Jaws Rhino

Historical Background

In 1953, McDonnell Aircraft began to redesign the F3H Demon to improve its capabilities. In September of the same year, the company approached the US Navy with their proposal for a 'Super Demon'. The Navy was interested but they felt that two other competing designs, Grumman's F11F Tiger and Vought's F8U Crusader already satisfied their need for supersonic fighters. McDonnell then reworked their design into a fighter bomber under the designation YAH-1. However, in 1955, the Navy came with a new set of requirements : the YAH-1 was to be a fleet defense interceptor, armed with Sparrow missiles and were now redesignated XF4H-1. The F4H-1 were originally to be named 'Satan' or 'Mithras' but eventually, the name 'Phantom' with suffix II was selected (Phantom I was McDonnell's earlier jet fighter, the FH-1). As interceptor, the Phantom was armed with four AAM-N-6 (later AIM-7) Sparrow SARH missile and backed with four AIM-9 Sidewinder IR-homing missiles. No gun were ever fitted to Navy Phantoms (not even in podded form). In 1960, VF-121 'Pacemakers' became the first Phantom operator when it received F4H-1Fs and the first deployable unit was VF-74 'Be-devillers' when it received F4H-1 in 1961.

Navy Phantoms were in the thick of Vietnam War with 13 deployable squadrons at the time of the Tonkin Gulf incident. From 1964 to 1973, they participated in 84 combat tours, losing 73 in combat (7 to MiGs, 13 to SAMs and 53 to flak) and managed to 'kill' 40 enemy planes. Among the Phantom operators was VF-111 'Sundowners' which deployed its F-4Bs on board USS Coral Sea from 1971 to 1975 (the squadron previously deployed to Vietnam flying F-8 Crusaders on board USS Intrepid). Sundowners managed to down two VNAF MiGs during the war.

The Kit

The F-4 is one of the staple kits from Hasegawa, virtually all of the Phantom variants have been kitted by them. This particular kit (No. 00365) is a 2002 re-boxing of their 1/72 F-4B/N moulds. The panel lines however remain crisp and there were no flash whatsoever. The cockpit is fairly basic but good enough for 1/72. Nose parts were separate from the rest of the fuselage (so that Hasegawa can use the fuselage mould for all its Phantom kits). Kit decals were printed by Cartograf for two aircraft, both serving with VF-111 : a F-4N from USS Franklin D. Roosevelt and a F-4B from USS Coral Sea. Curiously the instruction sheet still show the decal placement instructions for a VF-161 machine....

As usual with Hasegawa kits, there were no weapons included in the kit and I have to rely on my dwindling Hasegawa weapons set in stash....

Construction

It invariably started with the cockpit! I painted the cockpit parts in FS36231 (Gunze Sangyo H317) before assembly. The relevant decals were then placed on their respective places and afterwards the parts were glued together. The seats were good enough in 1/72 but they sure could use PE seatbelts. I just made them from Tamiya masking tape and painted XF49 Khaki The cockpit is then fitted between the forward fuselage halves which in turn glued to the main fuselage. The interior of the intakes were painted Flat White before assembly and luckily, the seams were not that obvious.

Before assembling the wings, I drilled holes at the prescribed places on the lower wing, less holes underneath the bottom fuselage as I decided to add wing tanks instead of the fuselage tank. I the deviated from the instructions by not fixing the exhausts at this stage. Horizontal stabilisers and small, more fragile parts were left off until later.

Painting and Decaling

US Navy aircraft from the later half of the 1950s until the early 1980s were painted Light Gull Grey and White. I used Gunze H51 for Light Gull Grey and Tamiya TS-27 Flat White. The metallic part underneath the tail and relevant parts on the horizontal stabilizer were painted Gunze 28 Steel mixed with some Gunze 8 Silver. The exhausts were painted Gunze 61 Burnt Iron whilst the inner half of the horizontal stabiliser were painted Gunze 8 Silver. Next, the decaling stage. I wanted to do a Vietnam era Rhino, so I chose the USS Coral Sea option. The decals were printed by Cartograf so the quality is assured. Nevertheless it was a chore to fix all those stencils! The model was then subjected to a watercolour sludge wash.

Finishing

I decided to reflect the Phantom's versatility by loading my model with a mix of AAMs and bombs - four AIM-7s, 4 AIM-9D and six Mk.82 Snakeyes. All the ordnance came from Hasegawa's US Aircraft Weapons Sets. Earlier on, I decided to fit two external tanks on the outboard pylons - with hindsight it was the 'wrong' choice - Navy Phantoms were usually equipped with the centerline, rather than wing tanks. The bombs were loaded on the inboard pylons using TER (triple ejector rack), also from Hasegawa's weapon set. The canopies were then installed and finally I sprayed a layer of Tamiya Flat Clear.

Conclusion
There were literally hundreds of Phantom kits out there but I guess Hasegawa's is the best. They are fairly easy to assemble and has good detail - they just need some basic weapons load included though! The Cartograf decals included in this boxing is top class too. Anyway, what I REALLY want is F-4J 'Showtime 100' - Randy Cunningham and Willie Driscoll's mount when they became the only Navy aces during the Vietnam war. I had one when I was a kid but that old Hasegawa offering was covered with overscale rivets!