Yesterday, I took delivery of the lovely RF4B, delivered from Japan in 6 DAYS - Hannants take note, it takes 6 days from the other side of the globe and you can’t get get accross the Irish sea( 3 hours by boat , 1 by air) in 14 days!
I know Lowestoft is in Swampy Land, but this is beyond a joke!
Rant over and on to business.
The fuselage is new, cute and very cuddly - the wings are that of the J.
Did the RF4B get wing mods to take the beefed up wheels or does Mr Scalpel have to make yet another visit to mr hasegawa’s produce due to lack of attention to detail ?
By the way my old, unfinished Airfix EA6B is donating the VMCJ2 Bunny markings for another 'Black Bunny’ish Phantom
next on the list is Heff’s old DC9 - ha ha!
Im hoping your refering to the new line of 1/48 scale RF-4’s Hasagawas coming out with. If so can you give a better review of the Kit? i.e. hows the nose detail? see through cameras like POS testers kit? or did the put something in there? What would it take to turn this kit into a C version?
Ive been like a kid waiting for Christmas day since I heard about these kits and Im hoping hasagawa doesnt let me down.
Looks like they haven’t done their “homework” again. The good news is their were ten RF-4B’s (157342-157351) made with the thicker wings and main gear of the the F-4J/S. This is according to Detail & Scale Vol. 12, page 54. Does the Decal sheet have any of the ten SN’s? The bad news, it sure limits the paint and decal schemes! Why do they do this!!! They spend thousands of dollars on molds and not much on research evidently! Or maybe it’s just the old wing molds from the early kits. Are the sparrow missle bays filled in or do they give you a “filler” piece? Oh, what about the camera nose, is it rounded or squared off? If it’s rounded only the last three (157349-157351) were built this way!!!
They give you filler bits for the rear bays and a kind of pallet attachment for the front.
The camera bays are very well appointed with lot of detail.
I do not have the markings in front of me but they are 2 tone grey with a green tail for VMFP3 with the alternative for an all black jet (I will add C/N’s later)
I may just shout ‘damn the accuracy’ and build my VMCJ2 scheme, as the 2 grey / green option looks a bit gay ( no offence meant to any Marines out there, but it does look like a '70’s pimpmobile) with the gold markings and I want to stick with the Bunny motif - I have a J (Black Bunny) in waiting at the moment as well as a G (usaf not navy} and have to finish a 32nd and a 48th scale F4J ( my monogram J may never see the light of day again).
both a/c are VMFP3 157347/RF32 and 157351/RF36
both round and square noses are included.
somehow, I don’t think we will be seeing an early ‘B’ - nice cop out from hasegawa!
Liam , also on this forum as Yeehah ordered 3 kits from Japan, I just tagged along.
Even with the postage - approx $45 it still worked out cheaper than ordering the 3 from the UK, and they arrived a hell of a lot quicker.
I will get him to post where he got it from.
24-03-04
Aha! I turn my back for 24 hrs and Oggy goes and talks about me!! Has he no work to do??
Oh I see, he IS at work!
[}:)]
Awood23: Drop me an e-mail at yeehah1@eircom.net and I’ll tell you how to go about it.
The kit does look lovely. And as Oggy said, it was around a 6 day turn-around from order to receit of package.
Hannants can’t even manage that for confirmation and then there’s no guareentee your order is complete when it arrives!! And that REALLY hacks me off. I’m still awaiting an order I placed with them two weeks ago.
The real sweet thing about this is that Hannants have not yet got this kit in stock and this method works out cheaper for us in Euro-land.
The postage will not be as much as what Oggy said as we ordered 3 kits in total
( Hasegawa 1/48 Spitfire IXc as a donor for a Spitfire 2-seat trainer and the Tamiya 1/48 Fairchild Thunderbolt II.), I would image one kit or smaller kits will cost less. But they still beat Hannants hands down.
The wife is Japanese and she says a lot of it is down to the Japanese atitude to work/reputation. It’s a matter of almost persinal honour to follow through on a promise. The site says EMS postage withn 5 days. If that’s what it says, then every employee does their damnedest to make that happen. No such thing as “It ain’t my job, Boss!” or “It’ll do tomorrow”
I will be doing PLENTY of buisness with these people again.
I cant’ wait to get mine. I have two sets of the Bicentennial decals from Testors so I can use them for that nice paint scheme, on a much nicer model then that piece of <><> that comes from testors.
Don’t know what or if there is any benefit for the American audience, but check it out and judge for yourselves.
Remember to read the ordering information COMPLETELY and CAREFULLY.
I have a couple of the old F-4B/N/s. I can rob a set of wings from one and make an early RF-4B. You would think they could put a little effort in research instead of limiting you to 10 airframes if you go for the accuracy! Oh, well I guess it’s better than nothing!
