Tamiya 1/32 F-4J 'Silverkite 211'... with working features

[Dandiego]

Holy crap! I usually happy if I can just glue my models together without to many fingerprints.

 

This is incredible.

 

Dan

[LSP_Kevin]

Photos! Looks like you've licked that issue, and they are well worth the wait. Amazing stuff.

 

Kev

[Thud_Ally]

Wow, amazing work.

[ClumsyDude]

... and THIS is why we come to LSP.  Absolutely amazing work, just swiss-watch precision - I'm absolutely awestruck.  Love it, love it, love it.

 

Jim

[Daniel460]

Great stuff................

 

 

Dan

[dodgem37]

Nice bit of engineering.  Great show.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Gerhard]

 Unbelievable work!!!   You have some serious talent sir. 

[Biscuit Tin]

Many thanks indeed for all the appreciative comments. I should point out that this project took the best part of a year. Things don't work... or they break... or whatever. Had to hurry at the end as family patience was wearing thin! Still, my eldest child pronounced it 'my favourite of your things'. So, there's that.

 

Here is the arrester hook. For reasons I can't quite rememeber, I decided to use this to actuate the flaps so it had to be re-inforced internally and have a very strong hinge. The chrome tube is the scratched hydraulic piston used, on the real thing, to deply the hook but is only cosmetic here as the control linkage is the thin brass rod extending out the back.

 

 

Also I should have shown this earlier, the nose gear in 'down' position. This was really fiddly becuse there is a sort of horse-shoe shaped reciever that is pushed by the retracting nose gear, as it comes in, thereby closing the door. A very common arrangment on modern jets. This had to work here, of course, which presented a real fitting challenge. I also had to fit the nose gear light at this point, a very small, very bright, LED. You can just make out the wire. I use two-stranded dollshouse wire for this kind of thing as it is very thin, albeit hard to work with.

 

 

The flaperons were always the thing I was most concerned about as they aren't, as with an older plane, 'reciprocal'. In other words they don't have a neutral resting place 'in the middle' so to speak.

 

Indeed, whan I started the project I was unaware that flaperons were the standard system in modern jets. Their use stems, I suspect, from the fact that the hydaulic units they use have limited travel in order to fit within the wing and save weight. Someone here might be able to elaborate on this?

 

So I had to devise a sort of mechical 'splitter' to seperate port and starboard movements so that each flaperon returns to horizontal before the other goes down.

 

Here's version #1, which connects, by the rod you can see, to the control column. This was abandoned because, although it worked, there was only about 45 degrees travel in the control column which was not enough to move the flaps with a device with so may connections. Each linkage loses you some mechancial purchase.

 

 

That was the version that was to use thread. Below is the all mechanical one. The slotted collet recieved the control rod from the cockpit.

 

 

And finally, the replacement - and the one I used - a simple lever system that pushes spring-loaded push rods connected to the flaperons. The screw holes attach to a plate on the aircraft's spine. In other words it is fitted the other way up.

 

 

Now the cockpit. Lots of LEDs. I chose red as the night time pics and video I've seen showed a sort of suffused red glow - which I guessed came from small lights under the canopy sill. However, someone who knows, said the Air Force Phantoms had white lights that the crew hardly ever used. So not sure if this is right for Navy craft. 

 

Just under the cockpit coaming you can see the gunsight LED. The gunsight reticle was made by spraying the kit supplied lense's reverse with primer and then mounting it in a pin vise, on a lathe, and (rather carefully) scratching out concentric circles with a pin.

 

 

Now, finally some modelling! But excuse the rubbish photos. I used Eduard parts for the cockpit and some of the orginal bits. Annoyingly, the cockpit instrumentation in the kit bears only passing resmblance to the real thing so painting of switches etc is impressionistic.

 

The pilot intrument panel has some illuminated dials but these did not work well as the back of the decals has a black film which blocks light from behind too well. In future, I may just use the Eduard  - or whatever - dials and fit very small UV LEDs in the cockpit to make the white parts of the dials glow. A system used in (real) wartime Mosquitos apparently.

 

In this picture below you can see the control rod for the flaperons under the pilot seat. At first I didn't want to do this because it looks crap. But then, to my amusement I found a pic with the ejector seat removed and that is exactly where, and how, it is done on the real thing!

 

 

The brass tube is the canopy elevation piston and has been fitted with a kind of (not visble) rocker mechanism so it can move as the canopy closes.

 

.

The RIO's radar scope was made the same way as the gunsight.

 

 

That's it for now.

[Chek]

Hi Kevin, am unable to replicate this unfortunately... will sit tight till with luck a Flickr user explains all. many thanks,

 Hi BT,

 

I use Flickr and the way I do it is to upload the photo, then go to view photo in its album. 

I then select the picture I choose and click the down pointing arrow icon at the bottom right of the frame.

 

Then click 'view all sizes' on the pop-up you'll see a range of sizes to choose from, from 75px thumbnails to your maximum.

For forums, I'd usually choose 1024px resolution.

Click on your chosen sized photo to display it on-screen.

 

I use the Chrome browser, so I right click on the photo then click 'copy image address' on the menu.

That address can the be pasted into the image dialogue box when you're making your post.

 

If you're using a different browser without that facility, go to the 'Download' link at the top of the frame, right click it, and copy it.

Open a blank notepad text file, and paste in the link address.

You'll need to change the _d.jpg at the end to be just .jpg. (So XYZ_d.jpg would become XYZ.jpg) to make it  forum friendly.

 

Looks like an amazing build you have in progress!

Edited November 27, 2017 by Chek

[Guest]

Are you a watch maker by chance ?? LOL.......Harv

[Shawn M]

holy crap....this is amazing

[Out2gtcha]

Welcome to LSP! What an inspirational project.   Its amazing!! 

[Bomber_County]

Welcome aboard, good to see another Brit gracing these pages...........

 

Truly inspiring modelling thanks for sharing...........

[MikeMaben]

Welcome Tin 

 

You're obviously certifiable ... so you should feel right at home here

 

:popcorn:

[Squizzy 78]

Just when I thought that I was getting a handle on building models, someone's taken a build to a whole new level, great work on the phantom, this is going to be unbelievable!