Wolfpack Phantom - 8th TFW F-4C

[John1]

So as mentioned previously, I suppose I'll start puttering with the cockpit.   Right now, aftermarket stuff is anticipated to be limited to the Quinta or Red Fox "decal" set and the AIMS Mark 5 seats, plus scratchbuilt details.  I'll probably start on the seats first.    Some background on the seats - the early Phantoms used the Martin-Baker Mk5 seat.  This was a rather primitive seat, which used an explosive charge to blow it out of the aircraft.  While considered to be very reliable, it didn't offer zero-zero capability and aircrews felt that the explosive charge resulted in a large number of back injuries.  By 1966, most of these seats were replaced by the Mk7 version, which used a rocket, in lieu of explosives.   Externally, the primary difference between seats is that the 5 had a softpack parachute mounted in the upper backrest/headrest, with metal covers on each side.  The 7 had a hardpack plastic container for the chute in the same position. 

 

Here's the Mk 5.  Note the black sheet metal on the side of the chute pack:

 

 

 

Here's a good comparison.   

Here's the Mk7 in the Phantom.  The vast majority of F-4 pictures will have these seat present. 

 

Anyway, from a modeling standpoint, Harold of AIMS was nice enough to cast me a set of his very nice Mk5 seats.    See below:

 

I think I'll start on these seats and then work on adding some bits into the cockpit.   One note - as I understand it, there were some differences between the Mk5 used on AF Phantoms and the Mk5's used on Navy F-4's (and other types of jets as well).   For the color pictures of the Mk5 above, I have no idea if these are AF Phantom seats or not.   If anyone has further info, feel free to chime in.   Also, thanks to all the LSP'ers who helped with my questions on these seats, it's very much appreciated. 

 

That's it for now, thanks for looking. 

[blackbetty]

love the build, John! 

[Maxim61]

Looking good. Harold's seats are beautiful but to be really accurate you may want to remove the SEAWAR units from the Koch fittings on the parachute risers as the Mk5 and Mk 7 seat didn't use them in Vietnam. They were introduced in the 80's

[jgrease]

Great stuff so far - I've got an F-4C ready to start after the New Year. You're inspiring me to get started!

 

John

[John1]

4 hours ago, Maxim61 said:

Looking good. Harold's seats are beautiful but to be really accurate you may want to remove the SEAWAR units from the Koch fittings on the parachute risers as the Mk5 and Mk 7 seat didn't use them in Vietnam. They were introduced in the 80's

Any idea what these SEAWAR units look like?   Couldn’t find anything on Google.   I just finished the seats so not sure if I can make the change.    Regardless, thanks for the tip!

[easixpedro]

34 minutes ago, John1 said:

Any idea what these SEAWAR units look like?   Couldn’t find anything on Google.   I just finished the seats so not sure if I can make the change.    Regardless, thanks for the tip!

SEAWARs are those cylindrical/rectangle shapes at the outside edge of the attachments (i.e. where the parachute straps connect to the torso harness). It's an explosive charge that fires when submerged and uncouples the fitting, in theory saving the aircrew from drowning when the parachute sinks. 

[305 swag]

On 12/5/2021 at 9:50 PM, John1 said:

Thanks Peter!

 

Making progress on the intakes.   Much sanding, followed by putty, followed by more sanding.  In the end, they came out "ok" and save me a decent amount of $, so it was worth it.  After completion, I painted the interior of the intakes a mix of flat white with a bit of Radome Tan and some grey.   Wanted to stay away from the shiny white look.   

I'm still not done, going to add some localized staining and see how some grey pastels look.   Speaking of painting the interiors, these early F-4's had a non-spec application of camouflage paint inside the intakes.  The standard called for the first three feet of the interior to be painted the matching camo color to what was on the outside.   However, these early jets only had approximately the first 6 inches or so painted.   On later jets, almost the entire vari-ramp was camouflaged.   Forgot to mention in my last update but on these ramps, the section aft is covered with indentations, representing rivets.   On the real thing, these rivets are nearly invisible, so I applied a skim coat of putty and sanding the surface smooth. 

 

Here's a nice example of the early intake paintwork.  Also note the bizarre looking external tank and its pylon.   Aside from that, this is actually one of better paint jobs on Wolfpack F-4C's during this time frame.  

 

Here are my vari-ramps, still need to add some weathering and put a wash on the hinge areas.  

 

Inside...

 

The intake with the ramp dry-fitted.  Still need to add the pitot tubes.

Hard to get a decent picture but it looks pretty good IMHO.

 

While I was at it, I painted the area of the fuselage that would be covered by the ramps.   It would be pretty hard to paint this area once the intakes are glued in place. 

 

That's it for now, thanks for checking in. 

Damn nice job on those intakes!
 

[John1]

Thanks very much guys.  EA6Pedro, Appreciate the tip on those SEAWAR units.  I was able to get them removed.   So I've been plugging away on the seats.   I must have over a dozen colors so far.   I've got most of the seat painting done.   Still have to do the ejection pull handles but I want to hold off on them for a bit since they are extremely fragile.   If anyone has a trick to make it easier to paint the black and yellow warning stripes on them, please chime in! 

 

Here are the seats.   Still need to touch up a few details and then hit some areas with a wash.  Also have a couple of decals to apply.  Only additions I made so far were the manual  ripcord line that runs from the metallic handle on the left harness up through the harness and then is exposed as it runs to the parachute pack over the pilot's left shoulder.   Of course as I'm looking at the picture I posted, I then realized that the line is entering the top of the seat too high.   I'll have to fix it.   I also added a small green knob on the lower left side of the seat frame, this was the emergency O2 control knob.   I didn't worry about the linkage below the knob, once the seat is in the cockpit, it shouldn't be visible.   If it is, I'll add some bits.     So here they are.   Sorry for the worse than normal picture, it was a very gloomy, rainy day here in New England so I had to take the picture under a lamp.  It tends to make the colors look a bit harsher and glossier than they are in RL.   Since I have to relocate the ripcord anyway, I think I'll replace it with thinner wire.   It looks a bit too thick.   I'll also be touching up the black paint smudge on the headrest on the right hand seat.   It's amazing what you miss for issues until you see your work in a picture! 

 

 

That's it for the seats.   I'll try to provide an update on the cockpit a bit later on.  Thanks for looking! 

[John1]

Did some additional work on the seats.  Replaced the ripcords as mentioned above and touched up some mistakes.   

 

In looking at more pictures of the real thing, I need to change the color of the ripcords.   The color I used is much too blue.  Lastly, still need to hit the seats with a wash, add a few paint scratches, a couple of decals and the ejection pull rings.  Also need to add a dab of superglue to smooth in the joint between the ripcords and the harness.   LOL, the more I look at these pictures, the more things I find wrong.   We are getting there, slowly though!   

 

 

[John1]

While I'm finishing up the seats, I'm starting to plan the rest of the cockpit.  First off - I'm a big fan of cockpits that looked heavily used.  Immaculate 'pits have their place but not on combat aircraft that were flying at a high tempo.   Not going to see mud caked on the floorboards, but SEA was hot and dusty at times (other times it was hot and raining) and the jets were flying a very demanding schedule. Crew Chiefs took pride in their jets and made sure the canopy / windscreen were spotless but they weren't going to bother touching up scratches and wear marks after each mission.   Here's a great picture that shows two realistically beat up IP's.

 

 

Here's another good shot I found while wandering the web.

Note the patina of dust and grunge, especially behind the panel.  

 

By the way, if anyone wants to checkout a very used F-4C cockpit, I highly suggest you go here:

 

http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/SEAW_tour/SEAW-10.html   (front cockpit)

 

http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/cockpits/SEAW_tour/SEAW-11.html (WSO cockpit)

 

These are fantastic 3D "virtual cockpits".   You can move around and zoom to your heart's content.   They are from the F-4C that's in the USAF Museum.   The exterior of this jet was completely "restored" and re-painted but the interior looks like the pilots just shut her down for the last time a few minutes ago.    This will be a fantastic reference when I start to add details and weather the cockpit.    

 

Also - for the first time, I'll be using these: 

 

That's it for now, thanks for looking. 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by John1

[John1]

Seats are done, except for some tinkering with the paintwork as I'm apt to do.   Very happy with AIMS's product.   I think I spent more time on these seats than I used to on an entire kit when I was a kid.    Added the Tamiya seat decals, trimmed to fit around the lap belts.   Also added a couple of placards on the left side from the very useful Airscale placard decal set.  Did a bit of paint chipping with my handy silver artist's pencil and used a Flory wash.  Probably need to clean up a bit of it on some of those lapbelts.   I also used it to tone down the yellow on the ejection ring pull handles.  It's a major PITA to paint the yellow/black striping.   Depending on what the Quinta handles look like, I might end up using them instead. We'll see. 

 

Anyways, here are some pics.

 

 

 

 

 

That's it for now, thanks for looking! 

[305 swag]

I sure wish someone would do that strike camera mod. that’s on Col. Olds F-4 double MiG killer. Your build is giving me the urge to do a C.

[frank83]

The seats look very good!

[Uncarina]

Just catching up with this. Spectacular, and I’m enjoying it as much as your Mosquito build. A note of caution about the aftermarket for the seats. I haven’t seen any manufacturer including Quinta get the shape or color of the pull rings right. The actual rings were oblong not circular and were a dull yellow tan color, not bright yellow. That’s why I skipped using them in my ZM F-4 build, since they are very prominent in the cockpit. FWIW, I think you did a good job painting the resin versions.

 

Cheers,  Tom

Edited December 15, 2021 by Uncarina

[John1]

Thanks guys!   

 

Not much of an update for today, unlike the later Tamiya kits, this one is making me work!  First off - I had to sand off those triangular reinforcing plates on the upper surfaces of the horizontal stabs and re-rivet and re-scribe .   The early F-4C's didn't have these.   Not hard but time consuming nonetheless.   I shot the area with some Mr Surfacer 1000.  It tends to smooth the scribing a bit, plus it highlights any areas that need repairs. 

 

 

Next up is the aft exhaust area.   Got some additional detailing and PE to add but the first order of business was to sand off the prominent seam that runs the length of the part and to carefully open up those "slit" exhausts on either side.  

As always, pictures tend to highlight details I missed.   I'll be cleaning up the edges of the upper exhaust opening.   The seam towards the top will be covered by the tailhook so I didn't waste any time on it. 

 

Next up are the exhausts themselves.   As the kit parts are significantly undersized, I opted to go with the GT resin corrected nozzles.   Very nice resin, you get the early version short nozzles, the exhaust itself (nicely cast as a single piece so you have no interior seam to deal with) and the aft turbine face.   

Here's the nozzle.  Much superior to the Tamiya part in detail:

 

Turbine exhaust face.   Nice looking resin but it really won't be very visible once installed in the fuselage.

 

Exhaust nozzle with the greenish interior.  I used multiple shades of paint, followed by drybrushing, followed by Flory wash to bring out all those smaller details

.   

My plan is to go back and do some addition light-ish tan drybrushing on the interior.  Also, in looking at the picture I posted at the bottom, of the real thing, the ring at the very end of the tube should actually be a burnt metallic color, not the greenish tan of the rest of the interior.   I'll fix that as well. 

 

My only issue with the GT bits is figuring out how these things go together and how they install in the fuselage.   The nozzles don't fit very well on the ends of the exhaust tubes and there are no positive connections provided (the nozzle interiors came with locator tabs on the inside but there is nothing on the end of the tubes for them to slot into and besides, the instructions tell you to remove those tabs.   At first I thought the nozzles slipped over the exhaust tubes back to the prominent collar on the outside of the tubes but they don't.  If you push them that far on (after removing a great deal of resin), the aft end of the exhaust tube will be way too far into the nozzle itself.  Regardless, it's a very poor fit.

 

Here is what I'm dealing with. 

It's not a question of just trimming a bit of resin off the tube, the two parts really don't match up at all.   I'm guessing I'll just get the nozzle aligned and superglue the heck out of it.    Afterwards, it appears that I just insert the assembly into the openings in the fuselage and hope for the best since these parts aren't joined together and provided with screw holes like the Tamiya bits are.

 

Here is what I'm trying to get close to:

Note the differences in color between the two engines. 

 

Anyway, that's it for now.  Thanks for checking in and Merry Christmas to all!