1/72 Hasegawa RF-4 EJ - Recce Phantom

Gallery Article by Alex Cimenti

 

      

Hi modellers worldwide, here's my last article after quite a year, a beautiful old Hasegawa 1/72 RF-4 EJ Recce Phantom I found at a modeller's shop close to Venice, IT.

The kit is that every modellers appreciate and hate at the same time, the number of parts and their quality is pretty good, despite their age, engraved panels and details are among the best for a Phantom kit in this scale, but one of its worst features is the assembly and following difficult alignment between the central and forward parts of the fuselage.

Wings are OK, as the rest of the other components the kit, Hasegawa supplies a comprehensive section of detailed parts such as wheels, pylons, recce aft section, tanks fin tops etc...

The last pic below, shows the real thing coded 57-6912 photographed at her base in Yokota Japan.

Click on images below to see larger images

57-6912 photographed at her base in Yokota Japan.

Sadly no external loads except from the underwing and underbelly tanks, that are really well done and detailed. I used Hasegawa external loads adding two AIM-9 Sidewinders plus an ECM jammer under the inner pylons, just to give the model a "more operational" look.

Once the assembly operations were finished, I started the painting process, that was quite hard because of the difficulty of finding the right shade of colors used by JASDF on its tactical fighers. The paint adopted by the Japanese for tactical reconnaisance Phantoms is a three tone uppersurface camo: pale stone, two shades of green, with light grey undersides; the separation between the upper and the lower part of the camo is demarcated by those beautiful waves lines style SEA or Vietnam.

After the painting process was finally finished, I added two layers of semigloss transparent paint, then I applied the decals, using those from the box, plus a few extra from the aftermarket.

I was quite satisfied with the final quality of my model, it was quite good, nothing special, but at the end I finished a "honest kit" without making too many defects.

History background: 
From 1968, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force purchased a total of 140 F-4EJ Phantoms without aerial refueling capability, Mitsubishi built 138 under license in Japan and 14 unarmed reconnaissance RF-4Es were imported. 

The recce version was introduced in service with 501 Hikotai sporting a Woody Woodpecker unit badge applied to the fin.

Of those Japanese Phantoms, 96 F-4EJs have since been modified to the F-4EJ Kai (modified) 15 F-4EJs were converted to reconnaissance aircraft designated RF-4EJ, with similar upgrades as the F-4EJ Kai. 

Alex Cimenti

Photos and text © by Alex Cimenti