This new 134
page book from Kaburaya Books is a wealth of information and side profiles of the Japanese F-4
Phantom II. The first fully licence-manufactured Japanese
F-4EJ first flew on May 12 1972. The 140th and final F-4EJ was
delivered to the JASDF on May 20 1981 and was the last fully built
Phantom II in the world. This book begins with an in-depth history
of the F-4EJ and the formation of Squadrons equipped with the F-4EJ.
It then moves into what avionics these licence built aircraft are
equipped with and what upgrades were done during the years. The
historical and technical side of this book is quite in-depth and sure
to be a much valued resource for modellers interested in the Japanese
F-4EJ. Underwing stores are also covered in this book with colour
drawings of the various stores carried by the F-4EJ to help illustrate
the weapons text.
But the main
focus of this book is it's over 400 colour profiles. This covers
regular schemes....Anniversary schemes and aggressor schemes to name a
few. The selection is truly overwhelming at first.....but very
much appreciated as you settle into this very well laid out book.
I must say.....the layout of
this book is brilliant. Providing one side view
profile....although interesting....does not provide all the information a
modeller needs to build a model of that particular camo scheme. This
book has a unique number beside each colour profile.....in the back of the
book you will find each unique number for each profile with a few
sentences about each particular plane and a single letter. That
letter directs you to a top view drawing of the camo layout for that plane's
particular paint scheme. There is also a page that contains 35 colour
chips....beside each colour
chip is the closest Federal standard # for that chip. Most of the
colour chips are Japanese colours and some are "one off" custom anniversary
colours.....but the goal here is to provide FS#'s to assist the modeller
using this book as a reference when building their next Japanese F-4EJ or
RF-4E's. All the colour profiles in this book were made from actual
photographs to ensure accuracy. The job of creating such a
comprehensive book staggers me.....it must have been a gigantic
undertaking to say the least.
|
Included with each colour profile
is info on the particular plane as well as information about it's paint scheme,
squadron number and date of paint scheme. Above is an example of one of the colour profiles.
Below
I've include a tiny selection of some of the pages....out of respect to the
artist's copyright, I am not providing larger scans. The image on the left
is an example of the many pages of colour profiles. The middle image is an
example of the colour profiles featuring artwork and the image on the right is
an example of the top views of the different camo schemes. There is also a
page devoted to just "Shark Mouth" profiles.
|
|
|
Selection
of colour profiles |
Nose
art schemes |
Top
views |
Over
400 different F-4EJ colour profiles featured in this book
I'm quite impressed
with the quality of this new book. Although the cover is a soft
cover....it is a heavy weight glossy cardboard cover. The pages are heavy weight
paper....this is a reference book sure to last a long long time.
I look forward to other books such as this from Kaburaya Books. I recommend this book to anyone
interested in the Japanese F-4's flown by the JASDF. Peter Fearis, Peter
Scott and Glenn Sands deserve much credit for producing such a well researched
and wonderfully informative book.
This book 'Defenders Of Nippon: F-4 Phantom II'
is priced at £19.95 and is distributed in the UK by:
Steve
|