Ben Brown

A short note about Blue Angels afterburners. Tommy Thomason has a great blog post about the difference between the afterburners on the F-4. The Blue Angels jets had the early, short nozzles, with the exception of 153876 and 153839, which were brought in later to replace losses. LINK Modeler's note: Unlike the long nose F-4s, the short nose jets had the pitot tube mounted to the leading edge of the tail. All F-4s had a bellows probe for the artificial feel system mounted on the leading edge of the tail, directly above the red anti collision beacon. This system was deactivated on the

Thanks, Jari! Here is what I have for the BA F-4J. All I have for the rear cockpit is this scan of the instructions from the Yellowhammer decal sheet (picture shamelessly stolen from Rare Plane Detective). Blue Angel 2 is traditionally flown by a Marine pilot. As a joke when the team switched to F-4Js, a "banana dispenser" was added to the #2 jet. I haven't found where in the cockpit it was installed. Source Ben

Both teams had a tape antenna added to the rear canopy. All of the BA jets seem to have had that antenna on the spine. Here is more info on the canopy antenna from Tommy Thomason's excellent blog: LINK Via Bill Spidle & YouTube Smoke system fitted to both teams. Ben

I'll start out with scans from a USAF manual showing some of the mods made to the F-4E. I failed to make a note of how I got these. If you sent these to me or posted them somewhere, please let me know so I can give you proper credit. First up is the smoke probe location. My notes say the tube was ~1" in diameter. The Blue Angels probe was the same, just one panel farther aft. This photo came from the same source, photographer unknown. If this is you or your photo, please let me know! Here are the stabilator mods, as discussed in the FineMolds F-4

Hi All, Per a discussion in another thread, I thought I'd start a new thread covering the T-Birds F-4Es and BA F-4Js to save folks from having to dig through multiple threads for info. I'll try to keep from going full-on nerd with technical stuff. I'll mainly stick to what we can do to modify our models to look like these jets. If you have any info on either team's jets, feel free to add it here. The more contributors, the better! Questions are welcome, too. I'll add content as time & family allow. Via Wikipedia Via Wikipedia Ben

@Mike J. Idacavage, thanks again for posting these fantastic pictures! Great view of the fuel tank vent tube and the drag chute door pull rod just ahead of the door. Regarding the stab reinforcements, I think in normal, non-T-Birds service, the stabs were reinforced as needed and they could have had the plates on top, bottom, or both. The stabs seem to have been changed out fairly often, I assume to repair damage or for whatever maintenance they needed. I have several photos of a particular 4th TFW F-4E where I know the approximate time frames each was taken. It goes from having th

@Mike J. Idacavage, thank you for the awesome pics!! As for the opening for the smoke probe, Jennings Heilig checked another former T-Birds jet (can't recall which one) and the entire panel had been replaced, so there was no hole or patch. It would be interesting to know if the other survivors have that. Would the mods permit a sticky in this sub-forum? We'd definitely get a lot more input here, although a dedicated thread would show up in a Google search no matter which sub-forum it was in. Ben

The Replica In Scale article on the T-Birds goes into detail about the evolution of the F-4E paint scheme. IIRC, the wing tip stripes were added soon after training started and the nose scallops started out a little differently, too. I was looking for a pic of the "Lizard" jets and found this grainy film of them, along with the jets later being painted white. Good shot of the starter smoke pouring out of Gabor's mystery parts on the belly, too! YouTube link Ben

Bump. Sold items removed.

Those are some good pictures of the antennas inside the aft canopy! I'm just going to draw up something that looks close and print them on clear decal film when I build my Z-M F-4J as a BA jet. I can't recall where I got the manual pics I'm looking at, so I hesitate to post them without being able to give proper credit. According to the notes, the smoke probe was 1" in diameter, extended 18.5" out from the surface, and was mounted at Station 615.50. The Blue Angels probe was mounted on the next panel aft. It goes on to detail the stab reinforcements that look identical to the mod t

Here’s a link to the T-Birds F-4E configuration supplemental manual. It shows the front and rear cockpit changes. The smoke was made by injecting oil into the hot engine exhaust. The oil was carried in the fake missile bodies. There is a plumbing diagram for the system in the manual. I once found some details of other mods online that I’ll post when I get back to my computer where I (hopefully!) have them saved. External mods included some reinforcements added to the wings at the ailerons and to the stabilators. I’ll be able to give you the dimensions and location of the smoke probe,

Saturday bump

All kit boxes have been opened, but all of the kits are intact. All reasonable offers will be considered. KITS Precise Models F-15 rare vintage manufacturers model (~1/72 scale) $75 Polar Lights 1/1000 USS Enterprise original series $10 Aoshima 1/24 McLaren F1 GTR Long Tail – Gulf $50 RESIN Legend 1/48 F-86F cockpit for Hasegawa or Academy $5 Hypersonic 1/48 48012 F-4 Phantom slotted stabilators for Hasegawa/Academy – missing arrowhead-shaped reinforcement plates but otherwise untouch

The Monogram kit struts are sufficient to support the model. I had one in my display case for ~25 years and it would merely shimmy when my 55 lb Lab ran through the room. I’ve read the same about the anhedral but I can’t see anything wrong with that part of the kit. Of course it took me years to finally figure out the canopy issue so my eyesight might be questionable. Ben

When I was a kid, we lived in a neighborhood near the end of one of the runways at McConnell AFB, KS. I can still remember the Thud & F-100 burners lighting off, howling F-4C/Ds and the occasional F-104. Back when you could tell what was flying over by the sound of the engine! Ben

Wow, that’s some amazing work! I’m using the Hypersonic slat conversion on one of my F-4Es, too. I ordered a couple of them and exactly two weeks later, Z-M announced they were finally releasing their slatted version. I've been very impressed with both the kit and Hypersonic’s parts. I look forward to watching your progress! Ben

I can’t comment on the Reskit parts, but the Hobby Boss nose is definitely wrong. I think Monogram’s comes pretty close, but the pitot probe part is a mess and throws off the look of the whole thing. Many years ago, I visited Seymour Johnson AFB with our local club to present some models to a few of the pilots and one of the guys brought along a built Monogram Thud. We had a chance to compare it with the F-105D gate guard and I thought Monogram did a pretty good job. I was later able to improve the looks of mine by modifying a Master Details metal probe meant for the HB kit. The bigge

Thank you for taking the time to post all of this info! Like I said before, I love learning some of the geek levels of detail about airplanes, even though rarely apply most of it to my actual models. I just find it very interesting. Ben

@BWDenver, Thanks for taking the time to post this! I love this kind of airplane geek stuff! Ben

Fortunately, not much of the frame will be seen once it’s installed in the cockpit. Ben

@BWDenver, Thank you! These pics are great! One of these days I'm going to do another F-100C conversion of the Monogram kit and the seat details have been the main holdup. Ben

Wait, you have an F-100A seat?? Can you post a couple of photos, please? Ben (the F-100 nut)

Hi @ya-gabor, If you want white stencils, I’ll repeat my recommendation for the Fundekals depot stencils I linked above. I’m using it right now on my current Z-M F-4E project, since it includes a lot of stencils for Hill Grey jets too. It’s not cheap, but it includes literally everything. It even has the landing gear strut and missile bay placards, which is a first. Ben

That’s a pretty broad subject! Is there any particular jet(s) that appeals to you? Then folks could point you towards the best kit. I’ve really scaled back my use of aftermarket, too. Some of my favorite jet kits I’ve built: F-4 Phantom: I’m currently building a Zoukei-Mura F-4E and have thoroughly enjoyed it. The Meng F-4E and G are also supposed to be quite good. The Tamiya F-4B is the absolute best F-4 kit available in 1/48. F-16: Tamiya is very good and I hear the new Kinetic kits are pretty good, too. Hawker Hunter: Airfix. Airfix’s other recent 1/48 jet kits

Hi Tim, PM inbound. Thanks! Ben