McDonnell Douglas FG.1 Phantom A&AEE 25th Anniversary (Fujimi)
The premium super ultra version of the old Fujimi kit.
I hate white plastic. I'll have to paint it grey before I paint it white...
I think every British Phantom phanatic has built this kit at least once.
It's a fairly basic kit, with not a lot of parts.
The premium version of the kit includes whitemetal gear legs (which I won't use), vinyl tyres (which I won't use) and a photoetch fret (which I will).
And, most important, is the special radome used on the A&AEE bird. Fujimi provide both closed and open canopies.
The Fujimi decal sheet is thick, and has that "Hasegawa" cream-coloured whites...
...so I'll use the Xtradecal sheet.
The CMK resin cockpit is designed for the Airfix kit, but I'll hammer it into submission.
Very nice resin exhausts from Aires - a big improvement over what's in the kit.
FOD covers from Quickboost are a lazy way of covering up the lack of intake trunks in the Fujimi kit. Resin tyres and wheels are from Res/Kit.
The CMK cockpit fits with only a bit of sanding (the floor and the top of the nose gear).
Some mods will be necessary on the instrument panels. Front coaming fits perfect!
Cockpit ready for insertion into the fuselage. Seats will be removed until the end of the build.
All side consoles hand painted.
Instrument panels are film/photoetch and decals. Top half of front panel is part of the coaming and will be installed later.
Harnesses and face curtain handles are photoetch that came with the CMK set (yellow/black stripes hand painted).
A quick slice of the razor saw and the Phantom has no nose.
The front wall of the nose gear bay needs to be sanded flush so it doesn't interfere with the resin cockpit.
I added a spreader to keep the fuselage sides at the correct spacing prior to gluing on the lower front fuselage.
The resin cockpit fits like a charm.
Even though it was designed for the Airfix kit.
I cut off a piece of the kit cockpit to fill in the spine and create the two slots for the canopy hinges.
I'll use this bit of photoetch to cover it up.
The fuselage is assembled and the unique A&AEE radome is attached. She looks like a Ghost Phantom.
Resin exhaust will interfere with auxiliary intake bay, so I'll have to short the jet pipe.
Hey, that's more like it!
Oxford Blue and Signal Red from MRP and White from GSI Creos. Decals in progress!
Stickers are on!
I really like this scheme, and the Xtradecal stickers work well on the Fujimi kit, even though they're designed for Airfix.
A good view of the fancy FOD covers on XT597.
I designed the FOD cover stripes in Corel Draw and printed out (a few too many) decals.
The handles on the FOD covers came from the Island of Misfit Photoetch Bits (i.e. leftovers).
She is finished and the FOD covers look pretty good in place. They hide inside of the Fujimi kit nicely!
Raspberry Ripple time!
It really is a striking scheme.
The HUD was made from photoetch and film.
Canopy latches (hooks) and rear view mirrors are all photoetch that came with the kit.
Comments
24 5 January 2022, 23:43
Patrick HagelsteinLooking very promising! Always a pleasure to tag along during your builds, Bill. 🙂
5 January 2022, 23:50
Bill GilmanWow, you guys are quick. I hadn't even finished my captions yet! Yup, this should be a fun project. I've built this kit many times in the past and it goes together nicely. I love the Raspberry Ripple scheme and anniversary markings with all the country roundels. I've just about finished painting the cockpit and ejection seats, hope to have some photos up soon. Cheers, Bill
5 January 2022, 23:58
Patrick HagelsteinI was surprised too to see no prior comments to this build. 😉
6 January 2022, 00:13
Bill GilmanThe cockpit is finished and ready for the fuselage, which should go together quickly now. The photoetch details that came with the CMK set are unusual - the harnesses seem a bit underscale and the face curtain handles a bit overscale. I guess it all averages out at the end of the day!
13 January 2022, 21:22
Bill GilmanI've finished the assembly of the fuselage and am checking seams and panel lines prior to priming. Shouldn't be too long before we see some paint on this baby. Everything fit extremely well, and I've not used any filler at all (yet). There are a couple of spots that will need it but that's a far cry from my recent Privateer build. The Aires exhaust tubes are too long to use as they interfere with the open equipment bays on the sides of the rear fuselage. I'll have to shorten them considerably. The same thing happened with the exhaust tubes on my recent F/A-18C - I can only assume that Aires never actually tries to use their own products. What else could it be? Cheers, Bill
16 January 2022, 20:43
Bill GilmanRaspberry ripple time! The red, white and blue paint scheme is on, and now it's time to add all those fancy markings.
5 February 2022, 00:39
Bill GilmanHi mates, the decals for the Phantom 25th Anniversary scheme as seen at the International Air Tattoo in 1983 are on the model. I really like this scheme, and I think the model came out pretty good (so far). Still lots to do, but the finish line is in sight. Cheers, Bill
7 February 2022, 15:58
Bill GilmanThe model is now finished, and I'm quite chuffed on how she turned out. I love this scheme, and have wanted to do it for some time now. The last bit of work was scratchbuilding the FOD covers (to hide the fact that the Fujimi kit has no intake trunking). Photoetch details were added for the HUD and the canopy mirrors and latches (hooks). I made a mistake and left the external mirror on the rear canopy on (XT597 did not have this). However, it's not too noticeable so I'm not going to worry about it.
So there she is - what a fun project. I'm leaving tomorrow for ten days floating around the Caribbean (it will be good to get away from the snow) and will be back on March 1st. I'll try to post more photos then. In the meantime, enjoy these few pix that I posted today. Cheers, Bill
17 February 2022, 00:26
Bill GilmanThanks mates! I appreciate the nice words. The scheme wasn't too hard to do, you just need to be careful with the paint demarcation. The kit decals were trash but the Xtradecal sheet was great.
18 February 2022, 19:20
Album info
This is the first of two Commemorative British Phantoms, using the venerable Fujimi kit. Of course, several aftermarket items will be used to tart her up. Rather than use the kit decals I've opted for the Xtradecal sheet.
