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1/48 F-4 Phantom best kits


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29 minutes ago, anj4de said:

 

Only when you count the number of faults...when you look at the fixability of the faults the situation looks differenty. Now...once Jeffrey has a replacment section available things again might be different.

The other issue is still the price though...

 

Well Uwe, I respect your opinion while at the same time I know you won’t change your view on the ZM Phantoms.

 

I also know you don’t like the cost of them. I wish they were cheaper too. But I accept it is the cost of the quality of the product and I can live with the back end of the kit, I have a hard time seeing it. I purchased a few Black Friday for $55 US each, the lowest I ever have seen them priced.

 

There isn’t a single kit that is a 100% accurate reproduction on the entire planet.

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On 1/23/2018 at 8:49 PM, JeffreyK said:

 

Sorry, but I totally disagree. Shape wise, the Academy kit is to me the worst of all the offerings (I actually tend to agree that the Monogram kit is the best in that department, followed by Hasegawa. ZM could be top if it wasn't for that fuselage error).

Apart from the issues you listed, the aft fuselage from about half way down to the aft end is bodged. The engine shoulders/bulges always looked a bit too shallow and "soft" to me, but I didn't have any proof. My cross section templates have now confirmed this. Where the ZM kit has too much "meat", the Academy has too little. But worse still, the whole tail end is quite dodgy shape wise. The vertical sides between the stabs should be just that, vertical, narrowing down with a smooth, continuous, gentle curve. Academy's tail is a weirdly shaped diamond, both in cross section and plan view.

And no, I've not come up with this yesterday, I've been saying this for a few years...and the reason why, despite my own upgrade/correction parts, I still haven't build up the full kit. I have adapted a Hasegawa tail end to fit onto the Academy fuselage (hence the cut-off tails in my pictures above), but still haven't gotten 'round to adding the surface detail.

I do acknowledge though that everybody's priorities are different.

J

 

Hi JeffreyK, sorry for the late reply.

I see your point about the tail end of the Academy, but I don't find it to be all that objectionable on a finished model. It just doesn't show up all that much in my opinion. The point I was making about the accuracy of the Academy fuselage is really just about the curves forward of the engine nozzles. Almost all F-4 kits get that area surprisingly wrong, most veering towards the Z-M problem. I'd say that the 1/32 Tamiya F-4 and the Z-M are the worst offenders, with both being very "chunky". Other kits have different kinds of problems in that same area, the most obvious being seen in profile, where most kit manufacturers insist on putting a downward curve where on the real thing there is more of an angled straight line. Hasegawa makes this mistake, as does Monogram (but to a lesser degree). In the top photo below, the red line is the general area I'm talking about. The blue line in that photo is the other bit many kits tend to get wrong. In reality it's a very smooth change of cross-section contour, but some kits just don't do it all that smoothly. This is an area where the Monogram isn't so great. I'd say that the Academy is by far the most accurate in both of those areas, and that stops it looking fat and chunky.

 

Another place that shows up the inaccuracy of some of the kits is the little vents over the exhaust nozzles. When viewed from directly behind, many of the kits have them at far more horizontal angles than the real thing. It's not that the vent in itself is particularly noticeable, but rather what it means for the general shape if they are wrong. The Academy is better than most in this regard.

 

While I appreciate that you're measuring the kits with a given station cross section, the fact that you're using FS 453.30 suggests that you're using the general arrangement drawings by Morris (disregard this if that's not the case), but the copies of those drawings that I have show considerable differences between the left and right sides of the CL (i.e.. if you flip the left half of the cross section and overlay it on the right half, they don't match). There also seems to be considerable difference in the shape of the spine between the Morris GA drawings and the Thomas approved loft line drawings. I think the loft line drawing is more accurate.

 

Anyway, excuse me for geeking out on this. I know this kind of thing isn't popular. Apologies to those who'll take exception.

 

Richard J

Phantoms1b.jpg

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Thanks Scooby. It's not that I'm a total freak about accuracy (well, I probably am!), it's just that I think there should really be a GREAT F-4 kit out there by now. Several have come close, but so far there's always been something to let them down. A bit of a shame really.

 

Here's another Phantom Photo. This one shows the angle of those little vents quite well, but also, note the curvature of the fuselage around the "NAVY" lettering. The F-4 fuselage is quite a bit more curvaceous than most of the kit manufacturers depict it. In actual fact, there are almost no flat bits on the side of a Phantom fuselage! Everything is at least "slightly" curved, with the exception of the area directly aft of the wing trailing edge. Again, this is something that Academy managed to do quite well.

 

Richard J

Phantom3b.jpg

Edited by Richard J
Inaccuracy
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Hi Richard,

no I didn't use "Morris" drawings, in fact I don't even know them... I used McDonnell loft lines as the basis for my cross sections, accurately scaled to 1:48 in my CAD program, based on the various fuselage station markers and then traced and printed true to size.

I re-shaped the fuselage from cross sections FS 414 and FS 453.30 and the result was very much as you demonstrated, a much straighter sloping line rather than a continuous curve. Straighter than Hasegawa, I agree, but also straighter than the Academy kit, but as I said before, Academy has the shoulders dropping away too much resulting in a bit of a "petite" look, lacking some muscle.

 

Given that there is now a lot of very detailed F-4 shape information out there, to be obtained with very little effort, it is indeed a surprise that big shape issues still happen with even the latest kits. On the other hand, I know from my own experience that forcing a CAD program to produce complex curved surfaces that accurately reproduce shapes that were slide-rule designed and hand-built, is often a difficult and frustrating task. What the computer wants to generate from the input available and what the (model) designer is trying to create is often quite apart from each other and there might be instances where either the design team themselves or the head honcho intervenes and says "this has to be good enough now, you need to move on".

J

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Hi Jeffrey,

 

Yeah, sorry about the ambiguity with the drawing references. Several sets of McDonnell drawings made their way around the web a while ago. The best quality ones that I have are either drawn by V L Morris (inboard profiles), or approved by  "A Thomas" (Loft sheets).

 

I totally understand your comments about converting drawings to CAD. I've been in the 3D modelling business for going on 25 years. I guess that's part of why I find this stuff a little frustrating. For all the things they got so right on the Z-M F-4, it's hard to believe that someone didn't take a look at a render of the model and say "whoa! What's going on here?". Anyway, thanks for taking the time to figure out a fix.

 

Richard J

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I find this all extremely fascinating and enlightening. Thanks to all for so much information. In spite of ZMs errors I am waiting for their F-4E. That should be a kit with potential for a lot of modification. Specifically an F-4EJ Kai :-)

 

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14 minutes ago, Mstor said:

In spite of ZMs errors I am waiting for their F-4E. That should be a kit with potential for a lot of modification. Specifically an F-4EJ Kai :-) 

 

Gee whiz -- celebrate this outstanding kit instead of bemoaning it.  :thumbsup:

 

Gene K

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Here I go again. To me all this hoopla is about a gnat's fool. Let's worry about something real like global warming or the fake Apollo moon landing or the Bermuda Triangle! I kill myself sometimes! Here's the deal. If I attempted a correction of the ZM kit, it'd be a bigger mess after hacking and chopping. No thanks.

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4 hours ago, Gene K said:

 

Gee whiz -- celebrate this outstanding kit instead of bemoaning it.  :thumbsup:

 

Gene K

 

I think there is little doubt that there IS an error. I am celebrating this outstanding kit in that I plan on purchasing the E model when it comes out (I have no interest in currently released versions).  I plan on giving ZM my money for their excellent kit.

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8 hours ago, Richard J said:

Hi Jeffrey,

 

Yeah, sorry about the ambiguity with the drawing references. Several sets of McDonnell drawings made their way around the web a while ago. The best quality ones that I have are either drawn by V L Morris (inboard profiles), or approved by  "A Thomas" (Loft sheets).

 

I totally understand your comments about converting drawings to CAD. I've been in the 3D modelling business for going on 25 years. I guess that's part of why I find this stuff a little frustrating. For all the things they got so right on the Z-M F-4, it's hard to believe that someone didn't take a look at a render of the model and say "whoa! What's going on here?". Anyway, thanks for taking the time to figure out a fix.

 

Richard J

Ah, gotcha, now I know what you mean. I've used the "Thomas" drawings mainly, but also another McD drawing sheet, but can't identify any name on it.

ZM did produce a 3D print of the model before the tooling was cut, I've seen it in Telford 3 years ago. With limited time, I only focused on the issues known from the Academy kit (tail section, stabs, intakes, canopy...), but someone really should have picked up the problem at that stage....

J

 

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Possibly the definitive drawings are showing up so we can all have a treat. Amazing eyes Jun has, and I can't wait for the actual English translation that will likely go along with these.

I know there are, or will be skeptics, but IMHO these are superlative!

http://www.geocities.jp/yoyuso/f4/f4-2.html#last

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Those are great drawings, but other than the structural repair manual, he doesn't list any kind of official drawings in his sources. I don't recall seeing anything anywhere that the F-4E windscreen is different from the short-nose F-4s. Or am I misreading the translation and drawings due to lack of caffeine? 

 

Edit: There are loads of genuine F-4 drawings from McDonnell on this site: Aviation Archives  Worth a look! The F-4 structural repair manual is also there, somewhere. I took a quick look through the site and here are some of the pages with F-4 loft drawings from McDonnell. I think I would be more inclined to trust these than drawings based on other drawings or photos (parallax problems).

Fuselage & wing cross sections

F-4B/C/D/H fuselage & wing loft sheet

Outer wing loft sheet

Wing, vertical stab, stabilator loft sheet

More wing & vertical stab loft sheet

Pylon, stores, & armament loft sheet

RF-4 forward fuselage loft lines

Wing bumps & seeker fairings

F-4E nose

More F-4E/F loft sheet

 

Ben

 

Edited by Ben Brown
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2 hours ago, Ben Brown said:

Those are great drawings, but other than the structural repair manual, he doesn't list any kind of official drawings in his sources. I don't recall seeing anything anywhere that the F-4E windscreen is different from the short-nose F-4s. Or am I misreading the translation and drawings due to lack of caffeine?

 

Agreed, a bit puzzled by that myself!

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11 minutes ago, JeffreyK said:

 

Agreed, a bit puzzled by that myself!

I think I'd have to see measurements of the real thing, first.

 

BTW, I just added links to the McDonnell loft drawings to my post above.

 

Ben

 

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Seems like it'd be fairly easy to check, since he suggests they have substantially different shapes at the front - his F-4C frame is quite pointy,  while the E is fairly flat.

 

https://www.ipms.nl/images/foto-specials/WA_vliegtuigen/F-4-divers/F-4J-duxford/F-4J-duxford-20.jpg

http://walkarounds.scalemodels.ru/v/walkarounds/avia/after_1950/f-4e_germany/DSC_0578.JPG.html

E (and you can clearly see the panel lines he has missing on the E framing) https://www.cybermodeler.com/aircraft/f-4/pages/030604-f-1789v-003.shtml

 

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His depiction of the forward canopy is very good. Think about it... the nose of the F-4E is different than the F-4C (longer, no flattening on top just forward of the canopy), so how could the windscreen / quarter panels possibly look exactly the same? Well, actually, they are the same shaped parts, it's just that the F-4E nose covers up a little more of them than the F-4B/C/D/J nose does. That black bit on the F-4J photo that MoFo linked to - that's the bit (plus a little more) that the F-4E nose obscures.

Edited by Richard J
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I could buy that - it's not that it's a different assembly; it's the same part, only more of it is covered on the E.  The windscreen doesn't sit on top of the nose, but slots into it, and seems to slot 'deeper' into the long nose because it's slightly thicker.

 

Studying the pics - particularly the panel below the U-shaped glass - there are a few detail differences visible. The J clearly comes to a point inside the cutout; the E pics are less conclusive (haven't found a great one yet), but don't seem to show the same thing.  More conclusively, the E has seven fasteners visible (excluding the cutout), while the J has ten: three in the black painted section, seven in the grey.  So as you said, cover the black section  and you get a long-nose windscreen.

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I think the fact that so many kits have the same canopy parts for both the short nose and long nose F-4s is quite telling about kit accuracy. If the plexiglass bits are the same, then something else has to be wrong in order for them to fit properly. Nothing is perfect, but still, I kinda WANT one of the kit manufacturers to get it just right!

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Looking just at those photos, I currently fail to see where the difference would be...? The Duxford F-4J has the anti-glare painted right on top of the clear quarter panel, so that is perhaps misleading? Also, the photos are shot at very different angles so the curvature of the fuselage opening where the clear part "sinks" into the fuselage looks very different, but might actually be the same.

A little bit more evidence is needed here I think.

J

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Think of it this way: the anti-glare painted area on the Duxford F-4J is covered in sheet metal on the F-4E.

 

Count the rivets.  On the E, there are seven on each side, beneath the windscreen.  On the J, there are ten (seven in the grey paint, three in the black).

 

http://www.b-domke.de/AviationImages/Phantom/6530.html

http://walkarounds.scalemodels.ru/v/walkarounds/avia/after_1950/f-4e_germany/DSC_0579.JPG.html

 

Also, there is a solid panel below the windscreen.  Compare the width of that panel at its base (at the top of the cutout) with the width of the raised lozenge.  On the J, it's about the same width as the lozenge.  On the E, it's noticeably wider than the lozenge.

 

kk7kjig.jpg 

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I think these two photographs show what's going on quite well. The aspect is slightly different, but that doesn't change the relative dimensions. I think that if the F-4E had that same flatspot on the fuselage at the 12 o'clock position as the short nosed F-4s, they'd be very similar. As it is, the F-4E fuselage is more consistently rounded, and therefore 3 or 4 inches of metal and plexiglass that are visible on the B/C/D/J/S aren't visible on the E/F/RF.

 

These are not my photos by the way. Just posting for reference purposes.

 

Richard J

 

F-4-Windscreens.jpg

Edited by Richard J
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... the slightly flattened short nose naval-based types being there to improve vision over the nose for carrier landings.

My initial assumption would have been the gun nose transformation began at the radome break (on a short nose) but it seems that with the revised windscreen fairing and the revised ACS intake/fuselage blending, the conversion actually begins at the panel line touched by the apex of the intake warning chevron on the photo below. Never noticed that before, after 40-odd years of studying Phantoms

39280354064_1348e5a118_o.jpg

 

I'll need to take a look for similar angles on RF-4Bs, Cs and Es now.

Edited by chek
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Chek, you're probably about right with regard to where the nose extension starts on the F-4E. That's around F.S. 80 on the McDonnell drawings, and is where the major changes start happening. The drawings show that the RF-4 is almost identical to the E on the topside of the nose, so I would expect the forward canopy/fuselage joint to be the same as the E, rather than the B/C/D/J.

 

I got my hands on the Z-M F-4 today (again). Then gave it back! Wow, that's a real oddity. In my opinion, on a scale of 1-10 (where 1 is the worst F-4 kit ever made, and 10 is a scaled down version of the real thing) I'd give it 11 out of 10 for detail (surface quality, panel lines, small part representation), but a lowly 4 out of 10 for overall shape accuracy. It's almost like they used the Tamiya 1/32 F-4 as reference, rather than the real thing. It's amazing to think that the (relatively) ancient Hasegawa F-4 is still that much better in so many ways. As to the title of this thread? Well, that all depends on how you define "best", doesn't it.

 

Richard J

Edited by Richard J
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I'm more impressed by getting shapes correct, otherwise we can end up with the well detailed Hobbyboss or Trumpeter travesties they produce when their A design team is otherwise engaged.

 

On the other hand, the new Airfix F-4K seems to have conquered the major Spey Phantom deficiencies and got the shapes well represented, probably because they LIDAR scanned it, but skimped on the details of what might otherwise have been a definitive kit. Maybe they have a secondary details file for a more detailed future 1/48 version somewhere down the road.

 

My Tamiya F-4J has rested in its box for too many years until I can figure out the least destructive way to sort out its back end. Your photos help a lot in that regard Richard.

I'm fervently hoping that the anticipated 1/32 scale Tan model F-4E, also supposedly to be LIDAR produced, will result in the definitive J79 fuselage, at least in that scale.

 

But as you say, it's a shame the ZM is in the one step forward, two steps back ballpark for a great 1/48 kit. I enjoy kit bashing a kit into a more accurate version of itself - once.

But it gets tedious when you want a few for different colour schemes etc..

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