Ah well - you can get all your research done prior to arrival, and organize/clean your work area! (yeah - like that ever happens...!)

Hi Tom, there have been a couple posts on this site with carrier decks, have a look in the A-Z under A4 Skyhawk. I was thinking along the same lines, Phoenix make a couple of kits, as do Skunk Models, and Hasegawa do some deck crews and accessory packs. Hope this helps.

George

Good luck Tom. I am sure it will look awesome. It doesn't matter what others think. We all build to our own standards. What counts is that you enjoy what you do.

Hey, Tom, we're pulling for you! By all accounts, it's a great kit, lots of possibilities in markings. Any questions, just ask, there's all kinds of assistance at your fingertips.

Tom the Academy kit is a pretty straight forward build. There are a few things to look out for. If you google "1/48 Academy F-4B build" you should find plenty. My biggest challenge was with the multi colored plastic, I found it hard to see whether the joints between the two colors were. So Primer is your friend! In case you haven't seen it, here is a good basic quick build from cybermodeler.

http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/builds/aca/build_aca_12232.shtml

There are lots of online discussions about intakes and air scoops and such on line, myself I think they are pretty overblown the shapes are pretty darned good just as they come out of the box. And if you go to my blog here you can see my VF 84 build. The areas I will look out for more when I build this next one is the way the tail all fits together, the lower section that holds the exhaust is too narrow, and needs sprue or rod inserted to spread it so it fits the main fuselage, mine still ended up a bit shy. Also I will take more time and care fitting the intakes so I don't have to sand as much. Anyway good luck!

Awright...I'm ready to slam this Academy Phantom into the "round file". The first one I did I had trouble with the landing gear. Now on this one, I can't get the cockpit to fit up into the upper fuselage. The design on this kit is bass-ackwards anyway. A full "upper" fuselage and a front half lower fuselage (which is supposed to be affixed to the lower half and kept straight...yeah, right). And my PE cockpit came out fairly decent, too - now it looks as though it won't get built. I can't figure out how to make it fit! Any suggestions?

Although I haven't experienced that particular kit, I will say that I often make heavy use of metal files and sanding sticks (and a knife blade) to get things to fit! I hate to see you really nice cockpit end up without an environment to fly around in!