Reviews : Tamiya F4J Phantom II Fighter Jet Aircraft

Growing up in the shadow of NAS Miramar in the early 1960's, I have always had a fondness for the Phantom. While stationed in San Diego I was lucky enough to meet Randy Cunningham and his R/O Willie Driscoll and I decided that building a model of their F-4J Showtime 100 was on my to do list of models. The kit has a one piece fuselage that is used in all of their F-4 kits and you add, fill or remove panels as needed. The cockpits are well done and unless you are building a show or competition model you can build very nice cockpits and bang seats out of the box. There are a number of parts and assemblies that must be screwed together and I recommend threading the screws into the plastic before starting just to make things easier as you build. The wheel wells are multi-piece affairs that make painting them easy. The intakes fit well but they have a hard to fill seam down the middle. I fixed that with some resin covers. The markings for VF-96 Falcons were thin and seem to be accurate for Cunningham's aircraft.

Despite being a expensive kit (it is very high quality though) with more detail and whatnot, it's actually easy to build. The parts are large making them easier to handle and paint. Even the parts that needed to be hand painted with a 10/0 brush are easier to paint. I think 1/32 is the perfect scale for airplanes. It's not so large that it doesn't feel like a model anymore, but large enough so that painting will look spectacular. It's no different for this kit.

Great kit and fitment and panel lines almost perfect. Decals are high quality and the overall kits by Tamiya are top notch. One of the best features is the seamless spine construction of the large fuselage which I though was inspired. Kit is pictured with seated pilots but mine kit did not have these figures. Worth the price if you just love the F-4J

All of the parts fit perfectly. I had no problems with this kit. I’m glad that this kit comes with pilot figures. I wish more kits did.

Always love the graphics the selection on what squadron to pick gives the different era.