SPA Modeler

First time I saw this,pretty cool although I just bought a Zuikei Mura Phantom

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/tamiya- ... i--1328414

I really do like the Phantom...a lot. It is big, ugly, fat but would kick your butt! I guess I should put the phobia on jets aside and do one .... as soon as I finish everything else in the stash.

Ok, while I love the Phantom, there are two other recent ones out there. The ZM and Academy are great kits. They should have started with the gun versions seeing as that's the ones that the Japanese used to fly.

I disagree. The B is the perfect place to start. The thin wing Phantom is where the family started in service, and also probably the least kitted. Until the Academy kit came out, you only had the occasionally released Hasegawa B/N kits available. And I’ll bet this this will knock the socks off of both. I wonder if eventually Tamiya will cover the whole family in 1/48, short and long noses.

Well the Zoki-Mura F-4's are better than the Academy ones but they have serious shape issues at the rear near the engines.

LyleW wrote:I really do like the Phantom...a lot. It is big, ugly, fat but would kick your butt! I guess I should put the phobia on jets aside and do one .... as soon as I finish everything else in the stash.

Hey, look on the bright side Lyle: no propellers to add decals to!

Good point!

Whilst it would have been nice to see a non-Vietnam era F-4, it's probably a good job it is - otherwise it would have deffo been on my shopping list.

The F-4B pre dates Vietnam. I think that they made their initial deployment around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. And with some minor modifications, the B can be modified into a N which was still serving on board USS Coral Sea at the time of the Iran Hostage raid in April 1980. The Midway Class carriers could not carry F-14’s, so they carried N and S Phantoms until they received Hornets in the mid 80’s.