1/72 Hasegawa Luftwaffe F-4F

by Bas Kuijper

--------------------

 

Hi,

I've had the Hasegawa kit lying on the shelf for a couple of years now and initially I bought another AirDoc sheet with USAFE phantom schemes on it.  However, I wasn't fully satisfied with my decal choice, so the Phantom just lay there. This was up until the moment a saw the review on ARC of the AirDoc Luftwaffe phantom, part 2 (# ADM 72017) sheet which I instantly liked.  So after having bought not only the sheet with the Luftwaffe markings I also took the stencils sheet (# ADM 173002).  I instantly liked the Luftwaffe Norm 72 camouflage scheme!

After first sanding off parts of the old camouflage scheme (wrap around SEA) I painted the model and assembled the last parts of the kit. Then the 'fun' part began, decalling. The markings went on great, thought they need some Sol and Set to prevent silvering. The stencils sheet, however was something else. Nothing wrong with the decals, because the quality is truly great, but the amount of decals (this after AirDoc had already grouped the stencils into as little decals as possible). The end result however is truly worth the effort!

Click on images below to see larger images

  

Maybe, the details on the Phantom are not truly accurate (I always get a bit impatient towards the end of a build and tend to 'forget' certain details), I really like the end result!  The fuel tanks I used both sport a different camouflage, this is because of the fact that some of the early fuel tanks were directly delivered from MACAIR and hence sport a US camo scheme.  Only later on did the Luftwaffe receive tanks in their 'own' camo scheme.

For someone who is thinking about making an early Luftwaffe Phantom I can really recommend the AirDoc sheets because they are truly great!  Together with the AirDoc Bildband on Luftwaffe Phantoms in Norm 72 camo scheme you can build a real nice Phantom.

Enjoy!

Bas.

Photos and text © by Bas Kuijper