The F-4 Phantom II is perhaps the finest jet of its time. It could carry a variety of ordnance. In addition to heat seeking and infrared air-to-air missiles it could carry bombs, and lots of them. The Phantom is an iconic airplane with legendary performance and capabilities.

What would a Phantom be without the ability to shoot down other airplanes and bomb the enemy back to the stone age? Just another pretty, no wait we are talking about a Phantom here, just another ugly loud smoking airplane.

With that in mind and Academy’s release of the F-4B and F-4C it is essential that you include ordnance and lots of it. Enter the BigSin set. This set is EVERYTHING you would need to arm up your Phantom. The set contains five sets, one set of Sidewinders, one set of Sparrows and three sets of Mk.82 Bombs. You can literally fill every hard point on the belly of the Phantom.

The first set is the AIM-9B Sidewinders. Set number 648028 contains the four missiles, complete with control fins and your choice of either the seeker head or a ground cover. Most of the parts are molded in grey resin with no blemishes or bubbles. The seeker heads are molded in clear resin. In addition to the resin parts there is a fret of photo etch with has the Remove Before Flight tags, in two types, exhaust nozzles, and templates to attach the guidance fins. Decals are also provided for each missile. The instructions are perfect and provide a painting and decal guide. The detail on the missiles is impressive to say the least and far superior to any kit offering I’ve seen. You don’t have to worry about mold lines and you know they are round. These are little kits in themselves and will look great on the wings of your Phantom. The inclusion of the RBF and ground covers is a nice touch.

The second set is for the AIM-7E Sparrows. Set number 648062 also contains four missiles along with 16 manuevering fins. The set also has a photo etch set for the exhaust nozzles. Decals are provided for the missiles. There are two types of decals for each missile. You get markings for inert training missiles and operational ones.

The rest of the set is for the healthy Phantom’s bomb load. There are three sets of set #648093. That makes for a total of 18 bombs. Yeah so there are 18 bombs, so what? Wait there is more, you get options. The bombs can be mounted with a handling nose cone, normal fused nose or the delayed fuse probe. Besides the nose cones there are decals for the bombs. The instructions shows how to build up the bomb which is simply adding the bomb to the tail fin assembly. I think I would have liked the bombs to have more texture, but that is a matter of personal taste.

Obviously the draw on BigSin sets is that they save you money. In this case they save $12 over buying the pieces separately. The quality of the parts is far superior to the kit offerings. The missiles and bombs are perfect for any Vietnam era aircraft not just the Phantom. So if you want to upgrade your F-4 this is the way to go. Each component is a little kit onto itself. Another winner for Eduard. Thanks for putting them together so we can afford it.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Eduard and IPMS/USA for the review item. You can obtain yours by contacting Eduard directly at www.eduard.com.