Hellenic Phantoms: Hasegawa and Meng's 1/48th R/F-4E.

Hellenic Phantoms had colorful variations throughout their long service period in Greece.

Years ago, I bult Hasegawa's 'Hellenic Air Force Special' model of an aircraft that commemorates 50 years of the Phabolous. In general, Hasegawa's RF-4 is more difficult to build than the F-4E variant because of the patchy nature of molding the unique nose section. In all, it has fit and accuracy issues, but these are easily over seen because the final result looks like a Phantom.

Recently, I completed the build of Meng's F-4E. It is a very good kit with plenty of details and ample engraved panel lines and riveting. There are more features, including extended flaps and slats, detailed cockpit and engine intakes and exhausts, Two areas require attention. The horizontal stabilizers block unit is a nice feature. Yet, it needs careful trimming to ensure that the stabilizers are not set far apart from the fuselage. The second involves the front fuselage section. Test fitting the two fuselage (cleverly engineered up and down) parts shows a perfect fit. Yet, when all three subassemblies (cockpit tub, front wheel bay and avionics compartment) are glued in place, a gap occurs between the fuselage units. Subassemblies blocks are too large and substantial trimming is required to click the fuselage parts together again with components installed.

Meng's Phantom is a better model in all accounts when compared to Hasegawa's venerable kit. Yet, I prefer Hasegawa's offering. There are two factors that affect the appearance of the completed model. The first is deeply engraved panel lines. While it is easy to perform a weathering session on Meng's Phantom, the engravings are too deep. No modern jet looks like that. Second, the plastic surface is crisp, but not shiny. It does not provide the underlying metal reflection so typical of aircraft particularly modern jets (excluding stealth aircraft.) In this particular case however, Hellenic Phantoms painted with the Aegean Ghost scheme had patchy paint repairs that increased considerably the opaqueness of the aircraft. Yet, underlying shine adds much to the realistic appearance of models representing aircraft without severe weathering effects. These shortfalls though can be mitigated with painting techniques and external lighting.

In conclusion, Meng's Phantom is an excellent kit without too many hurdles. In my opinion though, the winner for the closest resemblance to the real Phantom is the Phabolous Hasegawa kit.

27 additional images. Click to enlarge.