Craig Baldwin

I've placed my order with HLJ but says it is backordered. Just search F-4 then narrow your search to books and you will see the cover.

Here is one of Bill Lindner photographs. Would fall into the unusual load catergory.

Great write up. Always interested to hear kit comparisons especially after all the wrangling about the AMK release.

The one at the very bottom must say "British Phantom = Holy S###"

Congratulations @phantom , @Geoff M and @Mr.Happy . Great looking builds, you didn't waste any time.

A couple of helpful side by side 1/72 kit comparisons found here https://imgur.com/gallery/0uPi2cn and here https://imgur.com/gallery/RxCFtqH if your deciding on a purchase. Both multi kit reviews lets you draw your own conclusions from all the available releases.

Just stay away from that 325 page thread on this kit and you will be fine. Best of luck on your build.

Here is another Connair airframe but colours look different due to white balancing. Google is restricting your searches, try Duckduckgo image search will bring some more Connair aircraft.

His Jag looks great and I am gathering resources for my own Jag build. Nice inspirational build.

Lucky for me the window of this group build is till September. For a OOB build it should be plenty of time to complete. Lot's of fun builds going on here. @GeneK was able to hook me up with this kit and what a nice surprise it has been. Mouldings are crisp and everything looks quite accurate and finely detailed. It will be tough to find areas to improve on. Not sure when I last use kit decals but I may use them for this build, but I did order some Printscale sheets but they of questionable quality, very soft and difficult to use despite the graphics looking good. GWH provides

I'll bring the 1/72 GWH F-14D to the show. Deciding on decals and there are some nice details on this kit. My photo of a F-14D at Miramar 1995 164341, F-14A 159862.

Where's that like button. Well said.

Admittedly I don't visit the ARC main page often so your post peaked my curiosity. That is a stunning build and presentation.

Found this today on FB. Image and quoted text. https://imgur.com/XG9qK0E The Boss Suits Up! (By A. Villalva) USAF Colonel Robin Olds(‘The Boss’ of the 8th TFW, Ubon RTAFB) suits up for his final combat mission in SEA, in late Sept 1967. His standard USAF-issue gun belt rig is clearly visible, and displays the unique Life Support Equipment shop modification of sewing elastic loops to the external circumference of the M-1956 Equipment Belt to retain ammunition for his Smith & Wesson ‘Model 15’ .38 Special Revolver, carried in a USAF GUU-1/P Holster. Th

Glad you are able to continue on with these builds.

This aircraft serial number is 68-0313 and it was common to only have the last five digits painted on the tail. Google Korat F-4E's and you can see a number of aircraft displayed as such. Wiki has a photo of this aircraft but the opposite side.

If you look at this image you will see the stencils were actually taped over before applying the 8th squadron unique camouflage. Not totally wrong according to FineMolds decal sheet, you will just have to do a lo more work to create this. DXM did a sheet for this unit with the proper looking stencils.

Both main landing gear doors in photos look to be 36270, a good indication of what the rest of the underside might be.

Used clothes dry sheets work well too as masks. Please provide some after shots too to help show the effect. Thank you. Craig

Thank you ya-gabor for putting those together. Craig

I was told many years ago the decal sheet was one of the most expensive items in a model kit for the manufacturer, I don't know how that holds out today. FineMolds next release decal sheets for their special releases Blue and Yellow edition.

The RF-4EJ tooling closes in on production with updates of the instrument panel. So nice FineMolds has paid attention to all these details. This helps even the casual modeller get things right. This information also provided along with photos shows how communication is so important in the entire process. This was the translation Google provides "Please note that the protrusion on the left side of the ejection seat of the 1/72 Phantom of Fine Molds is not a burr!" "The person in charge of the plastic model was about to cut it off ..."

Thank you for the heads up. In the picture you can see daylight through the front and rear part of the fin cap. Of course the rear part is the top of the rudder. Trying to restrain as much as possible from sanding and loosing all the beautiful detail.

If this has not been pointed out, courtesy of @GeneK, this photo shows the "drill out" dimples on the wing of this kit, applicable to USN/USMC verisons. Already mentioned are the similar dimples inside the forward upper engine intakes. Paging through Japanese F-4 publications feature units that flew at NAS Atsugi. My money is on a release which includes one of those units.

Has anyone used the Nano seat harness detail set by FM? I have a set made some years back but found them very stiff and difficult to change from the flat shape. Is the plastic better now for forming to the contours? I wish ARC forums had a like button for all the great posts especially here on this thread.