Hi team,
As some of you may be aware, Fujimi recently reissued its 1/72 Phantom FG.1 kit - the one with a set of vinyl tyres and two canopies - and I snapped one up from HLJ for cheaper than an old one on eBay. It's a very pretty kit, although (unless you PSR/replace the slotted stabilators and the pair of catapult hooks on the belly) you can only do an F-4K/FG.1 OOB. For some reason I prefer the F-4M/FGR.2, so here we go:
Three rounds of PSR later and I now have unslotted tailplanes! I had been planning on building the real-world (and today preserved at IWM Duxford) FGR.2 XV474 as she appeared at Finningley in 1977, but then I thought I could do that with a 1/48 kit instead and go all-out on it. I now have a big Hasegawa one and am accumulating bits to go with/in/under it.
So what to do with the Fujimi kit? What to do, what to do... Greg "GTX_Admin" and Richard "gekko_1" collaborated on a series of Kiwi Phantom profiles and backstory some time ago, which I have expanded on and will present in due course, and this was an obvious choice for my first ever 1/72 Phantom model. This kit will be the 1971 aircraft in the SEA scheme, although I've based my version on the RNZAF Skyhawk camouflage scheme and it will have a black radome like the RN/RAF Phantoms of the time. I'm still not certain what the loadout will be although wing tanks and the gunpod are a given.
In the meantime, the model has progressed beyond what is seen above - coat one of the topside camo is complete and most of the underside (except for the area around the catapult hooks) has a rough coat of light grey. I'm hopeful that by this time next week it will be complete and I already have most of the decals sorted.
I started this one a month or two ago so I'm pleased to finally be showing it off. Enjoy!