The hole drilled in the backbone panel at 10:24 is for the upper TACAN antenna. Short-nosed Phantoms don't have an upper TACAN antenna, only a lower antenna that was originally a round flat-plate antenna on the rear nose gear door, but later it was changed to a blade antenna mounted just behind the nose wheel well on F-4Cs and Ds. I was a USAF comm-nav avionics tech on F-4Cs 1980-82 and F-4Es 1982-86 so TACAN was one of the systems I worked on. On the F-4E, F-4F and F-4G the lower TACAN blade antenna on the front nose gear door is shared with the APR-36/37 RHAW (radar homing and warning, pronounced "raw") system and so when the RHAW is switched on, a radio frequency switch inside Door 19 behind the rear cockpit automatically switches the TACAN to use the upper antenna.

I'm REALLY enjoying this side by side comparison. Great idea and great series. Good call Matt.

Re: the auxillary air doors, on J79-engined Phantoms they're controlled by the landing gear handle. When the handle is placed in the "gear down" position electrical power is applied to an electric circuit that controls a hydraulic valve that opens the doors. Raising the gear handle removes power to the valve control and the doors close. Under certain flight conditions, high ram air pressure in the intake duct bleeds through the variable bypass bellmouth where the engine face connects to the intake duct. That air goes into the engine bays and if the pressure in the engine bays is high enough it can push the aux air doors open to relieve the pressure. On the ground, air being sucked into the engines causes low pressure in the ducts, and air is pulled into the engine bays through the aux air doors and then pulled from the engine bays into the engine through the bellmouth. This keeps the engine bays cool. During engine shutdown, the generators drop offline before the hydraulic pressure drops off, so the electrically controlled valve switches the hydraulic pressure to shut the doors. After the engines have stopped, the ground crew will install all of the landing gear downlocks and safety devices including jury struts to hold the aux air doors open. To install the jury struts, we pried the doors open. So on this model, if the landing gear will be modeled down, the model will only accurately depict an airplane that has just shut down its engines before maintenance has started installing the safety devices. On British Spey-engined Phantoms, the aux air doors on the belly and fuselage sides just in front of the engine nozzles are all controlled by the CADC, central air data computer. For what it's worth.

Looking good so far .

Love this and all of the series on Phantoms. With something like the spine here, or other "long" linear parts (inserts like this, some canopies, fuselage halves, etc) I have found success in aligning/glueing one side or end of it first. Let it thoroughly dry and the next day further align and attach the rest of it since you have the secured end/side of it something that you can leverage off of if need be.

I think you're giving these kits just about the right amount of fucks. Enough to look really nice, but not enough to go crazy. Thanks Matt, I wish I could figure this lesson out for MY kits!

The aux air doors will snap shut with the gear down if electrical power is interrupted. They close during engine shutdown when the generators drop offline so you’re not too lazy if you leave them closed.

When it comes to filling I use CA glue exclusively now. I am fed up with fillers taking ages to dry and even then not sanding well and shrinking. I also use some 4 inch files to file back the CA filler. I bought some really good expensive ones that cut really well. The plastic is softer than the CA glue and I found with sanding sponges that the plastic gets sanded away leaving the CA glue proud but with hard files and accurate filling this can be avoided. I have even managed to file around detail rather than lose it. That spine panel is a real pain as it just creates two seams to address rather than one.

It's a small thing, but zoukei actually rhymes with "okay." The Japanese language in general has trended towards making things easier to say, so "ou" is usually read as a long "oh" sound and "ei" as a long "ey." 造形村 sort of means model-making/modeller's (zoukei) village (mura). The fiddliness of this kit really doesn't seem worth it for whatever gains the final product might have.

sei eccezionale ed è molto simpatico il tuo modo di parlare, descrivendo con parole forti anche qualche passaggio..impegnativo. potresti suggerirmi i corretti colori? io uso i tamiya e gunze. grazie

nice so far ,for what it costs the kit ....i dont know... hope Tamiya decide to make these variants also especially the E

Great build. Any reason why you didn't use acrylic putty on the spine seams? All you'd have to do is lay it in and run a damp q-tip down the spine/fuselage seam to remove the excess. It wouldn't damage the nearby rivets because there would be no sanding. Or did the spine a fuselage not have the same contour so sanding would have been necessary anyway.

How much Dark Gull Gray did you mix in with the Titanium on the Compressor Faces??? TIA!

Damned spine solution is not really one if you still have so much filling to do…