1/32 Revell (Germany) F-4F

by Michael Riedel

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This actually was a farewell present I did in 2001 for one of my squadron comrades of the 1st Squadron, Fighterwing 72 "Westfalen" ( disestablished Feb. 1st 2002 ) It features a F-4F of FW 72 converted to an ashtray since he used to smoke lots of cigars. The kit was from Revell, built straight out of the box within 2 weeks from conception to the finished model.  It has been my first 1/32 scale model and was not extremely detailed due to time constraints. In the rear fuselage you can see the ashtray. 

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Both external wing tank tips were cut of and built the way that you could put them on and off again. The left one ( as you can see ) got a cigar inside and the right on a lighter. Yellow rescue arrows were applied to the tank tips, so he always should have known the fastest way to get a hold of something for his lungs.  The Sidenumber which is represented with this model used to fly with FW 72.  German PHANTOM's are generally very heavily weathered, since they are painted flat grey and the maintenance guys use to climb down the aircraft over the intakes, wings and pylons, their boots leaving lots of black marks all over the jet.  I put his callsign and the name of his wife on the canopy with pencil.  Armament consisted only of a AIM-9L dummy and a FPR ( Flight Profile Recorder ) on the right hand pylon as well as a ALQ-119GY ECM-pod in the left forward AMRAAM bay.  The top patch was the wing insignia of FW 72 and the lower one the squadron emblem.

Michael

Photos and text © by Michael Riedel