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The rear fuselage under the fin shows he same squshed pancake look the original Airfix 1990s 1/48 kit suffered from, since corrected in their 2024 new tool.

I remember seeing a Jag at Farnborough about 1976 or so and after running my fingers over the panels, thinking it was the most precise and well made aircraft I'd ever seen. I didn't have a camera in those days so no photo, but it bothers me that for the life of me I can't recall if it was a pointy or a chisel nose. Most likely the latter but... still.

Linked to the jet's name 'Pennywise',. the evil child killer clown in that movie 'It'

Indeed, and the Soyuyo drawings show the discrepancies quite well. Hopefully the Red Pill models F-4B will correct the errors, but it would still be nice if the most egregious faults like the area around the engine nozzles on the Tamiya kits could be corrected. While I'm not averse to some hacking and reshaping (and sometimes even enjoy it) what I am averse to is having to repeat the same process six or seven times to make a collection with consistent shapes.

While any Phantom parts are welcomed, whats really needed for all the Tamaya 1/32 Phantoms is a revised rear fuselage. While the Es and EJs would also benefit, the J kits would most of all. The NAVY lettering on the rear fuselage just looks so wrong on the stock kit.

Thanks Alan, thats good to hear. But you must allow me to pay you for materials and postage at the very least.

Is it possible to buy the Pegasus fans as separate parts? The Revell ones lack detail and the Trumpeter ones rotate the wrong way!

Apparently the type of props used had a bad effect on performance too.

Im my estimation there are four single engine, single seat Mach 2 classics: the Dassault Mirage, the Lockheed F-104, the MiG-21 and the Saab Draken. The Brits missed out on the list by jumping in too early and needing two engines in the Lightning. I'm sure from their Viggen kits that the Jetmads Draken will be beyond competent, but a mainstream plastic injection moulded 1/32 kit is well overdue.

I've compared the kit parts but without cutting anything up, the principle dimensions seem very close.

I'm musing on how well the XII conversion will fit a Kotare Mark V. You get the correct oil cooler already and the raised rivets on the rear fuselage. Plus its a less expensive kit.

There really is little to excuse a plastic model not being an improvement on what has come before.

Just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character". ~ W.Wolf, Pulp Fiction

The Typhoon that put paid to the Whirlwind.

For what it;s worth at this late stage, or for anyone else considering it, I found when doing my WV-2 in the grey/white/day-glo scheme that the best faded dayglo effect (using Humbrol colours) was obtained by lightly spraying the orange over the white base colour. Heavier application gave the full strength colour. None of my half-baked theories involving saturn yellow patches worked half as well as just a light application of day-glo orange over the white base coat.