resin seats. Not sure which to use. and I will probably add to that with seamless suckers intakes.
Tamiya. Revell’s F-4E is OK, but has a lot of shape problems. I think they’ve just re-released the F version of the kit. As far as aftermarket:
-DMold’s seamless intakes are a must-have. Seamless Suckers are great, too, but they’re hard to come by.
-If you don’t want to mess with the intakes, AMS Resin has some FOD guards that just drop right into the intakes.
-For the F-4E & F-4J, Aires and CAM make correctly-sized afterburner nozzles. Cutting Edge made some nice ones for the F-4C/D, but they’re worth their weight in gold now, since Meteor went under.
-Avionix/Black Box made cockpits for all of the Tamiya kits
-I think CAM’s seats are the only Air Force seats available (experts can correct me if I’m wrong here).
-Cutting Edge made some resin wheels (see my comment about their AB nozzles)
-The Tamiya F-4E has the early hard wing, so if you want to build a later version with slats, you’ll have to track down a very expensive Cutting Edge set or pick up a Revell kit and rob it of the slats. If you go that route, you’ll also get correctly-sized nozzles and an F-15-style drop tank.
Cheers!
Ben
Ben just about got all the high points. The Avionix cockpit gives you the side cockpit and fwd and aft bulkheads as well as the areas behind the seat deck. If you want to build the “Dumb D” the Avionix update is a must. For a “Smart D”, there are no proper rear inst pnls available so you would have to do a little modification. Ben covered the problem with the exhaust being too shallow on all of their F-4 kits.
The only problem is the wing from the Revell kit will not fit the Tamiya kit, so if you want to build a Soft Wing E model you would have to use the Revell kit or try and find the conversion kit by Cutting Edge.
The AIM-9E Sidewinders included in all of their 1/32 scale F-4 kits are incorrect. Go with AM missiles if you can find them.
All come with boiler plate size patches all over the fuselage so these will have to be sanded away.
Oops! I should have been a little more specific about robbing the Revell kit for slats. Bernie is right in that you can’t use the Revell wing with the Tamiya F-4E. Probably wouldn’t want to, anyway. You would just use the Revell inboard slat actuator fairings, the wing tips, outboard slats & mounts, and wing fences. Cutting Edge merely adapted the Revell outer wing panels to the Tamiya kit, with mixed results (didn’t fit very well, got some details wrong). See Paul Stoner’s F-4G conversion in the articles section of Large Scale Planes to see a good way to adapt the Revell slat parts to the Tamiya kit. It’s not any harder to do than it would be to wrestle the Cutting Edge parts into place.
Cheers!
Ben
Tamiya is the way to go for Phantoms as far as I’m concerned although I do seem to remember that the F-4C/D version has a strange problem. If I recall correctly; they based the kit on an aircraft that had had battle damage patched up. These patches are raised panels that would not be found on any other aircraft. Of course my memory may be playing tricks on me. Perhaps someone more knowledgable may able to confirm, or refute, this.
Your memory is correct. The Tamiya F-4C/D/E & J have scab patches all over the fuselage. They all suffer the same “Boiler Plate” size patches. When scaled up they would be the thickness of armor plate or boiler plate.
This is what Berny’s refering to. Some have called them BDR patches (aka battle damage repair) but I like what Berney said, “Boiler Plate”. Whatever they call them, they should be removed.
Jerry