1/48 Hasegawa RF-4EJ Phantom II 'Recon Phantom'

Gallery Article by Burt Gustafson on Sept 17 2012

 

 

For your viewing pleasure, here are some photos of my 1/48 scale Hasegawa J. A. S. D. F. RF-4EJ Phantom II ‘Recon Phantom’. The Phantom II, a supersonic fighter bomber, was one of the most widely used fighters in the world. Most countries that flew the F-4 have long since retired the old war horse. However, as of August 19, 2012, the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (J. A. S. D. F.) is still flying the RF-4EJ in reconnaissance missions. The model here depicts a J. A. S. D. F. armed photo-recon RF-4EJ of the 501st SQ Air Reconnaissance Group.

Construction
Construction began in the cockpit. The two ejection seats went together easily, as did the pilot and WSO figures. The two figures fit perfectly into the ejection seats. For the instrument panels, I used an Eduard Zoom Set for an F-4E. The finished cockpit module fit nicely into the right fuselage half.

For weapons, I used the AIM-7 and AIM-9 missiles provided in the kit. The kit also offers three types of tactical pods for the center line station. I went with the Long range Oblique Photography Pod (LOROP). 

The kit’s part fit was excellent. I just followed the instructions and was impressed with the overall fit. With careful fitting, I needed very little filler for nearly perfect seams. Although the instructions don’t mention it, I added a lead weight in the nose to ensure my model would not be a tail-sitter.

 

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Painting
All paints used for this model were Model Masters or Floquil enamel paints. The kit painting instructions provide two camouflage paint schemes. However the box art pictures an RF-4EJ in a blue paint scheme. I chose to airbrush my RF-4EJ with Model Masters Bright Blue. The nose and gun muzzle fairing were airbrushed with Floquil Weathered Black.

Landing gears, wheel wells, and the inside of wheel well doors were airbrushed with Floquil Reefer White. The engine areas and portions of the horizontal stabilizers were airbrushed with Model Masters Burnt Metal. The exhaust cans were painted with Model Masters Steel. The missiles were painted Light Ghost Gray.

Note that I hand painted the canopies—big mistake. Hand painting a given color and airbrushing that color, gives you two shades of that color, as you can see in the photos.

Decals
Decaling the RF-4EJ was a major undertaking. The kit provides one large decal sheet that has over 100 decals, mostly stencils. The decals performed reasonably well settling down into panel lines, but had a tendency for silvering. I used a bit of Solvaset on each decal to make sure it snuggled down to the model surface.

Note that there are some really large decals on the sheet. What Hasegawa did was to combine a lot of stencils into one large decal. I cut these large decals into smaller, more manageable pieces. Note also that I provided a lot of photos of the finished model so you can get a sense of how many decals there are.

Comments
Overall, the detail and quality of this kit is excellent. I spent many hours on this model, mostly applying the enormous number of decals. The time was well spent because in my view the model came out looking sharp. 

Burt Gustafson

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Photos and text © by Burt Gustafson