The Aircraft

If you aren’t at least familiar with the F-4 Phantom II, you have either lived in a cave or a monastery for the last 50 years. Or you might be a WW2 fanatic. The Phantom was produced in huge numbers (5195) and sold to many countries (11). The US Air Force, Navy and Marines used the F-4. The last of the Phantoms are now flying with the Turkish Air Force, Japan and South Korea.

This kit is the F-4E, an Air Force version with the internal 20 mm cannon. If you’re interested in less well known air forces, the F-4E has been used by Australia, Egypt, Greece, Iran, Israel, South Korea, and Turkey. Germany also had some F-4Es, but they were based at Holloman in New Mexico with the Luftwaffe training group.

• Intake Covers Type A or B
• Part No. : 32088 / 32091
• MSRP: $ 8.95

• Exhaust Covers Type A or B
• Part No. : 32087 / 32090
• MSRP: $ 8.95

I love building jets but there are two things that are a pain on most of them and that is getting the ejector pin marks out of the intakes and exhausts. Besides that, almost all jets have covers on them as soon as possible to prevent FOD damage so if you want to pose a parked jet, it should have these covers on them- engines are expensive!

Quickboost has issued two sets each for exhaust and intake covers which are as simple as they sound and yet can make the diorama pop to life. The intake covers are one piece for each side with two delicate handles for each cover that can be detached and added. The difference between type A and B is the raised pattern on them. I trimmed one set, painted them red and tested the fit on my Trumpeter MiG-29. The fit was perfect.

Air Modeller’s latest issue, #31, contains some of the best looking models I’ve seen in quite some time. The cover photo alone is really impressive, a well worn and weathered F-100. Typical of the magazine, this one contains 64 pages of brilliant color photographs.

The first model highlighted is a highly detailed two color scheme F-104 built by Diego Quijano. This is actually the second part of the build, continued from the previous issue. It in no way detracts from the beautiful job. The scratch building is impressive and the weathering is outstanding. The weathering is explained thoroughly and will help any modeler improve their model.

The next model is part one of multi-part builds of 1/72^nd scale Hasegawa B-26 by Andrea Vignocchi. This highly detailed model is displayed in a beautiful diorama. When you see the amount of work inside this model you will be astounded. I know I was.

The F-86 Sabre Jet happens to be one of my all time favorite aircraft so when John Noack put this kit up for review, I just had to jump on it.

The cockpit set is for the Kinetic 1/32 F-86F of which I have three. The kit cockpit is pretty nice but this Aires kit is the frosting on the cake. It consists of 11 very finely cast resin parts, two clear parts (actually the instruments are in clear and black), and 21 photo etched parts.

I primed the parts with Duplicolor Light Grey auto primer as I do with most of my models. I then used several books for detail research. I painted the details with Model Master acrylic paints. Once the details were painted, I removed the parts from their casting blocks. The major parts fit by interlocking the parts. The only thing left to do was to glue the parts to form the complete cockpit. I did not glue the seat in as I still have to put the photo etched seat belts.

Fine Molds continues to add to their great line of WWII Japanese Armor – this time with a variant of the Type 3 “CHI-NU” Tank. This up-gunned long barreled version of the Type 3 was a paper-only project. The variant was expected to go into production in 1946, but as we know the war ended before then. It was thought that the gun on the Type 3 would not be sufficient to knock out US Armor at long ranges, so plans were drawn up to fit the Type 3 tank with a long barrel 75mm gun.

This kit is exactly the same as the other Type 3 “CHI-NU”, with the addition of the sprues for the longer barrel, and turret parts. In fact with this boxing, you will end up with some extra parts for your stash, as some of the parts from the earlier release are included, but not used. The kit’s 203 parts are molded in tan, with a sprue of clear parts, and nicely done ‘rubber band’ tracks.