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1/72 Phantom question for Gene


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Heya Gene.

 

In some of our Hasegawa Phantom convos, you have mentioned a Hasegawa kit tooling older than what I call the "Generation One" tooling.

 

I somehow missed seeing that kit in my life. Do you have a boxart pic and/or a sprue pic of that model?

 

I am just wondering because I don't want to list the 4 Generations of Hasegawa 1/72 Phantoms, and then have to go and bump the Gen numbers up by one after

I get it all done, making my Gen One actually be Gen Two, etc.

 

Here's what I know about

 

First Gen,,,,,,,,,the tooling sold as F-4D/J, and still sold as the F-4K, but, with the thin wings of the F-4B.

Second Gen,,,,,the F-4E tooling, the one that people get when they think  they have found a "steal of a deal", and then find out they didn't get the modern kit.

Third Gen,,,,,,the F-4J and F-4C/D Monogram kit, sold in Hasegawa-Monogram boxes before the modular kit came out.

Fourth Gen,,,,the Modular kit that was released in every version except the F-4K and M.

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hah, yeah, that would work

 

I am trying to always give good reliable info, so I would rather ask before I start typing, and get it right.

 

There are a lot of Phantom Kit Myths out there, and I am trying to provide a resource that is actually helpful, not just opinions or guesses.

 

Not giving bad info is why I stopped typing in the recent attempt to put all Phantom variants in one table. I realized that it simply can't be done, unless there are hundreds of lines for the versions. "An F-4B is an F-4B" is very simply not true. Heck it takes three lines just for the F-4N, and that is one of the simpler versions. (4 lines if the F-4N Ringer is included) So, I've switched to "paragraph style" for each version and variation of a version, and will post it on the Hangar Deck site instead.

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Rex,

 

There were actually two early Hasegawa Phantom kits: an F-4C and an F-4D.  They were not the same, although the differences were slight.  The principal one that I recall was that the lower fuselage/wing part extended further forward on one than the other.  I don't think either kit had the fat wing but it has been nearly fifty years, so I could be wrong.  The air conditioning intakes were molded onto the fuselage like scoops and were slightly different on the two kits and were open on the end.  The profile on both kits was the same and absolutely abysmal as a Phantom - think F-4A with a bigger but droopy nose.  There was an unattributed set of Phantom profiles that appeared in several publications in the '60s that had the same profile, and I always wondered which was based on which, or what their common source was. Come to think of it, the Fuji/Entex 50th scale Phantom had a very similar profile. I only vaguely remember the box art of those early Hasegawa kits, but suffice it to say it was not Koike Shigeo (although in his early days he did some pretty awful paintings). 

 

Once the second generation kit appeared,  the J  with the softball sized rivets (which at one point they also boxed as a D sans the under nose IR fairing),  those first two kits disappeared completely and I have not seen one since the late sixties, even in Japan.

 

Cheers,

 

Tom

 

 

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Thanks Tom.

 

That is enough to go by, so I will list that as Gen One, and bump all the other toolings up one notch. (I will also mention that some remember the kit, but, that none of us Auld Pharts still have one,,,,,unless someone posts that they do have one)

 

I do remember those profiles, too. Aircam used them in their color profiles section of their halftone books. Geez, I hope that modelers didn't alter their kits to match those "references." The "Droop Snoot" looked like it was about to fall off, lol.

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20 minutes ago, Rex said:

Thanks Tom.

 

That is enough to go by, so I will list that as Gen One, and bump all the other toolings up one notch. (I will also mention that some remember the kit, but, that none of us Auld Pharts still have one,,,,,unless someone posts that they do have one)

 

I do remember those profiles, too. Aircam used them in their color profiles section of their halftone books. Geez, I hope that modelers didn't alter their kits to match those "references." The "Droop Snoot" looked like it was about to fall off, lol.

 

Those are the drawings! And those early Hasegawas were really awful kits, only worth having to complete a Phantom kit collection.  If Hasegawa was wise, they destroyed the tools.  I bought mine at Valley Plaza Hobbies in North Hollywood on the advice of a Phantom driver friend who was also a modeler.  He loved them.  But then, he thought the Fujimi "F8-D" was great, too.

 

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2 hours ago, Rex said:

Do you have a boxart pic and/or a sprue pic of that (First Generation) model?

 

Boxart McDonnell F-4 Phantom II JS-011 Hasegawa

 

Unfortunately, I don't, Rex --  the earliest I think I have in all those boxes in my garage is the first Japan boxing of the F-4K. Tom has much better recall than I do!!!

 

I assume you know about the timelines on this outstanding site?

 

Gene K

Edited by Gene K
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This is a "gen one"  Hasegawa F-4J that I built back in the late 70's or early 80's.  It had decals for VF-31 and VF-96's Showtime 100 (which was the box art).  It came with four sparrows, two bullpups, MER's for the outboard pylons and a "squashed" centerline tank.  Cockpit was a one-piece tub similar to the old Revell kit.

Lots and lots of inaccuracies, including a thin 'B' wing, tons of raised rivets, and oleo struts that appeared to be molded in the extended position.  Speculation at the time was that they had used in-flight photos with unloaded landing gear when they designed the tooling.

Scale Modeler magazine did an article back in the 70's that dealt with how to correct a lot of the errors.   

Think I've still got one in the stash someplace.

AirfixPhantom067.jpg

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Geez, we sure had some kits back then, haha. The three Hasegawa toolings that no one will consider today, the Fujimi F-8, the Hasegawa A-4, the "too tiny" Monogram AD-5, the "too big" Fujimi A-1, the reallllly cool IMC "A-1H with the AD-5 body", the Hasegawa A-6 and A-7, Hasegawa's F-86 and T-38,,,,,and these were the "hi-quality" kits back then, compared to the kits easier to get here in the States. (oh yeah, and the ERTL tooled F-18)

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Mark, that kit is what I used to call Gen One,,,,,before Tom and Gene talked about a release earlier than that one. That will now become Gen Two in my listings, since it is the second tooling

 

And yes, Gene, I used to go in and update the timelines on Scalemates on a regular basis,,,,,but, the Phantoms and Skyhawks keep getting changed based on new member's opinions,,,,,,,so I quit updating it and am now listing "I actually see it in the boxes" timelines on my own Navair Info site. That way there will always be a base reference based on eyeballs for them to re-set the timelines when they get all balled up again.

 

Thanks for that pic, Gene, but the crude Bullpups and "nastly looking MERs and bomb thingies" make that look like an early release of the (now) Gen Two kit. Same load as what Mark would have had in his boxing, except he wisely left them off of his model.

 

I am going to build a few more of the Gen Two kits, using my "Bump-grade" concept,,,,,all the extras from Gen Five kits, and Fujimi's after they get Hasegawa spares added to them. Cut the nose off and add one from Revell, with Revell landing gear legs, and I think I will have an attractive model,,,,,,,,in Marines markings so that I don't waste a Navy set, lol.

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1 hour ago, Rex said:

Geez, we sure had some kits back then, haha. The three Hasegawa toolings that no one will consider today, the Fujimi F-8, the Hasegawa A-4, the "too tiny" Monogram AD-5, the "too big" Fujimi A-1, the reallllly cool IMC "A-1H with the AD-5 body", the Hasegawa A-6 and A-7, Hasegawa's F-86 and T-38,,,,,and these were the "hi-quality" kits back then, compared to the kits easier to get here in the States. (oh yeah, and the ERTL tooled F-18)

 

The Fujimi A-1 kit was - and is - 1:70th scale.  In the sixties, and well into the '70's, most of the Japanese manufacturers were producing kits in metric scales. In the early days, this was acceptable as "close enough", but by the mid '70's it wasn't and they began producing true 72nd (and 48th versus 50th) kits.  But most of their earlier efforts magically became  72nd or 48th.  What was really interesting was that different manufacturers had differing ideas of how to get "close enough" to 72nd scale.  Most Fujimi kits were 70th, but Hasegawa kits were 75th! This is mostly concerning kits of WWII Japanese aircraft.  Tamiya, as I recall, also did 75th scale.  The first true inches scale kit that Fujimi did was in '71 or '72 was a 48th Me-109G.  

 

The Japanese were not the only guilty parties when it came to "rescaling".  Lots of the old Revell box scale kits magically becme "true scale": the 1:53rd Cougar became 48th and the 1/67th scale Crusader became 72nd, for instance.

 

The Hasegawa A-4 is an amusing story if you have never heard it. Douglas claimed that the single and two seaters were the same length but this was only true if you considered the IFR probe. Hasegawa used TA-4 fuselage dimensional data  on their A-4E kit, so it is 2 scale feet too long and that error is distributed throughout the length of the kit fuselage.If you lay their TA-4 fuselage next to the A-4E fuselage they are exactly the same length. 

 

A-4E_vs_TA-4_zpssvehjnxf.jpg

 

Sometime in the '70's someone corrected the Hasegawa kit by making something like fifty vertical cuts in each fuselage half and gluing it all back together.  What I really wish Hasegawa would do is shrink their 48th Scooter to 72nd - hopefully correcting the way too thick vertical stab in the process.  Then we would have a really good 72nd A-4.  At present, in my opinion,  the best in terms of shape is the Italeri kit.

 

Back to Phantoms.... I think you are right, Rex, I think the box art that Gene posted (Thanks, Gene!) is  for the next generation Phantom, not the Gen 0, which might be better terminology since everyone thinks of the next gen kit as gen 1 and it is apparently already causing confusion, and also means you only have to add a new listing, not edit everything.

 

Cheers all,

 

Tom

 

Edited by Superheat
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I will do it that way, Tom.

 

I thought Andrew was joking, but, it seems he had the germ of a good idea. Gen 0-4 it will be, then. And you are both right, Gen One is already pretty much in widespread use.

 

I've always enjoyed that A-4 story. What gets me is if you look at the engine intake locations,,,,,,this has always meant that we couldn't just cut the nose off of the A-4E/F and make something out of it that is close to right.

 

Your photo does get me to thinking, though,,,,,I wonder how it would look to put the E/F forward half on the TA-4 rear half? If one starts with the Blue Angels boxing, you can only build one model from it, even though it has both fuselages in it.

 

Geez, as if I *need* to start into another strange Skyhawk project, lol.

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On 1/16/2017 at 2:47 PM, Superheat said:

 

At present, in my opinion,  the best [1/72 Skyhawk] in terms of shape is the Italeri kit.

 

Since two Scooter experts are here, what about the Fujimi kits ... which many declare as the best?

 

Gene K

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Here is the problem with those, Gene.

 

The Skyhawk fuselage is shaped like this /\ from front to back. Almost perfect straight lines as it tapers.

 

If you think of them like this | | on the real thing,,,,,,,,the Fujimi kit does this in it's attempt to taper ( ) You can see this very clearly if you have a Fujimi, and anyone else's kit. Just tack the two fuselage halves together and sight down from the intake area to the exhaust. You will see the Love Handles very clearly.

 

So, if a person can think of a way to put that kit on a diet and get rid of the Love Handles in the Midsection,,,,,,it is otherwise a great kit. I have only succeeded in getting rid of the fat at the top fuselage line,,,,if I try to get rid of all of it, I loose the wing attachment fit.

 

(by the way, some experts have declared the Fujimi and the New Airfix as both "wonderful" in different years online, in articles by the same guy,,,,even though they don't match in shape,,,,,,if different, which they are,,,,,,then only one of them can be "correct")

 

Now, if you want great details,,,,Fujimi has those. But, I now use them for conversion and detail sets for New Airfix and old Esci kits.

 

It is all sort of moot though, with the Airfix kit disappearing off the catalog for 2017, the Italeri tooling, being sold by Tamiya is now the only one currently for sale, unless you want the Hasegawa. (with a nod to those that can get some of the last few Fujimi's direct from Japan/China dealers)

 

Edit: Tom and I disagree on which is best, he likes the Italeri tooling, and I like the Esci,,,,,which is okay, we can disagree without any rancor at all on this.

Edited by Rex
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2 hours ago, Rex said:

Tom and I disagree on which is best, he likes the Italeri tooling, and I like the Esci,,,,, .

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation, Rex.  SInce I'm way off topic, I sent you a PM.

 

Gene K

Edited by Gene K
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I'm perfectly okay with straying off topic in this thread, Gene. You know of my affection for both types of aircraft, after all. (with the F-8 in a solid third place, sorry Tom)

 

If/when we get to see a Trumpy offering, maybe it will have the shape right, and the details as well done as the Fujimi, with modern fit?

 

In the meantime, we all have Skyhawks and Phantoms to build,,,,,and we just can't wait until every aircraft is molded our favorite way to build a collection. That is after all, why I have so many different toolings of all three types in the first place, even multiples of the Hasegawa kits.

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We've been looking at those same three CAD renderings for quite a while now, haven't we?

I've actually lost track of when they started talking about those three toolings. (well, except for the canopy area, ONE tooling with some small parts changed out)

 

They will sell me exactly 3 kits at first,,,,,,after that TA-7C deal, I won't be the "early adopter" this go round.

 

If they have more after I see them in person and like them, great, I will then buy more,,,,,,,,,if they have such a small run that 3 is all I can get, also great,,,,,,,I will just use the ~80 kits that I have left. As much as it might shock people to read this from me, Scooters are just too easy to get at shows to get too excited about some "which decade?" future release. (they killed the enthusiasm themselves,,,,,,like driving a five year old past McDonald's 50 times,,,,,,,by the end he would just cry instead of being "happy to see the Arches")

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