A Little Rhinoplasty Pt2 Pluss other F-4 whiffs

[Gondor]

Way back in the mists of time, or October 2014 to be exact, I started a thread called A Little Rhinoplasty. I had at the time considered building a follow on aircraft along the same development lines as the real F-4M had within the RAF, namely developing from a mud mover to an interceptor and gaining the fin top RWR's at the same time.

This thread follows my turning that idea into plastic.

So you get the general idea. The same type of build as A Little Rhinoplasty but this time using just Fujimi and Hasegawa parts which let me convert a Hasegawa F-4E into an F-4C/D airframe at the same time for another RAF Squadron

Anyway, on with some pictures

Here are the fuselage sections of both the Fujimi and Hasegawa kits with the Fujimi kit parts on the left and the Hasegawa parts on the right



Here they are in closer detail. First the Fujimi part



And not the Hasegawa part.



The detail at the front or nose end of the undercarriage bay has to be copied from the Hasegawa kit to the Fujimi kit rather than swapping the parts as that would involve a lot more work to make each part fit the other kit and then to replace any detail lost.

Some work has already started though. Part of the under nose gun area has already been removed from the Hasegawa kit in preparation for adding to this build.



More later

Gondor

[Gondor]

So far only mental modelling has been going on with this build, that's trying to work out easy ways to do things.

Well I have managed to do that. In the third picture above I showed what I need to make to add to the nose wheel bay. I'm glad to say that modifying some "L" shaped plastic rod to the correct angles and hight etc should work. It means there is no need to try and butt joint small pieces of plastic cart together to create the shape.

So guess what I am spending this evening doing 

Gondor

[Gondor]

Realised that I need a little help with this build. I would like a drawing of the strengthening/reinforcement plate used on the F-4M in its later years. I have a picture which although reasonably clear does not give me detail enough to create what I need. Can anyone help?



Gondor

[Gondor]

Problem solved after talking to TsrJoe. He found a website that actually sells the things in 1/48 and 1/32 and is American    not surprising considering the scales they supply it in.

Anyhow, drawings and placement diagrams were taken from their site so I now have the drawings to work from for the necessary parts. 

Gondor

[Gondor]

I'm modelling in a more haphazard way these days so have not done much to this build for a while. Today however I have started work on the strengthening plates for the Phantom as shown previously. Below is a picture I managed to find on the internet of the main plate at a very useful angle.



As you can see, the plate is not that thick so using 60thou card is not an option. I decided to go with 10thou card which if it is too thin can always be removed and replaced with thicker card.

Methodology for this part of the build is to have scaled down the pattern for the plates to 1/72 scale, cut them out from the paper and use PVA glue to attach them to the 10thou plastic card. Once dry the templates will be cur out and stuck onto the model prior to soaking off the paper template as the 10thou card is way too thin for me to try removing the paper from without damaging the plastic card.







The pictures for the first stages of the process are just above, hope to make some more progress later today.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Oh dear, I was underneath XT864, which was '007' when it was with 892 NAS aboard the Ark, last Thursday. I could have taken some detailed pics. 

[Gondor]

Oh dear, I was underneath XT864, which was '007' when it was with 892 NAS aboard the Ark, last Thursday. I could have taken some detailed pics. 

Kit, this was a modification to extend the life or certain airframes so there is no guarantee that the same modification would have been present on XT864

Also found out that the size I was using was a little under-scale 

Back to the scanner/photocopier then 

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

Things you never knew ! What was the site you guys are talking about ?

[Gondor]

Things you never knew ! What was the site you guys are talking about ?

This is the site

http://nautilusmodels.com/

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

Thanks !

[Gondor]

Well a little playing around with a different picture resulted in better results.

The picture below is as close to 1/72 as I could get it, so if anyone wants to use it.....



As you can see from this picture, the strengthening plate matches far better in outline to the drawing when laid on the model so I am going to try this shape with appropriate cuts into pieces where the inner wing pylons are.



One thing this has shown up during this, is that the location of the inner wing pylons on the Fujimi kit do not match the drawings that the strengthening plate is drawn against. The kit has the thick rib in the main undercarriage bay, and the corresponding and in-line locating holes for the inner wing pylons in a slightly more inboard position that the drawing. Kind of makes you wonder who got it right or if they are both wrong?

A couple of additional notes about the pictures. The top one has a black additional plate used by US Navy aircraft, probably something to do with launch stresses I would guess. In the lower picture and in a previous post, the locating points for the catapult strops are white, that's because they come from a different kit as I was originally going to build this model as a real world F-4K and the only spare non naval parts I had were a different colour.

Tomorrow I intend to change this from paper to paper and plastic, and from there onto the model by mid week.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Were only some RAF and FAA Phantoms fitted with those plates Alastair, or did the USN and USAF birds use them too?

I checked my pics of the Ulster Phantom and all three of them are looking directly along the wing, naturally. 

[Gondor]

As far as I know these plates were not fitted to Royal Navy machines. Apparently the strengthening plates were fitted to USN and USAF aircraft, S, E and probably G airframes from what I have read. Selected, probably low hour airframes in the UK were probably fitted if the airframe was likely to be used and as far as I know the K was phased out of service and replaced with M's. US aircraft also had plates fitted to the sides of the intakes as well, I am not going to add any as the K/M had a different intake so I am thinking I can get away with not adding them.

Gondor

[Gondor]

As an addition or rather a realisation I had to do with this build, which I still intend to finish at some point, I started thinking about the armament for this and another version of this build.
So does anyone have a good link to a site to do with the Sky Flash air-to-air missile and does anyone know if there is much of a difference between that missile and the Sparrow that the RAF used on it's Phantoms.
This build and the other builds I have either done or intend to do of this aircraft throughout its life will involve it using as much a variation of armament and camouflage on the one airframe throughout its life. A Little Rhinoplasty depicts XV462 at the start of it's RAF career with 17 Squadron (true), then it moved to 19 Squadron at Wildenrath and had the tactical Red/Blue roundels and RWR fin-top added at some point (true), it finished its days with 19 Squadron in the Air Defence Grey scheme but I intend to model with this build it having moved on to 11 Squadron and also receiving the strengthening strap under the wing as well as the Air Defence Grey scheme. This scheme definitely calls for the use of Sky Flash missiles as the main armament and hopefully the correct version of sidewinders as well.

Gondor

[Thorvic]

As far as I know these plates were not fitted to Royal Navy machines. Apparently the strengthening plates were fitted to USN and USAF aircraft, S, E and probably G airframes from what I have read. Selected, probably low hour airframes in the UK were probably fitted if the airframe was likely to be used and as far as I know the K was phased out of service and replaced with M's. US aircraft also had plates fitted to the sides of the intakes as well, I am not going to add any as the K/M had a different intake so I am thinking I can get away with not adding them.

Gondor

The K's were not phased out before the Ms, as being Ks they had served virtually exclusively in the AD role, and the Carrier aircraft were not flown fully loaded as they had a limited bring back. the M wings were goosed because the RAF used them low down in the air support role until the Jaguars replaced them and they switched to ADV in RAFG and back in England. It was flying low down with the thick air with full bombs and rockets pods that over stressed the wings.