Just a few more reference photos from my early days in the Air Force. I have tried to add notes about where & when each photo was taken. Some are a little dark. Back in the day I thought taking pictures a couple of f-stops below recommended made my photos look dramatic. I obviously went overboard at times. If someone needs some more detail from a dark photo, let me know & I can try to correct them with Lightroom or Photoshop. Greg, I'm in for some Phantom builds. I will do the "keep it simple" build, and you can handle the detail. As one of my pilot training classmates used to say: "If the minimum wasn't good enough, it wouldn't be the min." I will handle the low end, you get the high end. :o)

27 attached images. Click to enlarge.

I hadn't considered that some of you might join in! I'm happy to have some bud-builds along the "long and winding road," so welcome aboard Ferry (@therefueler) and George (@gblair)! And if you decide to join in Robert @roofrat, what a great time to add to that stellar collection you have going. (I can see your Navy roots there...). This isn't a "group build," so no deadlines and no rules! Just a Phantom conversation.

I’m very happy to see that you are having a great time with this Greg. Sounds like you had a wonderful Fathers Day too. You got some pretty cool gifts ... and the best part is that your family was looking out for Dad.

I hope that you find the “Iron Werks” style of building beneficial. It works well for me and allows me to build more stuff than I typically would.

The only downside to this approach is if you make a mistake. Then that mistake gets multiplied by the number of planes you have on the bench at the time. If you take your time and think about the building process before you commit to glue, you will do just fine. I do some online research on the kits I want to build before I start them, to see if there are any “speed bumps” to look out for ahead of time. Some builders have explained what problems they encountered with theirs.

Count me in with watching this for updates. Depending on how long this journey lasts, I might just jump in too. I have two 1/48 scale Phantom kits in the stash. I have been thinking about building a “Scat” Phantom flown by Robin Olds for a while ... I also wanted to build “Showtime 100”. I have a lot on my plate at the moment so I can’t positively commit.

If things work out then I’ll add a few as well.

OK, Greg, I'm in for one or two Phantoms. I knew I liked the Phantom, but when I dug through my stash, I found kits by Hasegawa, Revell, Italeri, Academy, Airfix, Esci, Fujimi, Tamiya, & Monogram. They are of various types of F-4's & are in various scales: 1/144, 1/100, 1/72, 1/48, and 1/32. After looking at my options, I think I will start with one of these: Hasegawa 1/48 F-4C, Italeri 1/48 RF-4E, Academy 1/48 F-4B, Airfix 1/72 FG.1, or the Academy 1/72 F-4J. I think we have the same references, plus I have a bunch of the old KokuFan magazines from Japan with some good photos in them. I will need to get some decals for the version I build, plus some canopy masks, but I don't know if I will add photoetch, etc. (Goes against my "keep it simple" mantra). Looking forward to see what you decide to build, Greg. :o)

George, they are all 1/72 except for the egg plane and the two die cast. I guess the reason I make so many is that I'm a phormer Phantom phixer ,I've got the hydraulic fluid still in my blood.

Louis @lgardner , my bigger concern is keeping sorted which parts belong to which airframe! I have a kind of confined workspace, so will need to keep pretty organized to not get befuddled!

John @j-healy, great collection!

George @gblair and Allan @kalamazoo, love to have the company! By the way Allan, I've got decals coming in for an Aussie E, and had already determined no slats were needed. In fact, as I found out last night going though my stash, and looking at my research notes, I had way more non-slatted E's than slatted, but several of my planned projects required slatted aircraft. So...off to ebay this morning - added 3 more slatted E's to the mix, which by the way opened up some new assignments for previously assigned kits! I'll update the entire project list soon, once I'm pretty sure I've made final assignments.

In the mean time, here's the reveal of my first build in the project:

Once I realized the 2020 E had slats and slotted stabilators, I had to begin a kit assignment reshuffle. Also needed slatted wings for the Egyptian, ROKAF and Greek E's (two Greek birds - one in Aegean Ghost and one in older Blue scheme). This freed up some E's for additions to the project - an Aussie, and I'm not sure what else yet.

There is also an RF4C I would like to do as AF 70-448 "CAROLINA KANGAROO" if I can find someone to print some decals for it !

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

Thanks Greg, I will get back to you on this !